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      The Relationship Between McConnell and Trump Was Good for Both — Until It Wasn’t

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn WashingtonThe Relationship Between McConnell and Trump Was Good for Both — Until It Wasn’tThe unlikely alliance delivered results they both wanted but fell apart after the election once their political interests diverged.President Donald J. Trump meeting in July with Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader at the time, in the Oval Office.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesFeb. 19, 2021, 6:00 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — At a White House event in November 2019, President Donald J. Trump offered unrestrained praise for one person on hand he regarded as singularly responsible for his administration’s remarkable record of placing conservatives on the courts.“The nation owes an immense debt of gratitude to a man whose leadership has been instrumental to our success,” Mr. Trump said.That man was Senator Mitch McConnell, now enmeshed in an ugly feud with the former president that has significant ramifications for the future of the Republican Party. The rift is extraordinary partly because perhaps no one did more to advance Mr. Trump and his Washington ambitions than Mr. McConnell, who had ambitions of his own and saw Mr. Trump as a vessel to pour them in.“Trump would not have been able to achieve his objectives without a strong Senate leader,” said Karl Rove, the Republican strategist and former political adviser to President George W. Bush.The relationship had its rocky moments but was usually cordial enough — until it went extremely bad in recent days as Mr. McConnell excoriated Mr. Trump on the Senate floor after acquitting him in an impeachment trial and Mr. Trump responded with a cutting personal broadside. It was a messy breakup years in the making.Like most Americans, Mr. McConnell expected Mr. Trump to lose to Hillary Clinton in November 2016, and he also braced for the potential loss of the Senate majority as party pollsters and strategists predicted a big night for Democrats. Much to the surprise of Mr. McConnell, Republicans held on and Mr. Trump triumphed, an outcome for which Mr. McConnell could deservedly take some credit.A strong argument can be made that Mr. McConnell, by preventing President Barack Obama from filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, cleared Mr. Trump’s path to the White House.The sudden political focus on the court provided a way for Mr. Trump to assure conservatives wary of his character flaws that he could be their champion. He and his legal advisers assembled a now famous list of potential conservative nominees that he promised he would choose from to calm evangelicals and others on the right who worried he might appoint a more liberal justice to succeed Justice Scalia.Mr. Trump himself recognized the political power of that list and the Scalia vacancy as he lavished praise on Mr. McConnell that day at the White House.“It really did have an impact on the election,” Mr. Trump said at the celebration in the East Room. “People knew me very well, but they didn’t know, ‘Is he liberal? Conservative?’”Mr. McConnell, the canny Senate leader, and Mr. Trump, the Washington novice suddenly ensconced in the White House, became a team. It was not a great personal match. Mr. McConnell spilled nothing of his intentions; Mr. Trump spilled all.Mr. Trump could not relate to the buttoned-lip approach of Mr. McConnell as he made clear this week in his scathing statement describing Mr. McConnell as “dour, sullen and unsmiling.” Mr. McConnell held private disdain for Mr. Trump and saw a flawed personality with a sketchy history who was not at all versed in the customs and rites of Washington.But as the Trump era opened, Mr. McConnell was just happy that Mr. Trump didn’t turn out to be a Democrat, though some congressional Republicans were not so sure. And it didn’t hurt that Mr. Trump brought on Mr. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, as transportation secretary.“Back during the campaign, there were a lot of questions: Is Trump really a conservative? A lot of questions about it,” Mr. McConnell told The New York Times in February 2017 as the chaotic White House set up shop. “But if you look at the steps that have been taken so far, looks good to me.”As he looked, Mr. McConnell, long obsessed with the federal courts, saw opportunity. Even before Mr. Trump was sworn in, Mr. McConnell approached Donald F. McGahn II, the incoming White House counsel, about establishing an assembly line of judicial nominees to fill vacancies caused by Republicans’ refusal to consider Obama administration nominees.The interests of the Trump administration and Mitch McConnell had aligned. He prioritized appeals court judges, eliminated the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees and stood by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh despite accusations of sexual misconduct. He pushed Justice Amy Coney Barrett just days before the 2020 presidential election despite using the approach of the 2016 election to block Judge Merrick B. Garland’s nomination eight months before the voting. The judicial success provided both the president and the Republican leader with a legacy.But it wasn’t just judges. Mr. McConnell delivered Mr. Trump’s tax cuts, remained stoic during regular presidential outbursts and made short work of the 2020 impeachment, with his most prominent failure in conservative eyes being the inability to overturn the Affordable Care Act.“Mitch McConnell was indispensable to Donald Trump’s success,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and an occasional go-between who is traveling to meet Mr. Trump this weekend in Florida to try to smooth things over, said on Fox News. “Mitch McConnell working with Donald Trump did a hell of a job.”Then came the election. Mr. Trump refused to accept the results, making wild and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. Mr. McConnell indulged him and refused to recognize President Biden as the winner until he could avoid it no longer after the states certified their electoral votes on Dec. 14. He congratulated Mr. Biden the next day.The interests of Mr. McConnell and Mr. Trump now sharply diverged, with Mr. McConnell fixated on regaining power in 2022 while Mr. Trump was stuck on 2020, making outlandish allegations that threatened to drive off more suburban voters and imperiled two Georgia seats that went to Democrats on Jan. 5. Then the riot the next day found marauders in the Senate chamber, Mr. McConnell’s sanctum sanctorum.“This mob was fed lies,” Mr. McConnell declared on Jan. 19, accusing Mr. Trump of provoking the rioters and prompting rumblings that he of all people might vote to convict Mr. Trump in the coming impeachment trial. But he did not. Instead, he voted to acquit Mr. Trump then tried to bury him minutes later while distinguishing between Mr. Trump’s responsibility for the riot and the Trump voters Mr. McConnell and Republican Senate candidates would need next year.“Seventy-four million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it,” Mr. McConnell said. “One person did. Just one.”Mr. Rove said Mr. McConnell handled it well.“McConnell reads his conference and he knows that, like him, they thought simultaneously that this was a highly partisan process and not good for country, but also that Trump had played a significant role in fomenting Jan. 6,” he said.Then it was Mr. McConnell doing the provoking. His post-trial speech and a subsequent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal drew the ire of Mr. Tump, who fired back with a call for Republicans to dump their leader — an unlikely prospect — and a threat to mount primary challenges against candidates allied with Mr. McConnell, a more worrisome prospect for members of the party.Now the question is whether Mr. Trump will follow through, causing intramural fights that ultimately lead to Democratic victories. Mr. McConnell’s allies note that he has been in this position before facing challenges from the right and came out on top.“My money,” said Bob Stevenson, a former top Senate Republican leadership aide active in Senate races, “is on Mitch.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Bob Dole Has Advanced Lung Cancer, He Says in Statement

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyBiden’s Immigration Plan Would Offer Path to Citizenship For MillionsBob Dole, Republicans’ 1996 presidential nominee, has advanced lung cancer.Feb. 18, 2021, 11:39 a.m. ETFeb. 18, 2021, 11:39 a.m. ETBob Dole paying his respects to former President George H.W. Bush at the Capitol in 2018. Mr. Dole represented Kansas in the Senate for more than 25 years.Credit…Erin Schaff for The New York TimesBob Dole, the former senator and 1996 Republican presidential nominee, announced on Thursday that he had advanced lung cancer.“Recently, I was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer,” Mr. Dole said in a statement. “My first treatment will begin on Monday. While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own.”Mr. Dole, 97, represented Kansas in the Senate for more than 25 years, including 11 years as the chamber’s Republican leader. He gave up his position as majority leader to run for the White House in 1996, only to lose to President Bill Clinton by a large margin, 379 electoral votes to 159.He has faced health challenges for decades, starting with a battlefield injury during World War II, in which he served as an Army second lieutenant. He was hit by machine-gun fire, which almost killed him and permanently limited his use of his right arm. He went on to support the Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, and later pushed for the United States to join the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities.Mr. Dole — the oldest living former presidential nominee or president, one year older than former President Jimmy Carter — disclosed his lung cancer diagnosis a day after the conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh died of the same disease.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      McConnell’s Strategy Has Party in Turmoil and Trump on Attack

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMcConnell’s Strategy Has Party in Turmoil and Trump on AttackThe Republican leader’s calculus was simple: Don’t stoke a full-on revolt by Trump supporters by voting to convict the former president, but demonstrate to anti-Trump Republicans that he recognized Mr. Trump’s failings. It didn’t work.Allies of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, acknowledged that former President Donald J. Trump still had a hold on the party’s base.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesCarl Hulse and Feb. 17, 2021Updated 9:41 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell’s colleagues may not have deep personal affection for their often distant and inscrutable leader, but there is considerable appreciation for how he has spared them from difficult votes while maintaining a laserlike focus on keeping the Senate majority.His approach on Saturday at the conclusion of former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial seemed aimed at doing just that. After voting to acquit Mr. Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 riot that invaded the Senate chamber, Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, began a fiery tirade, declaring him “practically and morally responsible” for the assault. In essence, Mr. McConnell said he found Mr. Trump guilty but not subject to impeachment as a private citizen.The strategy appeared twofold: Don’t stoke a full-on revolt by Trump supporters the party needs by voting to convict, but demonstrate to anti-Trump Republicans — particularly big donors — that he recognized Mr. Trump’s failings and is beginning to steer the party in another direction.But it did not exactly produce the desired result. Instead, it has drawn Mr. McConnell into a vicious feud with the former president, who lashed out at him on Tuesday as a “dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack,” and given new cause for Republican division that could spill into the midterm elections. And it has left some Republicans bewildered over Mr. McConnell’s strategy and others taking a harder line, saying the leader whose focus was always the next election had hurt the party’s 2022 prospects.The miscalculation has left Mr. McConnell in an unusual place — on the defensive, with Mr. Trump pressing for his ouster, and no easy way to extricate himself from the political bind.“McConnell has many talents, there is no doubt about it, but if he is setting this thing up as a way to expunge Trump from the Republican Party, that is a failing proposition,” Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said in an interview on Wednesday.Mr. Johnson, who is weighing running for re-election next year in a highly competitive battleground state, said support for Mr. McConnell was already emerging as a negative factor among Trump-backing Republican primary voters he speaks with back home. He said the minority leader risked becoming a full-blown pariah for Senate candidates if he did not move quickly toward unifying the party.Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, in an interview Tuesday night with Sean Hannity on Fox News, said the fact that Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell were “now at each other’s throats” was imperiling the political outlook for Republicans.“I’m more worried about 2022 than I’ve ever been,” Mr. Graham said. “I don’t want to eat our own. President Trump is the most consequential Republican in the party. If Mitch McConnell doesn’t understand that, he’s missing a lot.”Mr. McConnell needs to be returned to his top role after the 2022 elections to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history in 2023, a goal the legacy-minded Kentuckian would no doubt like to achieve. And there is no imminent threat to his leadership position, though one senator said privately that a challenge could have been incited had Mr. McConnell split with the 42 other Republican senators who voted to acquit Mr. Trump.Mr. McConnell has been conspicuously silent since the attack by Mr. Trump. He made no effort to walk back his Saturday speech or a subsequent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, but, characteristically, he now also appears uninterested in further inflaming the fight by punching back at Mr. Trump. David Popp, a spokesman for Mr. McConnell, declined to comment on Wednesday.His Republican allies quickly circled around him, speaking in the void of his silence.Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said that Mr. McConnell was on “very solid ground” and that she had come away from conversations with him convinced he was moving forward with eyes open, prepared for the “slings and arrows” that taking on a vindictive former president would attract.“He’s not exactly a stream-of-consciousness communicator. He is very circumspect, very disciplined in his speech, and I think the speech he gave on the floor regarding former President Trump came right from his heart,” Ms. Capito said in an interview. She added, “His classic technique is to put it out there, say what he thinks and keep moving forward.”Senator John Thune of South Dakota, his No. 2 whom Mr. Trump has already promised to target next year, said in a statement that Mr. McConnell had “my full support and confidence.”Senator John Cornyn of Texas said Mr. McConnell had expressed his horror at what had occurred. “I think it genuinely offended him what happened in the Capitol that night,” Mr. Cornyn said. “Obviously, he spoke his mind.”Mr. Trump spoke his mind as well. In his Tuesday broadside that attacked Mr. McConnell in sharply personal terms despite their close collaboration over the past four years, Mr. Trump urged his party to abandon the Kentucky Republican. He also threatened to initiate primaries against Republican Senate candidates he believed were not sufficiently supportive of his agenda.That is a possibility that worries Senate Republicans. Most are confident about gaining the one seat needed to take back the Senate in the coming 2022 midterm elections — unless their candidates engage in messy primary races that end up producing hard-right candidates who cannot win in the general election, an outcome that harmed Republicans in the past. Those memories have stuck with Mr. McConnell, who has promised to intervene in primaries if he believes a candidate is endangering the party’s chance of winning a general election.Mr. Johnson said Republicans cannot win without the ardent Trump supporters now alienated by Mr. McConnell’s denunciation of Mr. Trump. He lumped the Republican leader in with the Lincoln Project and other anti-Trump Republicans who tried to “purge” the party of Trumpism. “They are not perceiving reality,” he said.“You are not going to be able to have them on your side if you are ripping the person they have a great deal of sympathy for in what he has done for this country and the personal toll President Trump has shouldered,” he said.Mr. McConnell’s allies acknowledged that Mr. Trump still had a hold on the Republican base but one said that Republicans should still be able to come together in opposition to what they saw as a far-left progressive agenda pursued by President Biden and congressional Democrats.“The unfortunate consequences of Democrats’ power was on full display in the opening days of the Biden administration when it effectively fired thousands of union workers, when it canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and froze oil and gas leases on federal lands,” said Antonia Ferrier, a former communications director to Mr. McConnell.Despite the heat of the current moment, some Republicans say they expect Mr. McConnell to weather the current hostile environment as he has in the past, aided by the passage of time and developments that diminish Mr. Trump’s hold on the party. They say he has survived challenges from the right in the past and stamped out primary challenges that threatened his preferred candidate.“Two years from now,” Mr. Cornyn said, “things could look completely different.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump Calls on G.O.P. to Replace McConnell

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump, in Scorching Attack on McConnell, Urges G.O.P. to Replace HimThe former president, breaking an unusually long silence, called the Senate minority leader a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and called on Republicans in the chamber to find a new leader.Former President Donald J. Trump meeting with Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, in the Oval Office last year. They were wary political allies throughout Mr. Trump’s term in office.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesMaggie Haberman and Feb. 16, 2021Updated 9:13 p.m. ETFormer President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday made a slashing and lengthy attack on Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, calling him a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and arguing that the party would suffer losses in the future if he remained in charge.“If Republican senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again,” Mr. Trump said.The 600-word statement, coming three days after the Senate acquitted him in his second impeachment trial, was trained solely on Mr. McConnell and sought to paint Mr. Trump as the best leader of the G.O.P. going forward.The statement did not include any sign of contrition from Mr. Trump for his remarks to a crowd of supporters who then attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. Nor did it include any acknowledgment of his role during the violent hours in which his own vice president and members of Congress were under threat from the mob of Trump supporters.Rather, Mr. Trump chose to focus on Mr. McConnell as he broke an unusually lengthy silence by his standards, after being permanently barred from his formerly favorite medium — Twitter — last month because of tweets that he posted during the Capitol riot.Mr. McConnell’s office declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s attacks on Tuesday, but the senator has left little mystery about his contempt for the former president. Shortly after he joined the majority of Republican senators on Saturday in voting to acquit Mr. Trump on the House impeachment charge of “incitement of insurrection,” Mr. McConnell excoriated Mr. Trump, laying the blame for the deadly riot at his feet and suggesting that further investigations of the former president could play out in the judicial system.“There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” Mr. McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.His comments were widely interpreted as an attempt to minimize Mr. Trump’s brand of politics within the Republican Party and to appeal to donors who have said they are rejecting the party after some senators voted against certifying President Biden’s victory.Mr. McConnell wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed article and gave an interview to the paper’s news section suggesting he might get involved in primaries for 2022 as part of an effort to win back the majority.In private, Mr. McConnell has said he believed the impeachment proceedings would make it easier for Republicans to eventually purge Mr. Trump from the party. And he expressed surprise, and mild bemusement, at the hatchet-burying mission made to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla., by Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader.In public, Mr. McConnell has sharply criticized Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist freshman and Trump devotee from Georgia, while defending Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming after her vote to impeach the former president.What Mr. McConnell has not done, though, is openly declare political war on Mr. Trump in the fashion that the former president did to him on Tuesday. While telling associates he knew he would have to oppose the former president in some primaries next year, he had hoped to unify his caucus by turning attention to Mr. Biden.But if Mr. McConnell wasn’t eager to begin an open and protracted feud with Mr. Trump, at least not yet, the freshly acquitted, ever-pugnacious and newly deplatformed former president was happy to do so. One person close to Mr. Trump said his initial version of the statement was more incendiary than what was released publicly.In the statement, Mr. Trump resorted to insults about Mr. McConnell’s acumen and political abilities, and faulted him for Republicans’ loss of their Senate majority.“The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm,” Mr. Trump said. “McConnell’s dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from majority leader to minority leader, and it will only get worse.”Mr. Trump offered up some new taunts: “The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle — they’ve never had it so good — and they want to keep it that way!” he said. “We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell’s Beltway First agenda or Biden’s America Last.”While Mr. McConnell has faulted the former president for the party’s losses last month in both Senate races in Georgia, Mr. Trump maintained that it was because Republican voters were angry that the party’s officials had not done more to address his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.Mr. Trump claimed credit for Mr. McConnell’s victory in his own Senate race last year and took a swipe at Mr. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, who worked for the Trump administration as the transportation secretary.“McConnell has no credibility on China because of his family’s substantial Chinese business holdings,” Mr. Trump said. “He does nothing on this tremendous economic and military threat.” “He will never do what needs to be done, or what is right for our country,” Mr. Trump said, adding that “where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First.”After Mr. Trump made his statement on Tuesday, some of Mr. McConnell’s longtime supporters suggested that they knew bait when they saw it.“Trump going total mean girl ought to feed the cable beast for weeks,” Janet Mullins Grissom, the senator’s first chief of staff, wrote on Twitter.Others in Mr. McConnell’s intensely loyal circle of advisers, however, did not want such a bald attack to go unanswered.“It seems an odd choice for someone who claims they want to lead the G.O.P. to attack a man who has been unanimously elected to lead Senate Republicans a history-making eight times,” said Billy Piper, another former top McConnell aide. “But we have come to expect these temper tantrums when he feels threatened — just ask any of his former chiefs of staff or even his vice president.”Mr. Trump’s reference to Ms. Chao’s family was also a line of attack that Mr. McConnell and his inner circle have long denounced as racist when it comes from Democrats.The former president’s statement was the longest one he has issued since leaving office on Jan. 20. He has been mindful that he is the target of multiple investigations, people close to him said, and has been advised against appearing to taunt prosecutors or people who might sue him in civil courts. Still, Mr. Trump’s ability to stay silent through situations that anger him tends to last only so long.Mr. Trump’s advisers are discussing backing nearly a dozen candidates in primaries against the Republicans who voted in favor of impeachment, a move that would only deepen Mr. Trump’s friction with Mr. McCarthy. Not all of Mr. Trump’s aides think this is a wise course of action.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Don’t Care for This Impeachment? Wait Until Next Year

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPolitical MemoDon’t Care for This Impeachment? Wait Until Next YearLeaders of both political parties suggest that impeachments, Electoral College standoffs and Supreme Court nomination blockades may become frequent fights in American politics.Representative Jamie Raskin, center, and other House impeachment managers spoke on Saturday after the Senate voted to acquit former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 16, 2021Updated 4:17 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — The second season of impeachment had ended less than a day earlier, but Republicans were already talking about next season. It sounded ominous.“I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if the Republicans take over the House,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said Sunday morning on Fox News.Mr. Graham seemed to be suggesting that the vice president might be punished because she had expressed support for a bail fund for Black Lives Matter protesters in Minnesota last summer. “She actually bailed out rioters,” Mr. Graham charged. That statement was false, but his threat was plain: Republicans can impeach, too.In recent days, former President Donald J. Trump’s defenders have darkly accused Democrats of opening a “Pandora’s box” of partisan retribution — leading to a kind of anything-goes future in politics, where impeachments get volleyed back and forth between the two parties like a tennis match, depending on which side controls Congress. “Partisan impeachments will become commonplace,” said Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, as he argued the former president’s case before the Senate on Tuesday.There’s an element of plausibility here, given the hyperpartisan fervor that’s gripped American politics. But in the ensuing environment, Republicans seem to be saying that even the most outlandish accusations against a president — such as those hurled at President Biden by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia in her first days in Congress — should be treated the same as what Democrats impeached Mr. Trump over.In a broader sense, officials of both parties have suggested that regular impeachments may just become one of several regular features of a new and bitter normal in our politics. Previously rare or unthinkable measures could simply start happening all the timeDemocrats argue that, in fact, Republicans have opened several Pandora’s boxes in recent years. They have taken unprecedented actions, led by Mr. Trump, that have abused certain norms to a degree that has destabilized a set of once-reliable government traditions. Senate Republicans’ blockade of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, for instance, cast doubt on any future president’s ability to fill a Supreme Court vacancy when the opposing party controlled the Senate.By refusing to concede an election he clearly lost, and then maintaining repeatedly it had been stolen from him, Mr. Trump shattered what had been an undisturbed American custom ensuring a peaceful transfer of power between administrations.Mr. Trump’s false claims have persuaded a majority of Republican voters that Mr. Biden had not been legitimately elected, and led 147 Republican members of the House and the Senate to vote against the Jan. 6 certification of Electoral College votes. This level of support to overturn the election result raises the prospect of whether the once-pro forma exercise of certification might now devolve every four years into a heated partisan spectacle — or, worse, riots.Two of former President Trump’s impeachment lawyers, Michael van der Veen and Bruce Castor, spoke on Saturday after the trial concluded.Credit…Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesIt was the deadly assault on the Capitol, of course, that set into motion Mr. Trump’s second impeachment proceeding. His lawyers attributed the rebuke not to their client’s actions on Jan. 6 but rather to his opponents’ irrational “hatred of President Trump.” They implied impeachment was a vindictive and frivolous maneuver.Democrats bristle at such notions — that they have overused and thus cheapened the power of impeachment, a tool that has been employed only four times in 244 years, but twice in the last 14 months. They agreed that impeachment should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances, but argued that Mr. Trump had engaged in an extraordinary degree of dereliction.“Look, there’s a reason there’s been two impeachments of the same man,” said Senator Robert P. Casey Jr., Democrat of Pennsylvania, in an interview Friday, on the eve of the final vote. “Trump has engaged in conduct that presidents of either party would never engage in.”It’s not like anything about this has been fun, he added. “The last thing I wanted to do these last five days is sit there and listen to this hour after hour instead of working on a full range of issues,” he said.Mr. Casey and others suggest that the Republican Party is now dominated by a former president who has convinced much of the party that any opposition to them is driven by “bad, sick and corrupt people” and should be met with extreme tactics.“The expectation from our base is for retribution,” said former Representative Tom Rooney, a Republican of Florida who did not seek re-election in 2018, in part to escape the extreme partisanship that has overtaken Congress. When asked if his former Republican colleagues would move to impeach Mr. Biden next year if they won back the House, even for something minor, Mr. Rooney rated the prospect as “absolutely possible.”“It might not necessarily be what some of those guys want to do, but it might be what the base expects,” he said. “People want Armageddon.”Let the healing begin!Or not. For as much as Impeachment II ended on Saturday with a significant number of Republican senators (seven) voting to convict Mr. Trump — and was accompanied by tough statements from some who voted not guilty, including the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell — other defenders of the former president turned their focus to a bitter future of impeachment roulette.Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, suggested on Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might start looking around for a good impeachment lawyer (because, really, what would partisan Armageddon be without the Clintons?).Mr. Rubio framed his statement around a somewhat tortured rhetorical question: “Is it not true that under this new precedent, a future House facing partisan pressure to ‘lock her up’ could impeach a former secretary of state and a future Senate forced to put her on trial and potentially disqualify from future office?”It was not exactly clear whether Mr. Rubio was criticizing Mr. Trump for whipping up his supporters into a frenzy that led to irrational demands to imprison Mrs. Clinton, or whether he was accusing Democrats of acting irrationally themselves by impeaching Mr. Trump a second time in two years.What was evident, however, was that Mr. Rubio was assuming the worst intentions by the opposition — and the feeling appears extremely mutual. Cable and social media chatter have been awash in bleak scenarios.“If Republicans take Congress, they could not only impeach Biden and/or Harris,” Jon Favreau, a speechwriter for President Obama, tweeted on Sunday, “they could potentially succeed in overturning the results of the 2024 election.”Not everyone believes partisanship has reached the point where Election Day will now merely become the start of a two-month brawl every four years that will build to a potentially ugly climax in January.“I don’t think we’re there yet,” said Brendan Buck, a Republican media strategist and former top leadership aide to two former Republican speakers of the House, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and John A. Boehner of Ohio. He said that many House Republicans wound up voting against Mr. Biden’s Electoral College certification only because they knew it would not pass. If the result was more in doubt, he contended, they would have voted to certify.Trump supporters climbed the walls of the Capitol on Jan. 6.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Buck allowed that the current political and media environment rewarded behavior by lawmakers — and candidates — that is extreme or even unheard-of. “We’re in an era where you need to make loud noises and break things in order to get attention,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re breaking — as long as you’re creating conflict and appeasing your party, anything goes.”Mr. Trump himself is the exemplar of anything goes, both in terms of how effective and destructive the approach can be, said Adam Jentleson, who was a deputy chief of staff to former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, and author of “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy,” a new book about legislative leadership dynamics.Mr. Jentleson said Republicans had abandoned any coherent policy goals in lieu of pursuing a “negative partisanship” agenda — which he defines as “doing simply whatever will terrorize your opponents the most.” In essence, Trumpism.This shows no signs of abating anytime soon. “That’s clearly what Republicans will continue to run on,” Mr. Jentleson said. “And that includes impeaching whoever is in power on the other side.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Why Seven Republican Senators Voted to Convict Trump

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesKey Takeaways From Day 5How Senators VotedTrump AcquittedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Seven Republican Senators Voted to Convict TrumpThe Republicans who broke with their party to find Donald J. Trump guilty were an eclectic group, bound by their shared lack of concern about retribution from the former president or his followers.Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is one of the seven Republicans who voted on Saturday to impeach former President Donald J. Trump.Credit…for The New York TimesFeb. 14, 2021, 6:57 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The seed for Senator Bill Cassidy’s decision to find Donald J. Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection was planted one day last fall, when he received an email from a friend that was full of the then-president’s false claims about a stolen election.Alarmed that Mr. Trump’s lies were gaining credence, Mr. Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, became part of a small minority in his party — and one of only a few officials in the South — to acknowledge President Biden’s victory. Months later, after Mr. Trump’s campaign to overturn the election culminated in the Capitol riot, Mr. Cassidy was one of only seven Republican senators who voted on Saturday to convict him.Taken at face value, Mr. Cassidy — a conservative, newly re-elected physician with a quirky streak — has little in common with the other six senators who broke with their party and found Mr. Trump guilty in the most bipartisan vote for a presidential impeachment conviction in United States history. Most were facing intense backlash on Sunday from Republicans in their states livid about the vote, as have the 10 House Republicans who supported the impeachment last month.But the senators were united by a common thread: Each of them, for their own reasons, was unafraid of political retribution from Mr. Trump or his supporters.“Two are retiring, and three are not up until 2026, and who knows what the world will look like five years from now,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “It looked pretty different five years ago than it did today. All seven of them have a measure of independence that those who have to run in 2022 in a closed Republican primary just don’t have.”For Mr. Cassidy, it was a sense of outrage at the former president’s actions, starting long before the assault on Jan. 6, that played the dominant role. In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Cassidy said Mr. Trump had “trumpeted that lie” about the election for months, then sat by for hours as lawmakers and his own vice president were under attack in the Capitol and did nothing — other than to call Republican senators to ask them to continue challenging the election results.“That anger simmers in the background,” Mr. Cassidy said. “My whole life, reading about great men and women who sacrifice for our country, who sacrifice so that we could have the freedoms that we have here today — and the idea that somebody would attempt to usurp those and destroy them?”“It still angers me,” he continued. “It just angers the heck out of me.”Many Republicans privately shared Mr. Cassidy’s rage, but the fact that only seven of them were ultimately willing to find Mr. Trump guilty underscored the extraordinary fealty the former president still commands in the party. Even with Mr. Trump out of the White House, Republican lawmakers have been reluctant to cross the former president for fear of invoking his wrath and infuriating the primary voters who still adore him. All but one of the Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump will not face voters at the ballot box for years — or ever again, in the case of two who are set to retire in 2022.Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is the only one of the seven Republicans who faces re-election next year, making her vote to convict the most political risky of them all.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesMr. Cassidy won re-election in November, as did two others who voted to convict the former president — Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Ben Sasse of Nebraska — meaning they have five years before their names will appear on a ballot. Two others, Senators Richard M. Burr of North Carolina and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, are retiring. The other two, Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, have long since established their willingness to break with their party, and particularly with Mr. Trump.Ms. Murkowski is the only one of the group facing re-election next year, making her vote the most politically risky of them all.She famously returned to Washington even after losing a Republican primary in 2010 by defeating both the Republican and Democratic nominees in an audacious write-in campaign, and she has appeared untroubled by the potential political consequences of her vote.That might be partly influenced by a change in Alaska’s voting system: Voters in November approved a measure to eliminate party primaries and institute a ranked-choice contest in which any candidate could prevail, blunting the influence of the hard-right voters who decide most Republican primaries.At the Capitol on Saturday, Ms. Murkowski said she owed it to her constituents to vote the way she did. “If I can’t say what I believe that our president should stand for, then why should I ask Alaskans to stand with me?” she told reporters.And in a blistering statement on Sunday, Ms. Murkowski explained why she deemed Mr. Trump guilty.“If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the Capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction and disqualification,” she said, “I cannot imagine what is.”Republicans had regarded Ms. Murkowski as a senator who was likely to defect, along with Ms. Collins. The two have previously linked arms to break from their party on significant votes, including when they helped tank a Republican-led effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Ms. Collins was re-elected in November, triumphing in a brutal contest that few expected her to win, as voters reaffirmed their embrace of her long-held independent streak.“This impeachment trial is not about any single word uttered by President Trump on Jan. 6, 2021,” Ms. Collins said in a speech from the Senate floor on Saturday. “It is instead about President Trump’s failure to obey the oath he swore on Jan. 20, 2017. His actions to interfere with the peaceful transition of power — the hallmark of our Constitution and our American democracy — were an abuse of power and constitute grounds for conviction.”Republicans had regarded Senator Susan Collins of Maine as likely to defect.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesIn the weeks before the impeachment trial, Ms. Collins huddled in multiple Zoom meetings with a team of lawyers, including external advisers and members of her staff, to discuss the constitutionality of putting a former president on trial and whether Mr. Trump could mount a defense premised on his right to free speech, according to Richard H. Fallon Jr., a Harvard Law professor and adviser to Ms. Collins who participated in the discussions.“I don’t think there was any substantial disagreement at the end about the constitutional points,” he said.Mr. Cassidy’s vote to convict was less expected. A gastroenterologist who was re-elected easily in November to a second term, he is a reliable conservative. But he has shown an increasing willingness in recent weeks to buck his party in an attempt to work with Mr. Biden and his Democratic colleagues, and markedly less interest in humoring Mr. Trump.That approach has resulted in an intense fallout at home. The Louisiana Republican Party on Saturday moved to censure him for his vote, and Mr. Cassidy said people would be “aghast at how negative” the comments on his Facebook page had become.But he also said that he had received “a heck of a lot of support” in texts and calls from constituents — and that he expected that sentiment to grow.“The president spent two months building this up,” Mr. Cassidy said. “It’s going be hard; people just don’t flip on a deeply held belief from someone who they trust just like that. But the more the facts come out, the more that people will move to this position.”For his colleagues who are retiring, voters’ reactions were less of a concern. Neither Mr. Burr nor Mr. Toomey was a particularly vocal critic of Mr. Trump while he was in office, and both skewed fiercely conservative on policy matters, especially Mr. Toomey, a fiscal hawk and former president of the pro-business Club for Growth.But both have tangled with the former president in their own ways. As Mr. Trump continued to falsely claim that he had won the election, Mr. Toomey sharply pushed back and went so far as to blast his own colleagues for trying to overturn the results.Delegate Stacey Plaskett, Democrat of the Virgin Islands and one of the impeachment managers, reacted on Saturday as Mr. Cassidy voted to convict Mr. Trump.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMr. Burr, then the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, subpoenaed testimony from Donald Trump Jr. in 2019 as part of his work conducting the only bipartisan congressional investigation into Russian election interference. The former president’s son responded by starting a political war against the senator in an attempt to turn his party against him.Perhaps the most predictable votes came from two of Mr. Trump’s most biting critics in the Senate: Mr. Sasse and Mr. Romney, who was the only Republican to vote to convict Mr. Trump in his first impeachment trial.While the two senators have employed similarly scathing language to excoriate the former president, they are at very different points in their careers. Mr. Romney, 73, having tried and failed to reach the White House, has positioned himself as an elder statesman trying to steer the party from Mr. Trump’s influence regardless of the political fallout. Mr. Sasse, 48, a younger and ambitious up-and-comer, has staked his hopes on leading a post-Trump Republican Party.Now, Mr. Sasse is facing censure threats from the Nebraska Republican Party. An effort last year by a Republican legislator in Utah to censure Mr. Romney for his first impeachment vote fell flat after the state’s Republican governor defended the senator, who faces re-election in 2024.It is unclear how much the seven senators discussed the verdict before the vote on Saturday. But Mr. Cassidy quietly shared his decision with Mr. Burr during the closing arguments of the trial, surreptitiously passing the North Carolina Republican a note on the Senate floor.“I am a yes,” it read.Mr. Burr nodded in silent agreement.Emily Cochrane More

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      Lara Trump for North Carolina Senate Seat? Trump’s Trial Is Renewing Talk

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeMurder Charges?The Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLara Trump for North Carolina Senate Seat? Trump’s Trial Is Renewing TalkSenator Richard M. Burr’s vote to convict the former president has intensified speculation that Ms. Trump might galvanize staunch Trump loyalists behind a possible bid for Mr. Burr’s seat in 2022.Lara Trump and her husband, Eric, attended the departure event for former President Trump on Inauguration Day before boarding Air Force One.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesAnnie Karni and Feb. 14, 2021Updated 5:22 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — A central issue in last week’s impeachment trial was whether former President Donald J. Trump deserves a political future. But his acquittal sparked speculation on Sunday about the electoral prospects of another Trump: his daughter-in-law, Lara.Senator Richard M. Burr’s decision to vote for the conviction of Mr. Trump incensed many Republicans in his home state of North Carolina, and in doing so reignited talk that Ms. Trump, a native of Wilmington, N.C., would seek the Senate seat Mr. Burr will vacate in 2022.“My friend Richard Burr just made Lara Trump almost the certain nominee for the Senate seat in North Carolina to replace him if she runs,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday.Ms. Trump did not respond to a request for comment. One senior Republican official with knowledge of her plans said that the Jan. 6 riot soured her desire to seek office, but that she would decide over the next few months whether to run as part of a coordinated Trump family comeback.If negotiating a post-Donald-Trump world has been a disorienting experience for Republicans around the country, it is especially acute in North Carolina, a state that has become a polarized, and nearly deadlocked, partisan battleground.Mr. Burr’s vote, and the torrent of criticism among North Carolina Republicans that came with it, appeared likely to sharpen the differences in the primary to succeed him between staunch Trump loyalists and Republicans who see a need to appeal to educated suburban voters in a state with steadily changing demographics.“The G.O.P. base is getting smaller,” said Paul Shumaker, a veteran party strategist in Raleigh.It was not just Mr. Burr’s vote that inflamed the party’s rank and file. While the state’s junior senator, Thom Tillis, who was re-elected last year, voted to acquit the former president, Mr. Tillis used his statement after the vote to all but invite prosecutors to indict Mr. Trump, saying the former president’s “ultimate accountability is through our criminal justice system.”Mr. Trump’s allies predict that such talk would prompt a revolt from the right that would result in the election of more pro-Trump candidates. And, the thinking goes, who could be more pro-Trump than an actual Trump?Ms. Trump, 38, a former personal trainer and television producer who graduated from Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington and from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, has been floating herself as a possible Burr successor for months.Another Republican, former Representative Mark Walker, a Trump ally, has already announced his candidacy, and Pat McCrory, a Republican former governor, is considering one. Mark Meadows, the former North Carolina representative and former Trump chief of staff, is also said to be in the mix.“We are going to take a very long look at all the candidates versus, you know, some kind of coronation,” said Mark Brody, a member of the Republican National Committee from Union County, outside Charlotte.Doug Heye, a former Republican National Committee spokesman who used to work for Mr. Burr, questioned whether Ms. Trump was willing to endure the tussle and tedium of running or serving. “Many people love the speculation and the attention, but being senator is a lot of hard work,” he said.First, however, there is the question of her residence. Ms. Trump currently lives with her husband, Eric, and their children in the northern suburbs of New York City and would have to move back..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.Then there is the less straightforward question of branding. The Trump family name is a wild card — it will be a plus with loyalists and fund-raising nationally, but it could be a liability in a battleground that the former president won by a mere 1.3 percentage points in 2020. There is also a possibility Ms. Trump’s candidacy could help increase Democratic turnout, especially among the state’s large Black population.Or it might be a wash.“There is a myth that Trump voters will come out for Trump candidates or family members,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster and a veteran of campaigns in the South. “Cult members only come out in full force for the cult leader.”That Ms. Trump’s may-or-may-not-happen candidacy is generating buzz is, in itself, a reflection of the party’s anxiety over its future.Ms. Trump’s boosters, led by Mr. Graham, view her presence as a way to weaponize the backlash against Mr. Burr’s vote, seen as a betrayal sufficient to warrant a rebuke by the North Carolina G.O.P. over his “shocking and disappointing” decision.Others simply see Ms. Trump as a potentially well-funded candidate with the built-in advantage of sky-high name recognition.Representative Patrick McHenry, a Republican who represents the Greensboro area, downplayed the importance of Mr. Burr’s vote but said Ms. Trump would “be the odds-on favorite” if she runs.“No one comes close,” he said.Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      After the Speech: What Trump Did as the Capitol Was Attacked

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentTrial HighlightsKey Takeaways From Day 5How Senators VotedTrump AcquittedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAfter the Speech: What Trump Did as the Capitol Was AttackedNew evidence emerged in the impeachment trial about what President Donald J. Trump did from roughly 1 to 6 p.m. the day of the Capitol attack. But many questions remain unanswered.President Donald J. Trump at a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, the day of the Capitol siege.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMaggie Haberman and Feb. 13, 2021Updated 9:17 p.m. ETThe impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump largely focused on his actions leading up to the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. But there was a crucial period that day of nearly five hours — between the end of Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse urging his supporters to march to the Capitol and a final tweet telling his followers to remember the day forever — that remains critical to his state of mind.Evidence emerged during the trial about what Mr. Trump was doing during those hours, including new details about two phone calls with lawmakers that prosecutors said clearly alerted the president to the mayhem on Capitol Hill. Prosecutors said the new information was clear proof of Mr. Trump’s intent to incite the mob and of his dereliction to stop the violence, even when he knew that the life of Vice President Mike Pence was in danger.Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader who on Saturday voted to acquit Mr. Trump but offered a sweeping endorsement of the prosecutors’ case, backed them up: “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.”Still, many crucial questions remain unanswered about the president’s actions and mood from roughly 1 to 6 p.m. Jan. 6. Here is what is known so far:Mr. Trump concluded his incendiary speech on the Ellipse at 1:11 p.m. He had repeatedly told the crowd that the election was stolen from him and urged his supporters to march to the Capitol in a last-ditch effort to stop President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory from being certified. Mr. Trump said twice that he would go with them. And days before the march, he had told advisers that he wanted to join his supporters, but aides told him that people in the crowd were armed and that the Secret Service would not be able to protect him.Six minutes later, Mr. Trump’s motorcade began heading back to the White House. He arrived there at 1:19 p.m. as the crowd was making its way up Pennsylvania Avenue and beginning to swarm around the Capitol. Television news footage showed the mob as it moved closer to the doors.At some point, Mr. Trump went to the Oval Office and watched news coverage of a situation that was growing increasingly tense.At 1:34 p.m., Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington made a formal request for assistance in a phone call with the Army secretary, Ryan D. McCarthy. At 1:49 p.m., as the Capitol Police asked Pentagon officials for help from the National Guard, Mr. Trump tweeted a video of his incendiary rally speech.It was around this time that some of Mr. Trump’s allies publicly called on him to do something. Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, told ABC News that Mr. Trump needed to say something to stop the rioting.At 2:12 p.m., the same moment that the mob breached the building itself, Mr. Pence — who had defied the president by saying he planned to certify Mr. Biden’s victory — was rushed off the Senate floor. A minute later, the Senate session was recessed. Two minutes after that, at 2:15 p.m., groups of rioters began to chant, “Hang Mike Pence!”Nine minutes later, at 2:24 p.m., Mr. Trump tweeted a broadside at Mr. Pence for moving ahead to certify Mr. Biden’s win: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”At 2:26 p.m., after Mr. Pence had been whisked away, a call was placed from the White House to Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, according to call logs that the senator provided during the impeachment proceedings.The president had made the call, but he was actually looking for Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama. Mr. Lee gave the phone to Mr. Tuberville, who has told reporters that he informed Mr. Trump that Mr. Pence had just been escorted out as the mob got closer to the Senate chamber.“I said, ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Mr. Tuberville recounted to Politico.This was a significant new piece of information. House prosecutors used it to argue that Mr. Trump was clearly aware that the vice president was in danger and that he had a callous disregard for Mr. Pence’s safety. On Friday, Mr. Trump’s defense team had insisted that Mr. Trump was not aware of any peril facing Mr. Pence.Back at the White House, advisers were trying to get Mr. Trump to do something, but he rebuffed calls to intercede, including those from people wanting to see the National Guard deployed. The president, several advisers said, was expressing pleasure that the vote to certify Mr. Biden’s win had been delayed and that people were fighting for him.“According to public reports, he watched television happily — happily — as the chaos unfolded,” Mr. McConnell said on Saturday. “He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election. Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in serious danger, even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters, the president sent a further tweet attacking his own vice president.”Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close Republican ally of the president’s, told The Washington Post that he called Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter, to try to get her to reason with her father. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, also called Ms. Trump to see if she could talk to her father. A short time later, she arrived in the Oval Office, urging Mr. Trump to issue a statement.The White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, hammered at Mr. Trump to understand that he had potential legal exposure for what was taking place.Finally, at 2:38 p.m., Mr. Trump tweeted, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”A short time later, at 3:13 p.m., Mr. Trump added a note, “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”Ms. Trump quoted her father’s tweet when she sent out her own, telling “American Patriots” to follow the law. She quickly deleted it and replaced it when she faced blowback on Twitter for appearing to praise the rioters as “patriots.”Around 3:30 p.m., Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader and another ally of Mr. Trump’s, told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell that he had spoken that afternoon with Mr. Trump as the Capitol was under siege.“I told him he needed to talk to the nation,” Mr. McCarthy said. “I told him what was happening right then.”The call became heated, according to a Republican congresswoman, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington State, who said that Mr. McCarthy told her that Mr. Trump had sided with the mob as the Capitol attack unfolded, suggesting he had made a choice not to stop the violence.In a statement on Friday night that was admitted into evidence in the trial on Saturday, Ms. Herrera Beutler recounted that Mr. McCarthy had a shouting match with Mr. Trump during the call.Mr. McCarthy had told Mr. Trump that his own office windows were being broken into. “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Mr. Trump said, according to a report by CNN that the congresswoman confirmed.“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Mr. McCarthy fired back at one point, CNN reported, including an expletive.Meanwhile, the violence continued. At 4:17 p.m., Mr. Trump posted a video on Twitter of him speaking directly to the camera in the Rose Garden. “I know your pain,” Mr. Trump said. “I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us, it was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now.”He added, “We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt.”The violence continued. Well before the Capitol Police announced at 8 p.m. that the building had been secured, Mr. Trump put out a final tweet at 6:01 p.m.: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More