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      On Abortion, Trump Chose Politics Over Principles. Will It Matter?

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      With his video statement on Monday, Donald Trump laid bare how faulty a messenger he had always been for the anti-abortion cause.When Donald J. Trump ran for president in 2016, the leaders of the anti-abortion movement extracted a series of promises from him in exchange for backing his nomination.They demanded Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. They insisted that he defund Planned Parenthood. They pushed for a vice president who was a champion of their cause. And each time, he said yes.But that was then.With Roe v. Wade left on the “ash heap of history,” as anti-abortion leaders are fond of saying, they find themselves no longer calling the shots. Their movement remains mighty in Republican-controlled statehouses and with conservative courts, but it is weaker nationally than it has been in years. Many Republican strategists and candidates see their cause, even the decades-old term “pro-life,” as politically toxic. And on Monday, their biggest champion, the man whom they call the “most pro-life president in history,” chose politics over their principles — and launched a series of vitriolic attacks on some of their top leaders.With his clearest statement yet on the future of abortion rights since the fall of Roe in 2022, Mr. Trump laid bare how faulty a messenger he had always been for the anti-abortion cause. When he first flirted with a presidential run in 1999, Mr. Trump was clear about his position on abortion: “I’m very pro-choice,” he said. He reversed that stance a dozen years later: “Just very briefly, I’m pro-life,” he told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011.His support shifted again after the Supreme Court’s decision. While he bragged about appointing three of the justices who overturned Roe, he blamed the movement for Republican losses in the midterm elections. He mused aloud about the idea of a federal ban, but refused to give it the kind of ringing endorsement anti-abortion leaders wanted.In his four-minute video statement on Monday, Mr. Trump said that states and their voters should decide abortion policies for themselves, in language that sounded like a free-for-all to the staunchest abortion opponents. He backed access to fertility treatments such as I.V.F., and supported exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Prosecutors Ask Supreme Court to Reject Trump’s Immunity Claim in Election Case

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      The filing was the main submission from Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting the former president. The case will be argued on April 25.Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, urged the Supreme Court on Monday to reject Mr. Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution.“The president’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed does not entail a general right to violate them,” Mr. Smith wrote.The filing was Mr. Smith’s main submission in the case, which will be argued on April 25.He wrote that the novelty of the case underscored its gravity.“The absence of any prosecutions of former presidents until this case does not reflect the understanding that presidents are immune from criminal liability,” Mr. Smith wrote. “It instead underscores the unprecedented nature of petitioner’s alleged conduct.”He urged the justices not to lose sight of the basic legal terrain.“A bedrock principle of our constitutional order,” he wrote, “is that no person is above the law — including the president.” He added, “The Constitution does not give a president the power to conspire to defraud the United States in the certification of presidential-election results, obstruct proceedings for doing so or deprive voters of the effect of their votes.”Mr. Smith urged the court to move quickly, though he did not directly address the pending election.When the Supreme Court said in February that it would hear the case, it set what it called an expedited schedule. But it was not particularly fast, with oral arguments scheduled about seven weeks later. That delay was a significant partial victory for Mr. Trump, whose trial had been expected to start March 4.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Says Abortion Will Be Left to the States. Don’t Believe Him.

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      When Donald Trump was asked about the recent Florida Supreme Court decision upholding his adopted state’s abortion ban, he promised that he would announce where he stands this week, a sign of how tricky the politics of reproductive rights have become for the man who did more than any other to roll them back. Sure enough, on Monday, he unveiled his latest position in a video statement that attempted to thread the needle between his anti-abortion base and the majority of Americans who want abortion to be legal.Trump’s address was, naturally, full of lies, including the absurd claim that “all legal scholars, both sides,” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, and the obscene calumny that Democrats support “execution after birth.” But the most misleading part of his spiel was the way he implied that in a second Trump administration, abortion law will be left entirely up to the states. “The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case the law of the state,” said Trump.Trump probably won’t be able to dodge the substance of abortion policy for the entirety of a presidential campaign; eventually, he’s going to have to say whether he’d sign a federal abortion ban if it crossed his desk and what he thinks of the sweeping abortion prohibitions in many Republican states. But let’s leave that aside for the moment, because when it comes to a second Trump administration, the most salient questions are about personnel, not legislation.Before Monday, Trump had reportedly considered endorsing a 16-week national abortion ban, but the fact that he didn’t should be of little comfort to voters who want to protect what’s left of abortion rights in America. Should Trump return to power, he plans to surround himself with die-hard MAGA activists, not the establishment types he blames for undermining him during his first term. And many of these activists have plans to restrict abortion nationally without passing any new laws at all.Key to these plans is the Comstock Act, the 19th-century anti-vice law named for the crusading bluenose Anthony Comstock, who persecuted Margaret Sanger, arrested thousands, and boasted of driving 15 of his targets to suicide. Passed in 1873, the Comstock Act banned the mailing of every “obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article,” including “every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” intended for “producing abortion.” Until quite recently, the Comstock Act was thought to be moot, made irrelevant by a series of Supreme Court decisions on the First Amendment, contraception and abortion. But it was never actually repealed, and now that Trump’s justices have scrapped Roe, his allies believe they can use Comstock to go after abortion nationwide.“We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books,” Jonathan F. Mitchell, Texas’ former solicitor general and the legal mind behind the state’s abortion bounty law, told The New York Times in February. Mitchell is very much a MAGA insider; he represented Trump in the Supreme Court case arising from Colorado’s attempt to boot the ex-president off the ballot as an insurrectionist. As The Times has reported, Mitchell is on a list of lawyers vetted by America First Legal, a nonprofit led by the Trump consigliere Stephen Miller, as having the “spine” to serve in a second Trump 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

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      Trump, at Fund-Raiser, Says He Wants Immigrants From ‘Nice’ Countries

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      Former President Donald J. Trump, speaking at a multimillion-dollar fund-raiser on Saturday night, lamented that people were not immigrating to the United States from “nice” countries “like Denmark” and suggested that his well-heeled dinner companions were temporarily safe from undocumented immigrants nearby, according to an attendee.Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, made the comments during a roughly 45-minute presentation at a dinner at a mansion owned by the billionaire financier John Paulson in Palm Beach, Fla., a rarefied island community.Guests were seated outdoors at white-clothed tables under a white tent, looking out on the waterway that divides the moneyed town from the more diverse West Palm Beach, a mainland city, according to the attendee, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the private event but provided an extensive readout of Mr. Trump’s remarks.Dozens of wealthy donors helped write checks that the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee claim totaled more than $50 million, an amount that would set a record but had not been verified. Campaign finance reports encompassing the date of the event won’t be available for months.Some of Mr. Trump’s comments were standard fare from his stump speeches, while other parts of the speech were tailored to his wealthy audience.About midway through his remarks, the attendee said, Mr. Trump began an extensive rant about migrants entering the United States, at a time when President Biden has been struggling with an intensified crisis at the Southern border.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Milwaukee, Restaurants and Venues Worry of Seeing Limited R.N.C. Boost

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      In Chicago, venues are booking fast for the Democratic convention in August. But Milwaukee, host of the Republican convention, is wondering if customers will come.Dan Jacobs, a contestant on the newest season of “Top Chef,” is having a national star turn with his soups, cheese treats and elevated snacks — and his open struggle with a rare degenerative disease.But that publicity has not translated to a surge of prospective customers booking soirees at his Milwaukee restaurants, DanDan and EsterEv, ahead of the Republican National Convention, which is just three months away.“We haven’t gotten one single inquiry, like nothing,” said the restaurateur. “That’s where I think everybody’s like, ‘What’s going on?’”With the Republican convention slated to kick off in Milwaukee on July 15, some of the city’s biggest and most sought-after restaurants, concert halls and other venues are alarmed at how slowly the expected events around the gathering are taking shape.Birch, whose chef, Kyle Knall, has twice been nominated for a James Beard Award for the best chef in the Midwest, has no signed contracts, and indeed has received only one inquiry, restaurant management said. The gracious, old-world Pabst and Riverside theaters also remain unbooked, according to entertainment industry officials. Leslie West, who co-owns and runs the Rave, Eagles Club and Eagles Ballroom, said she had given up and would “just book our own shows during the R.N.C. time period, no need to stress about it.”“We’re seeing what everyone else is seeing,”said Adam Siegel, whose restaurant, Lupi & Iris, is finalizing contracts on two 100-plate brunches but has not seen the complete restaurant buyouts he was expecting. “There’s no sense of security that it will move forward in the way that most conventions move forward.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why a Second Trump Term Could Be Bad for Corporate America

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      There was anxiety in the thin mountain air when the planet’s economic leaders gathered in January at Davos for the 54th meeting of the World Economic Forum. Donald Trump had just trounced Nikki Haley in the Iowa caucuses, all but securing the Republican nomination for president. Haley was reliable, a known quantity. A resurgent Trump, on the other hand, was more worrying.Listen to this article, read by Edoardo BalleriniOpen this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.The Davos attendees needed reassurance, and Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, had some to offer. In an interview with CNBC that made headlines around the world, Dimon praised Trump’s economic policies as president. “Be honest,” Dimon said, sitting against a backdrop of snow-dusted evergreens, dressed casually in a dark blazer and polo shirt. “He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Trade. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China.” Asked which of the likely presidential candidates would be better for business, he opted not to pick a side.“I will be prepared for both,” he said. “We will deal with both.”Dimon presides over the largest and most profitable bank in the United States and has done so for nearly 20 years. Maybe more than any single individual, he stands in for the Wall Street establishment and, by extension, corporate America. With his comments at Davos, he seemed to be sending a message of good will to Trump on their behalf. But he also appeared to be trying to put his fellow globalists at ease, reassuring them that America, long a haven for investors fleeing risk in less-stable democracies, would remain a safe destination for their money in a second Trump administration.Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, here testifying before Congress in 2023, has attempted to reassure global business leaders the economy would remain stable during a second Trump administration.Evelyn Hockstein/ReutersBut would it? As Dimon noted, for all Trump’s extreme rhetoric in the 2016 campaign — his threats to rip up America’s international trade agreements and his attacks on “globalization” and the “financial elite” — his presidency, like most presidencies, proved to be business-friendly. Corporate America wound up with plenty of allies in the administration, from Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive; to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, a Harvard Business School-educated bankruptcy guru; to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, an aspiring Wall Street player. And the Trump administration’s economic agenda of reduced taxes and deregulation largely suited corporate America’s interests; JPMorgan saved billions of dollars a year thanks to Trump’s corporate tax cuts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Fund-Raiser Rakes In More Than $50.5 Million, Campaign Says

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      For several hours on Saturday evening, drivers on a typically scenic stretch of Palm Beach, Fla., had their views of the coast obscured by a line of luxury vehicles whose owners were mingling inside a mansion across the road.The shoreline-blocking Range Rovers, Aston Martins and Bentleys hinted at the deep-pocketed donors attending a fund-raising dinner for former President Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, which it and the Republican National Committee said had raised more than $50.5 million.The event, hosted by the billionaire John Paulson at his home, followed a concerted push by the Trump campaign to address a longstanding financial disparity with President Biden and Democrats as both parties gear up for the general election.The reported total, which cannot be independently verified ahead of campaign finance filings in the coming months, is nearly double the $26 million that President Biden’s campaign said it raised last month at a celebrity-studded event at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, senior advisers to the former president who are effectively his campaign managers, said in a statement that the total made it “clearer than ever that we have the message, the operation and the money to propel President Trump to victory on November 5.”Mr. Trump’s event, just down the road from his home at Mar-a-Lago, was in some ways a less flashy affair than its Democratic antecedent, one that traded Hollywood star power and New York City energy for a warmer clime, an abundance of palm trees and the manicured lawns typical of an island refuge for the moneyed elite.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Los negocios de la familia Trump se enfocan en el golf, con ayuda de Arabia Saudita

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      Golfistas aficionados hicieron fila el jueves en el hotel Trump National Doral cerca de Miami, tras acceder a pagar más de 9000 dólares por persona para jugar una ronda amistosa con algunos de los profesionales más importantes del mundo.Las habitaciones en el centro turístico se llenarán de fanáticos el viernes cuando inicie un torneo profesional en el que participarán los nombres más reconocidos del deporte. Los restaurantes y bares del complejo atraerán más clientes y el nombre Trump se repetirá por todo el mundo en la televisión y el internet.Detrás de este auge comercial en una de las propiedades de Donald Trump se encuentra el trato que el expresidente cerró para que sus recintos fueran sede de los torneos de LIV Golf, la liga emergente patrocinada por el fondo soberano de riqueza de Arabia Saudita.El entusiasmo de LIV por pagar para que Trump sea anfitrión de sus torneos en sus complejos vacacionales es solo un ejemplo más de los vínculos entre los sauditas y la familia Trump incluso ahora que busca ocupar la presidencia de nuevo, un acuerdo que sigue generando conflictos de una índole y escala únicas para Trump.Los jugadores practicaron el miércoles en vísperas de la primera ronda del torneo.Scott McIntyre para The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More