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      Dean Phillips, an Upstart Challenger to Biden, Embraces ‘Medicare for All’

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      A longtime moderate, the Democratic congressman now says he had been “convinced through propaganda” that calls for universal health care were “a nonsensical leftist notion.”As he mounts a long-shot primary challenge to President Biden, Representative Dean Phillips says he has had an epiphany about American health care policy.Gone is his yearslong skepticism about adopting a national single-payer health care system. Now Mr. Phillips, a moderate Democrat from Minnesota, is embracing the “Medicare for all” proposal championed in two presidential campaigns by Senator Bernie Sanders — whose former top aide is now advising Mr. Phillips’s campaign.Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Tuesday that he would join as a co-sponsor to a House proposal that would expand Medicare by creating a national health insurance program available to all Americans, a shift that comes seven weeks into a presidential campaign that has yet to show significant progress in public polling.“I was a good example of someone who had been convinced through propaganda that it was a nonsensical leftist notion,” Mr. Phillips said. “It’s not. It really isn’t. And that’s I think that’s part of my migration, if you will, a migration of understanding and due diligence and intellectual curiosity and most importantly, listening to people.”Embracing the House bill is a low-stakes maneuver. With Republicans in control of the chamber, there is little chance it will come to a vote. Even when Representative Nancy Pelosi of California was speaker, Democrats never held a vote on proposals for Medicare for all that were championed by their progressive caucus — largely because President Biden didn’t support such a move, and centrist Democrats believed it was a bridge too far.Mr. Phillips — who spoke in the interview by videoconference, from an onscreen profile identifying him as “Generic Democrat” in a sly nod to the party’s best performer in polls — argued that his recent evolution on health care was not an effort to outflank Mr. Biden from the left.Instead, he said, he has become convinced that expanding Medicare, the government-run insurance program for older people, to cover all Americans would end up saving the federal government money and should attract support not just from progressives but also from conservatives — including backers of former President Donald J. Trump.“This is not a Hail Mary, by any stretch,” Mr. Phillips said. “It’s not an olive branch to progressives. You know what it really is? It’s an invitation to Trumpers.”Mr. Biden’s campaign spokesman, Kevin Munoz, declined to comment about Mr. Phillips.Mr. Phillips, a businessman who grew wealthy helping to run his family’s liquor distilling empire and later helped build a gelato behemoth, is a former board chairman of Allina Health, one of Minnesota’s largest health care systems. He said his beliefs began to change about 10 years ago, when his daughter Pia, then 13, received a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and he saw “the gaps between the haves and the have-nots.”In July 2020, as a first-term congressman, he embraced a “state public option” that would allow Americans to buy into Medicaid. More recently, he said, he has been consulting with Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who is a lead sponsor of the House Medicare for all bill, backed by more than half of House Democrats.Mr. Biden has moved the Democratic conversation about health care away from the idea of a single-payer plan, focusing instead on narrower issues like lowering drug costs and improving maternal health.“This is not a serious proposal in today’s environment,” Leslie Dach, the chair of the health advocacy group Protect Our Care and a former Obama administration official, said of Mr. Phillips’s switch. “We’re living in an era where it takes all of our energy to protect what we have from Republicans in Congress.” Mr. Phillips has not gained much traction. A poll last month from CNN and the University of New Hampshire found that he had support from about 10 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, the only state where he has a campaign apparatus. Mr. Biden’s name will not be on the ballot there, but the same CNN poll found that 65 percent of voters said they would write in his name.Mr. Phillips said he hoped to do well in New Hampshire before moving on to Michigan, where Mr. Biden’s approval ratings in recent polls have taken a hit from Black and Arab American voters who disapprove of his support for Israel in its war against Hamas.But Mr. Phillips offered little in the way of daylight between himself and Mr. Biden on that conflict, which has left Democratic voters fiercely divided. The congressman said that he would not call for an immediate cease-fire and that he did not consider Israel “an apartheid state,” as many on the left argue.Yet Mr. Phillips contended that Democrats were so disenchanted with Mr. Biden that when presented with another option, they would take it. “The good news is that 66 percent of the country does not yet hate me,” Mr. Phillips said, in a dig at the president’s dismal approval ratings. “America has already made up its mind about President Biden and Vice President Harris.” More

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      Will Haley or a Trial Bring Trump Down? For Now, Our Poll Says No.

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      Republican primary voters seem unbothered by a coming trial, but a new obstacle looms.Nikki Haley and Donald Trump in warmer times, in 2018. Olivier Douliery/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDonald J. Trump is still leading in the race for the Republican nomination.By a lot.In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll Wednesday, he holds a 64-11 lead over Nikki Haley, with Ron DeSantis in third place at 9 percent.Does the poll provide any indication that Ms. Haley or a criminal trial will bring Mr. Trump down, as our headline asks?No, but given the latest news, let’s look at it anyway.Legal issuesWith Mr. Trump leading his nearest rival by more than 50 points, it will probably take something unprecedented for him to lose the nomination.But all year, there has been something unprecedented looming over the race: Mr. Trump’s legal problems. Tuesday night, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Mr. Trump was ineligible to serve as president under the 14th Amendment. That’s unprecedented. And so is the coming trial and possible conviction of Mr. Trump, right in the heart of the Republican primary season.I know you’re all wondering about the Colorado case, but our poll was concluded before the Colorado ruling and so we couldn’t ask people about it. Realistically, Mr. Trump will argue that the decision is only the latest example of the legal system treating him unfairly, and Republican voters will probably rally to his side, as they have done so many times before. If the Supreme Court decides that he remains eligible, it will be yet another victory in the eyes of many Republican primary voters. If the court concludes he’s ineligible, well, that’s a different story. As such, I must refer you to Adam Liptak, our Supreme Court correspondent, for the most relevant information.What our poll did ask about was Mr. Trump’s coming criminal trial, and the poll offered few signs that it was poised to undo his candidacy.In fact, 62 percent of Republican primary voters say he should be the party’s nominee even if he’s convicted after winning the primaries, while just 32 percent say he shouldn’t be the nominee if convicted. It’s enough support that it would be very challenging for Republicans to overturn the result of the primaries at the convention.It’s easy to see why these voters might still back Mr. Trump, even if convicted:Three-quarters of Republican primary voters do not believe Mr. Trump will receive a fair trial.Four-fifths say the charges against him are mostly politically motivated, not mostly because the prosecutors actually believed he committed a crime.Three-quarters of Republican primary voters say Mr. Trump should be found “not guilty,” and 70 percent say he should be sentenced to prison if found guilty.Four-fifths say he genuinely believed his claims that the election was stolen.Most voters aren’t paying attention yet, and Republicans say they don’t believe he’ll be convicted, so it’s possible their attitudes will shift once a trial gets underway.But while things certainly could change, it’s notable that the charges themselves certainly haven’t wound up hurting him.Nikki HaleyAs we mentioned a few weeks ago, Ms. Haley is becoming Mr. Trump’s primary rival, thanks to her natural appeal among Trump-skeptical, moderate and highly educated Republicans.In this particular poll, that’s exactly how she has overtaken Mr. DeSantis to claim (an extremely distant) second place. Just consider her lopsided appeal among voters on the periphery of the Republican electorate:She has 56 percent of Republican primary voters who do not back Mr. Trump against President Biden in the general election, compared with 4 percent of those who prefer Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden. Mr. DeSantis has a mere 2 percent of these Not Trump voters — voters who almost by definition had to be part of a serious coalition to challenge Mr. Trump.She has the support of 39 percent of college graduates compared with a mere 3 percent of those without a degree. (I think I actually said “wow” aloud when I first saw that.)Ms. Haley has the support of 19 percent of moderates compared with 8 percent of conservatives.A candidate of moderate, highly educated Never Trumpers is not a candidate who will have an easy time winning over a populist working-class MAGA party. In fact, only 42 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Ms. Haley, while a pretty sizable 28 percent view her unfavorably.But Ms. Haley’s narrow base of support might just let her keep things interesting in states that play to her strengths — especially states with a high percentage of college graduates and with open primaries, where independent voters and even some Democrats might just vote.New Hampshire, where a CBS/YouGov poll this past weekend gave Ms. Haley 29 percent of the vote, is one of those states. Her home state, South Carolina, is one where Democrats and independents can vote.Plenty of primary polls limit themselves to self-identified Republican-leaning voters or people with a history of voting in Republican primaries (the Times/Siena poll allows any respondents to say they’ll vote in the Republican primary). It wouldn’t surprise me to see a candidate like Ms. Haley outperform the polls a bit in the states where other kinds of voters can participate. More

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      Trump Endorses Bernie Moreno, Ex-Car Dealer, in Ohio Senate Race

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      The endorsement could give Mr. Moreno a crucial lift in a competitive three-way race for the Republican nomination to take on Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, next year.Former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday endorsed Bernie Moreno in the Ohio Republican Senate primary, bolstering the candidacy of Mr. Moreno, who has accumulated several high-profile endorsements in his tight race against two more experienced politicians.With just three months until the primary, public polls show a close contest involving State Senator Matt Dolan, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Mr. Moreno, a former car dealer from Cleveland.The winner will challenge Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who is seeking a fourth six-year term. Several recent public polls have shown Mr. Brown leading any of the three Republicans and having the easiest time beating Mr. Moreno.A poll from Emerson College and WJW-TV, a Cleveland Fox affiliate, on Nov. 13 showed Mr. Brown 11 points ahead of Mr. Moreno, more than double his lead over Mr. Dolan and Mr. LaRose. A poll on Oct. 19 from the Ohio Northern University Institute for Civics and Public Policy showed Mr. Brown 22 points ahead of Mr. Moreno.Mr. Trump, in a series of social media posts, did not directly mention Mr. Moreno’s Republican competitors, but pointed to Mr. Moreno’s status as a “political outsider” as a valuable asset in a race against Mr. Brown. Mr. Moreno has never held elected office, but has been an active Republican donor in recent years and ran unsuccessfully for the party’s Senate nomination last year.Mr. Moreno will “fight the corrupt Deep State that is destroying our Country,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post.Mr. Moreno had been skeptical of Mr. Trump’s political rise, referring to him as a “lunatic invading the party” in 2016. But he has since reversed his thinking. Emily Moreno Miller, his daughter, was a Republican National Committee official during Mr. Trump’s re-election bid, and her husband, Representative Max Miller of Ohio, is a former Trump White House aide who won his first election last year.“I could not be more grateful or humbled to have the complete and total endorsement of President Donald Trump at this vital moment in the campaign,” Mr. Moreno said in a statement, adding that a Republican takeover in the Senate and a victory from Mr. Trump in the presidential contest “will Make America Great Again!”Mr. Trump’s imprimatur proved valuable last year in Republican primaries ahead of the midterm elections, but less so in general election contests.Across the country, his handpicked candidates lost close races, including a crushing blow in Pennsylvania, where Democrats flipped a Senate seat and helped ensure Republicans would remain in the minority for the next two years. Trump-endorsed candidates in the five most competitive House races all lost.Democrats downplayed Mr. Trump’s endorsement, and predicted that the Republican primary would become more divisive.“Bernie Moreno has made it clear he won’t fight for Ohioans and doesn’t understand the issues facing their daily lives,” said Reeves Oyster, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Democratic Party. “As this primary heats up, it’s clear this slugfest is only going to get messier, nastier and more expensive from here.”In Mr. Moreno’s previous Senate primary race, Mr. Trump’s endorsement proved decisive for J.D. Vance, who won the Republican nomination before defeating Tim Ryan, the Democratic candidate, in the general election. Mr. Vance endorsed Mr. Moreno this year.Mr. Moreno has also been endorsed by Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. More

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      Group Backing Trump Turns Its Attention to Attacking Haley

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      An ad buy slated to begin Tuesday in New Hampshire will be the first time the former president’s super PAC runs TV ads against Nikki Haley.The super PAC aligned with former President Donald J. Trump is putting money for the first time behind television ads attacking Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, who has gained momentum in the Republican primary.Make America Great Again, Inc., is set to air an ad in New Hampshire on Tuesday that targets Ms. Haley, according to a filing with a television network. The ad is expected to run from Tuesday until Sunday, the filing indicated.Ms. Haley pre-emptively responded on Monday night to the ad, writing on the social media platform X, “Two days ago, Donald Trump denied our surge in New Hampshire existed. Now, he’s running a negative ad against me. Someone’s getting nervous. #BringIt.”Ms. Haley has ascended to second place in New Hampshire, according to a recent CBS News poll. Mr. Trump and his affiliated super PAC had previously put resources into bashing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has slipped in the polls and is now battling Ms. Haley for second place in the early primary states. For much of his campaign, Mr. DeSantis was the only candidate Mr. Trump treated as a serious threat. While Mr. Trump sometimes mocked Ms. Haley and called her names, he more often criticized Mr. DeSantis by name at rallies, and Mr. Trump’s allies have waged a persistent online campaign against Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Trump’s super PAC last funded an ad buy against Mr. DeSantis in October accusing him of supporting statehood for Puerto Rico.But as Mr. DeSantis has amped up his attacks against Mr. Trump, the former president has turned his attention elsewhere. Chris Jankowski, the former chief executive of Never Back Down, the super PAC backing Mr. DeSantis, said this past summer that such a shift in Mr. Trump’s attention would be worrisome.“What would concern me is if I woke up one day, and Trump and his team were not attacking Never Back Down and Ron DeSantis,” Mr. Jankowski told The New York Times in July. “That would be concerning. Other than that, we’ve got them right where we want them.”He resigned from the embattled super PAC last month, among a string of resignations and firings that has roiled the group, the latest being the resignation of Jeff Roe, a chief strategist, on Saturday night. On Monday, a campaign watchdog group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing the super PAC of effectively serving as Mr. DeSantis’s campaign.In recent weeks, Ms. Haley has been endorsed by Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s popular Republican governor, and has made gains in the state — though she still trails Mr. Trump by double digits. Her rise has been fueled by a lean campaign operation and strong debate performances that positioned her as a more moderate Republican candidate than some of her counterparts.Ms. Haley has spent little resources attacking her former boss. At a crowded town hall on Monday in Iowa, where Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis are locked in a heated race for second place, she instead highlighted that Mr. Trump was set to attack her.“So stay tuned,” she said. “We’ll have fun with that one.” Maggie Haberman More

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      DeSantis Faces F.E.C. Complaint Over His Campaign’s Ties With Super PAC

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      The Florida governor has confronted scrutiny for offloading many of his campaign’s operations to an allied super PAC, which has in recent weeks been rocked by staff upheaval.A campaign watchdog group filed a complaint on Monday with the Federal Election Commission against the campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and a super PAC backing his presidential bid, accusing them of a “textbook example” of illegal campaign coordination.In its complaint, the Campaign Legal Center argued that the super PAC, Never Back Down, had effectively served as Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, detailing work it has done like providing private air travel, bankrolling a costly ground game in early nominating states, providing debate strategies and hosting events on the road. In turn, Mr. DeSantis and his wife, the group says, provided guidance about messaging to Never Back Down.The complaint relies largely on news reports, in The New York Times and elsewhere, that for months have described Never Back Down’s extraordinary role in Mr. DeSantis’s candidacy. In recent weeks, the super PAC’s leadership has been roiled by concerns about advertising messaging and the legality of its close ties with the campaign, setting off a series of high-profile departures.“This baseless complaint is just another example of how the left is terrified of Ron DeSantis and will stoop to anything to stop him,” said Andrew Romeo, communications director for Mr. DeSantis’s campaign. “The F.E.C. has made clear they won’t take action based upon unverified rumors and innuendo, and that’s the false information this politically motivated complaint is based on.”Mr. DeSantis said on Monday that the upheaval at the deep-pocketed Never Back Down was “not a distraction for me.”Speaking to reporters after an event at a factory in Adel, Iowa, Mr. DeSantis said he didn’t have any thoughts on the weekend resignation of Jeff Roe, the influential chief strategist at Never Back Down.“I’m not involved in any of that,” he said. “As you guys know, it’s a separate entity and so, this stuff just happens and it’s not in my purview.”Mr. DeSantis has said he is the drama-free candidate, in comparison to former President Donald J. Trump. But the chaos at Never Back Down has undercut his narrative. When Mr. DeSantis addressed reporters after his Monday event, half of the questions were about Mr. Roe’s departure.For months, Never Back Down has been plagued by disagreements over its strategy and direction, as it became clear that former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina was threatening to usurp Mr. DeSantis’s position as the leading Republican alternative to Mr. Trump, who maintains a dominant lead in early state polls. Allies of Mr. DeSantis had wanted Never Back Down to focus more on its canvassing and voter turnout operation, and less on television advertisements.The complaint to the F.E.C. sets off a chain of events: Mr. DeSantis and his campaign have 15 days to respond to the complaint, after which the F.E.C.’s general counsel will review the case and make a recommendation to the six-member commission.The F.E.C., divided evenly between Democratic and Republican members, often deadlocks on questions of whether campaigns have broken the law. A spokeswoman for the F.E.C. said the commission would not comment on potential enforcement matters.While the backroom drama will probably go unnoticed by many voters, the chaos at Never Back Down is expected to be a cause for concern for Republican megadonors, who are increasingly looking to support Ms. Haley.The Campaign Legal Center has filed four complaints with the F.E.C. in connection with Mr. DeSantis and Never Back Down, including one accusing the PAC of violating the ban on “soft” money in federal elections. The group has also accused Mr. Trump and a committee backing him of violating the soft money ban, and has accused a super PAC backing former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey of accepting illegal contributions. More

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      DeSantis Says Trump Will Declare Iowa Caucuses Stolen if He Loses

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      The former president “will try to delegitimize the results,” Mr. DeSantis said while campaigning in New Hampshire on Friday.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said on Friday that he expected Donald J. Trump to claim that the Iowa caucuses had been “stolen” if the former president, who currently leads Mr. DeSantis by roughly 30 points in that state, is defeated there next month.“If Trump loses, he will say it’s stolen no matter what, absolutely,” Mr. DeSantis said, responding to a reporter in New Hampshire who had asked whether Mr. Trump would accept the results of the first contest in the Republican presidential primary on Jan. 15, or of the New Hampshire primary roughly a week later. “He will try to delegitimize the results. He did that against Ted Cruz in 2016.”Mr. DeSantis added that Mr. Trump had protested “even when ‘The Apprentice’ didn’t get an Emmy,” referring to the former president’s onetime television show.Throughout the 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump and his allies have continued to insist that he defeated President Biden in 2020. The constant chorus of falsehoods seems to have seeped into the consciousness of many Republicans. Nearly 60 percent of G.O.P. voters believe Mr. Biden’s election was illegitimate, a survey by The Associated Press found earlier this year.For several years, Mr. DeSantis appeared to play both sides of the manufactured controversy over the 2020 election. As governor, he set up a new police unit to monitor the integrity of Florida elections. Before last year’s midterms, he campaigned with Republicans who had vociferously denied the results. But he never explicitly endorsed the theory that the election had been stolen, and he repeatedly dodged questions about whether he accepted Mr. Biden’s victory.During his presidential campaign, Mr. DeSantis has courted voters from the Trump wing of the Republican Party, making it difficult for him to say that the former president was wrong.Only in August, after being repeatedly pressed during an interview with NBC News, did Mr. DeSantis acknowledge the truth, saying of Mr. Trump: “Of course he lost. Joe Biden’s the president.”In 2016, Mr. Trump claimed to have defeated Mr. Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, in that year’s Iowa caucuses, although in reality he suffered a narrow defeat.Those repeated claims of election fraud, Mr. DeSantis argued during Friday’s appearance in New Hampshire, have led voters to take Mr. Trump less seriously.“I don’t think people are going to buy it,” he said.In response to Mr. DeSantis’s remarks, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, accused the Florida governor of “reciting Democrat talking points.”“When Ron’s political career is finished in a few weeks, he can start moonlighting as a Democrat surrogate because he’s showing everyone his true colors,” Mr. Cheung said in a statement on Friday.The Trump campaign has already accused Mr. DeSantis’s team of trying to “rig” the caucuses because of comments made by his wife, Casey DeSantis. Last week, Ms. DeSantis encouraged out-of-state supporters to participate in the caucuses. But only Iowa residents are allowed to vote in state elections, and Ms. DeSantis later clarified that she had been asking people to volunteer for her husband.Whether Mr. Trump ends up claiming fraud in Iowa may well remain a hypothetical. Polls show that the former president’s support in Iowa would have to collapse in order for him to lose. And he leads his primary challengers in New Hampshire by an average of more than 25 points.So far in the campaign, Mr. DeSantis has spent more time battling for second place against Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, than taking on Mr. Trump. More

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      GOP Support Grows for Majewski, a Trump Ally With a Disputed Military Record

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      J.R. Majewski, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is seeking to avenge his 13-point loss in the 2022 midterm elections in Ohio.J.R. Majewski, a Trump acolyte from Ohio whom House Republicans abandoned the first time he ran for Congress in the 2022 midterm elections after discrepancies in his military record emerged, is back as a candidate — and with some prominent G.O.P. names behind him.Mr. Majewski, an Air Force veteran, picked up endorsements on Monday from Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state, in his Republican primary as he seeks to challenge Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat, for a second time in the Ninth District.The show of support contrasted sharply with the National Republican Congressional Committee’s canceling its ads for Mr. Majewski during the final six weeks of his 2022 race, which he lost by 13 percentage points to Ms. Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in congressional history.The committee pulled the plug after The Associated Press reported that the Air Force had no record of Mr. Majewski, 44, serving in Afghanistan, which he continues to claim that he did, and drew attention to a series of inconsistencies about his military record. Mr. Majewski has vehemently disputed the reporting.The endorsements came just days after the release of a secret recording of Craig Riedel, a rival G.O.P. candidate and a former state legislator, telling a Republican donor that he would not support former President Donald J. Trump and did not want his endorsement. It was obtained by Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump grass-roots group.Not long after, Mr. Riedel announced that he was endorsing Mr. Trump. But the damage appeared to have been done, with at least one prominent Republican in Ohio (Representative Max Miller, a former Trump adviser) saying that he no longer supported Mr. Riedel, who lost to Mr. Majewski in the 2022 Republican primary.Mr. Riedel accused one of Mr. Majewski’s top MAGA boosters, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, of setting him up.“Matt Gaetz and a social media trickster pulled a stunt yesterday to try and convince President Trump to get involved in my congressional primary for proven loser JR Majewski,” Mr. Riedel wrote on X.Mr. Trump, who endorsed Mr. Majewski in 2022, heralded him on Saturday while both attended a New York Young Republican Club gala, blaming the “deep state” for undermining Mr. Majewski during his last run.“We stuck by him,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “They played dirty pool, but you’ll get a second shot, right?”Erica Knight, a spokeswoman for Mr. Majewski, said in a text message that he was expecting to be endorsed by Mr. Trump again. A campaign spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Riedel has received endorsements from Republicans considered more mainstream, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, before he was deposed as speaker of the House, and Americans for Prosperity Action, a political network founded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. The group has spent nearly $250,000 on Mr. Riedel’s behalf this election cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission.Mr. Riedel did not respond to a request for comment.In a statement to The New York Times on Tuesday, Mr. Gaetz denied orchestrating the secret recording.“Craig Riedel trashed Trump when he thought it would help him get a New Yorker to give him money,” he said. “We have enough people willing to say and do anything for campaign cash in Congress already. Craig Riedel exposed himself in his own words. I had nothing to do with it, though I wish I had.”Aidan Johnson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in a statement called the Republican primary contest an “ugly and expensive race to the bottom.” Steve Lankenau, a former mayor of Napoleon, Ohio, is also running in the Republican primary.While Mr. Majewski has frequently promoted himself as a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Air Force records obtained by The Times show that he deployed for six months in 2002 to Qatar, which is now home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East.According to military records, the Air Force demoted Mr. Majewski in September 2001 for driving drunk at Kadena Air Base in Japan, contradicting his earlier account that he could not re-enlist in the Air Force after his initial four years because of a “brawl.”The inconsistencies in Mr. Majewski’s public accounts of his military service brought renewed scrutiny during the last election cycle, when he was already facing questions about his presence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and sympathies for the QAnon conspiracy movement.In August 2023, more than nine months after Mr. Majewski’s defeat, the military updated his records to reflect that he had received a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal for his service, an honor created in 2003 for Air Force members who deployed abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks.But Afghanistan is just one of several dozen countries, including Qatar, that count toward eligibility. That has not stopped Mr. Majewski and his allies, including Mr. Trump, from claiming that he was “totally exonerated.” More

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      Ramaswamy Pushes Fringe Idea About Jan. 6 at Town Hall in Iowa

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      The Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy repeated his claim, without specific evidence, that the attack on the Capitol was an “inside job.”In the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and Republican presidential candidate, is pressing an unusual strategy: leaning into conspiracy theories.At a CNN town hall on Wednesday evening in Des Moines, Abby Phillip, the CNN anchor, asked Mr. Ramaswamy about previous comments in which he had said that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was an “inside job” — a claim for which there is no evidence, and which has been refuted by numerous criminal indictments and bipartisan congressional investigations.Instead of walking back his remarks, he dug in.“The reality is, we know that there were federal law enforcement agents in the field. We don’t know how many,” Mr. Ramaswamy told the audience at Grand View University, at which point Ms. Phillip interrupted him to clarify. “There’s no evidence that there were federal agents in the crowd,” she said. Mr. Ramaswamy suggested, without providing specific details, that he had seen “multiple informants suggesting that they were.”He turned to another conspiracy theory — involving the kidnapping plot against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat of Michigan. He claimed, of some defendants in that case, that “government agents put them up to do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done.” (That claim also has no evidence to support it.)“I don’t want to have to interrupt you, I really don’t, but I don’t want you to mislead the audience here —” Ms. Phillip began, before Mr. Ramaswamy redirected and claimed that it was “mainstream media” outlets that were misleading.Mr. Ramaswamy, who has continued to praise former President Donald J. Trump while competing against him for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, has slipped in polls. At the same time, on the campaign trail, during debates and at the CNN event, he has pushed conspiracy theories, including ones on the origin of Covid-19 as well as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.Ms. Phillip’s question on Wednesday referred to Alan Hostetter, a Jan. 6 defendant who invoked Mr. Ramaswamy’s debate remarks during his sentencing hearing last week in claiming that conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen “are no longer fringe.”Mr. Ramaswamy did not address Mr. Hostetter’s remarks and instead reiterated false claims, to favorable responses from the crowd.Mr. Ramaswamy’s combative demeanor in public appearances was brought up by Rylee Miller, a law student who said that Mr. Ramaswamy seemed to have “somewhat abandoned the tact and diplomacy that I would look for in a president.” He then asked a question about how Mr. Ramaswamy would balance authenticity with a “presidential demeanor.”Mr. Ramaswamy, in answering, referred to his role as a parent who would strive to “make our children proud” as president. But, he continued, voters should not “want a wilting flower in the White House.”Mr. Ramaswamy also repeated several disputed proposals he has called for on the campaign trail. He said he would end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, effective from January 2025 onward. He reiterated his call to end aid to Ukraine and to back a deal “with some territorial concessions” for the country.He also said that he would support the Supreme Court if it ruled to take mifepristone, a commonly used abortion pill facing a legal challenge, “off the market.” More