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      Trump’s GOP Rivals, Shielding Him, Reveal Their 2024 Predicament

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      Many of Donald Trump’s potential opponents snapped into line behind him, showing just how hard it may be to persuade Republican voters to choose an alternative.Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida took a measured dig at Donald J. Trump by publicly mocking the circumstances that led New York investigators to the former president.“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” Mr. DeSantis said.But as soon as Mr. Trump was indicted this week, Mr. DeSantis promptly vowed to block his state from assisting a potential extradition. In a show of support for his fellow Republican, Mr. DeSantis called the case “the weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda.”In the hours after a grand jury indicted Mr. Trump, many of his potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination snapped into line behind him, looking more like allies than competitors. All passed on the opportunity to criticize him, and some rushed to his defense, expressing concerns about the legitimacy of the case.The turnaround by some prospective contenders was so swift and complete that it caught even the Trump team off guard. One close ally suggested to Mr. Trump that he publicly thank his rivals. (As of Friday evening, he had not.)The reluctance to directly confront Mr. Trump put his strength as a front-runner on full display. His would-be challengers have been sizing up political billiard balls for the possibility of an increasingly tricky bank shot: persuading Republican voters to forsake him, while presenting themselves as the movement’s heir apparent.In one reflection of Mr. Trump’s durability, his team said it had raised more than $4 million in the 24 hours after the indictment was made public by The New York Times.“There has been a narrative for a while that we could have Trump policies with someone more electable, but the reaction to the indictment showed that power is unique to Trump,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in an interview. “Trump was the leading contender for the nomination before the indictment, and now he’s the prohibitive favorite.”The closest any possible Republican challenger came to criticizing Mr. Trump was former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who told Fox Business Network on Friday that while the yet-to-be-revealed charges might not end up being substantial, Mr. Trump should “step aside” now that he has been indicted.A day earlier, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Mr. Trump’s most prominent official challenger so far, suggested the indictment was politically motivated, writing on Twitter, “This is more about revenge than it is about justice.”Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said this week that while the yet-to-be-revealed charges might not end up being substantial, Mr. Trump should “step aside” now that he has been indicted. Win McNamee/Getty ImagesThe overwhelming unwillingness to attack or even criticize Mr. Trump reflected an unspoken fear among many of his rivals that Republican voters will punish any candidate who seems to be capitalizing on his legal problems. Rather than run hard against him, contenders appeared content to orbit around Mr. Trump, who remains the most powerful force in Republican politics.Even before the indictment, Mr. Trump’s team began waging what amounted to a political war on the Manhattan district attorney who brought the case. At almost every turn, his allies have hammered the prosecutor, Alvin L. Bragg, as being a puppet of Democratic forces seeking to harm Mr. Trump. Mr. Bragg’s office has defended its integrity.“I was one of the early people to break with Trump on some of the things he was doing, but I think this is kind of outrageous,” former Representative Francis Rooney, a Florida Republican, said in an interview. “This is the best thing to happen to Trump in a long time. It’s stupid, and they have no case.”On Friday, Mr. Trump’s team remained focused on the primary contest at his campaign headquarters in West Palm Beach, Fla. Advisers anticipated a continuation of their recent strategy, which has included smaller events and just one major rally since Mr. Trump opened his third White House bid in November..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.Still, it was an open question of how facing criminal charges — and potentially more to come in three other criminal investigations — would help Mr. Trump in a general election. Moderate Republicans and independent voters have peeled away from him during the past three election cycles.One major donor, who is not yet committed to a 2024 candidate, doubted that the indictment would sway many deep-pocketed Republicans who have already made up their mind one way or the other about Mr. Trump, calling it a “so what?” moment.Mike DuHaime, a veteran Republican strategist, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Trump’s indictment “wins back absolutely zero voters who left him between 2016 and 2020.”“No independent who voted for Biden thinks Trump is a martyr or victim suddenly worthy of support,” Mr. DuHaime wrote.Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers acknowledged it is hard to predict what will happen if a trial is playing out well into the primary season, or how an indictment affects the general election.But Mr. Trump’s team, according to one person close to him, argues that the indictment has the potential to overcome the “Trump fatigue” factor among some voters who have favorable opinions of him but are open to a new face for the party.According to this thinking, if these “fatigued” voters view the Manhattan investigation as a continuation of what Mr. Trump has often called a political “witch hunt” by Democrats, it could generate enough sympathy to overcome the reasons they had fallen away from him.But Mr. Trump’s team was working on Friday to chart a course forward. The indictment a day earlier had surprised his aides, although his political team was far more prepared than his legal team. His team had been working on what it calls “maximizing the bump” from the indictment, preparing for a fund-raising blitz and working on speech drafts for coming events.Mr. Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., announced Thursday that it would run ads attacking Mr. DeSantis over his votes on Medicare and Social Security while he was in Congress.Shortly after that announcement, Mr. DeSantis posted his support for Mr. Trump on Twitter.The Florida governor’s statement about a politically motivated attack was particularly noteworthy, not just because he is widely viewed as Mr. Trump’s chief presidential rival, but also because last year, he removed a twice-elected state attorney whom he accused of politicizing the job by trying to “pick and choose” what laws to enforce locally.Shortly after news of the indictment, Mr. DeSantis’s allies in the Florida Legislature introduced widely anticipated legislation that could change state law to roll back a requirement that the Florida governor resign before running for federal office. The move, which might have otherwise ignited a new wave of speculation about Mr. DeSantis’s future and encouraged critics to question his commitment to his current job, was mostly overlooked in the swirl of indictment news.For the most part, Mr. Trump’s potential rivals echoed previous criticisms of the New York investigation, or they said nothing at all.Former Vice President Mike Pence, who had been booked for a CNN interview before the indictment, condemned it as politically motivated. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who has been the most outspoken possible contender in criticizing Mr. Trump, said nothing. Neither did Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Within hours of the indictment, senior Republicans were evaluating what, exactly, the new reality meant for events during the presidential primary race. One senior Republican official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations, said the questions included what might happen if a primary debate date were announced, and then a matter related to the trial interfered.Other routine events, like the Iowa State Fair this summer or donor retreats where candidates appear, could raise the same concerns, the official said, adding that Republicans might face pressure to change dates to accommodate a trial schedule.In the meantime, as Friday wore on, Mr. Trump solicited opinions from a wide range of associates, advisers and friends. “Can you believe this?” he said to one person after another, vilifying Mr. Bragg with expletives in some cases. His wife, Melania Trump, was said to be furious on her husband’s behalf.Mr. Trump’s eldest sons denounced the indictment in interviews and on social media. He planned to keep a normal schedule through the weekend, including rounds of golf and attending a gala at his club, people familiar with the plans said.Mr. Trump also solicited opinions about his legal team, as his advisers discussed adding people amid a round of finger-pointing as to why there had been such a strong belief that the indictment was weeks away, if it was happening at all.Boris Epshteyn, who helps coordinate some of Mr. Trump’s legal teams on various cases and who told colleagues, based in part on public reports, that there would be no movement in the case for weeks, left Palm Beach during the day on Thursday. He returned after the indictment was public.Trip Gabriel More

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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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      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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      How a Trump Indictment Could Affect His 2024 Presidential Campaign

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      The political and legal bombshell could rally Republican voters to the former president’s side, but it could also prompt them to seek out an alternative.If Donald J. Trump is indicted in New York in the coming days as expected, the political and legal bombshell would defy historical precedent, upend the former president’s reality and throw the race for the 2024 Republican nomination into highly uncertain territory.With the grand jury in a Manhattan court expected to return on Monday afternoon, and an indictment possible as soon as that day, perhaps the biggest electoral question is whether Mr. Trump would continue to rally his supporters in the G.O.P. primary to his side.In the past, he has used investigations into his business, personal and political activities to stir a defensive sentiment among his most die-hard supporters. His backers came to see investigations into whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russians, as well as two impeachment inquiries, as part of what he often claimed was a partisan “witch hunt.”Mr. Trump has done the same thing in the lead-up to a possible indictment in Manhattan, with even some of his detractors questioning the wisdom of the case.The former president is set to make a return to Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Monday night. The Rupert Murdoch-owned network, as well as other Murdoch news outlets, has heavily criticized Mr. Trump and promoted Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.It is possible, however, that Mr. Trump’s legal problems, which extend past Manhattan into three other investigations, will erode his standing and lead Republican voters to seek out an alternative — perhaps Mr. DeSantis, his leading potential rival in early polls, or perhaps someone else.Mr. Trump has moved quickly to try to head off Mr. DeSantis’s attempt to replace him as the party’s standard-bearer. In social media posts, the former president has attacked Mr. DeSantis over issues including Florida’s public health restrictions early in the pandemic and the governor’s perceived lack of loyalty to Mr. Trump, who gave Mr. DeSantis a key endorsement during his 2018 campaign.“He’s dropping like a rock,” the former president said at his rally on Saturday in Waco, Texas, pointing to his increased advantage over the governor in recent surveys. While Mr. DeSantis places second in most public opinion polls of Republican primary voters, his numbers have slipped since the sugar high in his standing following his decisive re-election in November, even with extensive support from Mr. Murdoch’s empire.In turn, Mr. DeSantis has taken subtler jabs at Mr. Trump, drawing attention to the personal conduct involved in the case the former president is facing — which centers on hush-money payments to a porn star just before the 2016 election — and seeking to draw a contrast with Mr. Trump by presenting himself as a low-drama “winner.”“In terms of my approach to leadership, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda,” Mr. DeSantis told the British media personality Piers Morgan recently. “You bring your own agenda in, you’re gone. We’re just not going to have that. So, the way we run the government, I think, is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board, and I think that’s something that’s very important.”Most of Mr. Trump’s allies have refused to believe that an indictment could come, making the actual event seem to them like an abstraction. How it would eventually play out for Mr. Trump — who in 2016 predicted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any of his backers — is an open question.As he has done in the face of other investigations, Mr. Trump has assailed the long-running Manhattan investigation as part of a campaign of persecution against him. He has called the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who is Black, an “animal” and has accused him of being “racist,” insisting that any prosecution was politically motivated.With the probability of an indictment looming, Mr. Trump devoted a portion of a campaign speech early this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland to framing an indictment as an effort to damage him politically.“Every time the polls go up higher and higher, the prosecutors get crazier and crazier,” Mr. Trump said.Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and a possible 2024 Republican presidential contender, sounded a skeptical note about Mr. Trump’s claims that he would be bolstered by an indictment.“What the hell else is he going to say?” Mr. Christie said on ABC News’s “This Week” this month. “If you get indicted, you know, you’ve got to say that, or else it’s a death knell, right?”It is unclear how his Republican rivals would approach such a significant change in Mr. Trump’s circumstances, but they would face pressure from Mr. Trump’s die-hard backers to speak in support of him and against the prosecutors in the case. While Mr. DeSantis has tweaked Mr. Trump’s personal conduct, he has also criticized Mr. Bragg.Still, it is also not clear that whatever immediate support Mr. Trump could garner would be durable.“When Trump speculated his voters would stick with him even if he shot somebody on Fifth Avenue, he probably didn’t expect to actually test their loyalty with a criminal indictment,” said Nelson Warfield, a Republican strategist. “But that’s the question he faces now: Will the base stay with him? The truth is: Nobody knows. I mean, this is something out of a John Grisham novel, not the Almanac of American Politics.” More

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      Ro Khanna Endorses Barbara Lee’s Senate Campaign as He Declines to Run

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      The race in California to succeed Senator Dianne Feinstein is likely to be one of the most expensive in the nation in 2024.Representative Ro Khanna of California said on Sunday that he would not run in an already crowded Democratic field seeking to succeed his state’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, who is retiring at the end of her term.In deep-blue California, the Democratic winner of the primary is likely to join Alex Padilla in representing the state in the Senate. The major Democrats already running are three representatives: Katie Porter, a social media darling of liberal Democrats; Adam Schiff, who led the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump; and Barbara Lee, the sole member of Congress to oppose a broad war authorization after the Sept. 11 attacks.Mr. Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, made his announcement on “State of the Union” on CNN, telling the host Jake Tapper that the best place “for me to serve as a progressive is in the House of Representatives.”He added, “I’m honored to be co-chairing Barbara Lee’s campaign for the Senate and endorsing her today. We need a strong antiwar senator, and she will play that role.”The race in California is likely to be one of the most expensive and competitive in the nation in 2024. Mr. Schiff, who represents a Los Angeles-area district, and Ms. Porter, of Orange County, have already raised millions to support their campaigns, while Ms. Lee, whose district includes Oakland, has lagged.Ms. Lee is seeking to become just the third Black woman in the Senate. The House has 28 Black women serving in its ranks, a high-water mark, but the Senate currently has none, a point Mr. Khanna emphasized on Sunday.“Frankly, Jake, representation matters,” he said. “We don’t have a single African American woman in the United States Senate. She would fill that role. She’ll be the only candidate from Northern California and she’s going to, I think, consolidate a lot of progressives. The other two are formidable candidates, but I think Barbara Lee is going to be very, very strong.” More

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      DeSantis, Doubling Down, Presses Questions About Trump’s Character

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      In an interview with Piers Morgan, the Florida governor sought to strike a clear contrast with Donald Trump, calling himself a low-drama “winner.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the closest prospective rival to Donald J. Trump in early polls of the 2024 Republican presidential primary, pressed forward with questions about the former president’s character and pointed to himself as a low-drama “winner” in an interview this week with the British media personality Piers Morgan.The interview, which Mr. Morgan wrote about Tuesday for The New York Post, was striking in terms of how expansive Mr. DeSantis was and of his choice of interviewer: Mr. Morgan, like Mr. DeSantis, has been a target of Mr. Trump’s ire.The interview took place at some point after an event Mr. DeSantis held on Monday in Panama City, Fla., where he criticized the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who is expected to indict Mr. Trump on charges related to hush-money payments to a porn star who said she had an affair with him. After that event, Mr. DeSantis also highlighted Mr. Trump’s personal conduct.In the interview with Mr. Morgan, Mr. DeSantis took clear aim at Mr. Trump’s often-criticized penchant for chaos and for hiring people who were at odds with his professed policy interests and who often leaked information to the news media.“I also think just in terms of my approach to leadership, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda,” Mr. DeSantis said. “You bring your own agenda in, you’re gone. We’re just not going to have that. So, the way we run the government, I think, is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board, and I think that’s something that’s very important.”When Mr. Morgan asked Mr. DeSantis “if he meant to be as censorious as he sounded” in his comments on Monday mentioning Mr. Trump’s personal conduct, the governor replied: “Well, there’s a lot of speculation about what the underlying conduct is. That is purported to be it, and the reality is that’s just outside my wheelhouse.”Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, slammed Mr. DeSantis for the interview.“Ron DeSantis has finally shown his true colors,” he wrote on Twitter. “An establishment Never Trumper who despises the MAGA base and was faking it the entire time.”Taylor Budowich, a top official at the super PAC supporting Mr. Trump and a former spokesman for the president, wrote, “While the entire conservative movement is united against the unjust indictment of President Donald Trump, DeSantis is choosing to go off half-cocked and take shots on some low-rent vlog.”Mr. DeSantis, who has shied away from the mainstream news media, sounded a bullish note about running for president. He is expected to formally announce his candidacy in the coming months.“If I were to run, I’m running against Biden,” Mr. DeSantis said. He added that he would keep his focus on “Biden because I think he’s failed the country. I think the country wants a change. I think they want a fresh start and a new direction, and so we’ll be very vocal about that.”.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.Asked if he could beat President Biden, he said, “I think so.”Mr. Morgan wrote in The Post that when he asked a question about the conduct of leaders, Mr. DeSantis responded, “You really want to look to people like our founding fathers, like what type of character? It’s not saying that you don’t ever make a mistake in your personal life, but I think what type of character are you bringing?”He pointed to George Washington — who “always put the Republic over his own personal interest” — as an example.At another point, he described “truth” as “essential,” a notable comment in a discussion about Mr. Trump, who is known for telling falsehoods and whose lies about the 2020 election have dominated political life in the country for two years.Mr. DeSantis, who has faced attacks from Mr. Trump over Covid restrictions in Florida at the beginning of the pandemic, sought to turn the tables.“The approach to Covid was different,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I would have fired somebody like Fauci. I think he got way too big for his breeches, and I think he did a lot of damage.”In reality, Mr. Trump did not have direct control over Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the infectious-disease expert whom Republicans turned into a villain as the pandemic continued.Mr. DeSantis, who graduated from Yale University, claimed not to “know how to spell” one of Mr. Trump’s nicknames for him, Ron DeSanctimonious.“I don’t really know what it means, but I kind of like it,” Mr. DeSantis said. “It’s long, it’s got a lot of vowels. We’ll go with that, that’s fine. I mean, you can call me whatever you want, just as long as you also call me a winner, because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida, is put a lot of points on the board and really take this state to the next level.”Mr. DeSantis’s aggression this week has surprised Republican operatives and Trump allies. His comments to Mr. Morgan came a day after Mr. Trump made a statement on his social media site, Truth Social, insinuating that Mr. DeSantis might be gay — a response to Mr. DeSantis’s comments about “hush money” and “porn stars.” (Mr. Trump has denied having an affair with Stormy Daniels, the porn star in the New York case.)“Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!),” Mr. Trump wrote on Monday. “I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!” More

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      Trump’s Potential Indictment Could Alienate Some G.O.P. Voters in 2024

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      The former president strengthened his political position in recent weeks, but an impetuous response to his potential indictment could alienate voters he will need to win back the White House.Donald J. Trump, the former prime-time reality TV star known for his love of big stages and vast crowds, has embraced a more humbling and traditional style on the campaign trail in recent months.He held intimate events in New Hampshire and South Carolina. He fielded questions from voters in Iowa. And in multiple cities, he surprised diners with unannounced visits to restaurants where, with his more familiar Trumpian flair, he made a dramatic show of sliding a wad of cash from his pocket to buy everyone a bite to eat.This strategy has highlighted the billionaire’s counterintuitive political strength at connecting with voters on a personal level — while also underscoring the chief weakness of his main potential Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who can often come across as snappish or uncomfortable.But now Mr. Trump faces a likely indictment in New York in the coming days, and how he responds to this moment could determine whether he continues to stabilize his standing as the Republican presidential front-runner or whether he further alienates the voters he will need to return to the White House.The result will help answer a pressing question about his candidacy for many Republican primary voters: Can Mr. Trump show enough restraint to persuade moderate Republicans and independent swing voters to choose him over President Biden in 2024?So far, he has returned to old habits.Since Saturday, Mr. Trump has unleashed a series of personal, unproven and provocative attacks against investigators, Democrats and fellow Republicans. He accused Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney bringing the case against Mr. Trump, of being a “woke tyrant” who was “destroying Manhattan.” He called his Democratic opponents “animals and thugs.” He insinuated baselessly that Mr. DeSantis might be gay.It was the kind of behavior that swing voters and moderate Republicans tend to dislike most about Mr. Trump: the long tail of chaos that often drags behind him; an inclination to focus on personal attacks instead of policy solutions; and his inability, particularly in 2020, to settle on a forward-looking message to explain his candidacy.For three consecutive elections, these voters have largely abandoned Mr. Trump, as well as the candidates and causes he has endorsed. In 2020, he bled twice as much support among Republican voters as Mr. Biden did among Democratic ones, an outcome the former president will have to address in order to win in 2024.“The circus continues,” former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican and a former federal prosecutor, said on Sunday on ABC. “He only profits and does well in chaos and turmoil, and so he wants to create the chaos and turmoil on his terms — he doesn’t want it on anybody else’s terms.”“But, look, at the end, being indicted never helps anybody,” Mr. Christie continued. “It’s not a help.”.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.Taylor Budowich, a Trump adviser who now runs the main super PAC supporting the former president’s White House bid, defended Mr. Trump’s approach, saying he was “campaigning harder than every other candidate combined, while staying focused on the issues voters care about.”“This is allowing the contrast to be made,” said Mr. Budowich, whose group filed a complaint last week accusing Mr. DeSantis of breaking state ethics law. “Donald Trump is the true fighter for the people, while every other candidate is different versions of the same.”Some Trump allies believe that becoming the first former president to face criminal charges would carry a political upside for Mr. Trump, at least in a Republican primary. The former president has skillfully persuaded many supporters to metabolize critiques from opponents, investigations by law enforcement and impeachments by Congress as deeply personal attacks on them.Mr. Trump has started to amplify the anger and the energy of his most ardent followers as he tries to fight his legal battle on a political playing field.His muscular online fund-raising machine has started leveraging the potential indictment in appeals for campaign contributions, returning to a well-worn page in his campaign playbook. Mr. Trump and his team turned his first impeachment into tens of millions of dollars, and collected similar amounts as he made false claims of a stolen 2020 election. Last year, his two single biggest fund-raising days came after the F.B.I. searched his South Florida home for missing government documents.But whether Mr. Trump’s attempt to galvanize his base is worth the political cost that he may pay in a general election is far from certain.The first signs of regression appeared early Saturday, when Mr. Trump surprised his campaign aides with a social media post that declared he would be arrested on Tuesday. (A spokesman later clarified that Mr. Trump did not have direct knowledge of the timing of any arrest.)On Sunday, he resurfaced his lies about the 2020 election, which had recently started to fade from his public speeches. But as a reminder that Mr. Trump still hasn’t turned the page, he injected false claims of election fraud into a social media post complaining about the Manhattan district attorney’s office.On Monday, he hurled a crude joke at Mr. DeSantis after the Florida governor broke his silence about the potential indictment, criticizing it as politically motivated but drawing attention to Mr. Trump’s sordid behavior at the center of the case, which revolves around hush-money payments to a porn star who said she had an affair with the former president.Whether three consecutive days of escalation was a temporary or lasting step away from the relative discipline that defined his last few months of campaigning remained to be seen.But at the very least, it signaled a long week ahead. On Saturday in Waco, Texas, Mr. Trump is set to host the first large event of his 2024 campaign, returning to his cherished rally stage — where he is often at his most reckless. More

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      DeSantis Breaks Silence on Trump and Criticizes Manhattan D.A.

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      The Florida governor, who had refrained for days from weighing in on the potential indictment of his likely 2024 rival, accused the Manhattan district attorney of political motivations.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday broke his silence about the potential indictment of his state’s most famous resident, former President Donald J. Trump, attacking the Manhattan district attorney pursuing the case but also pointedly noting the personal conduct over which Mr. Trump is being investigated.Mr. DeSantis spoke in response to a reporter’s question at an event in Panama City, Fla., after two days of pressure from Mr. Trump’s team and his influential allies demanding that the governor speak out against an indictment that is likely to be brought by Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.After a reporter asked for Mr. DeSantis’s thoughts about the potential indictment and whether he might have a role in extraditing Mr. Trump to New York, the governor demurred, saying he did not know what was going to happen.“But I do know this: The Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor,” he said of Mr. Bragg, referring to indirect financial support the district attorney received in his 2021 campaign from George Soros, the liberal billionaire philanthropist. Those donations have been the subject of attacks from Mr. Trump and other Republicans.“And so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,” Mr. DeSantis said.Then he twisted the knife regarding the actions over which Mr. Trump is likely to be indicted: hush-money payments made in late 2016 by Michael D. Cohen, then his lawyer and fixer, to a porn star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump.“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” Mr. DeSantis said to chuckles from the crowd at the event.“I just, I can’t speak to that,” he said. “But what I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago, to try to use something about porn star hush-money payments, you know, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office.”He added, “And I think that that’s fundamentally wrong.” He said that the “real victims are ordinary New Yorkers” because of how Mr. Bragg handled his office. He accused the district attorney of “trying to virtue signal for his base.”In a post on his social media site, Truth Social, later in the day, Mr. Trump fired back at Mr. DeSantis in personal terms, mockingly raising questions about the governor’s sexuality. “Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!). I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!” Mr. Trump wrote..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.It was a second effort after Mr. Trump deleted a shorter version. His longer post appeared to refer to an earlier insinuation by Mr. Trump that Mr. DeSantis — who is married to a woman — was inappropriately involved with students when he was a teacher in his early 20s.Mr. DeSantis made his remarks after facing extensive pressure on social media by some of Mr. Trump’s top advisers and key allies, suggesting that the governor needed to choose a side. Several prominent Republicans had already spoken out in Mr. Trump’s defense, including both some of his rivals and top congressional allies.Mr. DeSantis is Mr. Trump’s closest rival for the Republican presidential nomination in every public poll of the nascent 2024 race. He has not announced a campaign, but is expected to do so in a few months, after focusing on Florida’s legislative session as an opportunity to burnish his conservative credentials.Mr. DeSantis has faced mounting attacks from Mr. Trump and his team, with Mr. Trump sampling different nicknames for his rival and the former president’s advisers seeking to portray Mr. DeSantis as disingenuous. But the Florida governor has had a strict policy of declining to engage.Even as he commented on Mr. Trump’s legal situation, Mr. DeSantis painted himself as above the fray.“We’ve got so many things pending in front of the Legislature,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters. “I’ve got to spend my time on issues that actually matter to people. I can’t spend my time worrying about things” like Mr. Trump’s situation.That Mr. DeSantis seemed to minimize Mr. Trump’s situation — he is potentially the first U.S. president, current or former, to be indicted — stood out to Mr. Trump’s camp.“So DeSantis thinks that Dems weaponizing the law to indict President Trump is a ‘manufactured circus; & isn’t a ‘real issue,’” Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. wrote on Twitter. “Pure weakness. Now we know why he was silent all weekend. He’s totally owned by Karl Rove, Paul Ryan & his billionaire donors. 100% Controlled Opposition.”It remains to be seen how much outrage the elder Mr. Trump will summon among his core voters, who have repeatedly backed him through times of political peril. Some Republicans — who declined to speak on the record — said privately that Mr. Trump might be testing the resolve of those who have defended him through past controversies.On Twitter, however, his most ardent defenders have been depicting the situation as a clear line in the sand. More