Trump, Donald J

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      Trump Rekindles Relationships With Key 2016 Donors

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      The former president met with the Mercers and others as he sought to keep pace financially with President Biden.Donald J. Trump, facing a cash crunch that puts him at a severe disadvantage to President Biden, dined on Thursday night with a small group of donors including the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, according to two people with knowledge of the event.Mr. Trump’s dinner companions also included the entrepreneur Omeed Malik, the cosmetics firm founder Trish McEvoy and the real estate management billionaire Richard Kurtz, one of the people said.The Mercers, Ms. McEvoy and Mr. Kurtz did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Mr. Malik declined to comment, and a Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.The Mercers were a critical source of support behind Mr. Trump’s win in the 2016 presidential election. In addition to giving donations, they pushed him to make changes to his political team, including making Kellyanne Conway his campaign manager and Stephen K. Bannon his chief executive. The family was conspicuously quiet during Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election effort.But both Robert and Rebekah Mercer have lent their names for an invitation to a high-dollar fund-raiser on April 6, along with Mr. Malik. And their appearance with Mr. Trump at the dinner is additional evidence of a rekindled relationship.The dinner came at the end of a day when Mr. Trump flew to New York City from Florida to attend the wake of the New York Police Department officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Queens this week.Mr. Trump’s visit took place at the same time that Mr. Biden was preparing for a fund-raiser with two of his Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, that raised a record $25 million at Radio City Music Hall. Mr. Trump’s team mocked the event as one for elites as he was received by Officer Diller’s family. More

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      Revisiting Florida 2000 and the Butterfly Effect

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      The evidence is strong that Al Gore would have won had it not been for an infamous ballot design in Palm Beach County.Theresa LePore, who designed Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot, with old ballots three years after the 2000 election. David FriedmanWe’re still in a post-primary lull before the campaign starts to heat up — and before Donald J. Trump goes on trial. Here are a few quick notes to end the week.Joe Lieberman and the butterfly ballotJoe Lieberman, the former Democratic senator, died this week at 82. He was Al Gore’s vice-presidential nominee in 2000, when the Gore-Lieberman ticket came less than 600 Florida votes away from winning the White House.We’ll never know what would have happened if the Supreme Court had allowed the recount to continue. But I don’t think it’s always appreciated that we probably do know that Mr. Gore would have won Florida, and therefore the presidency, if it weren’t for the infamous “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach County.If you don’t remember — it has been a while — the butterfly ballot was very unusual. Candidates were listed on both sides of the ballot, and voters cast a ballot by punching a corresponding hole in the middle. What made it so unusual was that the ordering of the candidates on the ballot didn’t have the same logic as the corresponding punch hole: George W. Bush and Mr. Gore were the first two candidates listed on the left-hand side, but they corresponded to the first and third hole on the punch. The second punch corresponded with the first candidate on the right-hand side of the ballot: the paleoconservative Pat Buchanan, running as a Reform Party candidate.After the election, many voters from Palm Beach claimed they had inadvertently voted for Mr. Buchanan when they meant to vote for Mr. Gore. This is clear in the data. Mr. Buchanan fared far better in Palm Beach County than he did on the other side of the county line. Indeed, Mr. Buchanan fared far better in Palm Beach County than any politically or demographically comparable area in the country.You can see this pattern quite clearly in this map, courtesy of Matthew C. Isbell, a Democratic data strategist and consultant:We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Persistent Threat to Abortion Rights

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      The Supreme Court this week heard the first major challenge to abortion rights since it struck down Roe v. Wade two years ago — an attempt to severely limit access to mifepristone, the most commonly used abortion pill in the country, by a group of doctors who are morally opposed to the practice.The justices seem prepared to throw out the lawsuit. During oral arguments, they questioned whether the doctors had suffered the harm necessary to bring the suit in the first place.But that should come as small comfort to anyone concerned for the future of reproductive freedom in America. Judges at the state and federal level are ready to further restrict reproductive options and health care access. The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, has indicated support for a 15-week national abortion ban. And while the Supreme Court, in overturning Roe, ostensibly left it to each state to decide abortion policy, several states have gone against the will of their voters on abortion or tried to block ballot measures that would protect abortion rights. Anti-abortion forces may have had a tough week in the Supreme Court, but they remain focused on playing and winning a longer game.Even potential victories for reproductive freedom may prove short-lived: The mifepristone case, for instance, is far from dead. Another plaintiff could bring the same case and have it considered on the merits, a possibility Justice Samuel Alito raised during oral arguments.“Is there anybody who could challenge in court the lawfulness of what the F.D.A. did here?” he asked the solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar. Such a challenge would be exceptionally weak, given that the F.D.A. provided substantial support for its approval and regulatory guidance on the use of mifepristone, but the right-wing justices on the Roberts court may be willing to hear it again anyway. The justices have already illustrated their hostility to the authority of administrative agencies, and that hostility may persist even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence.Then there is the Comstock Act, a 151-year-old federal law that anti-abortion activists are trying to revive to block the mailing of mifepristone and other abortion medication. During the oral arguments this week, Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas repeatedly expressed their openness to the use of the law, which was pushed by an anti-vice crusader decades before women won the right to vote. If anti-abortion activists can get themselves before a sympathetic court and secure a national injunction on this medication being mailed, they may well be able to block access to abortion throughout the country, including in states where it is legal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Welcome to the Jess Bidgood Era

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      After a long and exhaustive search, we have found our next newsletter writer.Hi, everyone! I’m so pleased to tell you that after a long and exhaustive search, we have found our next newsletter writer, Jess Bidgood.Jess is new to this newsletter but not to The New York Times. Many of us worked with her back in the 2010s, when she covered the country as a reporter for The Times’s National Desk, based in Boston.Of course, the political world has changed dramatically since then. And Jess is just the right person to chart us through this uncharted territory. She has a keen eye for character, endless curiosity about the country and a wonderful sense of humor. (Just ask her about going off piste with Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire.)She’ll take over on Monday with her debut newsletter. After that, you’ll find her in your inbox three times a week — Monday, Wednesday and Friday.I talked to Jess about her past work, her current sense about politics and how she envisions the future of this newsletter.LL: We’re so happy you’re here. Tell everyone a little about yourself.JB: Lisa, thank you! I’m an England-born political reporter who grew up moving around this country and became kind of obsessed with it. These days, I live in Washington, D.C., with my husband and my dog, whose name is Rhubarb.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews John Ganz

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      Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation about something that matters, like today’s episode with John Ganz. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.Transcripts of our episodes are made available as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.The Rise of ‘Middle-Finger Politics’The political writer John Ganz walks through the long history of Trump’s brand of right-wing populism in the U.S.[MUSIC PLAYING]EZRA KLEIN: From New York Times Opinion, this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”[MUSIC PLAYING]I think a lot of Democrats, and even a lot of Republicans, are still a bit agog that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee once again in 2024. After everything he’s said and done, after what he did during Covid, after everything he did to try and overturn the 2020 election, amidst all the criminal trials and scandals and corruption, all the people he has betrayed and insulted and double-crossed — this guy, still.It’s not like there weren’t alternatives. DeSantis pitched himself as Donald Trump without the wild personality. Maybe what people liked about Trump were the positions, but he was being held back by who he was. At least not on the Republican side, that did not turn out to be the problem for Donald Trump. Vivek Ramaswamy was a younger, more cheerful, more multicultural spin on the Trumpist theme. Neither of them found any real footing. Both of them were missing something.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Fund-Raiser and Trump Visit to New York Preview Clashes to Come

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      The epicenter of the presidential campaign shifted to New York on Thursday, as the incumbent president and three of his predecessors descended on the area for dueling events that illustrated the kinds of political clashes that could come to define the general election.For Democrats, it was a high-profile, celebrity-studded fund-raiser for President Biden in Manhattan. On Long Island, former President Donald J. Trump attended a wake for a New York City officer who was killed during a traffic stop on Monday. Together, the day’s events struck an unusual contrast in a general election campaign that has so far been largely defined by appearances in courtrooms and at small, invitation-only events.Mr. Biden, along with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, appeared before 5,000 donors at a Radio City Music Hall event that campaign aides said raised $25 million. The eye-popping number set a record for a single political event, according to the aides, and offered a star-studded show of Democratic unity as the president heads into a difficult re-election campaign.The three Democratic presidents spent much of their time in New York City wrapped in the glitz of their celebrity supporters. Tieless and in matching white shirts, they sat for an interview on a celebrity podcast, were roasted by the comedian Mindy Kaling and interviewed by Stephen Colbert, a late-night host.Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, made his own appearance in the area several hours earlier, at a funeral home on Long Island surrounded by hundreds of police officers and family members of the slain officer. While not officially a campaign stop, aides used the appearance to draw a sharp contrast with Mr. Biden, attacking the Democrats for spending their evening with donors and celebrities. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has spent far more time battling in court than in battleground states.Former President Donald J. Trump attending a wake for a New York City police officer on Long Island.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      John Eastman, Former Trump Election Lawyer, Should Be Disbarred, Judge Finds

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      The decision was only the latest effort by bar officials to seek accountability against a group of lawyers who sought to help President Donald J. Trump stay in office despite his election loss.A judge in California recommended on Wednesday that the lawyer John Eastman be stripped of his law license, finding he had violated rules of professional ethics by persistently lying in his efforts to help former President Donald J. Trump maintain his grip on power after losing the 2020 election.In a 128-page ruling, the judge, Yvette Roland, said Mr. Eastman had willfully misrepresented facts in lawsuits he helped file challenging the election results and acted dishonestly in promoting a “wild theory” that Mr. Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, could unilaterally declare him the victor during a certification proceeding at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.“In sum, Eastman exhibited gross negligence by making false statements about the 2020 election without conducting any meaningful investigation or verification of the information he was relying upon,” Judge Roland found, adding that he had breached “his ethical duty as an attorney to prioritize honesty and integrity.”The ruling said Mr. Eastman would lose his license within three days of the decision being issued. While he can appeal the finding, the ruling makes his license “inactive,” meaning that he cannot practice law in California while a review is taking place.The decision was only the latest effort by bar officials across the country to seek accountability against a group of lawyers who pushed false claims of election fraud and sought to help Mr. Trump stay in office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More