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      At CPAC, Trump Misleads About Biden, a Russian Pipeline and Gas Prices

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      The former president made inaccurate claims about his border wall, the Biden administration and a Russian pipeline, among other topics.Former President Donald J. Trump repeated familiar boasts and grievances in a keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.Mr. Trump repeatedly invoked the lie that the 2020 election was “rigged” and mounted exaggerated attacks on President Biden. Even as he condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an “atrocity” and praised the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a “brave man,” he repeated his misleading claim that the Obama administration had merely provided Ukraine with “blankets.”Here’s a fact-check.What Mr. Trump Said“The wall will be quickly completed. We’ll build the wall and complete the wall in three weeks. It took two and half years on the wall, two and half years just to win all the litigation, over 11 lawsuits that they threw at us. And we have it just about finished, and I said they can’t be serious. They don’t want to close up the little loops.”False. During his campaign in 2016, Mr. Trump promised to construct a 1,000-mile-long border wall that would be paid for by Mexico. By the time he left office, his administration had constructed 453 miles of border wall, most of which replaced or reinforced existing barriers. In places where no barriers previously existed, the administration built a total of 47 miles of new primary wall.Mr. Trump’s vow that he would have been able to complete the wall within three weeks also does not track with the initial construction pace. Construction of replacement barriers in Calexico, Calif., began in February 2018, the first border wall project under Mr. Trump. Construction of the first new section of wall in the Rio Grande Valley began in November 2019. That amounts to 12.9 miles of replacement wall and 3.3 miles of new wall per month.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.What Mr. Trump Said“Just one year ago, we had the most secure border in U.S. history, record low gas prices.”False. When Mr. Trump left office in January 2021, the national average price of a gallon of gasoline for that month was $2.42. That is not a record low. Gas prices fell to $2.21 in January 2015 under former President Barack Obama, $1.13 under former President George W. Bush and $0.96 under former President Bill Clinton.What Mr. Trump Said“I’m the one who ended his pipeline. He said you’re killing me with the pipeline. Nobody else ended his pipeline. Biden came in. He approved it.”This is misleading. Mr. Trump was referring to the status of a natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany under his administration and that of President Biden. In fact, American presidents — and most European countries other than Germany and France — have consistently opposed the project, but they have limited say in whether the pipeline is built.Mr. Trump signed a law imposing sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in December 2019, prompting a suspension in construction. But by then, most of the pipeline had already been built, with 2,100 kilometers laid and 300 kilometers remaining. Construction resumed a year later in 2020.The current White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, described Nord Stream 2 as a “bad deal” that divides Europe and leaves Ukraine and Central Europe vulnerable to Russian manipulation. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the Biden administration’s opposition was “unwavering.”But the State Department nonetheless lifted sanctions on the company building the pipeline in May 2021. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, this might be because “the administration’s ability to prevent the pipeline from becoming operational is limited” while sanctions “could jeopardize U.S.-German and U.S.-European cooperation in other areas, including countering Russian aggression.”Mr. Biden issued new sanctions on the pipeline this week after Germany announced that it would suspend the certification of the pipeline in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.What Mr. Trump Said“The reason we’ve got soaring gas prices is because Biden has shut down American energy, canceled our oil and gas leases just two days ago. Two days ago, they canceled many oil and gas leases because of the environment.”This is misleading. The Biden administration indefinitely halted new federal oil and gas leases and permits in response to a court ruling. It did not revoke existing leases. A federal judge had blocked the way the administration was calculating the cost of climate change, leading the administration to pause regulatory decisions that relied on the metric. More

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      How Lopsided New District Lines Deepen the U.S. Partisan Divide

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      THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Representative Dan Crenshaw was tagged as a rising Republican star almost from the moment of his first victory: A conservative, Harvard-educated, ex-Navy SEAL who lost his right eye in Afghanistan, he bucked the 2018 suburban revolt against Donald J. Trump to win a House seat in the Houston suburbs.Mr. Crenshaw won again in 2020, handily, even as Mr. Trump carried his district by only a whisper.But this year, Mr. Crenshaw’s seat has been transformed by redistricting. More liberal enclaves, like the nightlife-rich neighborhoods near Rice University, were swapped out for conservative strongholds like The Woodlands, a master-planned community of more than 100,000 that is north of the city.The result: Mr. Trump would have carried the new seat in a landslide.The new lines mean Mr. Crenshaw now has a vanishingly slim chance of losing to a Democrat in the next decade. The only political threat would have to come from the far right — which, as it happens, is already agitating against him.All across the nation, political mapmakers have erected similarly impenetrable partisan fortresses through the once-in-a-decade redrawing of America’s congressional lines. Texas, which holds the nation’s first primaries on Tuesday, is an especially extreme example of how competition between the two parties has been systemically erased. Nearly 90 percent of the next House could be occupied by lawmakers who, like Mr. Crenshaw, face almost no threat of losing a general election, a precipitous drop that dramatically changes the political incentives and pressures they confront.“What the future of the Republican Party should be is people who can make better arguments than the left,” Mr. Crenshaw said in an interview. Yet in his new district, he will only need to make arguments to voters on the right, and the farther right.When primaries are the only campaigns that count, candidates are often punished for compromise. The already polarized parties are pulled even farther apart. Governance becomes harder.The dynamic can be seen playing out vividly in and around Mr. Crenshaw’s district. He appears in no imminent political danger. He faces underfunded opposition in Tuesday’s primary, out-raising rivals by more than 100 to one.But his repeated rebuke of those who have spread the falsehood that Mr. Trump won the 2020 election — fellow Republicans whom he has called “performance artists” and “grifters” capitalizing on “lie after lie after lie” — have made him a target of what he derisively termed “the cancel culture of the right.”“They view me as a threat because I don’t really toe the line,” Mr. Crenshaw said.He has especially sparred with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, who, in the kind of political coincidence that is rarely an accident, found herself at a recent rally in Mr. Crenshaw’s district, declaring, “It is time to embrace the civil war in the G.O.P.”Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, with supporters after a rally in The Woodlands, Texas.Annie Mulligan for The New York Times“I oftentimes argue with someone you might know named Dan Crenshaw,” she later said, his name drawing boos. “I sure do not like people calling themself a conservative when all they really are is a performance artist themself.”What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: A North Carolina court’s ruling to reject a G.O.P.-drawn map and substitute its own version further cemented the rising importance of state courts in redistricting fights.In 2020, Texas was the epicenter of the battle for control of the House, with a dozen suburban seats around Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio all in play.In 2022, zero Texas Republicans are left defending particularly competitive seats. They were all turned safely, deeply red.“Not having competitive elections is not good for democracy,” said Representative Lizzie Fletcher, a moderate Democrat whose Houston-area district was also overhauled. To solidify neighboring G.O.P. seats, Republican mapmakers stuffed a surplus of Democratic voters — including from the old Crenshaw seat — into her district, the Texas 7th.That seat has a long Republican lineage. George H.W. Bush once occupied it. Under the new lines, the district voted like Massachusetts in the presidential election.For Ms. Fletcher, that means any future challenges are likely to come from the left. The political middle that helped her beat a Republican incumbent in 2018 is, suddenly, less relevant. “There is a huge risk,” she said, “that people will feel like it doesn’t matter whether they show up.”A proxy fight next doorPhill Cady is showing up. He is one of Mr. Crenshaw’s new constituents, an unvaccinated former airline pilot from Conroe who takes a weekly dose of hydroxychloroquine, the Trump-promoted anti-malaria drug that medical experts have warned against, to fend off Covid.Mr. Cady was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the election results. (He said he didn’t enter the building.) He said Mr. Crenshaw’s acceptance of Mr. Trump’s defeat showed he had “lost his way,” and that Mr. Crenshaw should have helped those facing riot-related charges: “Why hasn’t he fought for the Texans to get out of jail?”Or, as Milam Langella, one of Mr. Crenshaw’s long-shot primary challengers, described the distance between the incumbent and his constituents: “The district is now blood red and he is not.”With Mr. Crenshaw facing only scattershot opposition, it was the neighboring open race to replace the retiring Representative Kevin Brady, a business-friendly Republican, that technically drew Ms. Greene to Texas.On one side is Christian Collins, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz, who is vowing to join the so-called MAGA wing in the House. He is backed by the political arm of the House Freedom Caucus, the party’s hard-line faction.Supporters of Christian Collins, a congressional candidate, at a Feb. 19 rally in The Woodlands, Texas. Redrawn maps mean more candidates are running in safe districts for their parties.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesOn the other side is Morgan Luttrell, a former member of the Navy SEALs who is backed by Mr. Crenshaw and a super PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader.The contest is the first primary of 2022 that the McCarthy-aligned PAC has intervened in, as some McCarthy allies privately worry that the glut of new, deep-red Republican seats could complicate his speakership bid and governance of the House, should Republicans win a majority.“Does this create incentives to avoid governing? It clearly — clearly, that’s the case,” Mr. Crenshaw said. But he said it is hard to discern the impact of those incentives versus others, like social media amplifying outrage and the increasing sorting of Americans into tribes.There was tension in how Mr. Crenshaw described who holds the real power in the party, at once dismissing the far right as a fringe nuisance that only seeks to “monetize” division, while also saying traditional power brokers like congressional leaders are no longer the real political establishment either.“They’re trying to hang on by a thread,” Mr. Crenshaw said of Mr. McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. “They’re trying to wrangle cats.”The Collins-Luttrell race has become something of a proxy fight over Mr. Crenshaw.Morgan Luttrell speaking with a supporter in Conroe, Texas, in a congressional race exemplifying internal party fights in safe districts.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesA pro-Collins super PAC used Mr. Crenshaw’s name in an anti-Luttrell billboard along Interstate 45. In a debate, Mr. Collins attacked Mr. Luttrell by saying he had been “endorsed by Dan Crenshaw — I think that name speaks for itself.” At the Collins rally, speaker after speaker called Mr. Crenshaw a R.I.N.O. — a Republican in Name Only.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Will Trump’s Nod Be Enough for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton?

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      Attorney General Ken Paxton is likely to end up in a runoff after the Republican primary on March 1. But it remains uncertain who among his big-name challengers will join him there.MIDLAND, Texas — The litany of political vulnerabilities facing the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, would appear to seriously imperil his bid for a third term.There is the indictment in state court for securities fraud. Accusations of bribery and corruption. Senior aides turned whistle-blowers. An ongoing federal investigation.Altogether, it has been enough to attract primary challenges from three heavy hitters in Texas Republican politics: George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and grandson of former President George H.W. Bush; Representative Louie Gohmert, the outspoken East Texas congressman; and Eva Guzman, a former Texas Supreme Court justice.But whether Mr. Paxton can survive the Republican primary may be the biggest test yet of the power still wielded with voters by an even better-known name: Donald J. Trump.Mr. Paxton has positioned himself as the most aligned with Mr. Trump in a field of opponents eager to claim closeness with the former president. The Texas attorney general unsuccessfully sued to overturn the results of the 2020 election in several states and spoke at Mr. Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.For his efforts, Mr. Paxton garnered Mr. Trump’s endorsement last year, and he had a speaking role at Mr. Trump’s massive rally of Republicans last month north of Houston.“An attorney general who has really led the way, somebody who has been brave and strong: Ken Paxton,” Mr. Trump effused during the rally at the Montgomery County fairgrounds. “Ken, brave and strong. And popular.”Well, not that popular.While polling better than any of his opponents, Mr. Paxton is facing the increasingly likely prospect of ending up in a runoff after the primary election on Tuesday. He has been below the 50 percent threshold in recent public polls, and his campaign is already preparing for another contest.Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general,  during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas last year.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesThat has left the three challengers scrambling for second place. They have been crisscrossing the state, appearing in Republican forums and debates hosted by local party groups. A common theme has been that Mr. Paxton is so embattled he could actually lose to a Democrat in November — a shudder-inducing prospect for Texas Republicans, who have not lost a statewide race since 1994.“When you look at folks like A.O.C., for example, who come to Texas and say Texas is about to turn blue — well, she’s right if we nominate the wrong people as a party,” said Mr. Bush in an interview, referring to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Switching Parties: Democrats have long held local offices in a small West Texas town. Then top officials decided to leave the party.Politics of Abortion: The fight over abortion rights is changing the political fabric of South Texas, long a Democratic stronghold.Effect of New Voting Law: The law, which Republicans said would make it “easy to vote, hard to cheat,” has led to a jump in rejections of absentee ballot applications.The race for attorney general has become a referendum on the future of the Republican Party in Texas, with various power centers — the remnants of the Bush political dynasty in Texas, the tort reform business elite, the ascendant Trump-without-Trump wing — lining up in different corners.In the waning days of the campaign, attacks have flown freely. Mr. Paxton has traded barbs with Mr. Gohmert. Mr. Bush and Ms. Guzman have gone after each other. But many voters, even those dedicated enough to show up at candidate forums, are only glancingly familiar with the challengers. And accusations against Mr. Paxton are not a new development; he has weathered them for years.Mr. Paxton, who declined an interview request, has been facing state charges of felony securities fraud since 2015, stemming from his time as a member of the Texas House during which, prosecutors have said, he directed investments to a firm without disclosing he would be compensated for doing so. Mr. Paxton has denied the charges and said the prosecution was politically motivated, and successfully delayed the trial amid procedural wrangling over where it should take place.He was re-elected in 2018 by less than 4 percentage points, a narrow margin in a Texas general election.Voters at a forum featuring gubernatorial and attorney general candidates in Midland, Texas.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThen, in 2020, several of Mr. Paxton’s top aides — high-ranking lawyers in the attorney general’s office with conservative credentials — accused him of bribery and abuse of power in connection with his actions on behalf of a real estate developer and campaign donor. Some of the officials, who have since been fired or resigned, have said the developer, Nate Paul, also hired a woman recommended to him by Mr. Paxton.Last week, four of the former officials, who filed a whistle-blower suit against Mr. Paxton over their firing, said the attorney general had been lying about their allegations as he campaigns for re-election.A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Both Mr. Paul and Mr. Paxton have denied any wrongdoing.Even with the swirl of accusations, Mr. Paxton has not been as weak a candidate as some in Texas political circles thought he would be.“People thought that Paxton would be vulnerable,” said Nathan McDaniel, a Republican political strategist based in Austin. “But what I see voters want is a fighter, someone who is going to sue Google or the Biden administration” as Mr. Paxton has done, repeatedly in the case of President Biden. In recent days, Mr. Paxton also took aim at the parents of transgender adolescents, issuing a formal opinion that certain medical treatments should be investigated as child abuse.“I don’t think personal woes matter as much to the electorate as you might think they do,” Mr. McDaniel said. “Now, if he’s in prison, that’s a whole different thing. But is that going to happen? I don’t think so.”In an interview, Mr. Gohmert predicted that Mr. Paxton would face corruption charges in federal court soon after the primary, leaving Republicans without a chance to replace him before the November general election if he were to win the primary.In response, Mr. Paxton’s campaign sent a statement from the attorney general attacking Mr. Gohmert for “clearly relying on lies, scare tactics and intimidation to win.”U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert greeting voters after a candidate forum.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesPolitical strategists said Mr. Gohmert represents the biggest threat to Mr. Paxton’s base of conservative support. Mr. Gohmert entered the race later than the other candidates, in November, but he has already attracted negative campaign mailers, Facebook ads and a television spot from Mr. Paxton.Mr. Gohmert also has had a friendly relationship with Mr. Trump and was the only other person running for attorney general whom Mr. Trump spoke fondly of during the rally last month.“Louie Gohmert, what a wonderful guy,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, acknowledging Mr. Gohmert among the elected officials there. “This is a man who has been a friend of mine from day one.”Mr. Bush, who tried hard to get Mr. Trump’s endorsement, did not attend the event because of a scheduling conflict, his campaign said.“I definitely wanted that endorsement along with the support of his supporters. That’s why I continue to reach out to not only his followers but also to those who advise him here in Texas,” Mr. Bush said in the interview, adding of Mr. Trump: “I think he made a mistake on this race.”Ms. Guzman, for her part, has been running a targeted campaign, seeking to peel off voters in unexpected places.“I have seen an Eva Guzman commercial during ‘Jeopardy!’ for the last week or two,” said Mari Woodlief, a Dallas-based political consultant. “‘Jeopardy!’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune’ are two of the best kept secrets in politics because their audience is almost all 60-plus and they’re voters.”At a campaign forum this month, the three battled before a staunchly conservative audience in a theater on the oil-rich plains of West Texas between Midland and Odessa. Each vowed to take a harder line than Mr. Paxton on the border, on crime and on allegations of fraud in Texas elections.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe hourlong debate began with Mr. Gohmert attacking Mr. Paxton for not doing more to investigate allegations of fraud in 2020 and ended with Mr. Bush vowing to fight liberal Democrats who “infest our local governments.” Along the way, Ms. Guzman held the crowd rapt with the story of her father’s killing “by an illegal immigrant” when she was 26.In an interview before the gathering, Ms. Guzman said the experience of seeing her father “covered in a yellow tarp” underscored for her how “these lawless borders are not victimless.” She said her experience on the bench made her better prepared for the job than any of her opponents.Ms. Guzman, who has the financial backing of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a perennial power player in Republican politics, downplayed Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Paxton. “Texans want to choose for themselves,” she said.After the debate in the lobby of the theater, Roger Barnhart, 74, of Odessa and his son said they still had not decided who they would vote for.“I like Gohmert the most,” said Mr. Barnhart, adding that he was also impressed by Ms. Guzman.“A long time ago it used to be good to have the last name Bush out here — not anymore,” added his son, Dax Barnhart, 47, who works with his father in the hardware business.Though he had yet to make up his mind, the elder Mr. Barnhart came away with one solid impression of the candidates: “Any of them would be better than Paxton.” More

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      Courting G.O.P.’s Mainstream and Extreme, McCarthy Plots Rise to Speaker

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      The top House Republican is attempting a series of political contortions to try to secure his place in a party that has shifted under his feet.WASHINGTON — Over a breakfast of bacon and eggs in his California district last week, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, tried to calm the nerves of a small group of longtime donors who raised questions about the extremists in his conference.Some of the lawmakers’ comments and views may seem outrageous, he told the donors gathered at a restaurant overlooking a golf course. But on visits to congressional districts, he said, it was clear to him that the right-wing lawmakers were merely doing what the voters who sent them to Washington wanted.Hours later, Mr. McCarthy did what the fringe wanted: He endorsed the woman running in Wyoming’s Republican primary to oust the far right’s archnemesis, Representative Liz Cheney, a former member of his leadership team who has earned pariah status in her party by speaking out against former President Donald J. Trump and the deadly attack on the Capitol that he helped inspire with lies of a stolen election.The day exemplified the tightrope Mr. McCarthy is walking as he plots a path to become the next speaker of the House. Even as he courts the mainstream elements of his party, he has defended Republicans who have called the Jan. 6 riot a righteous cause. And he sided against a member of his own conference in throwing his support behind the Wyoming primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, whose central message is that Ms. Cheney should be ousted for breaking with Mr. Trump and daring to investigate the most brutal attack on the Capitol in centuries.Mr. McCarthy has endorsed Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Representative Liz Cheney in Wyoming.Kim Raff for The New York TimesIf Republicans win the majority this fall, Mr. McCarthy will need the support of the whole party, including the big donors who fund it, a dwindling number of center-right traditionalists and a larger group of quiet conservatives.But he will also need the smaller but more powerful faction of extremist members who are aligned with Mr. Trump and want to define their party in his image. They are skeptical of the brand of mainstream Republicanism that propelled Mr. McCarthy’s rise; some are openly hostile to it.So Mr. McCarthy has been engaging in a series of political contortions to try to secure a foothold in a party that has shifted under his feet, catering to a group that may ultimately be his undoing. In doing so, he has both empowered the hard-right fringe and tethered his fate to it, helping to solidify its dominance in today’s Republican Party.“There was probably a time when it made sense to have someone like Kevin McCarthy, but we need new leadership in the House,” said Joe Kent, a square-jawed former Special Forces officer who is trying to unseat Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler in Washington, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump after the Capitol attack. “He’s used to a different era.”He added, “Our job is to obstruct and impeach, not to cut any deals.”One Republican House member who backs Mr. McCarthy, who insisted on anonymity to discuss his predicament candidly without fear of a backlash from colleagues or constituents, said that as hard as Mr. McCarthy was working to maintain control, some in the party were so extreme that his position had become all but untenable.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Last week, the former Fox Business personality Lou Dobbs, who carries sway with Mr. Trump, was musing on a podcast with one of the right’s most pro-Trump voices, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, that Mr. McCarthy was a “RINO” — one of the former president’s favorite insults for people he considers to be “Republican in name only” — who had no business being speaker.Mr. McCarthy has been trying to influence former President Donald J. Trump on which candidates to support in the midterm elections, with limited effect. Doug Mills/The New York Times“The party needs strength,” Mr. Dobbs told Mr. Gaetz, who is under federal investigation for possible sex trafficking of a minor. “It needs vision. It needs energy, vibrancy and new blood in leadership. It’s that simple.”With his political future in many ways out of his hands, Mr. McCarthy is leaving little to chance. His sunny disposition, prodigious fund-raising and ability to remember the names of the children of every House Republican are well known among his colleagues. And he has toiled to transform himself from a glad-handing, business-backed Republican from Bakersfield, Calif., into a credible leader of House’s far right, even as he assures donors that he remains an ally who knows how to navigate a debt ceiling increase and bills to fund the government.Still, he faces unique troubles, including the prospect that he could face a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, which regards him as a crucial witness because of his conversations with Mr. Trump during and after the riot. He has been consulting with William A. Burck, a prominent Washington lawyer, about how to navigate the investigation.For now, Mr. McCarthy is spending ample time trying to influence Mr. Trump. He speaks to or visits the former president about every other week, most of the time with his top political aide, Brian Jack, who served as the White House political director under Mr. Trump.Current and former aides to Mr. Trump describe Mr. McCarthy’s relationship with the former president as cordial but lacking in any loyalty. They are not in lock step on which candidates to support in the midterm elections, and Mr. McCarthy knows he ultimately has limited influence over Mr. Trump’s endorsements. That has not stopped the House leader from trying.For instance, he sought to persuade Mr. Trump to stay out of Representative Rodney Davis’s re-election race in Illinois. Instead, the former president heeded the advice of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to endorse Representative Mary Miller, who was thrown into the same district as Mr. Davis by the state’s Democratic gerrymander. Ms. Miller made an approving reference to Hitler at a rally last year in Washington.Mr. McCarthy has had more success privately urging Mr. Trump not to get involved in the re-election campaign of Representative David Valadao of California, who voted for Mr. Trump’s impeachment. Mr. Valadao represents the most heavily Democratic district held by any Republican in Congress, Mr. McCarthy has explained to Mr. Trump, so endorsing a more conservative candidate could cost the party the seat.So far, Mr. Trump has remained silent. But his aides said that is likely driven as much by the fact that no serious challenge has emerged as it is by the persuasiveness of Mr. McCarthy’s case.There was a time when Mr. McCarthy appeared to be ready to break more decisively with the former president. In the immediate wake of the Jan. 6 assault, he called for Mr. Trump to be censured, stating on the House floor that he “bears responsibility” for the riot. He also called for an independent investigation of what had happened.But later, Mr. McCarthy visited the former president at his Florida resort to make amends and enlist his help in the midterm elections, and then he fought the creation of an inquiry at every turn.Mr. McCarthy defended the Republican National Committee after it passed a resolution to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, right.Al Drago for The New York TimesLast month, he defended the Republican National Committee after it passed a resolution to censure Ms. Cheney and the other Republican member of the Jan. 6 committee, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; the resolution said they were involved in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” In contrast, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, castigated the party.In private talks to donors, Mr. McCarthy often does not mention Mr. Trump as he makes his aggressive pitch about the coming “red wave” and what Republicans would do should they reclaim the majority.But he is often asked whether Mr. Trump intends to run for president.Mr. McCarthy has told donors that Mr. Trump has not yet made up his mind and that he has advised the former president to see whether President Biden runs for re-election. Mr. McCarthy also often mentions former House members who he said could make for serious presidential contenders, including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.On Capitol Hill, Mr. McCarthy’s basic problem comes down to math. Leadership positions in the House can be secured with a majority vote from the members of each party. But the speaker is a constitutional official elected by the whole House and therefore must win a majority — at least 218 votes.In 2015, after the most conservative House members drove the speaker, John A. Boehner, into retirement, Mr. McCarthy, then the No. 2 Republican, was the heir apparent — and he blew it. His biggest public offense was a television appearance in which he blurted out that the House had created a special committee to investigate the attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, expressly to diminish Hillary Clinton’s approval ratings.“I said multiple times at the time, we need a speaker who can speak,” recalled former Representative Jason Chaffetz, who challenged Mr. McCarthy for the speakership after the gaffe.Ultimately, Republicans recruited Paul D. Ryan, the Ways and Means Committee chairman and former vice-presidential nominee, for the job.Republicans who were around then believe Mr. McCarthy has learned his lesson.“He’s come of age professionally on the math of 218,” said Eric Cantor, a former House majority leader who lost re-election to a primary challenger from the party’s right flank. “He has been schooled in that for many years now.”Republican leaders are predicting an overwhelming sweep in November’s midterm elections that would give Mr. McCarthy a majority large enough to allow him to shed a few votes and still win, but others in the party are not so sure. The redistricting process has allowed both parties to shore up their incumbents, leaving only a few dozen truly competitive districts. Republicans are still favored to win the majority, but the margin could be slim. Brendan Buck, a former adviser to two House speakers, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Boehner, said Mr. McCarthy would likely be meticulously shoring up his position.“He has a system in place that is on top of every member, knowing where they are, how firm their support is for him, and they are working on the members where it’s not strong enough,” he said. “This is not something you just hope works out.”Mr. McCarthy has deflected a potential challenge from Representative Jim Jordan, who remains closer to Mr. Trump.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIt appears that Mr. McCarthy has deflected a potential challenge from Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who remains closer to Mr. Trump, by successfully pushing for him to become the top Republican on the powerful Judiciary Committee. Mr. McCarthy shows up at meetings of the House Freedom Caucus, the far-right group that is most closely aligned with the former president.Past tensions with Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican whip and a potential challenger, have for the most part been defused.“I didn’t know him at all before, and I didn’t take it personally,” Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, Mr. Trump’s former White House physician, said of Mr. McCarthy, who did not support him in his 2020 primary. “I think he’s earned an opportunity to lead the conference.”More moderate members also expressed confidence in him.“Leader McCarthy is very astute, sharp and savvy,” said Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan, another of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump. “He has been able to not focus on the differences but find where we can come together on policy choices.”Yet some Republicans say it can be difficult to discern what principles guide Mr. McCarthy. This month, under pressure from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he and his leadership team recommended that Republicans vote against a bill abolishing mandatory arbitration in sexual abuse cases, circulating emails noting that Mr. Jordan, the ranking member of the committee that considered it, was opposed.But when it came to a vote, Mr. McCarthy hung back on the House floor, waiting to register a position until he saw that the bill was passing with overwhelming bipartisan support. At that point, he voted “yes,” leaving some Republicans surprised that he had broken with his own party line. More

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      How Donald Trump Captured the Republican Party

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      INSURGENCYHow Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever WantedBy Jeremy W. PetersWhen Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on the morning of June 16, 2015, there was little indication the event would alter American political history. Pundits dismissed Trump’s chances. He was polling at 4 percent; the head of Fox News, Roger Ailes, suggested Trump was really seeking a job at NBC, not the White House.But Trump did make an impression on Steve Bannon, a voluble conservative activist plotting his own takeover of the Republican Party. Watching the reality-television star deliver remarks from the Trump Tower food court to a crowd that allegedly included actors who had been paid $50 to hold signs and cheer, Bannon couldn’t contain himself. “That’s Hitler!” Bannon said. And, as Jeremy W. Peters writes in this spirited new history, “he meant it as a compliment.”“Insurgency” chronicles the astonishingly swift transformation of the Republican Party, from the genteel preserve of pro-business elites to a snarling personality cult that views the Jan. 6 insurrection as an exercise in legitimate political discourse. Peters, a political reporter for The New York Times, depicts mainstream Republicans’ surrender to Trumpism as a form of political self-flagellation. From 1969 to 2008, Republicans occupied the White House for all but 12 years. And yet “one of the more peculiar features of American conservatism is that despite decades of Republican rule, many true believers grew embittered and resentful of their party. They thought it was run by weak-willed leaders who compromised and sold out once they got in power.”The outlines of the Republicans’ hard-right turn are by now largely familiar. What distinguishes “Insurgency” is its blend of political acuity and behind-the-scenes intrigue. Much of the book’s opening material revolves around the first national figure to channel the base’s anger: the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who might have forestalled Trump’s rise had she chosen to run for president in 2012. Trump was sufficiently concerned about Palin’s potential to claim the title of populist standard-bearer that he invited her to Trump Tower in 2011 “to size her up in person.” He concluded that while she had “tremendous political appeal, she didn’t know what to do about it.”Trump, of course, did. Peters is a fluid and engaging writer, and as the narrative of “Insurgency” unfolds and Trump inevitably, irresistibly, assumes center stage, you almost can’t help admiring — as Bannon did — the candidate’s raw, demagogic genius: “Devoid of empathy, incapable of humility and unfamiliar with what it means to suffer consequences, he behaved and spoke in ways most would never dare.” In one luridly fascinating section, Peters details how Trump defused the furor over the “Access Hollywood” tape by ambushing Hillary Clinton with her husband’s accusers at the second presidential debate in St. Louis. The stunt came about thanks to a “norm-shattering” partnership between the Trump campaign and Aaron Klein, a 36-year-old reporter for Bannon’s website, Breitbart News, who tracked down the women and cajoled them into attending.“In the history of modern presidential politics, no candidate had pulled off such a ruthless act of vengeance in public,” Peters writes. “It changed the game, proving to Trump and his allies that there was nothing off-limits anymore.” So pivotal was Klein’s role in Trump’s upset victory that Jared Kushner later told him, “My father-in-law wouldn’t be president without you.”Anecdotes like these make “Insurgency” worth reading, though it’s harder to say who would want to. The book contains too many examples of Trump’s manifest flaws to appeal to MAGA true believers, but not enough revelations of outright criminality to satisfy veterans of the #resistance. With the specter of a 2024 Trump candidacy looming, the rest of us could use a break while we can still get one. “He just dominates every day,” Bannon told Trump’s advisers in 2020, warning of voters’ exhaustion with the president. “It’s like a nightmare. You’ll do anything to get rid of it.” Easier said than done. More

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      How Redistricting Made Park Slope and Staten Island Into an Unlikely Pair

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      New congressional maps that merge conservative Staten Island with liberal Park Slope will aid Democratic efforts to win a Republican-held House seat in New York.At The Original Goodfella’s, a well-known Staten Island pizzeria where photographs of Republican politicians are prominently displayed, the news sank in painfully: This borough, a rare conservative outpost of New York City, was being tossed into a congressional district with the liberal residents of Park Slope, Brooklyn.“Park Slope is more of a younger crowd with yuppies, hipsters,” said Carlo D’Angelo, 28, a Trump supporter who, when asked about who won the 2020 presidential election, said, “Only the man in the sky, only God, knows.”Staten Island was more “family-oriented and traditional,” he added, speaking near a framed display of a fork that ex-mayor Bill de Blasio, a Park Slope resident, scandalously used to eat pizza. “It’s two different, completely different, viewpoints.”The feeling was mutual outside the Park Slope Food Coop, the famously liberal Brooklyn grocery where social consciousness pervades every aisle, in a neighborhood that is home to many left-leaning families. Pamela Plunkett, 57, stood nearby, across the street from a meditation center, as she questioned how the wildly divergent politics and needs of residents in the new district would work.“I hate to say it, they’re one of the five boroughs, but it’s almost like they’re an outlier,” she said of Staten Island, noting differences in attitudes around issues including politics and the pandemic. “That’s why I’m worried about being grouped in with them.”The once-in-a-decade redistricting effort has created unusual congressional district lines all over the country, reflecting a partisan process embraced by Republicans and Democrats alike. But perhaps no other district in New York City contains constituencies so clearly in opposition to each other as the reconstituted 11th, whose new lines are expected to better position the Democratic Party to seize a seat now held by Representative Nicole Malliotakis, the lone Republican in the New York City delegation. Max Rose, a Democrat, is hoping that the inclusion of Park Slope, Brooklyn, in the 11th Congressional District will aid his chances of regaining his seat.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesOn Staten Island, the occasional “Thin Blue Line” flag in support of law enforcement flutters in spacious front yards of single-family homes, while in dense brownstone Brooklyn, “Black Lives Matter” signs have often dotted windows, reflecting national debates over both crime and police brutality. Voters on either side of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge are often vocal about their political identities — but many liberal Brooklynites joined marches to protest the Trump presidency, while conservative Staten Islanders embraced him early, even with other Republicans in the running in 2016.“They put two communities together that have literally nothing in common other than they happen to all live in the same city,” said City Councilman David Carr, a Staten Island Republican. “In terms of values, in terms of interests, they couldn’t be further apart. And they’ve created a district that’s going to be permanently at war with itself.”The new lines reflect an aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional districts led by Democratic lawmakers, creating clearer opportunities to flip several House seats in this year’s midterm campaigns, as Democrats strain to maintain their congressional majority in a difficult political environment.What to Know About Redistricting and GerrymanderingRedistricting, Explained: Answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: State supreme courts in North Carolina and Ohio struck down maps drawn by Republicans, while the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily restored Alabama’s map.Before redistricting, the district was anchored in Staten Island and included parts of more conservative southern Brooklyn enclaves. Under the new lines, the district sweeps into many neighborhoods that are home to wealthy liberal voters and younger left-wing activists — though neither part of the district is monolithic: There are Staten Island Democrats and some Brooklyn conservatives, especially in the Bay Ridge area.In 2020, the district supported Mr. Trump by about 10 percentage points. If the new district lines were in place for the 2020 election, the district would have backed President Biden by roughly the same margin, according to data compiled by the City University of New York.Ms. Malliotakis said the new lines seemed aimed at “silencing the voices of the current district, and tilting the scale to give whoever the Democratic nominee is an advantage.”Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican, defeated the Democratic incumbent, Max Rose, in New York’s 11th Congressional District in 2020.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe Staten Island Republican Party dubbed redistricting plans “cancel culture,” an effort to “subvert the voices of Staten Islanders by tying our borough to de Blasio’s Park Slope.”Democrats have defended the congressional maps as fair, while Republicans have filed a lawsuit, which may face an uphill battle.“Had we sought out people that voted the same way in order to keep them together, that would have been the definition of illegal gerrymandering,” said State Senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat and leader of a task force that drew the lines. “Maybe at the end of the day, this will have the effect of bringing people together,” he said.That will be exceedingly difficult in the 11th, should the lines hold.But whatever the evident governing difficulties, a fierce battle is unfolding to represent the district as Ms. Malliotakis, who has tied herself closely to Mr. Trump and voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election, runs for re-election. She also broke with her party to vote for the infrastructure bill.While candidates in many races face difficult balancing acts between appealing to the most die-hard partisans in a primary and achieving broader appeal in a general election, those tensions will be thrown into sharp relief in the 11th District.“It certainly gives the Democratic nominee a very good chance,” said John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of CUNY, of the new district lines. “But that’s going to take a Democratic nominee who can appeal to the more conservative Democrats on Staten Island.”How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      How the Fight Over Abortion Rights Has Changed the Politics of South Texas

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      In the Laredo region, long a Democratic stronghold, that single issue appears to be driving the decision for many voters, the majority of whom are Catholic.LAREDO, Texas — Like the majority of her neighbors in the heavily Latino community of Laredo, Angelica Garza has voted for Democrats for most of her adult life. Her longtime congressman, Henry Cuellar, with his moderate views and opposition to abortion, made it an easy choice, she said.But as up-and-coming Democratic candidates in her patch of South Texas have leaned ever more liberal, Ms. Garza, a dedicated Catholic, cast a ballot for Donald Trump in 2016, primarily because of his anti-abortion views.In choosing Mr. Trump that year and again in 2020, Ms. Garza joined a parade of Latino voters who are changing the political fabric of South Texas. In the Laredo region, where about nine out of 10 residents are Catholic, many registered voters appear to be driven largely by the single issue of abortion.“I’m willing to vote for any candidate that supports life,” said Ms. Garza, 75. “That’s the most important issue for me, even if it means not voting for a Democrat.”With a pivotal primary election just a week away, Ms. Garza is ready to to turn away from Democrats. Pointing at a wall covered in folkloric angel figurines at the art store she owns in Laredo, she explained why: “They are babies, angels, and I don’t think anyone has the right to end their life. We have to support life.”Angelica Garza voted for Donald Trump in 2016 because of his anti-abortion views.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesVoters like Ms. Garza are worrying Democratic leaders, whose once tight grip and influence on the Texas-Mexico border region has loosened in recent electoral cycles. Republicans have claimed significant victories across South Texas, flipping Zapata County, south of Laredo on the bank of the Rio Grande, and a state district in San Antonio. They also made gains in the Rio Grande Valley, where the border counties delivered so many votes for Mr. Trump in 2020 that they helped negate the impact of white voters in urban and suburban areas of the state who voted for Joe Biden.Much is at stake in Laredo, the most populous city of the 28th Congressional District, where Latinos are a majority, and which stretches from the eastern tip of San Antonio and includes a western chunk of the Rio Grande Valley. Since the district was drawn nearly three decades ago, the seat has been held by Democrats. Mr. Cuellar has represented the district since 2005. His moderate and sometimes conservative views — he was the only Congressional Democrat to vote against a U.S. House bill that would have nullified the state’s near-total ban on abortion that went into effect last September — have frequently endeared him to social conservatives and Republicans.But he now finds himself locked in a tight fight against a much more liberal candidate backed by the progressive wing of the party that includes Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Cuellar, whose home was raided last month by the F.B.I. as part of an investigation that neither he nor the government has disclosed, beat his opponent, Jessica Cisneros, by four percentage points in 2020.Should he lose the primary on March 1 to Ms. Cisneros, a 28-year-old immigration lawyer who supports abortion rights, the path to flip the House of Representatives could very well run through South Texas, as Republicans have vowed an all-in campaign focused on religious and other conservative values. More

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      Fringe Scheme to Reverse 2020 Election Splits Wisconsin G.O.P.

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      False claims that Donald J. Trump can be reinstalled in the White House are picking up steam — and spiraling further from reality as they go.MADISON, Wis. — First, Wisconsin Republicans ordered an audit of the 2020 election. Then they passed a raft of new restrictions on voting. And in June, they authorized the nation’s only special counsel investigation into 2020.Now, more than 15 months after former President Donald J. Trump lost the state by 20,682 votes, an increasingly vocal segment of the Republican Party is getting behind a new scheme: decertifying the results of the 2020 presidential election in hopes of reinstalling Mr. Trump in the White House.Wisconsin is closer to the next federal election than the last, but the Republican effort to overturn the election results here is picking up steam rather than fading away — and spiraling further from reality as it goes. The latest turn, which has been fueled by Mr. Trump, bogus legal theories and a new candidate for governor, is creating chaos in the Republican Party and threatening to undermine its push to win the contests this year for governor and the Senate.The situation in Wisconsin may be the most striking example of the struggle by Republican leaders to hold together their party when many of its most animated voters simply will not accept the reality of Mr. Trump’s loss.In Wisconsin, Robin Vos, the Assembly speaker who has allowed vague theories about fraud to spread unchecked, is now struggling to rein them in. Even Mr. Vos’s careful attempts have turned election deniers sharply against him.“This is a real issue,” said Timothy Ramthun, the Republican state representative who has turned his push to decertify the election into a nascent campaign for governor. Mr. Ramthun has asserted that if the Wisconsin Legislature decertifies the results and rescinds the state’s 10 electoral votes — an action with no basis in state or federal law — it could set off a movement that would oust President Biden from office.“We don’t wear tinfoil hats,” he said. “We’re not fringe.”Although support for the decertification campaign is difficult to measure, it wouldn’t take much to make an impact in a state where elections are regularly decided by narrow margins. Mr. Ramthun is drawing crowds, and his campaign has already revived Republicans’ divisive debate over false claims of fraud in 2020. Nearly two-thirds of Wisconsin Republicans were not confident in the state’s 2020 presidential election results, according to an October poll from the Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.“This is just not what the Republican Party needs right now,” said Rob Swearingen, a Republican state representative from the conservative Northwoods. “We shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves about what happened, you know, a year and a half ago.”Wisconsin has the nation’s most active decertification effort. In Arizona, a Republican state legislator running for secretary of state along with candidates for Congress have called for recalling the state’s electoral votes. In September, Mr. Trump wrote a letter to Georgia officials asking them to decertify Mr. Biden’s victory there, but no organized effort materialized.In Wisconsin, the decertification push has Republican politics on its head. After more than a decade of Republican leaders marching in lock-step with their base, the party is hobbled by infighting and it’s Democrats who are aligned behind Gov. Tony Evers, who is seeking a second term in November.“Republicans now are arguing over whether we want democracy or not,” Mr. Evers said in an interview on Friday.Mr. Ramthun, a 64-year-old lawmaker who lives in a village of 2,000 people an hour northwest of Milwaukee, has ridden his decertification push to become a sudden folk hero to the party’s Trump wing. Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former adviser, has hosted Mr. Ramthun on his podcast. At party events, he shows off a 72-page presentation in which he claims, falsely, that legislators have the power to declare Wisconsin’s election results invalid and recall the state’s electoral votes.Mr. Ramthun has received bigger applause at local Republican gatherings than the leading candidates for governor, and last weekend he joined the race himself, announcing his candidacy at a campaign kickoff where he was introduced by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive who has financed numerous efforts to undermine and overturn the 2020 election.Mr. Trump offered public words of encouragement.“Who in Wisconsin is leading the charge to decertify this fraudulent election?” the former president said in a statement.It did not take long before the state’s top Republicans were responding to Mr. Ramthun’s election conspiracies. Within days, both of his Republican rivals for governor released new plans to strengthen partisan control of Wisconsin’s elections.During a radio appearance on Thursday, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, the party establishment’s preferred candidate, refused to admit that Mr. Biden won the 2020 election — something she had already conceded last September. Ms. Kleefisch declined to be interviewed.Kevin Nicholson, a former Marine with backing from the right-wing billionaire Richard Uihlein, declined in an interview to say whether the election was legitimate, but he said there was “no legal path” to decertifying the results.Mr. Vos spent nearly an hour Friday on a Milwaukee conservative talk radio show defending his opposition to decertification from skeptical callers.“It is impossible — it cannot happen,” he said. “I don’t know how many times I can say that.”A Tuesday rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison drew about 250 people who called for decertifying the 2020 presidential election. Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesYet, Mr. Ramthun claims to have the grass-roots energy on his side. On Tuesday, he drew a crowd of about 250 people for a two-hour rally in the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol.Terry Brand, the Republican Party chairman in rural Langlade County, chartered a bus for two dozen people for the three-hour ride. Mr. Brand in January oversaw the first county G.O.P. condemnation of Mr. Vos, calling for the leader’s resignation for blocking the decertification effort. At the rally, Mr. Brand stood holding a sign that said “Toss Vos.”“People are foaming at the mouth over this issue,” he said, listening intently as speakers offered both conspiracy theories and assurances to members of the crowd that they were of sound mind.“You’re not crazy,” Janel Brandtjen, the chairwoman of the Assembly’s elections committee, told the crowd.One speaker tied Mr. Vos, through a college roommate and former House Speaker Paul Ryan, to the false claims circulating in right-wing media that Hillary Clinton’s campaign spied on Mr. Trump. Another was introduced under a pseudonym, then promptly announced herself as a candidate for lieutenant governor.The rally closed with remarks from Harry Wait, an organizer of a conservative group in Racine County called HOT Government, an acronym for honest, open and transparent.“I want to remind everybody,” Mr. Wait said, “that yesterday’s conspiracies may be today’s reality.”Mr. Ramthun says he has questioned the result of every presidential election in Wisconsin since 1996. (He does not make an exception for the one Republican victory in that period: Mr. Trump’s in 2016.) He has pledged to consider ending the use of voting machines and to conduct an “independent full forensic physical cyber audit” of the 2020 election — and also of the 2022 election, regardless of how it turns out.Mr. Ramthun has adopted a biblical slogan — “Let there be light” — a reference to his claim that Mr. Vos is hiding the truth from voters. If Wisconsin pulls back its electoral votes, Mr. Ramthun said, other states may follow.(American presidents can be removed from office only by impeachment or by a vote of the cabinet.)Robin Vos, the speaker of Wisconsin State Assembly, told reporters on Tuesday that Republicans aiming to undo Mr. Trump’s loss were wrong to be angry with him.Andy Manis/Associated PressAll of this has become too much for Mr. Vos, who before the Trump era was a steady Republican foot soldier focused on taxes, spending and labor laws.Mr. Vos has often appeased his party’s election conspiracists, expressing his own doubts about who really won in Wisconsin, calling for felony charges against Wisconsin’s top election administrators and authorizing an investigation into the 2020 election, which is still underway.Now, even as he draws the line on decertification, Mr. Vos has tried to placate his base and plead for patience. He announced this week the Assembly plans to vote on a new package of voting bills. (Mr. Evers said in the interview on Friday that he would veto any new restrictions.)“It’s simply a matter of misdirected anger,” he said, of the criticism he’s facing. “They have already assumed that the Democrats are hopeless, and now they are focused on those of us who are trying to get at the truth, hoping we do more.”Other Republicans in the state are also walking a political tightrope — refusing to accept Mr. Biden’s victory while avoiding taking a position on Mr. Ramthun’s decertification effort.“Evidence might be out there, that is something other people are working on,” said Ron Tusler, who sits on the Assembly’s elections committee. “It’s too early to be sure but it’s possible we try it later.”State Senator Kathy Bernier is the only of Wisconsin’s 82 Republican state legislators who has made a public case that Mr. Trump lost the state fairly, without widespread fraud.Ms. Bernier, the chairwoman of the State Senate’s elections committee, in November asked the Wisconsin Legislature’s attorneys to weigh in on the legality of decertifying an election — it is not possible, they said. In December, she called for an end to the Assembly’s investigation into 2020. Three weeks later, she announced she won’t seek re-election this year.“I have no explanation as to why legislators want to pursue voter-fraud conspiracy theories that have not been proven,” Ms. Bernier said in an interview. “They should not do that. It’s dangerous to our democratic republic. They need to step back and only speak about things that they know and understand and can do. And outside of that, they should button it up.”Kitty Bennett contributed research. More