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      How Trump Would Govern

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      Donald Trump’s threats for another presidency are deeply alarming, historians and legal experts say.“2024 is the final battle,” Donald Trump has said.“Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country,” he has argued.“Our country,” he has said, “is going to hell.”As he campaigns to reclaim the presidency, Trump has intensified his rhetoric of cataclysm and apocalypse, beyond even the tenor of his previous two campaigns. He has claimed that “the blood-soaked streets of our once great cities are cesspools of violent crimes” and that Americans are living in “the most dangerous time in the history of our country.”More specifically, he has promised to use the powers of the federal government to punish people he perceives to be his critics and opponents, including the Biden family, district attorneys, journalists and “the deep state.” He has suggested that Mark Milley, a retired top general, deserves the death penalty. Trump has called President Biden “an enemy of the state” and Nancy Pelosi “the Wicked Witch.” He has accused former President Barack Obama — “Barack Hussein Obama,” in Trump’s telling — of directing Biden to admit “terrorists and terrorist sympathizers” into the U.S.Trump’s threats, often justified with lies, are deeply alarming, historians and legal experts say. He has repeatedly promised to undermine core parts of American democracy. He has also signaled that, unlike in his first term in the White House, he will avoid appointing aides and cabinet officials who would restrain him.Many Americans have heard only snippets of Trump’s promises. He tends to make them on Truth Social, his niche social media platform, or at campaign events, which have received less media coverage than they did when he first ran for president eight years ago. Yet there is reason to believe that Trump means what he says.“He’s told us what he will do,” Liz Cheney, a member of Congress until her criticism of Trump led to her defeat in a Republican primary, told John Dickerson of CBS News this past weekend. “People who say, ‘Well, if he’s elected, it’s not that dangerous because we have all of these checks and balances’ don’t fully understand the extent to which the Republicans in Congress today have been co-opted.”Not simply policyI understand why many Americans would like to tune out — or deny — the risks facing our democracy. I also understand why many voters are frustrated with the status quo and find Trump’s anti-establishment campaign appealing.Incomes, wealth and life expectancy have been stagnant for decades for millions of people. The Covid pandemic and its aftermath contributed to a rise in both inflation and societal disorder. School absenteeism has risen sharply. The murder rate and homelessness have both increased. Undocumented immigration has soared during Biden’s presidency.But it’s worth being clear about what Trump is promising to do. He isn’t merely calling for policy solutions that some Americans support and others oppose. He is promising to undo foundations of American democracy and to rule as authoritarians in other countries have. He is also leading the race for the Republican nomination by a wide margin, and running even with, or slightly ahead of, Biden in general election polls.Today’s newsletter is the first of several in coming months meant to help you understand what a second Trump presidency would look like. For starters, I recommend that you read what Trump is saying in his own words. My colleagues Ian Prasad Philbrick and Lyna Bentahar have been tracking his campaign appearances and social media posts, and have compiled a list of his most extreme statements.I also recommend an ongoing series of Times stories by Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman, which previews a potential second Trump presidency. Among the subjects: legal policy, immigration and the firing of career government employees. The most recent story looks at why he is more likely to achieve his aims in a second term than he was in his first.“So many of the guardrails that existed to stop him are gone or severely weakened,” Maggie told me. “That includes everything from internal appointees to a changed Congress, where he has outlasted his few Republican critics there.”What democracy needsThe new issue of The Atlantic magazine is devoted to this subject as well, with 24 writers imagining a second Trump term. “Our concern with Trump is not that he is a Republican, or that he embraces — when convenient — certain conservative ideas,” Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, writes. “We believe that a democracy needs, among other things, a strong liberal party and a strong conservative party in order to flourish.” The problem, Goldberg explains, is that Trump is “an antidemocratic demagogue.”Regular readers of this newsletter know that I agree with Goldberg about the value of both conservative and liberal ideas, and that I find it uncomfortable to write about the likely nominee of a major party in such harsh terms. In 2024, we will also cover Biden’s record and campaign with appropriate skepticism.But it would be wishful thinking to portray Trump as anything other than antidemocratic. He keeps telling the country what he intends to do if he returns to the White House in 2025. It’s worth listening.Related: “The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War,” Robert Kagan, a conservative who has advised both Republicans and Democrats, warns in The Washington Post.THE LATEST NEWSIsrael-Hamas WarIsrael has started an invasion of southern Gaza, satellite images show. Troops appear to be closing in on its main city, Khan Younis.The Israeli military has bombarded Gaza with airstrikes since the cease-fire ended. The U.N. said civilians had few safe places left to go.Extensive evidence, including videos, indicates that Hamas used sexual violence during its Oct. 7 attacks. Jewish women’s groups say the world has not paid sufficient attention.A rocket launched from Gaza on Oct. 7 hit an Israeli military base believed to house nuclear-capable missiles, a Times investigation found.After Iranian-backed proxy forces appear to have launched attacks in the Red Sea, the U.S. and its allies are discussing how to guard ships traveling there.A White House spokesman said a protest outside an Israeli restaurant in Philadelphia was antisemitic.Chinese EconomyUnfinished construction by China Evergrande.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesWhen China’s housing bubble burst, the property giant Evergrande defaulted on its debt. Its collapse was accelerated by questionable accounting.China’s credit outlook was dropped to negative by Moody’s, the ratings agency, which cited concern over rising debt and the cost of possible bailouts.War in UkraineUkrainian soldiers.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesThe U.S. will run out of money for Ukraine by the end of the year if Congress does not approve more aid, the White House said.Evan Gershkovich, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal, has been in Russian jail for more than 250 days and is still awaiting trial.2024 ElectionTomorrow’s Republican presidential primary debate will feature only four candidates: Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie.Some anti-Trump Republicans want Christie to drop out and back Haley as an alternative to Trump.Doug Burgum, the Republican governor of North Dakota, ended his presidential campaign.A super PAC backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent bid for president plans to spend millions to get him on the ballot in several battleground states.Talk more about abortion and less about Trump: Democratic governors — almost all of them more popular in their states than Biden — have advice for the president’s campaign.BusinessChatGPT’s release in 2022 prompted a desperate scramble among tech firms, and alarm from some people who helped invent it.23andMe, the genetic testing company, said hackers obtained the personal data of nearly seven million profiles.Other Big StoriesThe 2023 hurricane seasons in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific ended. The season had an above average number of storms, fueled by extremely warm ocean temperatures.A former U.S. ambassador is accused of working for years as a secret agent for Cuba as he rose up the ranks at the State Department.The U.N. said that hundreds of people were believed to be stranded on boats in the Andaman Sea, and that most were believed to be Rohingya.Brain implants helped five people in their recovery after trauma. This may be the first effective therapy for chronic brain injuries.OpinionsThis conservative wonk is happy when J.D. Vance and Elizabeth Warren work together, Jane Coaston explains.Americans trust police officers who solve crime. To do that, departments need more investigators, Jeff Asher argues.The bigger airlines get, the worse they become, Tim Wu writes.Here is a column by Michelle Goldberg on antisemitism.MORNING READSThe Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.Andrew Jogi for The New York TimesTaking flight: Behind the scenes at the world’s largest hot-air balloon festival.Food fraud: European officials seized nearly 70,000 gallons of “unfit” olive oil.That “meh” feeling: Persistent depressive disorder is underdiagnosed.Hormone difference: Women get more headaches than men.First cruise? Here’s how to prepare for smooth sailing.Lives Lived: For more than a decade, Robert H. Precht produced “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the Sunday night variety extravaganza that brought singers, comedians, bands, jugglers and more into millions of living rooms. He died at 93.SPORTSN.F.L.: Cincinnati backup quarterback Jake Browning led the 6-6 Bengals to an improbable overtime win against the 8-4 Jacksonville Jaguars.New York Jets: Zach Wilson is reluctant to return to a starting role as quarterback, and the Jets are considering a change.College football: This end of this four-team playoff can’t come soon enough, Stewart Mandel writes — not just because of snubs like Florida State, but because so many other great teams have nothing to play for.Transfer portal: More than 1,000 college football players entered the portal yesterday, the highest one-day total since its inception.ARTS AND IDEASBest of 2023: Reggie Ugwu advises that you read his list of the best podcasts of the year not as an objective ranking — tastes vary too much for that — but as a Michelin Guide to podcasts, leading you to some great new shows. Among of his favorites:Say More With Dr? Sheila, Amy Poehler’s hilarious, unscripted riff on couples therapy podcasts and the modern relationship guru.The Sound, a twisty investigation into the phenomenon known as Havana Syndrome, and the sound heard by diplomats who later reported cognitive injuries.The Turning: Room of Mirrors, a 10-part series on the elite, high-pressure world of the New York City Ballet.More on cultureThe assault case against Jonathan Majors, the actor, began with a debate: Was he an abuser or a victim? The Cut explains what you need to know about the trial.Tyler Goodson, a key figure in the popular “S-Town” podcast series, was shot and killed during a standoff with the police in Alabama, the authorities said.THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …Linda Xiao for The New York TimesSimmer meatballs in a lemony, spinach-filled broth.Weatherize your home.Get a flu shot. (It’s not too late.)Start new holiday traditions.GAMESHere is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were inaptly and pliantly.And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidSign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. More

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      Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign, in His Own Menacing Words

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      Trump’s language has become darker, harsher and more threatening during his third run for the White House.As he campaigns for another term in the White House, Donald Trump sounds like no other presidential candidate in U.S. history.He has made baldly antidemocratic statements, praising autocratic leaders like China’s Xi Jinping and continuing to claim that the 2020 election was stolen. “I don’t consider us to have much of a democracy right now,” Trump said.He has threatened to use the power of the presidency against his political opponents, including President Biden and Biden’s family. Trump frequently insults his opponents in personal terms, calling them “vermin,” as well as “thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people.”He has made dozens of false or misleading statements. He has advocated violence, suggesting that an Army general who clashed with him deserved the death penalty and that shoplifters should be shot. And he describes U.S. politics in apocalyptic terms, calling the 2024 election “our final battle” and describing himself as his supporters’ “retribution.”Many Americans have heard only snippets of these statements because Trump makes them on Truth Social, his niche social media platform, or at campaign events that receive less media coverage than when he first ran for president eight years ago. But his words offer a preview of what a second Trump term might look like.For years, Trump has insulted political opponents, painted a dark picture of the country and made comments inconsistent with democratic norms. But his language has grown harsher, as he admits. “These are radical left people,” Trump said of Democrats in Salem, N.H., in January. “I think in many cases they’re Marxists and Communists. And I used to say that seldom. Now I say it all the time.”Trump’s stolen-election talk, preoccupation with his criminal indictments and pledges to seek revenge have become organizing principles of his current campaign. He has made the same case — sometimes word for word — in dozens of appearances since announcing his candidacy last year. “He’s not laying out a political agenda,” said Didi Kuo of Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. “His campaign is based purely on stoking division and on attacking our institutions in order to defend himself.”(In a continuing series of Times stories, our colleagues Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman have previewed a potential second Trump presidency. Among the subjects: legal policy, immigration and the firing of career government employees.)Many democracy experts are deeply alarmed. “If he says what he means and means what he says, and someday is able to implement it, it’s an existential crisis that the U.S. would face,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.Barbara Comstock, a Republican former congresswoman from Virginia, told us, “This is a very embittered man who I think very much wants to take these actions.”“Both this rhetoric and all G.O.P. plans announced for a second Trump term indicate clearly that retribution and institutional destruction outside the rule of law will prevail if he returns to the White House,” Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist, said.To help readers understand the situation, The Times has compiled a list of Trump’s most extreme comments during the campaign so far. The list includes many false statements, including Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged, that the murder rate is at a record high and that Biden is behind the criminal indictments against Trump. Trump also frequently makes false claims about other political figures.We have grouped his statements into 11 categories.The stakesTrump has used apocalyptic terms to describe the impact of the 2024 election:“2024 is the final battle. … If we don’t win this next election, 2024, I truly believe our country is doomed. I think it’s doomed.” March 25, Waco, Texas“If we don’t stop them this time, I think that’s going to be the end. I really do.” Jan. 28, Salem, N.H.“Our beloved nation is teetering on the edge of tyranny.” June 24, Washington“The gravest threats to our civilization are not from abroad, but from within.” Nov. 15, 2022, Palm Beach, Fla.“If those opposing us succeed, our once beautiful U.S.A. will be a failed country that no one will even recognize. A lawless, open-borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare. That’s what it’s going and that’s where it’s going. … Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country.” March 4, National Harbor, Md.“Either we surrender to the demonic forces, abolishing and demolishing — and happily doing so — our country, or we defeat them in a landslide on Nov. 5, 2024. Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state.” March 25, Waco, Texas“This election will decide whether America will be ruled by Marxist, fascist and communist tyrants who want to smash our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Sept. 15, Washington“I will prevent World War III. … And without me, it will happen. And this won’t be a conventional war with army tanks going back and forth, shooting each other. This will be nuclear war. This will be obliteration. Perhaps obliteration of the entire world.” June 10, Columbus, Ga.Governance as revengeTrump has threatened to use government powers to punish people he perceives as his critics and opponents:“This is a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out immediately. Get them out.” June 10, Columbus, Ga. (He was referring to Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Trump, and others at the Justice Department.)“We will root out the deep state and stop the weaponization of federal agencies because there’s a weaponization like nobody’s ever seen. We will use every tool at our disposal.” Jan. 28, Salem, N.H.“On Day 1 of my new administration, I will direct the D.O.J. to investigate every radical district attorney and attorney general in America for their illegal, racist-in-reverse enforcement of the law.” April 27, Manchester, N.H.“Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC, often and correctly referred to as MSDNC (Democrat National Committee!), should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason.’ … I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. … They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!” Sept. 24, Truth Social“As soon as I am re-elected, I will appoint a real special counsel — or maybe you’ll call it a special prosecutor, whatever you want to call it, you can — to look at all of these bribes, kickbacks and other crimes as well as the shameless attempt at a cover-up. Justice will be done. The Biden crime family will be looked at. … When we get there, the Biden crime family will pay a price.” Aug. 15, Rumble“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to investigate the Biden bribery and crime ring.” June 27, Concord, N.H.“From the first day in office, I will appoint a special prosecutor to study each and every one of the many claims being brought forth by Congress concerning all of the crooked acts, including the bribes from China and many other countries, that go into the coffers of the Biden crime family.” Aug. 5, Columbia, S.C.“I will fire the unelected bureaucrats and shadow forces who have weaponized our justice system like it has never been weaponized before.” March 4, National Harbor, Md.Character attacksTrump’s personal attacks have become more specific and menacing:Biden “has gone mad, a stark raving lunatic.” Aug. 10, Truth SocialBiden is “the most corrupt president in American history, and it’s not even close.” Feb. 7, Truth Social“Biden is a Stone Cold Crook.” Aug. 27, Truth Social“Instead of keeping terrorists and terrorist sympathizers out of America, the Biden administration is inviting them in. You know why? Because he’s got a boss. Who’s his boss? Barack Hussein Obama.” Oct. 11, West Palm Beach, Fla.Nancy Pelosi “is a Wicked Witch whose husbands journey from hell starts and finishes with her. She is a sick & demented psycho who will someday live in HELL!” Aug. 6, Truth Social“Deranged Jack Smith — he’s the prosecutor, he’s a deranged person — wants to take away my rights under the First Amendment, wants to take away my right of speaking freely and openly.” Sept. 15, Washington“We have a rogue judge. … We have a racist attorney general who’s a horror show.” Oct. 2, New York City (He was referring to Arthur Engoron, the judge overseeing Trump’s civil fraud trial, and to Letitia James, New York State’s attorney general.)“They say there’s a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta. She’s a racist … And this is a person that wants to indict me. She’s got a lot of problems.” Aug. 8, Windham, N.H. (His comments were directed at Fani Willis, a Georgia prosecutor investigating Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.)“I have to stay around and fight off the Crazed Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Marxists, and Fascists … this COUNTRY DESTROYING Scum.” Aug. 27, Truth Social“They’re flooding your towns with deadly drugs, selling your jobs to China, mutilating your children. They’re mutilating your children.” March 25, Waco, Texas (He was referring to Democrats.)Rhetoric of cataclysmHis claims of national decline have intensified:“We are a failing nation. We are a nation in decline.” Sept. 15, Washington“Under Biden, our nation is being destroyed by a selfish, radical and corrupt political establishment. … We’re going Marxist. We have skipped socialism. That train has already left.” Jan. 28, Salem, N.H.“Our rights and our liberties are being torn to shreds and your country is being turned into a third-world hellhole ruled by censors, perverts, criminals and thugs.” July 15, West Palm Beach, Fla.“Our country — the way it’s going right now — is going into a depression. We’re going into a depression, like in 1929-type Depression, and we’re not going to let that happen.” April 27, Manchester, N.H.“We are living in a catastrophe. … What’s happening with our country is a disgrace and it’s a laughingstock all over the world.” April 27, Manchester, N.H.“Our enemies are waging war on faith and freedom, on science and religion, on history and tradition, on law and democracy, on God Almighty himself. They are waging war.” June 24, Washington“Savage killers, rapists and violent criminals are being released from jail to continue their crime wave. And under Biden, the murder rate has reached the highest in the history of our country.” Feb. 7, Truth Social“I believe it’s the most dangerous time in the history of our country.” April 14, Indianapolis“The blood-soaked streets of our once great cities are cesspools of violent crimes, which are being watched all over the world, as leadership of other countries explain that this is what America and democracy is really all about.” Nov. 15, 2022, Palm Beach, Fla.“New York City is a crime den. Chicago is a crime den. You look at these great cities — Los Angeles, San Francisco. You look at what’s happening to our country.” March 13, Davenport, Iowa“You’re afraid to walk through one of these Democrat cities. You go out for a loaf of bread, you end up getting shot.” April 14, Indianapolis“We’re not a free nation right now. We don’t have free press. We don’t have free anything. … We do not have free speech.” March 4, National Harbor, Md.References to violenceTrump encourages or excuses violence:“Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week. This will be a time for all citizens of the USA to celebrate! This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Sept. 22, Truth Social“Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store. Shot.” Sept. 29, Anaheim, Calif.“We’ll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi, who ruined San Francisco. How’s her husband doing, by the way, anybody know? And she’s against building a wall at our border even though she has a wall around her house, which obviously didn’t do a very good job.” Sept. 29, Anaheim, Calif. (Trump was referring to Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, who was attacked with a hammer in a home invasion. The attacker told the police he was motivated in part by Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.)Immigration crackdownHe has promised a harsh federal crackdown on immigrants:“We have complete chaos. Fentanyl is pouring in. Families are being wiped out, destroyed, and there’s death everywhere, all caused by incompetence. … Other countries are emptying out their prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions and sending all of their problems right into their dumping ground: the U.S.A.” March 4, National Harbor, Md.“We will use all necessary state, local, federal and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” April 27, Manchester, N.H.“This is an invasion of our country, what’s coming across our border. It’s no different than soldiers. And they’re bringing a lot of different problems than soldiers would bring. They’re not bringing merely bullets, and they’re bringing plenty of them. … They’re killing the blood, the lifestream of our country.” March 13, Davenport, Iowa“Our Southern border has been erased, and our country is being invaded by millions and millions of unknown people. … We’re being poisoned.” Nov. 15, 2022, Palm Beach, Fla.“I’ll ask every state and federal agency to identify every known or suspected gang member in America and every one of them that is here illegally. The police know every one of them, and we’ll pick them up, and we’ll send them back home where they came from. They’ll be out of here.” April 27, Manchester, N.H.“For any radical left charity, non-profit or so called aid organizations supporting these caravans and illegal aliens, we will prosecute them for their participation in human trafficking, child smuggling and every other crime we can find.” Nov. 4, Truth SocialCorrupt justice, part oneTrump argues that the justice system is rigged, often in reference to the four criminal indictments against him:“We have two standards of justice in our country: one for people like you and me, and one for the corrupt political class.” Jan. 19, Truth Social“Our justice system has become lawless. They’re using it now, in addition to everything else, to win elections.” April 4, Palm Beach, Fla.“Crooked Joe Biden and his radical left thugs have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading opponent — by a lot, leading — on fake and phony charges.” Sept. 15, Washington“Joe Biden has weaponized law enforcement against his political opposition, the greatest abuse of power in American history, by far.” June 30, Philadelphia“This is the continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time. That’s all it is. And its primary purpose is election interference.” June 27, Concord, N.H.Corrupt justice, part twoTrump also says the justice system is rigged against his supporters, including the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters:“We have Antifa and B.L.M., who hate our country and burn down our cities, and they’re protected by law enforcement, while we put great American patriots in jail and destroy their lives.” Jan. 28, Salem, N.H.“Antifa thugs who are allowed to roam the streets while we have people that in many cases are great patriots — great, great patriots — sing prayers every night, playing our national anthem every day. And they’re sitting in a jail nearby, rotting away and being treated so unfairly like nobody’s probably ever been treated in this country before, except maybe me.” March 4, National Harbor, Md.“American patriots are being arrested & held in captivity like animals, while criminals & leftist thugs are allowed to roam the streets, killing & burning with no retribution.” March 18, Truth Social“Patriotic parents, Christians, conservatives, pro-life activists are being hounded by the F.B.I. and the D.O.J. like terrorists. They’re being treated so badly.” March 25, Waco, Texas“If the Communists get away with this, it won’t stop with me. They will not hesitate to ramp up their persecution of Christians, pro-life activists, parents attending school board meetings and even future Republican candidates.” June 13, Bedminster, N.J.The 2020 electionTrump continues to falsely accuse Democrats of rigging the 2020 election:“I believe we also won two general elections, OK? If you want to know the truth.” Jan. 28, Salem, N.H.“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” Dec. 3, 2022, Truth Social“There was never a second of any day that I didn’t believe that that election was rigged. It was a rigged election. It was a rigged election and it was a stolen, disgusting election, and this country should be ashamed. And they go after the people that want to prove that it was rigged and stolen. … They don’t go after the people that rigged it.” Aug. 8, Windham, N.H.“The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election of 2020. … We won the first one and we won the second one even bigger, and we got — we got screwed, that’s what happened. We had a rigged election. Our opponents are showing every day that they hate democracy.” Nov. 18, Fort Dodge, IowaUndemocratic comparisonsHe argues that the U.S. has come to mimic its longtime global rivals and enemies and has become undemocratic:“You go back to Communist China or look at a third-world banana republic. That’s what we’ve become.” March 25, Waco, Texas“Our elections were like those of a third-world country.” April 4, Palm Beach, Fla.“They’re trying to arrest their political opposition. It’s really very much like the old Soviet Union.” April 14, Indianapolis“Many of those people coming from Cuba, Venezuela, other countries, they’ve seen this happening to their countries.” June 13, Bedminster, N.J.Praise for autocratsHe speaks admiringly of authoritarian leaders:“President Xi: Smart, top of his game. President Putin: Smart. Very smart people.” March 25, Waco, Texas“We did a fantastic job with Kim Jong-un. You know, I got along with him very well. The fake news said, It’s terrible that he gets along with him. I said, Really? It’s not terrible, it’s a very good thing. You know, it’s a positive thing.” June 30, Philadelphia“A man who looks like a piece of granite, right? He’s strong like granite. He’s strong. I know him very well, President Xi of China. … He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron hand. … I got along well with Putin. That’s a good thing.” Nov. 18, Fort Dodge, Iowa“One of the strongest leaders, Viktor Orban from Hungary . … He’s a very strong man — very strong, powerful man — and one of the most respected leaders in the world. He’s tough. No games, right?” Nov. 18, Fort Dodge, Iowa More

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      Republicans Weigh New Debate Rules That Could Lead to More Onstage Clashes

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      The party is considering whether to open the door to debates not sponsored by the Republican National Committee, which could lead to more onstage clashes but also diminish their fanfare.The next Republican debate on Wednesday could be the last one sponsored by the Republican National Committee in the 2024 primary race, with the party considering debate rule changes that would open the door to more onstage clashes but also diminish the fanfare around them.The debate in Tuscaloosa, Ala., comes as Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, is trying to assert herself as the main rival to former President Donald J. Trump, after months in which Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has ceded ground. The R.N.C. is weighing a proposal to end its demand that candidates participate exclusively in the party’s debates, with a final decision expected this week.Few have been happy with how the debates, which are overseen by the R.N.C., have unfolded so far. Mr. Trump has boycotted them, dampening interest and lessening the stakes. His rivals have been forced to fight among themselves. And lower-polling candidates have steadily been pushed out by rising thresholds to qualify.Debates are traditionally the marquee events of a presidential primary contest, with voters eagerly tuning in to watch the candidates disagree on policy and vie for their support. But the Republican front-runner’s stubborn absence this election cycle has robbed them of much of their drama.The debate on Wednesday will feature four candidates, the R.N.C. announced on Monday evening: Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who appeared to have reached the polling requirement over the weekend as party officials met on Monday to approve a final poll that would allow him to qualify.“The fourth debate is another fantastic opportunity for our Republican candidates to share our winning agenda with the American people,” Ronna McDaniel, the party chairwoman, said in a statement.The party had previously signaled plans to hold forums in January in both Iowa and New Hampshire before those states’ nominating contests. Now, those debates may not happen as events sponsored by the party, according to four people involved in the process, though no final decisions have been made. The party could also still sponsor future debates even after stripping away the exclusivity requirement. Other news outlets have continued to engage in talks to hold debates.The debate rule change idea was presented last week to the R.N.C.’s debate committee by David Bossie, who has led that group and was a former top political aide to Mr. Trump. The proposal was first reported by The Washington Post.Multiple candidates have complained about the current limits, believing they have been denied the chance for exposure elsewhere. Still, some 2024 campaigns have been leery of the role that Mr. Bossie is playing for the party given his past close ties to Mr. Trump. The party’s debate committee will formally consider the proposal in a meeting after the debate in Alabama.“As has been the process throughout the entire year, the debate committee will meet to decide the details of future debates,” said Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, declining to answer specific questions.Ratings for the debates have steadily shrunk. The first clash in Milwaukee, on Fox News, had 12.8 million viewers. The second debate, hosted by Fox Business, had 9.5 million. The third debate, on NBC News and other platforms, dwindled to 7.5 million, according to Nielsen figures.And the fourth debate will be on a lesser-known platform than the first three, NewsNation. The moderators will be Elizabeth Vargas of NewsNation, the former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and Eliana Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon.Mr. DeSantis, whose super PAC has been caught in a cycle of turmoil, has been aggressively seeking more opportunities in the national spotlight, including an unusual debate last week on Fox News with the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom. And in a recent appearance on Newsmax, Mr. DeSantis said that network should get a debate. “Maybe as we go forward, maybe there will be more freewheeling debates,” he said.Asked about the R.N.C.’s potential rules change, Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in a text message, “Ron DeSantis wants to debate Donald Trump and/or Nikki Haley in the early states regardless of who sponsors it.”Ms. Haley’s team was more circumspect.A spokeswoman for her campaign, Olivia Perez-Cubas, said in a statement: “Everyone knows Nikki Haley has shined in all the debates. We look forward to debating Donald Trump.”It’s not clear that Mr. Trump will be debating anyone anytime soon, coasting on his polling dominance despite four criminal indictments and 91 felony counts.The former president has boycotted all of the debates to date, arguing that it makes little sense for him to give rivals who are so far behind him any platform to hit him. Even as his campaign hopes for as many debates as possible in a general election against President Biden, he and his team have publicly called for the Republican Party to cancel its remaining debates, targeting the potential Iowa one in particular.Previously, the party has squashed efforts for candidates to debate one another. At one point, Mr. Christie and Mr. Ramaswamy scheduled a debate on Fox News to gin up interest in their candidacies, but the party said it would violate the pledge.“Trump allies in the RNC put an end to it,” Mr. Christie complained on social media. “Nothing new… Party bosses doing everything possible to keep Trump in power.”Mr. Ramaswamy, meanwhile, used the last debate to attack Ms. McDaniel, the party chairwoman, and later circulated a petition to fire her. “Where is the accountability for years of losing: 2018, 2020, 2022 and now 2023?” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.His post did not mention Mr. Trump, who has been the face of the party during all of those elections. Mr. Ramaswamy has lavished praise on the former president even while running against him.The criteria to make the party debates have significantly ratcheted up since August. The minimum threshold is now 6 percent in national or early-state polling, as well as 80,000 donors. The first debate required only 1 percent support.Mr. Trump has been particularly keen on ending the debates before Iowa. The driver of his concerns isn’t clear. But Iowa was a particularly thorny state for him in early 2016, when he lost the caucuses after boycotting a debate in the state hosted by Fox News.Citing Mr. Trump’s substantial polling lead, Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said, “He’s going to be the nominee, so it’s time for everyone to get behind him.” More

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      Some Republicans Have a Message for Chris Christie: Drop Out

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      Several anti-Trump Republican donors and strategists are pushing Mr. Christie to end his presidential campaign and back Nikki Haley.Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, has traveled the world in his quest to stop Donald J. Trump’s march to the Republican nomination. In New Hampshire living rooms as well as the charred homes of Israeli families killed by Hamas, he has assailed the former president as being unfit to lead, antidemocratic and an aspiring dictator.But now, six months into Mr. Christie’s presidential primary bid, Republicans who share his goal of defeating Mr. Trump are suggesting an entirely different approach for the long-shot candidate.Quitting.Republican donors, strategists and pundits are publicly pressuring Mr. Christie to follow the lead of Tim Scott and Mike Pence and formally end his campaign. Many would like him to throw his support behind Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who has risen in the polls in early-voting states in recent weeks.The focus on Mr. Christie’s bid reflects the anxiety that has consumed anti-Trump Republicans as the race moves into the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15. Despite three debates, tens of millions of dollars and many months of campaigning, none of the six candidates still challenging Mr. Trump have made much of a dent in his double-digit lead. And they are rapidly running out of time.“The people who are supporting Chris are not supporting him because they love Chris Christie — they want someone to take on Trump,” said Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who dropped out of the presidential race in 2012 after failing to gain enough traction to win the nomination. “He has a really important decision to make as to whether to back out and let his votes go to somebody else, or whether he’s going to actually improve Trump’s chances by staying in.”But the dynamic this year reminds other Republicans of 2016, when Mr. Trump benefited from the large field, allowing him to divide the voters who preferred other candidates. Mr. Christie remained in that race until he finished sixth in the New Hampshire primary. He endorsed Mr. Trump 17 days later.“Time is a flat circle, and everyone insists we relive, beat for beat, the 2016 election,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has spent years working to defeat Mr. Trump. “The main thing that Christie could do to make a difference this time is to drop out.”Mr. Christie views that race differently, saying the candidates running against Mr. Trump — including himself — failed to take the threat of his candidacy seriously enough.“We all thought, ‘well, at some point he’ll drop out or at some point fade away.’ And we all waited. Hope is not a strategy,” he said, in an interview on Fox News on Monday. “If you want to beat someone, you need to go out and tell people why he’s not right for the job and why you are.”Yet in a race in which Mr. Trump has maintained an expansive lead, Mr. Christie’s small foothold on the New Hampshire electorate may not make that great a difference.Patrick Murray, a New Jersey pollster who is the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said his data indicated that only about half of Mr. Christie’s support in New Hampshire would go to Ms. Haley, while the rest would be distributed among the other candidates. The five or six points that Ms. Haley would earn would not be enough for her to come close to Mr. Trump, who leads New Hampshire by nearly 30 points.“It would help her be a closer second-place finisher,” Mr. Murray said. “It’s just not big enough to make the difference.”Surrogates for Ms. Haley have been more hesitant to call on Mr. Christie to drop out. Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party who now serves as an adviser to the Haley campaign in the state, said that decision would be solely “up to Chris Christie.”“We can’t control what Chris Christie does after New Hampshire or before New Hampshire,” he said. “We can’t control what Ron DeSantis does. All we can do is watch who is raising the money and Nikki Haley is raising money.”Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2022 and has warmed up crowds for Ms. Haley at town halls in New Hampshire, was more blunt when posed the question. “I think it’s time for all of them to drop out and just let Nikki have the passing lane and just go right into the presidency,” he said.Mr. Christie’s advisers argue that he is playing an important role by being the only candidate willing to take direct and frequent shots at Mr. Trump. Mike DuHaime, one of Mr. Christie’s top strategists, said a case could be made for any of the candidates other than Mr. Trump to drop out, given that none have been able to break the 20 percent mark in polling.“Whatever case people make to you about Christie, the other two have no path either,” Mr. DuHaime said, referring to Ms. Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. “Should everybody just drop out, or should we try to beat the guy?”Mr. Christie has been more direct in his criticism of former President Donald J. Trump than Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. Christie has run a relatively low-budget campaign, powered by a small staff and frequent television appearances. He has largely ignored Iowa to burrow into New Hampshire, a state where independent voters can cast ballots in the primary. Mr. Christie has made an aggressive push for those voters, who are more open to his anti-Trump message. This fall, organizations aligned with his campaign ran ads urging Democrats in the state to become “undeclared” voters and back his bid.But as the deadline to switch party registration has passed, Mr. Christie has shown signs of weakness. In recent weeks, he has barely cracked 10 percent in polling in New Hampshire. It remains unclear whether he will be on the ballot in every state. Last week, officials said he had failed to collect enough signatures to qualify to be on the ballot in Maine. Mr. Christie plans to appeal the ruling.Campaigning in New Hampshire, Mr. Christie said his path to the nomination would involve winning the state and then focusing on Michigan, which holds its primary in late February. He pointed to Mr. McCain’s 2008 campaign in New Hampshire as the model for victory. “All he did was come to New Hampshire, get in a Suburban and went from town to town to town, into town hall meetings, and he went on to win,” he said.As Mr. Christie cracked jokes and took questions from voters, he remained adamant that he was in the race to win the nomination. The other candidates, he said, were “battling like animals to be in second place” — a line that drew chuckles from the crowd gathered in a packed reception room at a small restaurant in Concord.“You know what we call second place in New Jersey? The first loser,” Mr. Christie said, as voters shouted out the answer in unison with him. “If you want to win, you got to beat the guy who’s in front of you.”His appeal won support from some independent New Hampshire voters and even Trump Republicans. “He’s the only one that shows, in my mind, the strength and fortitude needed to run this country,” said Ralph Mecheau, 69, an independent voter who met Mr. Christie at a gathering of a state employees’ union. “If you can’t stand up to Trump, then how are you going to stand up to others?”Gary Morrison, a 27-year-old Trump voter, who is a member of the state employee union, said he came out of the union town hall as a Christie supporter, and liked Mr. Christie’s policies on gun violence that focused on enforcement of laws already on the books and increased support for mental health care instead of adding more gun control laws.“The way I look at it is just making sure that they can’t just take away stuff,” Mr. Morrison said. Mr. Christie said that if he failed to notch a big victory in New Hampshire he would rethink his pledge to keep his campaign going until the Republican convention in July.That’s far too long for some strategists, who said they wanted Mr. Christie to consider a much shorter timetable.“He probably has the toughest path to the nomination, and you just have to face that reality sooner than later,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “Ideally, it would have been facing that reality yesterday, or a month or two months ago.”Jazmine Ulloa More

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      Nikki Haley’s Views on Social Security

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      More from our inbox:A Climate Protest at the OperaMore Trump Coverage? Brian Snyder/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Haley Is Coming for Your Retirement,” by Paul Krugman (column, Nov. 28):Mr. Krugman is right in pointing out the inequality connected to proposals to raise the age at which one becomes eligible for Social Security. As he points out, the proposals are, “in effect, saying that the aging janitors must keep working (or be cast into extreme poverty) because rich bankers are living longer.”But it’s even worse than that. The problem of an impending shortfall of the Social Security Trust Fund is in significant part a consequence of our rising economic inequality. High-income people pay a smaller share of their income into Social Security because salary over $160,200 — the so-called “tax max” — is not subject to the Social Security tax.Also, there is no Social Security tax on income from capital (including dividends, interest, capital gains and rents), which tends to go to wealthy people. Consequently, as a larger and larger part of our national income goes to the rich, the share collected by the Social Security tax declines.The solution is not hard to envision: Raise the “tax max” and tax income from capital. Better yet, adopt a set of policies that would move us toward a more equal distribution of income.Arthur MacEwanCambridge, Mass.The writer is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston.To the Editor:As a member of Gen Z, I commend Nikki Haley for suggesting ideas to keep Social Security solvent. Raising the retirement age is not a pleasant thought, but tough times require tough decisions. Our national debt is at a record high, and interest repayments are reaching worrying levels. Changes have to be made if the country’s finances are to stay healthy. Numbers don’t lie.I, for one, do not expect to ever be able to collect Social Security, despite having paid 6.2 percent of my income into it over my entire working life. I would rather get rid of the tax altogether than continue to pretend that Social Security will still be around when I retire.I have absolutely zero faith that members of Congress will fix this problem; they have been kicking this can down the road for longer than I’ve been alive.Eric FuquaAtlantaTo the Editor:Paul Krugman’s piece on Nikki Haley makes it quite clear that she is far from the perfect candidate, but what it does not address is the critical role that she may play.The Economist recently described Donald Trump as the gravest danger to the world in 2024, and considering viable alternatives, apart from Nikki Haley, there is only one 81-year-old man with major failings of his own standing in Donald Trump’s way.Even with all her shortcomings, there are strong reasons to support Nikki Haley, as she may be best positioned to save our democracy and the world from Donald Trump.Jon LandauPhiladelphiaA Climate Protest at the OperaThe Metropolitan Opera House, center, at Lincoln Center.Kathy Willens/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Climate Protesters Interrupt Met Performance of Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’” (news article, nytimes.com, Dec. 1):The recent climate protest at the opera made my heart sink.I’m a climate activist. I’ve marched, I’ve lobbied, I’ve contacted legislators. I’m co-leader of a local chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a grass-roots organization that believes that effective change will come about through respectful dialogue — and the sheer force of numbers.I’m also a professional singer and an operagoer. And I cringe when I see protesters disrupt the arts to make their point. The very people who might be inclined to help contribute to the urgent cause of fighting global warming may well be sitting in that opera house. But these protesters chose to alienate them. How in the world is that productive?The most effective path toward change is to work with others, not against them. We need dedicated, respectful activists who do their work by finding common ground and then gently but insistently nudging all of us forward.What we don’t need is this kind of spectacle, which gives the rest of us climate activists a bad name, and serves as an affront to the music and art we all need to inspire us in a troubled world.Francesca Huemer KellyHighland Park, Ill.More Trump Coverage?For years, President Biden and Democrats have been happy to mostly ignore Donald J. Trump. But now their thinking appears to be changing as the 2024 election season begins to ramp up.Sophie Park for The New York Times, Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Democrats Want Trump Plastered All Over the News” (news article, Nov. 22):How soon we forget. Think back to Wednesday morning, Nov. 9, 2016. Whether you supported and voted for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, you were likely shocked when you heard the final results.Now, Democrats are hoping that heavy media coverage of Mr. Trump, assuming he is the nominee, will remind Americans of his flawed character, his lies, his legal troubles and his hate-filled rhetoric, and this will repel them.But back in 2015 and 2016, Mr. Trump was far from invisible, enjoying plenty of media coverage: as a failed TV star and businessman, as a clown and an entertainer, not to be taken seriously. The polls at the time were suggesting that Mrs. Clinton was the heavy favorite, so many Americans either stayed home or voted for Mr. Trump as a joke or an anti-Hillary statement.Why would we think next year’s coverage won’t still focus on Mr. Trump’s entertainment value as much as on his lies, his threats and his crimes?Democrats may ask for more news coverage, but we should be careful what we wish for.Betsy FrankMattituck, N.Y. More

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      Doug Burgum, Wealthy North Dakota Governor, Ends White House Run

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      The little-known former software executive had hoped his business acumen and relentless focus on the economy, energy and foreign policy would lift his campaign. It didn’t.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, the wealthy former software executive who entered the presidential campaign in June hoping a back-to-basics appeal on the economy would propel him forward, dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination on Monday.Though his personal fortune could have kept his campaign afloat, Mr. Burgum’s mild demeanor and resolute focus on three issues, the economy, energy and foreign policy, never caught on with a G.O.P. electorate steeped in the pugilistic flash of Donald J. Trump and the more visceral appeal of social issues.Mr. Burgum claimed on Monday that he had shifted the conversation on the campaign trail from divisive social issues to energy and foreign policy. He blamed media inattention and Republican Party rules for his poor showing.“Our decision to run for president came from a place of caring deeply about every American and a mission to re-establish trust in America’s leadership and our institutions of democracy,” he said in a statement announcing he was suspending his campaign. “While this primary process has shaken my trust in many media organizations and political party institutions, it has only strengthened my trust in America.”Mr. Burgum’s base in tiny, remote North Dakota and a short political résumé had given him almost no name recognition when he began the campaign, leaving even his home-state constituents wondering how he might rise in a crowded field laboring in the shadow of the former president and prohibitive front-runner, Mr. Trump.But Mr. Burgum believed there was a market for his business acumen — he sold his software company to Microsoft for $1 billion — and a kitchen-table focus that resolutely avoided confrontation with Mr. Trump or anybody else in the field.He was wrong, never polling above the low single digits. But he may have made an impression on Mr. Trump. Advisers in the former president’s orbit have put out word that Mr. Burgum’s looks and money made him “central casting” for a second Trump term.Mr. Burgum’s departure technically narrows the field of Republican hopefuls, as Mr. Trump’s critics, such as Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and the commentator George F. Will, issue calls for candidates not named Trump to consolidate around a single alternative. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Vice President Mike Pence, the former Texas congressman Will Hurd and Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host, have also left the race.That pressure is now on Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who has shown no sign of traction with Republican voters nationally but whose relatively strong polling in New Hampshire is preventing Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, or Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida from consolidating the anti-Trump vote.Mr. Burgum’s short-lived presidential run did make some impact in Republican circles, even if it didn’t with Republican voters. To muster the 40,000 individual donors he needed to qualify for the first debate in August, he offered $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 people who donated at least $1 to his campaign.Just before that debate, he tore his Achilles’ tendon and had to sit during commercial breaks. In the second debate, he largely faded into the background. When he made his presence known, it was to plead with the moderators to let him answer any of the questions that he could make about energy, ostensibly a strong suit in oil-rich North Dakota. More

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      Republicans Are Finding Out That ‘Pro-Life’ Means a Lot of Things to a Lot of People

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      Electoral results since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision should tell a lot of people in the Republican Party something they absolutely do not want to hear: Even rank-and-file G.O.P. voters are not as pro-life as we might have thought when Roe v. Wade was the law of the land.That trend was confirmed last month in Ohio — the latest sign that the Republican Party needs to figure out a new way of addressing abortion.Many conservatives may call themselves pro-life, but in practice, that may be a more aspirational statement than an accurate reflection of hard policy views. Perhaps by figuring out what it now means to be pro-life — and recognizing that pro-life policy is easiest to sell only when it amounts to a ban on abortions later in pregnancy — Republicans can come up with a new approach to the politics of the issue.Before Roe was overturned, the term “pro-life” covered a lot of ground — which was useful over decades in galvanizing a broad coalition willing to use abortion as a political cudgel. As Republicans are finding out today, “pro-life” means many things to many people.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?  More

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      Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First

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      In the spring of 1989, the Chinese Communist Party used tanks and troops to crush a pro-democracy protest in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Most of the West, across traditional partisan lines, was aghast at the crackdown that killed at least hundreds of student activists. But one prominent American was impressed.“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it,” Donald J. Trump said in an interview with Playboy magazine the year after the massacre. “Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.”It was a throwaway line in a wide-ranging interview, delivered to a journalist profiling a 43-year-old celebrity businessman who was not then a player in national politics or world affairs. But in light of what Mr. Trump has gone on to become, his exaltation of the ruthless crushing of democratic protesters is steeped in foreshadowing.Mr. Trump’s violent and authoritarian rhetoric on the 2024 campaign trail has attracted growing alarm and comparisons to historical fascist dictators and contemporary populist strongmen. In recent weeks, he has dehumanized his adversaries as “vermin” who must be “rooted out,” declared that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” encouraged the shooting of shoplifters and suggested that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, deserved to be executed for treason.As he runs for president again facing four criminal prosecutions, Mr. Trump may seem more angry, desperate and dangerous to American-style democracy than in his first term. But the throughline that emerges is far more long-running: He has glorified political violence and spoken admiringly of autocrats for decades.Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., brought one of the sets of indictments that Mr. Trump faces.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAs a presidential candidate in July 2016, he praised the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as having been “so good” at killing terrorists. Months after being inaugurated, he told the strongman leader of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, that his brutal campaign of thousands of extrajudicial killings in the name of fighting drugs was “an unbelievable job.” And throughout his four years in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump blew through boundaries and violated democratic norms.What would be different in a second Trump administration is not so much his character as his surroundings. Forces that somewhat contained his autocratic tendencies in his first term — staff members who saw their job as sometimes restraining him, a few congressional Republicans episodically willing to criticize or oppose him, a partisan balance on the Supreme Court that occasionally ruled against him — would all be weaker.As a result, Mr. Trump’s and his advisers’ more extreme policy plans and ideas for a second term would have a greater prospect of becoming reality.A Radical AgendaTo be sure, some of what Mr. Trump and his allies are planning is in line with what any standard-issue Republican president would most likely do. For example, Mr. Trump would very likely roll back many of President Biden’s policies to curb carbon emissions and hasten the transition to electric cars. Such a reversal of various rules and policies would significantly weaken environmental protections, but much of the changes reflect routine and longstanding conservative skepticism of environmental regulations.Other parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda, however, are aberrational. No U.S. president before him had toyed with withdrawing from NATO, the United States’ military alliance with Western democracies. He has said he would fundamentally re-evaluate “NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission” in a second term.He has said he would order the military to attack drug cartels in Mexico, which would violate international law unless its government consented. It most likely would not.He would also use the military on domestic soil. While it is generally illegal to use troops for domestic law enforcement, the Insurrection Act allows exceptions. After some demonstrations against police violence in 2020 became riots, Mr. Trump had an order drafted to use troops to crack down on protesters in Washington, D.C., but didn’t sign it. He suggested at a rally in Iowa this year that he intends to unilaterally send troops into Democratic-run cities to enforce public order in general.“You look at any Democrat-run state, and it’s just not the same — it doesn’t work,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, calling cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco crime dens. “We cannot let it happen any longer. And one of the other things I’ll do — because you’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I’m not waiting.”Mr. Trump’s plans to purge undocumented immigrants include sweeping raids, huge detention camps, deportations on the scale of millions per year, stopping asylum, trying to end birthright citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to undocumented parents and invoking the Insurrection Act near the southern border to also use troops as immigration agents.Mr. Trump has sweeping plans to deal with undocumented immigrants.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York TimesMr. Trump would seek to expand presidential power in myriad ways — concentrating greater authority over the executive branch in the White House, ending the independence of agencies Congress set up to operate outside of presidential control and reducing civil service protections to make it easier to fire and replace tens of thousands of government workers.More than anything else, Mr. Trump’s vow to use the Justice Department to wreak vengeance against his adversaries is a naked challenge to democratic values. Building on how he tried to get prosecutors to go after his enemies while in office, it would end the post-Watergate norm of investigative independence from White House political control.In all these efforts, Mr. Trump would be backed in a second term by a well-funded outside infrastructure. In 2016, conservative think tanks were bastions of George W. Bush-style Republicanism. But new ones run by Trump administration veterans have sprung up, and the venerable Heritage Foundation has refashioned itself to stay in step with Trumpism.A coalition has been drawing up America First-style policy plans, nicknamed Project 2025. (Mr. Trump’s campaign has expressed appreciation but said only plans announced by him or his campaign count.) While some proposals under development in such places would advance longstanding Republican megadonor goals, such as curbing regulations on businesses, others are more tuned to Mr. Trump’s personal interests.The Center for Renewing America, for example, has published a paper titled “The U.S. Justice Department Is Not Independent.” The paper was written by Jeffrey Clark, whom Mr. Trump nearly made acting attorney general to aid his attempt to subvert the election and is facing criminal charges in Georgia in connection with that effort.Asked for comment, a spokesman for Mr. Trump did not address specifics but instead criticized The New York Times while calling Mr. Trump “strong on crime.”Weakened GuardrailsEven running in 2016, Mr. Trump flouted democratic norms.He falsely portrayed his loss in the Iowa caucuses as fraud and suggested he would treat the results of the general election as legitimate only if he won. He threatened to imprison Hillary Clinton, smeared Mexican immigrants as rapists and promised to bar Muslims from entering the United States. He offered to pay the legal bills of any supporters who beat up protesters at his rallies and stoked hatred against reporters covering his events.In office, Mr. Trump refused to divest from his businesses, and people courting his favor booked expensive blocks of rooms in his hotels. Despite an anti-nepotism law, he gave White House jobs to his daughter and son-in-law. He used emergency power to spend more on a border wall than Congress authorized. His lawyers floated a pardon at his campaign chairman, whom Mr. Trump praised for not “flipping” as prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to get him to cooperate as a witness in the Russia inquiry; Mr. Trump later did pardon him.Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, received White House posts despite an anti-nepotism law.Al Drago for The New York TimesBut some of the most potentially serious of his violations of norms fell short of fruition.Mr. Trump pressured the Justice Department to prosecute his adversaries. The Justice Department opened several criminal investigations, from the scrutiny of former Secretary of State John Kerry and of the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey Jr. to the attempt by a special counsel, John Durham, to find a basis to charge Obama-era national security officials or Mrs. Clinton with crimes connected to the origins of the Russia investigation. But to Mr. Trump’s fury, prosecutors decided against bringing such charges.And neither effort for which he was impeached succeeded. Mr. Trump tried to coerce Ukraine into opening a criminal investigation into Mr. Biden by withholding military aid, but it did not cooperate. Mr. Trump sought to subvert his 2020 election loss and stoked the Capitol riot, but Vice President Mike Pence and congressional majorities rejected his attempt to stay in power.There is reason to believe various obstacles and bulwarks that limited Mr. Trump in his first term would be absent in a second one.Some of what Mr. Trump tried to do was thwarted by incompetence and dysfunction among his initial team. But over four years, those who stayed with him learned to wield power more effectively. After courts blocked his first, haphazardly crafted travel ban, for example, his team developed a version that the Supreme Court allowed to take effect.Four years of his appointments created an entrenched Republican supermajority on the Supreme Court that most likely would now side with him on some cases that he lost, such as the 5-to-4 decision in June 2020 that blocked him from ending a program that shields from deportation certain undocumented people who had been brought as children and grew up as Americans.Republicans in Congress were often partners and enablers — working with him to confirm judges and cut corporate taxes, while performing scant oversight. But a few key congressional Republicans occasionally denounced his rhetoric or checked his more disruptive proposals.In 2017, then-Senator Bob Corker rebuked Mr. Trump for making reckless threats toward North Korea on Twitter, and then-Senator John McCain provided the decisive vote against Mr. Trump’s push to rescind, with no replacement plan, a law that makes health insurance coverage widely available.It is likely that Republicans in Congress would be even more pliable in any second Trump term. The party has become more inured to and even enthusiastic about Mr. Trump’s willingness to cross lines. And Mr. Trump has worn down, outlasted, intimidated into submission or driven out leading Republican lawmakers who have independent standing and demonstrated occasional willingness to oppose him.Mr. McCain, who was the 2008 G.O.P. presidential nominee, died in 2018. Former Representative Liz Cheney, who voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and helped lead the committee that investigated those events, lost her seat to a pro-Trump primary challenger. Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and the only G.O.P. senator who voted to convict Mr. Trump at his first impeachment trial, is retiring.Representative Liz Cheney, center right, helped lead the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and later lost a primary challenge to a pro-Trump candidate.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFear of violence by Trump supporters also enforces control. In recent books, both Mr. Romney and Ms. Cheney said that Republican colleagues, whom they did not name, told them they wanted to vote against Mr. Trump in the Jan. 6-related impeachment proceedings but did not do so out of fear for their and their families’ safety.Personnel Is PolicyPerhaps the most important check on Mr. Trump’s presidency was internal administration resistance to some of his more extreme demands. A parade of his own former high-level appointees has since warned that he is unfit to be president, including a former White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly; former defense secretaries Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper; the former national security adviser John R. Bolton; former Attorney General William P. Barr; and others.Mr. Trump in turn has denounced them all as weak, stupid and disloyal. He has privately told those close to him that his biggest mistakes concerned the people he appointed, in particular his choices for attorney general. The advisers who have stuck with him are determined that if he wins a new term, there will be no officials who intentionally stymie his agenda.In addition to developing policy papers, the coalition of think tanks run by people aligned with Mr. Trump has been compiling a database of thousands of vetted potential recruits to hand to a transition team if he wins the election. Similar efforts are underway by former senior Trump administration officials to prepare to stock the government with lawyers likely to find ways to bless radical White House ideas rather than raising legal objections.Such staffing efforts would build on a shift in his final year as president. In 2020, Mr. Trump replaced advisers who had sought to check him and installed a young aide, John McEntee, to root out further officials deemed insufficiently loyal.Depending on Senate elections, confirming particularly contentious nominees to important positions might be challenging. But another norm violation Mr. Trump gradually developed was making aggressive use of his power to temporarily fill vacancies with “acting” heads for positions that are supposed to undergo Senate confirmation.In 2020, for example, Mr. Trump made Richard Grenell — a combative Trump ally and former ambassador to Germany — acting director of national intelligence. Two prior Trump-era intelligence leaders had angered Mr. Trump by defending an assessment that Russia had covertly tried to help his 2016 campaign and by informing Democratic leaders it was doing so again in 2020. Mr. Grenell instead won Mr. Trump’s praise by using the role to declassify sensitive materials that Republicans used to portray the Russia investigation as suspicious.Richard Grenell was one of the acting heads named by Mr. Trump for positions that are supposed to undergo Senate confirmation. He became acting director of national intelligence.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesAfter Mr. Trump left office, there were many proposals to codify into law democratic norms he violated. Ideas included tightening limits on presidents’ use of emergency powers, requiring disclosure of their taxes, giving teeth to a constitutional ban on outside payments and making it harder to abuse their pardon power and authority over prosecutors.In December 2021, when Democrats still controlled the House, it passed many such proposals as the Protecting Our Democracy Act. Every Republican but one — then-Representative Adam Kinzinger, who was retiring after having voted to impeach Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 riot — voted against the bill, which died in the Senate.The debate on the House floor largely played out on a premise that reduced its urgency: Mr. Trump was gone. Democrats argued for viewing the reforms as being about future presidents, while Republicans dismissed it as an unnecessary swipe at Mr. Trump.“Donald Trump is — unfortunately — no longer president,” said Representative Rick Crawford, Republican of Arkansas. “Time to stop living in the past.” More