More stories

  • in

    Hillary Clinton Debated Trump. Here’s Her Advice for Kamala Harris.

    The 2016 Democratic nominee fell short to Donald Trump, but she had strong debate moments against him. In an interview, she offered some thoughts for Kamala Harris.Hillary Clinton has as much experience as any Democrat in debating Donald J. Trump.The 2016 presidential campaign, when she was her party’s nominee, included three of the six general-election debates Mr. Trump has participated in. Those faceoffs went a long way toward shaping the country’s vision of his candidacy and what he would be like as president.Mr. Trump, of course, went on to win the 2016 election — an outcome that still haunts Democrats.When Mrs. Clinton called this week to discuss her old debate coach, Karen Dunn, who is helping out Vice President Kamala Harris this time around, I took the opportunity to ask about her experience on the debate stage with Mr. Trump.“The consensus was that I won all three debates and that I was well prepared,” Mrs. Clinton said.Here are excerpts from our conversation, which have been lightly edited and condensed.What do you remember about your own preparations to debate Donald Trump?It was the first debate when Trump literally ridiculed me for preparing. This was not something we had thought about beforehand, because who thought we could be ridiculed for preparing for a presidential debate in front of 85 or 90 million people?So basically I said, yeah, I did prepare. And I’ll tell you something else I prepared for: I prepared to be president. Because I had the confidence. I knew the material. I felt comfortable. I also knew I had to brush Trump back and not let him be the center of attention all the time.What advice do you have for Kamala Harris as she prepares to debate Trump?She’s proven to be a good debater, both in her races in California and in her debate with Mike Pence. So I think she needs to be prepared enough that she feels really comfortable going on both offense and defense against Trump, because there’s a lot to cover with him.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

  • in

    Trump Urges Police Officers to Watch for Voter Fraud

    Former President Donald J. Trump urged the board of the nation’s largest police union on Friday to “watch for voter fraud” across the country, an appeal that, if followed through on, could run afoul of multiple state laws and raise accusations of voter intimidation.Invoking his widely debunked claims of voter fraud in 2020, Mr. Trump suggested that the only way he could lose in November was if Democrats cheated. “Watch for the voter fraud, because we win without voter fraud,” Mr. Trump said at a meeting of the national board of the Fraternal Order of Police in Charlotte, N.C. “We win so easily.”Mr. Trump added that he believed the police could effectively scare some voters. “You can keep it down just by watching, because, believe it or not, they’re afraid of that badge,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re afraid of you people. They’re afraid of that more than anything else.”Mr. Trump’s comments follow his repeated statements raising doubts about the integrity of the upcoming election before a vote has been cast. But though Mr. Trump has previously urged his supporters to monitor voting activity — particularly in Democratic cities in battleground states — his entreaty to the police union heightens concerns that he is encouraging voter intimidation at the polls.Katie Reisner, a senior counsel at States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization focused on elections, said that election officials and the police had been working for years to strengthen community relations around policing and elections, and that such encouragement from Mr. Trump could disrupt years of work and planning.“The idea of Trump telling the Fraternal Order of Police to take matters into their own hands and kind of go rogue, it’s certainly not a positive from a healthy elections standpoint,” Ms. Reisner said. “But it’s also really counter to a lot of work that’s happening in a lot of jurisdictions to make sure that law enforcement are both adhering to the law and not surprising their communities on Election Day or during voting.”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

  • in

    Why Trump’s 2020 Election Interference Case Is Back in Court

    The hearing Thursday in the case accusing former President Donald J. Trump of seeking to overturn the 2020 election is largely being held to answer a single question: How should the presiding judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, move the matter forward in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling granting Mr. Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution?That is, the hearing will focus on the legal steps that will be used in the later and more substantive undertaking of sorting out which parts of Mr. Trump’s indictment need to be tossed out under the court’s immunity decision and which can survive and go to trial.To that end, Judge Chutkan will consider proposals from Mr. Trump’s lawyers and from prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith. By the end of the proceeding, in Federal District Court in Washington, she will most likely at least signal how she intends to move forward and how much time it may take to complete the task.When justices handed down their immunity ruling in July, they granted Mr. Trump — and all other future former presidents — wide-ranging protections against charges arising from actions they took in their official capacity. And as part of the ruling, they sent the case back to Judge Chutkan and ordered her to do the complex work of determining which of the indictment’s many allegations stemmed from Mr. Trump’s official acts as president and which arose from unofficial acts — say, from his private role as a candidate running for office.There are different ways that Judge Chutkan could conduct that sorting process.She could order the two sides to submit filings to her laying out their separate positions, perhaps supported by facts drawn from interviews with — or sworn statements from — some of the many witnesses who gave information to Mr. Smith’s team during their investigation.In theory, Judge Chutkan could also schedule another hearing and make some of those witnesses testify in public, though that seems unlikely in the near term given that neither Mr. Trump’s lawyers nor Mr. Smith’s deputies have requested such a proceeding.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

  • in

    Trump Questions Fairness of Next Week’s Debate at a Town Hall

    Hours after the Trump and Harris campaigns agreed to rules for their first presidential debate, former President Donald J. Trump sought to instill doubt that the debate would be fair, downplayed his need to prepare and suggested he was more worried about the network hosting the debate than his opponent.Speaking at a Fox News town hall on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump insisted that ABC News, which will host next week’s debate in Philadelphia, was “dishonest,” even though he agreed months ago to allow the network to host a presidential debate.Pointing to Vice President Kamala Harris’s longtime friendship with a senior executive whose portfolio includes ABC News, Mr. Trump insisted without evidence that Ms. Harris was “going to get the questions in advance.” The network released agreed-upon rules that no topics or questions would be provided to either candidate or campaign.Mr. Trump’s attempts to question the integrity of the debate echoed a similar effort that preceded his consequential debate in June with President Biden that set off the president’s exit from the race. After taunting Mr. Biden into debating “anytime, anywhere, anyplace,” Mr. Trump sought to play down any potential political consequences as the debate neared by casting the network, moderators and rules as biased.“Beyond the debate rules published today, which were mutually agreed upon by two campaigns on May 15th, we have made no other agreements,” an ABC News spokeswoman said on Wednesday night. “We look forward to moderating the presidential debate next Tuesday.”Yet even as he suggested the debate next week would be biased against him, Mr. Trump also tried to present himself as unconcerned about his first head-to-head confrontation with Ms. Harris since she became the Democratic nominee. He insisted that planning would only get him so far and that he would take a similar approach to Ms. Harris that he did to Mr. Biden.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

  • in

    La jueza Tanya Chutkan vuelve a encargarse del caso de Trump por las elecciones federales

    Si su historial sirve de guía, Chutkan intentará que los procedimientos previos al juicio sigan su curso tras un largo paréntesis y la decisión de la Corte Suprema de conceder amplia inmunidad a los expresidentes.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]La jueza Tanya Chutkan no perdió el tiempo el mes pasado cuando le devolvieron el caso más importante de su carrera: la acusación contra el expresidente Donald Trump por interferencia electoral.Después de ver durante casi ocho meses cómo los abogados de Trump luchaban hasta llegar a la Corte Suprema con lo que terminó siendo un argumento, en gran medida exitoso, que se basaba en que tenía amplia inmunidad de procesamiento por cargos derivados de sus actos oficiales como presidente, la jueza Chutkan actuó con rapidez para que los procedimientos previos al juicio volvieran a activarse.A las 24 horas de recuperar el caso, estableció un calendario para debatir el impacto de la decisión del tribunal sobre la inmunidad en el caso. Mientras trabajaba durante un sábado de agosto, también tuvo tiempo para poner orden en su escritorio y negar dos mociones de los abogados de Trump que el proceso de apelación le había prohibido analizar durante casi un año.El jueves, la jueza Chutkan presidirá una audiencia en el Tribunal Federal de Distrito de Washington en la que es probable que explique cómo piensa abordar la tarea de determinar qué partes de la acusación contra Trump tendrán que ser anuladas en virtud de la sentencia de inmunidad y cuáles podrán sobrevivir e ir a juicio.Su decisión final no solo determinará el futuro del caso, sino que también servirá para poner a prueba el estilo sobrio que ha aplicado desde que le fue asignado el pasado mes de agosto.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

  • in

    Why Trump’s Unity Picks Are Not Very Unifying

    Trump is betting that the political fringe will help him win.It is a time-honored political strategy for presidential candidates: Win your primary, hold your convention and then pivot to the center as you work to unite a broad coalition of voters around your cause.Or not.With nine weeks to go until the election, former President Donald Trump is showcasing his support from a coterie of divisive public figures, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country’s most famous anti-vaxxer; Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman who drew support from white nationalists when she ran for president in 2020; and Elon Musk, who is probably the world’s most polarizing tech billionaire.Trump has bubble-wrapped those three people in a valence of unity, calling them “former Never Trumpers” in a Monday fund-raising email that presented them as evidence he was “rallying Americans of all political stripes together like never before.”But if that group aligns him with anybody, it’s the political fringe — and in a tight election, Trump is betting that it’s the disaffected, low-propensity voters who supported candidates like Kennedy who will help him win.“They are low-information voters, they’re not really interested in the election, and they don’t see the election really impacts them that much,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. “It’s an effort to try to get to those voters, get them to vote and get them to vote for the former president.”‘He beats to his own drum’Trump and his aides spent weeks delicately courting Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has long espoused anti-vaccine views and who initially entered the Democratic presidential primary before switching to run as an independent. Kennedy dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump last month; last week, Trump named him and Gabbard to his transition team, which binds them more tightly to his political operation and could give them power to shape a second administration.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

  • in

    Harris, Trump and Biden Consider World Trade Center Site Visits on Sept. 11

    Vice President Kamala Harris, President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump are considering visits to the World Trade Center site in New York City on Sept. 11 to memorialize the 2001 attacks.Ms. Harris is planning to travel to New York City after the presidential debate, scheduled for Sept. 10 in Philadelphia, according to three people directly familiar with her schedule who were not authorized to discuss the plans.Mr. Biden, who last year marked the anniversary of the attacks on a military base in Alaska as he traveled back from a diplomatic trip in Asia, is discussing his own plans to attend ground zero, two of those people said. The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment.And Mr. Trump, who built much of his political brand in the divisive aftermath of the attacks and on anger within the Republican Party about the Middle East wars that followed, is also considering visiting ground zero, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.The annual ceremony at the site has been a somber scene that has drawn mourners and also its fair share of politicians who have held office or are running for it. The vice president visited ground zero last year alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul, Democrat of New York, several former mayors and Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida, who was running for his party’s nomination for the presidency at the time.Hillary Clinton, who was the junior senator from New York when the 2001 attacks occurred, attended the memorial ceremony in 2016, when she was running for president. She fell ill as she was leaving, and was later treated for pneumonia. Mr. Trump also went to the ceremony that year, attending as he ran for office for the first time.Mr. Trump, the only native New Yorker of the group, did not make a return visit to the site in 2021, the 20th anniversary of the attacks. Mr. Biden visited all three attack sites that year and Ms. Harris spoke at the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pa.The anniversary that year came nine months after Mr. Trump’s term in the White House ended, following an attack by a mob of his supporters on the U.S. Capitol to try to thwart certification of Mr. Biden’s victory. Mr. Trump spent part of that anniversary in New York, visiting fire and police station houses, before returning to his adopted home state of Florida for a paid event providing color commentary for a boxing match between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort.Mr. Trump has a long history of making questionable and provocative statements about what he saw on the day of the attacks.This year, the anniversary of the attacks will come just hours after a presidential debate between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, who have not yet met in person but whose campaigns are engaged in a brawl ahead of what is forecast to be a close election. More