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      5 Applause Lines From Tim Scott at the Iowa State Fair

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      The senator from South Carolina leans on his biography — and gets a little help from a crowd echoing a familiar phrase on the stump.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina enjoyed on Tuesday what other candidates had missed: having the Iowa State Fair largely to himself.He shook hands, tried barbecue and threw footballs with fairgoers — all a natural part of the retail politics of a presidential candidate seeking to gain standing in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. And he didn’t have to share the spotlight with rivals or hecklers.Mr. Scott, who has made heavy media investments in Iowa, has a polished pitch that draws on a more “common sense,” optimistic message and frequently refers to his faith, a nod to Iowa’s evangelical voters. His efforts paid off on Tuesday, as he drew a crowd that was one of the largest for any of the candidates who spoke with Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa and was repeatedly recognized — and praised — by fairgoers.Still, he faces an uphill battle as he seeks to propel himself from a distant third place, at best. Polls from The New York Times and Siena College this month found that he had support from 9 percent of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers and just 3 percent of likely voters for Republican primaries nationally.Here were five of his applause lines from Iowa on Tuesday:“I believe America can do for anyone what she’s done for me.”Mr. Scott has used his story — raised by a single mother, the first in his family to go to college and a career leading to Congress — as proof of his belief that race does not predetermine success or struggle. A Black man, he has told largely white Iowa audiences that their futures are not dependent on “the color of your skin,” — even as he has recounted instances of discrimination he faced — and has referred to his experiences when supporting school choice policies.“The great opportunity party.”Mr. Scott often invoked a rebranding of the G.O.P. when referring to what he called the achievements of the “great opportunity party.” He used the phrase when talking about speaking with people who don’t share his politics, about tax cuts and in explaining “opportunity zones” — a signature policy initiative he helped pass in Congress. That legislation allowed preferential tax treatment for investments in areas identified as economically distressed. But it is debatable whether those zones actually benefited poorer neighborhoods or instead became a means for wealthy investors to gain tax breaks on high-end projects.“If you commit a violent crime, you go to jail.”It’s a simple message but an effective one. When Mr. Scott started this sentence on Tuesday evening — at a dinner for the Story County, Iowa, Republican Party, several in the room finished the sentence for him as they recognized the line from his advertisements. He has used such lines to emphasize his support for “backing the blue” — another reliable, albeit mainstream, applause line — and to denounce bail abolition, “weak” district attorneys and what he called the “weaponization of race” when discussing crime.“It is not the strength of China or President Xi. It is the weakness of President Joe Biden that is our problem.”Though he often employed a forward-thinking approach to distinguish himself from a crowded Republican field, Mr. Scott took swipes at President Biden in particular when discussing what he called a need for the United States to “stand toe to toe with China.” He has specifically said that the United States must prevent China from “buying our farmland and stealing our jobs” — a stance that has drawn bipartisan support and speaks directly to Iowan farmers. “I recognize that America is great because America is good, and the goodness of America can be found in the pages of our foundation, the Judeo-Christian foundation.”Mr. Scott has frequently linked his Christianity to the optimistic pitch that is central to his strategy. He has often quoted Bible verses that support the adage to “treat others” as you “want to be treated” and the idea that “all things are possible,” explaining that he wants a president who has faith in what he says are the country’s original values. More

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      Trump se beneficia del llamado ‘efecto de la acusación formal’

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      La mañana del 18 de marzo, el expresidente Donald Trump pulsó el botón de ‘enviar’ y publicó un mensaje en las redes sociales que afirmaba que sería “arrestado el martes de la semana que viene”.“Protesten”, escribió en su sitio web Truth Social. “¡Recuperemos nuestra nación!”.Según sus abogados, la predicción de Trump se basó en informes de los medios de comunicación, pero el expresidente se equivocó por dos semanas.Sin embargo, la declaración desencadenó acontecimientos que alteraron de manera profunda el curso de la contienda por la candidatura republicana. Los donantes enviaron cheques. Fox News cambió de tono. El aparato del partido se apresuró a defender a Trump. Y sus números en las encuestas subieron y subieron.Esta serie de acontecimientos en cadena —llamémosle el efecto de la acusación formal— puede medirse en maneras que revelan mucho sobre el estado del Partido Republicano. Para examinar el fenómeno, The New York Times analizó encuestas nacionales y estatales preliminares, entrevistó a votantes de las elecciones primarias republicanas, examinó registros financieros de las campañas federales, revisó cientos de correos electrónicos del partido, escudriñó los cambios en la cobertura mediática conservadora y habló con operadores dentro de las campañas de los rivales de Trump.El análisis destaca el dominio que tiene Trump sobre el partido, y revela los años de condicionamiento de millones de votantes republicanos que ven los problemas legales del expresidente como un ataque indirecto contra ellos. Además, muestra un mundo invertido donde los cargos penales funcionan como activos políticos, al menos para efectos de ganar la candidatura republicana.“El apoyo nacionalista no es un fenómeno nuevo en la política estadounidense, pero, sin duda, Donald Trump lo ha llevado a otro nivel”, comentó Tony Fabrizio, un encuestador republicano que trabaja para el supercomité de acción política de Trump. “Con Trump, el apoyo nacionalista recae directamente sobre su persona”.‘Un acontecimiento que lo eclipsa todo’Durante casi dos años, Fox News y el vasto imperio de Rupert Murdoch habían comenzado a deslindarse de Trump y se centraron en encumbrar al gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis. Como decía un titular del New York Post que celebraba su victoria de 20 puntos en la reelección, DeSantis era el “futuro” del Partido Republicano.La oficina de DeSantis se coordinaba de cerca con los productores de Fox para crear segmentos que lo hicieran ver bien, según correos electrónicos obtenidos por The Tampa Bay Times. Sus logros en Florida —en particular, su manejo de la pandemia de COVID-19— se anunciaron como actos heroicos gubernamentales frente a la oposición de izquierda. La programación de Fox se centró en temas y villanos contra los que DeSantis había construido su marca: atletas transgénero, Anthony Fauci y todo lo relacionado con la cultura “woke”.Pero, después de la primera acusación formal contra Trump, las prioridades del movimiento conservador y su ecosistema de medios cambiaron.Influyentes locutores de radio conservadores se alinearon con Trump. Incluso comentaristas a los que les gustaba DeSantis, como Mark Levin, asumieron las acusaciones formales como una misión personal que parecía anular otras prioridades. Otro personaje de derecha, Glenn Beck, quien solía advertir sobre los peligros de Trump, acudió al ahora cancelado programa de Tucker Carlson en Fox, se puso una gorra roja MAGA (sigla en inglés de “Hagamos a Estados Unidos grandioso de nuevo”) y declaró: “Los Estados Unidos que conocíamos, la transformación fundamental que empezó en 2008, está acabada”.En todos los medios conservadores, la programación se centró en la idea de que Trump era víctima de un sistema de justicia secuestrado por los demócratas. La lucha de DeSantis contra la conciencia social exacerbada (conocida como “wokeness” en inglés), se volvió cosa del pasado, una cuestión de poca importancia comparada con la posibilidad de que Trump fuera encarcelado.Las acusaciones formales contra Trump no solo ocuparon un ciclo de noticias de 24 horas; los casos consumieron semanas enteras tanto en los medios masivos como en los conservadores, cada uno siguiendo un patrón. Hubo una semana de rumores antes de las acusaciones, seguida del día de la acusación, el día de la comparecencia y el análisis posterior a la comparecencia.Menciones semanales de Trump en Fox NewsNúmero de segmentos de Fox News de 15 segundos semanales que mencionaron “Trump” al menos una vez More

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      Before He Faces a Jury, Trump Must Answer to Republican Voters

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      After three other criminal indictments were filed against him, Donald Trump was accused on Monday of racketeering. In a new indictment, Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., charged him with leading what was effectively a criminal gang to overturn the 2020 presidential election in that state.The grand jury indictment says Mr. Trump and 18 others violated the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO law, established by the federal government and more than 30 states and used to crack down on Mafia protection rackets, biker gangs and insider trading schemes. The Georgia indictment alleges that Mr. Trump often behaved like a mob boss, pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to decertify the Georgia election and holding a White House meeting to discuss seizing voting equipment.Mr. Trump, along with a group of associates that included his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and one of his lawyers at the time, the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, were also accused of a series of crimes that go beyond even the sweeping federal indictment filed this month by the special counsel Jack Smith. The former president, for example, was charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery, for arranging to have a false set of Georgia electors sent to Washington to replace the legitimate ones for Joe Biden. That same act also resulted in a charge against Mr. Trump of conspiracy to impersonate a public officer and a series of charges relating to filing false statements and trying to get state officials to violate their oath of office.Taken together, these four indictments — which include more than 90 federal and state criminal charges implicating his official conduct during his term and acts afterward, as well as in his personal and business life — offer a road map of the trauma and drama Mr. Trump has put this nation through. They raise questions about his fitness for office that go beyond ideology or temperament, focusing instead on his disdain for American democracy.And yet these questions will ultimately be resolved not by the courts but by the electorate. Republican primary voters, in particular, are being presented with an opportunity to pause and consider the costs of his leadership thus far, to the health of the nation and of their party, and the further damage he could do if rewarded with another four years in power.Put aside, for the moment, everything that has happened in the eight years since Mr. Trump first announced his candidacy for president. Consider only what is now on reams of legal paper before the American people: evidence of extraordinarily serious crimes, so overwhelming that many other defendants would have already negotiated a plea bargain rather than go to trial. This is what he faces as he asks, once again, for the votes of millions of Americans.“I’m being indicted for you,” the former president has been telling his supporters. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.” But time and again, Mr. Trump has put his ego and ambition over the interests of the public and of his own supporters. He has aggressively worked to undermine public faith in the democratic process and to warp the foundations of the electoral system. He repeatedly betrayed his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the nation’s laws. His supporters may be just as angered and disappointed by his loss as he is. But his actions, as detailed in these indictments, show that he is concerned with no one’s interests but his own. Among the accusations against him:He took dozens of highly classified documents, some involving nuclear secrets and attack plans, out of the White House and stored them at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence, where guests of all kinds visit each year. Then, despite being asked multiple times, he refused to return many of these documents, instead working with his aides and confidants to move and hide the boxes containing them and to destroy video surveillance records of those acts, even after a subpoena from the Justice Department.He attempted to overturn the 2020 election by using what he knew to be false claims of voter fraud to pressure numerous state and federal officials, including his own vice president and top officials of the Justice Department, to reverse voting results and declare him the winner.He sought to disenfranchise millions of American voters by trying to nullify their legally cast ballots in order to keep himself in office. In doing so, he colluded with dozens of campaign staff members and other associates to pressure state officials to throw out certified vote counts and to organize slates of fake electors to cast ballots for him.In one example of the personal damage he caused, Mr. Trump led a scheme to harass and intimidate a Fulton County election worker, Ruby Freeman, falsely accusing her of committing election crimes. The Georgia indictment — accusing him of the crime of false statements and writings in official matters — says he falsely called her a “professional vote scammer” who stuffed a ballot box with fraudulent votes for Mr. Biden.After having extramarital sex with an adult film actress, he falsified business records to hide $130,000 in hush-money payments to her before the 2016 election.That list does not include the verdict, by a New York State court in May, that Mr. Trump was civilly liable for sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll. Nor does it include the ongoing asset and tax fraud prosecution of the Trump Organization by the New York attorney general, Letitia James.Time and again, Mr. Trump has demanded that Republicans choose him over the party, and he has exposed and exploited some genuine rifts in the G.O.P., refashioning the party to suit his own agenda. The party will have to deal with those fault lines and may have to reconfigure itself and its platform. But if Republicans surrender to his demands, they may find themselves led by a candidate whose second term in office would be even more damaging to America and to the party than his first.A president facing multiple criminal trials, some prosecuted by his own Justice Department, could not hope to be effective in enforcing the nation’s laws — one of the primary duties of a chief executive. (If re-elected, Mr. Trump could order the federal prosecutions to be dropped, though that would hardly enhance his credibility.) A man accused of compromising national security would have little credibility in his negotiations with foreign allies or adversaries. No document could be assumed to remain secret, no communication secure. The nation’s image as a beacon of democracy, already badly tarnished by the Jan. 6 attack, may not survive the election of someone formally accused of systematically dismantling his own country’s democratic process through deceit.The charges in the Georgia case are part of the larger plot described in the federal indictment of Mr. Trump this month. But Ms. Willis used tools that weren’t available to Mr. Smith. Georgia’s RICO statute allows for many more predicate crimes than the federal version does, including false statements, which she used to bring the charge against several of the defendants in the fake-elector part of the scheme.Altogether, the Fulton grand jury cited 161 separate acts in the larger conspiracy, from small statements like false tweets to major violations like trying to get the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to decertify the state’s election by “unlawfully altering” the official vote count, which was in Mr. Biden’s favor. Though some of the individual acts might not be crimes themselves, they added up to what Ms. Willis called a scheme by “a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities,” all for the benefit of the former president of the United States.Those legal tools are part of a broad American justice ecosystem that is, at its core, a mechanism for seeking the truth. It is not designed to care about politics or partisanship; it is supposed to establish facts. To do so, it tests every claim rigorously, with a set of processes and rules that ensure both sides can be heard on every issue, and then it puts the final decision to convict in the hands of a jury of the defendant’s peers, who will make the weighty decision of guilt or innocence.And that is what makes this moment different from all the chaos of the past eight years. Mr. Trump is now a criminal defendant four times over. While he is innocent until proven guilty, he will have to answer for his actions.But almost certainly before then, he will have to answer to Republican voters. His grip on the party has proved enduring but not universal; while he is far ahead of the other candidates, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed that he is the choice of only 54 percent of likely primary voters. And about half of Republican voters told pollsters for Reuters/Ipsos that they would not vote for him if he was convicted of a felony.The indictments — two brought by elected prosecutors who are Democrats, all of them arriving before the start of Republican presidential primaries — have been read by many as political, and Republicans have said without evidence they are all organized for the benefit of Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump has amplified that message and used it to drive fund-raising for his campaign. Although the outcome of these indictments may have a political impact, that alone does not make them political. To assume that any prosecution of a political figure is political would, in effect, “immunize all high-ranking powerful political people from ever being held accountable for the wrongful things they do,” said Kristy Parker, a lawyer with the advocacy group Protect Democracy. “And if you do that, you subvert the idea that this is a rule-of-law society where everybody is subject to equal justice.”Mr. Trump has repeatedly offered Republicans a false choice: Stick by me, or the enemy wins. But a healthy political party does not belong to or depend on one man, particularly one who has repeatedly put himself over his party and his country. A healthy democracy needs at least two functioning parties to challenge each other’s honesty and direction. Republican voters are key to restoring that health and balance.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Nevada G.O.P. Sets February Caucus, Jumping Ahead of South Carolina

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      Nevada will now come third, after Iowa and New Hampshire, on the Republicans’ presidential nominating calendar.Nevada Republicans confirmed on Monday that the state would jump the traditional line in the presidential nominating calendar by scheduling a caucus for Feb. 8, 2024.For decades, in years with open presidential races, Nevada’s Republicans voted after South Carolina. The decision to move ahead of South Carolina’s Republican primary, set for Feb. 24 next year, was meant to raise Nevada’s prominence in the political landscape, the party said in a statement.But there was also another likely motive: to upstage a presidential primary scheduled for two days earlier, on Feb. 6. That primary, run by the state, is required by a law pushed through by Nevada Democrats in 2021. Republicans, who have tried to block the primary in court, say they will ignore the results and use the caucus to pick delegates to the Republican National Convention.A primary, with secret ballots and easier voting, typically yields broader voter participation. The potential for dueling election dates the same week is likely to sow voter confusion.Nevada’s caucus will follow Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus on Jan. 15, and the New Hampshire primary, whose date is not yet fixed.“The ‘first in the West caucus’ underscores Nevada’s prominence as a key player in the presidential nomination process,” the Nevada G.O.P. said in a statement on Monday.While public polling of the presidential race in Nevada is scarce, national surveys this year show former President Donald J. Trump well ahead of his closest rival for the nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. In Iowa, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed Mr. Trump with a large advantage over Mr. DeSantis and the rest of the field, but his statewide support there is smaller than his national dominance among Republicans.The chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, Michael J. McDonald, was one of six people who signed certificates designating Nevada’s electoral votes for Donald J. Trump in December 2020, even though Joseph R. Biden Jr. was certified as the winner of the state. He has also faced calls to resign after the party backed several losing election-denying candidates last year.The Republicans are not alone in shaking up their calendars. The Democratic National Committee has radically reshaped its traditional nominating calendar for next year, designating South Carolina as the first primary and demoting Iowa and New Hampshire.The move, endorsed by President Biden, was intended to more closely reflect the racial diversity of the party and the country. But New Hampshire, where state law requires it to hold the first primary, could cast a shadow over Democrats’ plans by holding, as expected, a late January primary, one in which Mr. Biden does not appear on the ballot. More

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      Javier Milei ganó en las primarias de Argentina

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      El candidato de La Libertad Avanza busca abolir el banco central y adoptar el dólar estadounidense como moneda del país. Recibió el 30 por ciento de los votos.Un candidato libertario de ultraderecha ganó las elecciones presidenciales primarias del domingo, lo que representa un apoyo sorprendente a un político que quiere adoptar el dólar estadounidense como la moneda oficial de Argentina y acepta las comparaciones con Donald Trump.El congresista, economista y excomentarista televisivo Javier Milei, de 52 años, logró el 30 por ciento de los votos al haberse escrutado el 96 por ciento de las boletas, lo que lo puso a la cabeza en la contienda por la presidencia en las elecciones generales del otoño.Los sondeos habían sugerido que el apoyo de Milei rondaba el 20 por ciento, y los analistas políticos anticipaban que sus propuestas radicales de política —entre ellas abolir el banco central— evitarían que atrajera a muchos más votantes.Pero las votaciones del domingo dejaron claro que Milei ahora tiene una clara oportunidad para gobernar Argentina, un país sudamericano de 46 millones de habitantes y algunas de las mayores reservas mundiales de petróleo, gas y litio.“Este resultado va a ser sorpresivo para él también”, dijo Pablo Touzon, consultor político argentino. “Hasta ahora fue un fenómeno de protesta”.Las elecciones generales de Argentina, que se llevarán a cabo en octubre y podrían ir a una segunda vuelta en noviembre, pondrán a prueba la fuerza de la extrema derecha en el mundo. En varios países poderosos, como Estados Unidos, Alemania, Francia, Italia, Suecia y Finlandia, la derecha dura ha ganado influencia en años recientes, aunque también ha sufrido derrotas, como las de España y Brasil.Milei se ha presentado como el cambio radical que se requiere debido al colapso de la economía argentina y, de ser elegido, podría impactar al sistema. Además de sus ideas sobre la divisa y el banco central, ha propuesto reducir drásticamente los impuestos y recortar el gasto público, incluso al cobrar a la gente por el uso del sistema de salud público. También ha hablado de cerrar o privatizar las empresas estatales, así como de eliminar los ministerios de Salud, Educación y Medio Ambiente.Milei votando en Buenos Aires el domingo. “Este resultado va a ser sorpresivo para él también”, dijo un consultor político. Enrique Garcia Medina/EPA, vía ShutterstockSergio Massa, el ministro de Economía de tendencia de centroizquierda, llegó segundo en las primarias al obtener el 21 por ciento del voto. Patricia Bullrich, conservadora y exministra de Seguridad, quedó en tercer lugar con 17 por ciento.Las elecciones generales se llevarán a cabo el 22 de octubre, pero parece probable que la contienda se decida el 19 de noviembre, en una segunda vuelta. Las tres coaliciones de Argentina tienen niveles similares de apoyo, a juzgar por los resultados del domingo, lo cual significa que es muy poco probable que cualquiera de los candidatos logre más del 50 por ciento necesario para ganar en la primera vuelta.Ambas coaliciones quedaron ligeramente por detrás del total logrado por Milei: los candidatos de la coalición de centroderecha recibieron el domingo entre todos el 28 por ciento del voto, mientras que la coalición de centroizquierda consiguió el 27 por ciento.El partido gobernante de centroizquierda ha tenido el poder en Argentina 16 de los últimos 20 años y en gran medida ha estado controlado por la expresidenta Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.“Hemos logrado construir esta alternativa competitiva que no solo dará fin al kirchnerismo, sino que además dará fin a la casta política parasitaria chorra e inútil que hunde este país”, dijo Milei a sus seguidores en un discurso la noche del domingo. Luego agradeció a su directora de campaña, su hermana, y a sus cinco perros mastines, bautizados con nombres de economistas conservadores.Argentina, que ha soportado crisis económicas durante décadas, se encuentra en una de las peores situaciones. El peso argentino se ha desplomado, la inflación anual ha superado el 115 porciento, casi el 40 por ciento de la población vive en pobreza y el país tiene dificultades para pagar la deuda de 44.000 millones con el Fondo Monetario Internacional.Milei ha dicho que sus políticas económicas estarían conformadas por un paquete de austeridad que va más allá incluso de lo que el FMI le solicita a Argentina.También podría tener un efecto profundo en otros rubros de la sociedad argentina. Él y su compañera de fórmula, una abogada que ha defendido la dictadura militar del pasado, han insinuado que relajarían las leyes de tenencia de armas, revertirían las políticas que permiten el aborto e incluso permitirían la venta de órganos humanos, un ejemplo de comercio que según Milei no le compete al gobierno.Sun embargo, implementar dichos cambios serían un desafío mayúsculo. Los resultados del domingo sugieren que si Milei fuera electo, contarían con apoyo limitado en el Congreso. Su partido, La Libertad Avanza, indicó que controlaría solo ocho de los 72 escaños en el Senado y 35 de los 257 de la Cámara de Diputados, según los resultados obtenidos por sus otros candidatos.Simpatizantes de Milei el domingo en Buenos Aires. Su condición de recién llegado a la política y sus propuestas económicas radicales atrajeron a más votantes de lo que esperaban los analistas.Mario De Fina/Associated PressTouzon comentó que Milei tendría menos apoyo institucional que los candidatos de extrema derecha que arrasaron en su camino al poder en años recientes, entre ellos Trump y el expresidente Jair Bolsonaro de Brasil. “Bolsonaro se apoyaba en el ejército. Trump tenía el Partido Republicano. Milei no tiene nada”, dijo.Añadió que el plan económico de Milei, si bien es radical, no es detallado y se ha ido cambiando con frecuencia. “Su plan de dolarización fue cambiado 50 veces”, dijo Touzon. “Pero hoy no tiene un equipo para gobernar la Argentina”.Y, sin embargo, Milei ha probado ser un hábil político de la era de internet, con un ceño fruncido insigne y una melena despeinada que le han dado una imagen desbordada y un blanco fácil de memes en internet, muy parecido a Trump y Bolsonaro.En un video público difundido previo a la votación, Bolsonaro apoyaba a Milei y decía que eran espíritus políticos afines. “Tenemos muchas cosas en común”, decía y mencionaba lo que calificó como su apoyo por la propiedad privada, la libertad de expresión, el libre mercado y el derecho a la autodefensa.Los argentinos que votaron por Milei el domingo, de manera similar a los seguidores de Trump y Bolsonaro, dijeron que les gustaba porque era un recién llegado a la política que pondría de cabeza un sistema defectuoso y diría las cosas como son.“Por fin despertó el pueblo argentino”, dijo Rebeca Di Iorio, 44, trabajadora administrativa que celebraba en el festejo callejero de Milei en Buenos Aires. “Argentina necesita eso, necesita un cambio”.Santiago Manoukian, jefe de investigación de Ecolatina, una consultora económica argentina, dijo que de los distintos escenarios que los analistas previeron para las primarias, la victoria de Milei era el menos esperado.Ahora tendría que repensar sus pronósticos, dijo Manoukian, dado que Milei tiene una clara oportunidad de llegar a segunda vuelta, lo cual podría ser una moneda al aire.“Milei no era un candidato competitivo para un balotaje”, comentó Manoukian. “Ahora estaría ocurriendo algo muy distinto”.Jack Nicas es el jefe de la corresponsalía en Brasil, que abarca Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Anteriormente reportó de tecnología desde San Francisco y, antes de integrarse al Times en 2018, trabajó siete años en The Wall Street Journal. @jacknicas • Facebook More

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      Republican 2024 Candidates Cast Doubt on Hunter Biden Special Counsel

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      Republican presidential candidates, some of whom were stumping in the early-caucusing state of Iowa on Friday, largely derided the news that the prosecutor investigating President Biden’s son Hunter had been elevated to special counsel status.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, during a campaign stop in Audubon, Iowa, cast doubt on the independence of the special counsel, David C. Weiss, who had already been overseeing a yearslong investigation of the president’s son. “It just seems to me that they’re going to find a way to give him some type of soft-glove treatment,’’ he said. And Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, spoke disdainfully of the new title and power for Mr. Weiss.“I don’t think the American people trust the Department of Justice or anything this is going to do,” Ms. Haley said in an appearance on Fox News. “I think this was meant to be a distraction.”At the same time, she called it a “response to the pressure that the Biden family is feeling” and called on House Republicans who have been investigating the Bidens “to keep their foot on the gas.” So far, the investigations have found no hard evidence that President Biden used his influence while vice president to benefit his son’s business deals.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota also said he doubted the independence of Mr. Weiss. In an interview while twirling around on the Iowa State Fair’s Ferris wheel, he called the move “too little, too late” and said few Republicans would view the step as a serious development, given Mr. Weiss’s role in offering Hunter Biden a plea deal in the case. That plea deal has fallen apart.Mr. Weiss is a federal prosecutor in Delaware who was originally appointed by former President Donald J. Trump. He was left in his position by President Biden to continue the Hunter Biden inquiry to avoid the appearance that the president would seek special treatment for his son.In a statement attributed to a spokesperson, Mr. Trump, who is being investigated by the special counsel Jack Smith, claimed without evidence that the Department of Justice has protected President Biden, Hunter Biden and other family members “for decades.” The statement cast doubt on Mr. Weiss’s independence and criticized him for not already bringing “proper charges after a four-year investigation” of Hunter Biden.Mr. Smith has brought two indictments against Mr. Trump.Not all of the candidates were disdainful of the appointment of the special counsel, which Republicans have urged for some time. Vivek Ramaswamy, who said last month that a special counsel was warranted, called the appointment of Mr. Weiss “good” on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “Now let’s see if it’s more than a fig leaf,” he added.Former Vice President Mike Pence, who was flipping cuts of pork at the Iowa State Fair on Friday, said he approved of the Department of Justice’s move to upgrade Mr. Weiss’s power.“I think it’s about time that we saw the appointment of a special counsel to get to the bottom of not only what Hunter Biden was doing, but what the Biden family was doing,” Mr. Pence said. “The American people deserve answers, and I welcome the appointment.”Anjali Huynh More

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      Trump Says He Won’t Sign Loyalty Pledge Required for G.O.P. Debate

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      The Republican National Committee has demanded that 2024 contenders pledge to support the eventual nominee in order to debate. The former president is refusing.Former President Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he was unwilling to meet one of the requirements to participate in the first Republican presidential debate, refusing to sign a pledge to support the eventual nominee.“I wouldn’t sign the pledge,” he said in an interview with the conservative outlet Newsmax. “Why would I sign a pledge? There are people on there that I wouldn’t have.”The decision would seem to rule out the possibility of him being at the debate on Aug. 23, yet he also said that he would announce next week whether he planned to take part.Asked for comment on Thursday, the Republican National Committee, which sets the rules, referred to past interviews in which its chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, has defended the pledge and said the committee will hold everyone to it.“The rules aren’t changing,” she said on CNN last month. “We’ve been very vocal with them.”In the Newsmax interview, Mr. Trump said, “I can name three or four people that I wouldn’t support for president,” without naming them. “So right there, there’s a problem right there.”Mr. Trump also said in the interview that he wasn’t convinced it was worth it for him to debate given how far ahead he is in the primary. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed him leading the field by an enormous margin, more than 35 percentage points ahead of his nearest competitor, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.“Why would you do that when you’re leading by so much?” he asked.Some other Republicans criticized Mr. Trump on Thursday for his refusal to commit to supporting a nominee other than himself. “Every Republican running for President would be better than Joe Biden,” Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia said on Twitter. “Any candidate who does not commit to supporting the eventual nominee is putting themselves ahead of the future of our country.”Mr. Trump’s vacillation over the pledge is not new; he objected to signing the same loyalty pledge during his first campaign eight years ago. He ultimately did, but then took it back.That history underscores that the pledge is, in practice, unenforceable. Party leaders can refuse to let a candidate debate for not signing, but they can’t force someone who does sign to actually support another nominee next year.One of Mr. Trump’s opponents, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, has said that he will sign the pledge, but that he would not support Mr. Trump if he is the eventual nominee: “I’m going to take the pledge just as seriously as Donald Trump took it in 2016,” he told CNN.Another opponent, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, has suggested that — if he otherwise qualifies for the debate, which he hasn’t yet — he would sign based on the far-from-safe assumption that Mr. Trump won’t be the nominee and Mr. Hutchinson won’t actually be tested. More

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      Racing to Stop Trump, Republicans Descend on the Iowa State Fair

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      Over decades of presidential campaigns, the Iowa way has been to hop from town to town, taking questions from all comers and genuflecting to the local culinary traditions. Going everywhere and meeting everyone has been the gospel of how to win over voters in the low-turnout midwinter caucuses that kick off the American presidential cycle.Now former President Donald J. Trump is delivering what could be a death blow to the old way.Five months from the 2024 caucuses, Mr. Trump holds a comfortable polling lead in a state he has rarely set foot in. If any of his dozen challengers hope to stop his march to a third straight nomination, they will almost certainly have to halt, or at least slow, him in Iowa after spending the better part of a year making their case. A commanding victory by Mr. Trump could create a sense of inevitability around his candidacy that would be difficult to overcome.As Mr. Trump and nearly all of his Republican rivals converge in the coming days at the Iowa State Fair, the annual celebration of agriculture and stick-borne fried food will serve as the latest stage for a nationalized campaign in which the former president and his three indictments have left the rest of the field starved for attention.“You’ve got to do it in Iowa, otherwise it’s gone, it’s all national media,” said Doug Gross, a Republican strategist who was the party’s nominee for governor of the state in 2002. “The chance to show that he’s vulnerable is gone. You’ve got to do it here, and you’ve got to do it now.”At the Iowa State Fair on Wednesday, Dana Wanken, known as Spanky, cleaned the grill outside the pork tent, one of the destinations where Republican presidential candidates will converge in the coming days to compete for the attention of voters.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMost of the Republican candidates are trying to do Iowa the old way, and all of them are less popular and receiving far less visibility than Mr. Trump, who has visited the state just six times since announcing his campaign in November.The same polling that shows Mr. Trump with a wide lead nationally and in Iowa also indicates that his competitors have a plausible path to carve into his support in the crucial first state. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that while Mr. Trump held 44 percent of the support among Iowa Republicans — more than double that of his closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — 47 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters said they would consider backing another candidate.Mr. DeSantis, for all his bad headlines about staff shake-ups, campaign resets and financial troubles, holds significant structural advantages in Iowa.He has endorsements from a flotilla of Iowa state legislators; a campaign team flush with veterans from the 2016 presidential bid of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who beat Mr. Trump in the state; and a super PAC with $100 million to spend. Mr. DeSantis has also said he will visit all 99 counties, a quest that has long revealed a candidate’s willingness to do the grunt work of traveling to Iowa’s sparsely populated rural corners to scrounge for every last vote.Convincing Iowans that they should be searching for a Trump alternative may be Mr. DeSantis’s toughest task.“Trump’s supporters are very vocal, so sometimes being very vocal sounds like there’s a lot of them,” said Tom Shipley, a state senator from southwest Iowa who has endorsed Mr. DeSantis. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the case.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and his family at the Clayton County Fair in Iowa last weekend. While Mr. DeSantis has drawn receptive crowds and has been cheered at the state’s big political events, there is no flood of Iowans rushing to support him.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesYet while Mr. DeSantis has drawn receptive crowds and has been cheered at the state’s big political events, there is no flood of Iowans rushing to support him. Through the end of June, just 17 Iowans had given his campaign $200 or more, according to a report filed to the Federal Election Commission. Nikki Haley, who lags far behind him in polls, had 25 such Iowa donors, while Mr. Trump had 117. Former Vice President Mike Pence had just seven.(The number of small donors Mr. DeSantis had in Iowa is not publicly known because his campaign has an arrangement with WinRed, the Republican donor platform, that effectively prevented the disclosure of information about small donors.)Mr. DeSantis’s supporters are quick to point out that the three most recent winners of competitive Iowa caucuses — Mr. Cruz, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008 — each came from behind with support from the same demographic: social conservatives. None of the three won the presidential nomination, but all of them used Iowa to propel themselves into what became a one-on-one matchup with the party’s eventual nominee.Operatives and supporters of the non-Trump candidates warn that Iowa caucusgoers are notoriously fickle. Around this point in 2015, Mr. Cruz had just 8 percent support in a poll by The Des Moines Register. Mr. Trump was first at 23 percent and Ben Carson was second, with 18 percent.“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” said Chris Cournoyer, a Republican state senator from Le Claire who is backing Nikki Haley, who was at 4 percent in the recent Times/Siena poll.What’s different about Iowa this time, according to interviews with more than a dozen state legislators, political operatives and veterans of past caucuses, is that before Republicans consider a broad field of candidates, they are asking themselves a more basic, binary question: Trump or not Trump?Jeanne Dietrich of Omaha, Neb., displayed an autograph from former President Donal J. Trump after attending the opening of his Iowa campaign headquarters in July. Five months from the 2024 caucuses, Mr. Trump holds a comfortable polling lead in the state.Christopher Smith for The New York TimesWhere in the past Iowans might have told those running for president that they were on a list of three or four top contenders, Mr. Trump’s dominance over Republican politics has left candidates fighting for a far smaller slice of voters. The longer a large field exists, the harder it will be for Mr. DeSantis or anyone else to consolidate enough support to present a challenge to Mr. Trump.“These people are absolutely going to vote for the former president, and those people are absolutely not going to vote for the former president,” said Eric Woolson, who has been in Iowa politics so long he was part of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 1988 presidential campaign before working for a series of Republican presidential hopefuls: George W. Bush, Mr. Huckabee, Michele Bachmann and Scott Walker.Now Mr. Woolson, who owns an organic catnip farm in southern Iowa, serves as the state director for Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who is polling at 1 percent in Iowa. Mr. Woolson said the first hurdle for 2024 campaigns was sorting out which voters would even consider candidates other than Mr. Trump.“In past elections, voters were keeping an open mind of, ‘Well, maybe I can still vote for this candidate, or maybe this one’s my second choice or whatever,’” he said. “Now there’s just such stark lines that have been drawn.”Those lines are compounded by a political and media environment centered not on Iowa’s local news outlets but on conservative cable and internet shows.Nikki Haley, who lags far behind Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump in polls, reported that just 25 Iowans had given her campaign $200 or more through the end of June, according to a report filed to the Federal Election Commission.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesFor decades, presidential candidates from both parties have flocked to The Des Moines Register’s state fair soapbox, a centrally located stage that has served as a gathering spot for the political news media and passers-by on their way to the Ferris wheel and the butter cow. It was at the soapbox in 2011 where Mitt Romney responded to a heckler with his infamous quip, “Corporations are people, my friend.”Mr. Trump skipped The Register’s soapbox in 2016 in favor of a far more dramatic appearance — landing at the fair in his helicopter and offering rides to children.This year, only lower-polling candidates — Ms. Haley, Mr. Pence and Vivek Ramaswamy, among others — are scheduled to speak at the soap box. All of the contenders except Mr. Trump will instead sit for interviews at the fairgrounds with Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, a Republican who has pledged to stay neutral but has clashed with Mr. Trump. The scripted nature of those appearances is likely to cut down on the kinds of viral moments that once drove politics at the fair.Mr. Trump does not need to participate in Iowa’s retail politics, his supporters say, because he is already universally known and has been omnipresent on the conservative media airwaves as he fights against his indictments.“Trump can rely on the network that’s out here already,” said Stan Gustafson, a Republican state representative from just south of Des Moines. “It’s already put together.”Yet at least a few Iowa Republicans supporting Mr. Trump say they are looking to the future — just a bit further out than next year’s caucuses. Mr. Gustafson, who has endorsed Mr. Trump, said he was eyeing which candidates he might support in 2028.Tim Kraayenbrink, a state senator who also backs Mr. Trump, said Iowa’s turn in the campaign cycle was a good opportunity to judge which candidates would make a good running mate — as long as it is not Mr. Pence, he clarified.“He’s going to have some quality people to choose from for vice president,” Mr. Kraayenbrink said of Mr. Trump.Andrew Fischer More