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      Nikki Haley and Trump Meet Separately With Miriam Adelson, G.O.P. Megadonor

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      As Nikki Haley has jumped in presidential polling, her campaign has stepped up its outreach efforts.Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador who has been climbing in Republican presidential polls, met with the casino mogul and megadonor Miriam Adelson over the weekend in Las Vegas, two people familiar with the meeting said.Ms. Haley, a former South Carolina governor, is gaining momentum in the Republican primary, with some polls putting her behind only former President Donald J. Trump after she edged out Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for second place, albeit a distant one.Ms. Adelson had dinner with Mr. Trump on Saturday night, a nearly three-hour meal at her home, according to a person familiar with the event. The two have history dating back years: Her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, was the largest donor to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, and Mr. Trump awarded Ms. Adelson a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.Reuters previously reported Ms. Haley’s meeting with Ms. Adelson, and The Messenger reported Mr. Trump’s dinner. Both took place during the annual gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition at the Venetian in Las Vegas, a sprawling casino, hotel and event complex that was once the Adelsons’ marquee property.Ms. Adelson has stayed out of the primary battle so far, and has not contributed to federal campaigns in the 2024 cycle, records show. But she and her husband, who died in 2021, have a record of contributing to committees tied to both Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley.In 2020, the Adelsons together gave $90 million to a super PAC that backed Mr. Trump, along with $585,000 each to Mr. Trump’s joint fund-raising committee. In 2022, Ms. Adelson gave $25 million to Republican congressional and Senate committees, records show.In 2019, the Adelsons each gave $250,000 to a social welfare nonprofit Ms. Haley formed shortly after leaving the Trump administration, according to a report in Politico that cited tax documents. In 2022, Ms. Adelson gave $5,000 to a political action committee Ms. Haley had formed.Ms. Haley and Ms. Adelson also had a private meeting at the R.J.C. gathering in 2021, Politico reported at the time.They are not the only candidates who have met with Ms. Adelson this cycle. In April, Ms. Adelson was seated next to Mr. DeSantis at a dinner in Israel. Mr. DeSantis had not yet officially joined the race. Bryan Griffin, the press secretary for Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, said Ms. Adelson and Mr. DeSantis had been “friends for a long time.” He added, “We respect her continued commitment to stay neutral during the primary and are grateful for all she does for the United States, Israel and the Jewish community.”Ms. Haley has surged into second place in polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina and has been closing the gap on Mr. DeSantis in Iowa. A Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll released this week showed that they were tied, far behind Mr. Trump among likely Republican caucusgoers.The Haley campaign has ramped up its outreach to donors and supporters in recent weeks, and officials and volunteers have been working to expand its grass-roots groups for women, veterans and young people. With the momentum has come more scrutiny from Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump and their allies. Even Senator Tim Scott, from her home state, criticized her record as governor during the last presidential debate, a heated exchange that led to one of Ms. Haley’s most memorable lines of the night: “Bring it, Tim.”At the South Carolina State House on Monday, where she officially filed to appear on her home state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, Ms. Haley kept her message focused on her successes in the state and path to victory — and mostly refrained from attacking her rivals, though she warned that Mr. Scott’s critiques were “a mistake.”“When I’m attacked, I kick back,” she said.Asked if she would consider former Vice President Mike Pence as a running mate, she said she was solely focused on winning in the early states.“It is slow and steady wins the race,” she said. “You win it based on relationships. You win it based on touching every hand, answering every question and earning the trust of the American people.” More

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      Trump critica la edad de Biden. Sus deslices podrían perjudicarlo

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      El expresidente ha experimentado una serie de confusiones que van más allá de su naturaleza discursiva habitual, y sus rivales republicanos han comenzado a señalarlas como signos de declive en su desempeño.Una de las nuevas rutinas cómicas de Donald Trump en sus mítines consiste en imitar al actual presidente de una forma exageradamente caricaturesca, burlándose de la edad de Joe Biden.Con los párpados caídos y la boca abierta, Trump tartamudea y balbucea. Entrecierra los ojos. Agita sus brazos. Arrastra los pies y deambula por el escenario. La multitud explota en risas y aplausos mientras Trump finge confusión, volteando y señalando a seguidores invisibles, como si no se diera cuenta de que les está dando la espalda.Sin embargo, el expresidente también ha cometido deslices en sus recientes eventos de campaña. Trump ha experimentado una serie de confusiones y desarticulaciones generales que van más allá de su naturaleza discursiva habitual, y sus rivales republicanos han comenzado a señalarlas como signos de declive en su desempeño.El domingo, en Sioux City, Iowa, Trump agradeció erróneamente a los seguidores de Sioux Falls, una ciudad de Dakota del Sur ubicada a unos 120 kilómetros de allí, y solo corrigió cuando lo llamaron a un lado del escenario y le informaron del error.La situación fue notablemente similar a una escena ficticia que Trump había representado a principios de este mes, en la que imitó a Biden confundiendo Iowa con Idaho y requiriendo de un asistente para aclarar el error.En las últimas semanas, Trump también les ha dicho a sus seguidores que no voten y afirmó haber derrotado al presidente Barack Obama en unas elecciones. Ha elogiado el intelecto colectivo de un grupo militante respaldado por Irán que históricamente ha sidoenemigo tanto de Israel como de Estados Unidos, y en repetidas ocasiones ha pronunciado mal el nombre del grupo armado que gobierna la Franja de Gaza.“Este es un Donald Trump distinto al de 2015 y 2016: perdió el control de su bola rápida”, afirmó el gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, a los periodistas la semana pasada mientras hacía campaña en Nuevo Hampshire.“En 2016, era espontáneo, arrasaba por todo el país”, agregó DeSantis. “Ahora es simplemente un tipo diferente. Y es algo triste de ver”.No se sabe con certeza si los recientes deslices de Trump están relacionados con su edad. Durante mucho tiempo se ha valido de un estilo poco ortodoxo al hablar que le ha servido como una de sus principales ventajas políticas porque lo ha establecido, contra todo pronóstico, como uno de los comunicadores más eficaces de la política estadounidense.Pero, a medida que se intensifica la contienda por la Casa Blanca en 2024, los errores verbales cada vez más frecuentes de Trump amenazan con socavar una de las vías de ataque más potentes de los republicanos, y el objetivo central de su pantomima en el escenario: el argumento de que Biden es demasiado viejo para ser presidente.Biden, abuelo de siete, tiene 80 años. Trump, que tiene 10 nietos, tiene 77.Aunque solo unos pocos años separan a los dos hombres de edad avanzada, los votantes perciben su vigor de manera diferente. Encuestas recientes han revelado que aproximadamente dos de cada tres votantes afirman que Biden es demasiado mayor como para cumplir otro periodo de cuatro años, mientras que solo alrededor de la mitad dice lo mismo sobre Trump.Si esa brecha comienza a reducirse, es Trump quien tiene mucho más que perder en un enfrentamiento electoral presidencial.Trump y el presidente Biden son los favoritos para la nominación de cada partido, estableciendo la probabilidad de una revancha de las elecciones de 2020Michelle Gustafson para The New York TimesSegún un hallazgo no reportado previamente de una encuesta de agosto realizada por The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, el 43 por ciento de los votantes estadounidenses dijeron que ambos hombres eran “demasiado mayores para cumplir de manera eficiente otro mandato de cuatro años como presidente”. Entre esos votantes, el 61 por ciento afirmó que planeaba votar por Biden, en comparación con el 13 por ciento que dijo lo mismo sobre Trump.La semana pasada, un sondeo del Franklin & Marshall College entre votantes registrados de Pensilvania, uno de estados más disputados de cara a 2024, arrojó resultados similares.Según la encuesta, el 43 por ciento de los habitantes de Pensilvania dijo que ambos hombres eran “demasiado viejos para ejercer otro mandato”. Un análisis de esos datos para The New York Times mostró que Biden aventajaba a Trump entre esos votantes por 66 por ciento a 11 por ciento. Entre todos los votantes del estado, los dos estaban en un empate estadístico.Berwood Yost, el director de la encuesta de Franklin & Marshall, dijo que la amplia ventaja de Biden entre los votantes que estaban preocupados por la edad de ambos candidatos podría explicarse en parte por el hecho de que los demócratas son mucho más propensos que los republicanos a identificar la edad como un problema para el líder de su partido.“Si a Trump comienzan a relacionarlo con el tema de la edad, como sucede con Biden, realmente puede verse perjudicado”, dijo Yost.Steven Cheung, portavoz de la campaña de Trump, señaló que el expresidente mantenía una ventaja dominante en las encuestas sobre las primarias republicanas y que, en las elecciones generales, varias encuestas recientes habían mostrado que tenía una ligera ventaja sobre Biden.“Ninguna de estas falsas narrativas ha cambiado la dinámica de la contienda: el expresidente Trump sigue dominando, porque la gente sabe que es el candidato más fuerte”, señaló Cheung. “El contraste es que Biden se cae sobre el escenario, balbucea durante un discurso, no sabe por dónde caminar y tropieza con los escalones del Air Force One. Eso no se puede corregir y quedará grabado en la mente de los votantes”.Durante mucho tiempo, las habilidades retóricas de Trump se han basado en una mezcla de fuerza bruta y un instinto aparentemente natural para la imprecisión. Esa seductora combinación, perfeccionada tras toda una vida de negociaciones inmobiliarias, escándalos en los tabloides neoyorquinos y el estrellato de un programa de telerrealidad en horario de máxima audiencia, a menudo hace que los votantes oigan lo que quieren oír.El estilo de hablar de Trump ha hecho que sus partidarios, o los votantes que están dispuestos a apoyarlo, a menudo oigan lo que quieren oír.Jordan Gale para The New York TimesLos partidarios de Trump salen de sus discursos llenos de energía. Los votantes indecisos que están abiertos a su mensaje pueden encontrar lo que buscan en su discurso. Los opositores se enfurecen, y cuando le acusan furiosamente de algo que han oído pero que no ha dicho exactamente, Trump convierte la crítica en un dato de que está siendo perseguido, y todo el ciclo vuelve a empezar.Pero los últimos pasos en falso de Trump no pueden clasificarse como vaguedades calculadas.Durante un discurso del 15 de septiembre en Washington, poco después de declarar a Biden como alguien “con problemas cognitivos, incapaz de liderar”, el expresidente advirtió que Estados Unidos estaba al borde de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la cual terminó en 1945.En el mismo discurso, Trump se jactó de que las encuestas presidenciales lo posicionan por delante de Obama quien, de hecho, no se está postulando para un tercer periodo porque, entre otras cosas, sería ilegal. Volvió a referirse erróneamente a Obama durante una anécdota sobre su victoria en la contienda presidencial de 2016.“Lo hicimos con Obama”, declaró Trump. “Ganamos una elección que todo el mundo decía que no se podía ganar, vencimos a…” Hizo una pausa mientras parecía darse cuenta de su error. “Hillary Clinton”.En un mitin en Florida, el 11 de octubre, días después de un brutal ataque terrorista que dejó sin vida a cientos de israelíes, Trump criticó al país por no estar preparado y arremetió contra su primer ministro, Benjamín Netanyahu. Trump parece haberse enojado con Netanyahu, quien solía ser un aliado cercano, después de que el líder israelí felicitó a Biden por ganar las elecciones de 2020.En el mismo discurso, Trump recurrió una cronología errada de los acontecimientos en Medio Oriente para criticar el manejo de Biden de los asuntos exteriores y, en el proceso, atrajo titulares por elogiar a Hizbulá, el grupo militante respaldado por Irán.La semana pasada, en un mitin celebrado en New Hampshire, Trump elogió a Viktor Orban, el primer ministro húngaro, pero se refirió a él como “el líder de Turquía”, un país localizado a cientos de kilómetros de distancia. Con rapidez, corrigió su error.En otro momento del mismo discurso, Trump lució confundido al decirles a sus partidarios: “Ustedes no tienen que votar, no se preocupen por la votación”. Luego agregó: “Tenemos un montón de votos”.Cheung, el portavoz de la campaña de Trump, dijo que el expresidente “claramente estaba hablando de la integridad electoral y asegurarse de que solo se cuenten los votos legales”.Con Trump, el Partido Republicano ha sufrido una serie de derrotas electorales desde 2016.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEn un discurso del sábado, Trump sonó como si estuviera hablando de hummus cuando pronunció mal “Hamás”, el nombre del grupo islamista que gobierna la Franja de Gaza y que el 7 de octubre ejecutó uno de los mayores ataques contra Israel en décadas.La pronunciación del expresidente llamó la atención del comando de campaña de Biden, que publicó el video en las redes sociales y señaló que Trump sonaba “confundido”.Pero incluso sus rivales republicanos han percibido una oportunidad en el tema de la edad contra Trump, quien ha mantenido un control inquebrantable sobre el partido a pesar de un historial político que en años anteriores habría obligado a los conservadores a considerar otro abanderado. Trump perdió el control del Congreso siendo presidente; fue expulsado a votos de la Casa Blanca; no logró contribuir a generar una “ola roja” de victorias en las elecciones de medio mandato del año pasado y, este año, recibió 91 cargos por delitos graves en cuatro casos penales.Este año, Nikki Haley, de 51 años y exgobernadora de Carolina del Sur, inició su candidatura presidencial pidiendo que los candidatos mayores de 75 años pasaran pruebas de competencia mental, una iniciativa que ha renovado en las últimas semanas.El sábado, Haley atacó a Trump por sus comentarios sobre Netanyahu y Hizbulá, al dar a entender en un discurso ante donantes judíos en Las Vegas que el expresidente no tenía las facultades necesarias para regresar a la Casa Blanca.“Déjenme recordarles una cosa”, añadió con una pequeña sonrisa. “Con todo respeto, yo no me confundo”.Jazmine Ulloa More

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      Supreme Court Wary of Trademark for ‘Trump Too Small’

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      In earlier cases, the justices struck down provisions of the trademark law on First Amendment grounds. But the one at issue here seemed likely to survive.The Supreme Court, which has in recent years struck down parts of the trademark law that prohibited registration of immoral, scandalous and disparaging marks, did not appear ready on Wednesday to do the same thing in a case concerning a California lawyer’s attempt to trademark the phrase “Trump too small.”The provision at issue in the case forbids the registration of trademarks “identifying a particular living individual except by his written consent.”There seemed to be consensus among the justices that the provision was different from the ones the court had rejected in 2017 and 2019. Some said that it did not discriminate based on viewpoint, which the First Amendment generally does not allow the government to do. Others added that there is a long history of allowing people to control the use of their names in commercial settings.Some justices pressed a more fundamental objection. Noting that the lawyer, Steve Elster, could use the phrase on merchandise without trademarking it, they wondered whether the First Amendment applied at all.“The question is, is this an infringement on speech?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. “And the answer is no.”The contested phrase drew on a taunt from Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Rubio said Donald J. Trump had “small hands,” adding, “And you know what they say about guys with small hands.”Mr. Elster, in his trademark application, said that he wanted to convey the message that “some features of President Trump and his policies are diminutive.” He sought to use the phrase on the front of T-shirts with a list of Mr. Trump’s positions on the back. For instance: “Small on civil rights.”A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the First Amendment required the trademark office to allow the registration.“As a result of the president’s status as a public official, and because Elster’s mark communicates his disagreement with and criticism of the then-president’s approach to governance, the government has no interest in disadvantaging Elster’s speech,” Judge Timothy B. Dyk wrote for the court.The Biden administration appealed the Federal Circuit’s ruling to the Supreme Court.Malcolm L. Stewart, a deputy solicitor general who was presenting his 100th Supreme Court argument, said that granting Mr. Elster a trademark would allow him to forbid others from using it, diminishing the amount of the political speech the First Amendment is meant to protect.Chief Justice John G. Roberts echoed the point. “Particularly in an area of political expression,” he said, “that really cuts off a lot of expression other people might regard as important infringement on their First Amendment rights.”Justice Elena Kagan asked Jonathan E. Taylor, a lawyer for Mr. Elster, to identify a precedent in which the court had struck down a law conferring a government benefit like trademark registration that did not involve viewpoint discrimination.He replied, “I can’t point you to a case that’s precisely on all fours.”Justice Kagan responded that she could cite many decisions supporting the opposite proposition, naming a half-dozen.Commentary on the size of Mr. Trump’s hands has a long history. In the 1980s, the satirical magazine Spy needled Mr. Trump, then a New York City real estate developer, with the recurring epithet “short-fingered vulgarian.”In 2016, during a presidential debate, Mr. Trump addressed Mr. Rubio’s critique.“Look at those hands, are they small hands?” Mr. Trump said, raising them. “And, he referred to my hands — ‘if they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”If the Supreme Court upholds the provision challenged in the new case, it will be the end of a trend.In 2017, a unanimous eight-justice court struck down a different provision, one forbidding marks that disparage people, living or dead, along with “institutions, beliefs or national symbols.”The decision, Matal v. Tam, concerned an Asian American dance-rock band called the Slants. The court split 4 to 4 in much of its reasoning, but all the justices agreed that the provision at issue in that case violated the Constitution because it took sides based on speakers’ viewpoints.In 2019, the court rejected a provision barring the registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks.That case concerned a line of clothing sold under the brand name FUCT. When the case was argued, Mr. Stewart told the justices that the term was “the equivalent of the past participle form of the paradigmatic profane word in our culture.”Justice Kagan, writing for a six-justice majority, did not dispute that. But she said the law was unconstitutional because it “disfavors certain ideas.”If the justices were divided in the new case, Vidal v. Elster, No. 22-704, it was over the rationale for ruling to uphold the law before them, not on the outcome.Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., for instance, asked Mr. Stewart for a theory that would allow him to vote for the government without rejecting a position he had staked out in an earlier case.The justice added that the task was not pressing. “I mean,” he said, “you don’t need my vote to win your case.” More

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      Election Day Guide: Governor Races, Abortion Access and More

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      Two governorships are at stake in the South, while Ohio voters will decide whether to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution.Election Day is nearly here, and while off-year political races receive a fraction of the attention compared with presidential elections, some of Tuesday’s contests will be intensely watched.At stake are two southern governorships, control of the Virginia General Assembly and abortion access in Ohio. National Democrats and Republicans, seeking to build momentum moving toward next November, will be eyeing those results for signals about 2024.Here are the major contests voters will decide on Tuesday and a key ballot question:Governor of KentuckyGov. Andy Beshear, left, a Democrat, is facing Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s Republican attorney general, in his campaign for re-election as governor.Pool photo by Kentucky Educational TelevisionGov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, is seeking to again defy convention in deep-red Kentucky, a state carried handily by Donald J. Trump in 2020.He is facing Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s attorney general, who was propelled to victory by an early endorsement from Mr. Trump in a competitive Republican primary in May.In 2019, Mr. Cameron became the first Black person to be elected as Kentucky’s attorney general, an office previously held by Mr. Beshear. He drew attention in 2020 when he announced that a grand jury did not indict two Louisville officers who shot Breonna Taylor.In the 2019 governor’s race, Mr. Beshear ousted Matt Bevin, a Trump-backed Republican, by fewer than 6,000 votes. This year, he enters the race with a strong job approval rating. He is seeking to replicate a political feat of his father, Steve Beshear, who was also Kentucky governor and was elected to two terms.Governor of Mississippi Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner who is related to Elvis Presley, wants to be the state’s first Democratic governor in two decades.Emily Kask for The New York TimesGov. Tate Reeves, a Republican in his first term, has some of the lowest job approval numbers of the nation’s governors.Rogelio V. Solis/Associated PressIt has been two decades since Mississippi had a Democrat as governor. Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican in his first term, is seeking to avoid becoming the one who ends that streak.But his job approval numbers are among the lowest of the nation’s governors, which has emboldened his Democratic challenger, Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner with a famous last name: His second cousin, once removed, was Elvis Presley.Mr. Presley has attacked Mr. Reeves over a welfare scandal exposed last year by Mississippi Today, which found that millions in federal funds were misspent. Mr. Reeves, who was the lieutenant governor during the years the scandal unfolded, has denied any wrongdoing, but the issue has been a focal point of the contest.Abortion access in OhioAs states continue to reckon with the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court last year, Ohio has become the latest front in the fight over access to abortion.Reproductive rights advocates succeeded in placing a proposed amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine the right to abortion access into the state constitution. Its supporters have sought to fill the void that was created by the Roe decision.Anti-abortion groups have mounted a sweeping campaign to stop the measure. One effort, a proposal to raise the threshold required for passing a constitutional amendment, was rejected by voters this summer.Virginia legislatureIn just two states won by President Biden in 2020, Republicans have a power monopoly — and in Virginia, they are aiming to secure a third. The others are Georgia and New Hampshire.Democrats narrowly control the Virginia Senate, where all 40 seats are up for grabs in the election. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House of Delegates, which is also being contested.The outcome of the election is being viewed as a potential reflection of the clout of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican with national ambitions.Philadelphia mayorAn open-seat race for mayor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s foremost Democratic bastion, is down to two former City Council members: Cherelle Parker, a Democrat, and David Oh, a Republican.The advantage for Ms. Parker appears to be an overwhelming one in the city, which has not elected a Republican as mayor since 1947.It has also been two decades since Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth most populous city, had a somewhat competitive mayoral race. More

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      Some of the Lawyers Who May Fill a Second Trump Administration

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      Donald Trump’s allies are hoping to install a different species of legal gatekeeper throughout the federal government. Here are some of the potential prospects.Election Day is a year away, but key allies of former President Donald J. Trump are already thinking about staffing a potential administration, including by filling White House and agency legal positions with aggressive and ideologically like-minded lawyers.Trump allies are preparing to populate a new administration with a different breed of lawyer — a departure from the type that stymied part of his first-term agenda and that despite their mainstream conservative credentials are seen as too cautious by people close to the former president. They are seeking lawyers in federal agencies and in the White House committed to his “America First” ideology and willing to use edgy theories to advance his cause.It is too early to say with any certainty whom Mr. Trump would select were he to win a second term starting in 2025. But several conservative nonprofits, staffed by people who are likely to take on senior White House positions if there is a second Trump administration, have been putting together lists of prospects.At Project 2025, a well-funded effort by the Heritage Foundation to prepare personnel and policy for the next conservative administration, John McEntee, one of Mr. Trump’s most trusted aides, is part of a team searching for potential lawyers.A person familiar with the Heritage 2025 project said it was listing multiple options for every position. Some of the names under early and unofficial consideration are:Joseph E. Schmitz as the Pentagon’s top lawyer. A Bush-era Pentagon inspector general, he argued after the 2020 election that the Supreme Court or the vice president, Mike Pence, should intervene to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss.Joseph E. Schmitz in 2004.Jamie-Andrea Yanak/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Trump’s Allies Want a New Breed of Lawyer if He Returns to Power

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      Close allies of Donald J. Trump are preparing to populate a new administration with a more aggressive breed of right-wing lawyer, dispensing with traditional conservatives who they believe stymied his agenda in his first term.The allies have been drawing up lists of lawyers they view as ideologically and temperamentally suited to serve in a second Trump administration. Their aim is to reduce the chances that politically appointed lawyers would frustrate a more radical White House agenda — as they sometimes did when Mr. Trump was in office, by raising objections to his desires for certain harsher immigration policies or for greater personal control over the Justice Department, among others.Now, as Trump allies grow more confident in an election victory next fall, several outside groups, staffed by former Trump officials who are expected to serve in senior roles if he wins, have begun parallel personnel efforts. At the start of Mr. Trump’s term, his administration relied on the influential Federalist Society, the conservative legal network whose members filled key executive branch legal roles and whose leader helped select his judicial nominations. But in a striking shift, Trump allies are building new recruiting pipelines separate from the Federalist Society.These back-room discussions were described by seven people with knowledge of the planning, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. In addition, The New York Times interviewed former senior lawyers in the Trump administration and other allies who have remained close to the president and are likely to serve in a second term.The interviews reveal a significant break within the conservative movement. Top Trump allies have come to view their party’s legal elites — even leaders with seemingly impeccable conservative credentials — as out of step with their movement.“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” said Russell T. Vought, a former senior Trump administration official who runs a think tank with close ties to the former president. He argued that many elite conservative lawyers had proved to be too timid when, in his view, the survival of the nation is at stake.Such comments may surprise those who view the Federalist Society as hard-line conservatives. But the move away from the group reflects the continuing evolution of the Republican Party in the Trump era and an effort among those now in his inner circle to prepare to take control of the government in a way unseen in modern presidential history.Two of the allies leading the push are Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s former senior adviser, and John McEntee, another trusted aide whom the then-president had empowered in 2020 to rid his administration of political appointees perceived as disloyal or obstructive.The nonprofit groups they are involved in are barred by law from supporting a candidate, and none of the work they are doing is explicitly tied to Mr. Trump. But Mr. Miller and Mr. McEntee remain close to the former president and are expected to have his ear in any second term.Mr. Trump himself, focused for now on multiple criminal and civil cases against him, appears disengaged from these efforts. But he made clear throughout his term in office that he was infuriated by many of the lawyers who worked for him, ranting about how they were “weak” and “stupid.”By the end of his term, lawyers he appointed early in his administration had angered the White House by raising legal concerns about various policy proposals. But Mr. Trump reserved his deepest rage for the White House and Justice Department legal officials who largely rejected his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, according to people who spoke with him. Casting about for alternative lawyers who would tell him what he wanted to hear, Mr. Trump turned for that effort to a group of outside lawyers, many of whom have since been indicted in Georgia.People close to the former president say they are seeking out a different type of lawyer committed to his “America First” ideology and willing to endure the personal and professional risks of association with Mr. Trump. They want lawyers in federal agencies and in the White House who are willing to use theories that more establishment lawyers would reject to advance his cause. This new mind-set matches Mr. Trump’s declaration that he is waging a “final battle” against demonic “enemies” populating a “deep state” within the government that is bent on destroying America.Several of Mr. Trump’s key allies — including Stephen Miller, his former senior adviser — are drawing up lists of lawyers they plan to hire if the former president returns to the White House in 2025.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesThere were a few lawyers like that in Mr. Trump’s administration, but they were largely outnumbered, outranked and often blocked by more traditional legal conservatives. For those who went to work for Mr. Trump but grew disillusioned, the push to systematically install Trump loyalists who may see the law as malleable across a second Trump administration has been a cause for alarm.John Mitnick was appointed by Mr. Trump as general counsel of the Homeland Security Department in 2018. But he was fired in 2019 as part of a broad purge of the agency’s leaders — whom Mr. Trump had installed — and was replaced by one of Mr. Miller’s allies.Mr. Mitnick predicted that “no qualified attorneys with integrity will have any desire to serve as political appointees” in a second Trump term, and that instead it would be “predominantly staffed by opportunists who will rubber-stamp whatever Trump and his senior White House staff want to do.”In many ways, the Federalist Society has become synonymous with the Republican establishment, and its members’ most common interests — including pushing an originalist interpretation of the Constitution and federal statutes — can be distinct from the whims and grievances of Mr. Trump himself. Its membership dues are low, and politically ambitious Republican lawyers of various stripes routinely join it or attend its events. Many of the more aggressive lawyers the Trump allies are eyeing have their own links to it.But after both the legal policy fights inside the Trump administration and the refusal by the group’s most respected luminaries to join Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the phrase “Federalist Society” became a slur for some on the Trump-aligned right, a shorthand for a kind of lawyerly weakness.Hard-right allies of Mr. Trump increasingly speak of typical Federalist Society members as “squishes” too worried about maintaining their standing in polite society and their employment prospects at big law firms to advance their movement’s most contentious tactics and goals.“Trump and his administration learned the hard way in their first term that the Democrats are playing for keeps,” said Mike Davis, a former congressional aide who helped shepherd judicial nominees during the Trump administration and has become a close ally of the 45th president. “And in the Trump 47 administration, they need much stronger attorneys who do not care about elite opinion who will fight these key cultural battles.”The chilling of the relationship between Mr. Trump and Leonard Leo, a leader of the Federalist Society, embodies a broader rift between Mr. Trump and conservative legal elites.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesA Fraught UnionWhen Mr. Trump wrested the 2016 Republican presidential nomination from the party’s old guard, it was unclear whether social conservatives would turn out in the general election to vote for a thrice-married New Yorker who had cultivated a playboy reputation and once described himself as “very pro-choice.” But Mr. Trump won their support by essentially striking a deal with legal conservatives: He agreed to fill Supreme Court vacancies from a list of prospects compiled by a small number of movement stalwarts.This group helping to shape the judiciary included Leonard A. Leo — arguably the most powerful figure in the conservative legal movement and a leader of the Federalist Society — and Donald F. McGahn II, Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign general counsel and first White House counsel. With a seat already open after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the move worked: Exit polls showed that court-focused voters helped secure Mr. Trump’s narrow victory.Along with the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Mr. Leo and Mr. McGahn — and later Pat A. Cipollone, Mr. Trump’s second White House counsel — created an assembly line for turning Federalist Society-style lawyers into appeals court judges and Supreme Court justices.But the union between Mr. Trump and the conservative legal establishment could be more fraught than it sometimes appeared. As his presidency wore on, Mr. Trump attacked and sidelined many of the lawyers around him. That included Mr. Leo.One episode, described by a person familiar with the incident, illustrates the larger chill.In January 2020, Mr. Leo was having dinner at Mar-a-Lago when Mr. Trump strode up to his table. The president stunned Mr. Leo, publicly berating him and accusing him of recommending the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who appointed a special counsel to investigate ties between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.Taken aback, Mr. Leo protested that he had actually suggested someone else for the position — Mr. Cipollone. Mr. Trump walked away without apologizing.Nearly a year later, when Mr. Trump was trying to enlist legal assistance for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, he reached out three times to Mr. Leo. But Mr. Leo declined to take or return Mr. Trump’s calls, and has since only dealt with him through others.A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to repeated requests for comment.In a statement, Mr. Leo said, “I have nothing to say regarding his current efforts, but I’m just grateful that President Trump transformed the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in his first term.”Mr. Mitnick’s experience underscores the style of lawyering that Trump allies saw as too cautious. His role as the top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security put him in the path of increasingly aggressive policy proposals from a top White House adviser to Mr. Trump, Mr. Miller.Mr. Miller, who is not a lawyer, is known for his vehement opposition to immigration. Mr. Mitnick and Mr. Miller are said to have clashed, directly and indirectly, over legal risks raised by regulatory and policy actions emanating from the White House, including separating migrant children from their parents and transporting migrants to so-called sanctuary cities.In 2019, the White House purged the leadership ranks of the Homeland Security Department, firing Mr. Mitnick. Mr. Trump ultimately installed as his replacement Chad Mizelle, who had been out of law school just seven years but was a close Miller ally.Like numerous other positions filled later in Mr. Trump’s term, Mr. Mizelle was appointed as “acting” general counsel, sidestepping a Senate vetting and confirmation process that would most likely have closely scrutinized whether he was qualified for the job.With Mr. Mizelle acting as the department’s top lawyer when the Covid-19 pandemic arose, the Trump administration seamlessly invoked emergency powers to flatly refuse to consider the petition of any asylum seeker arriving at the southern border.Seeking ‘America First’ LawyersMr. Miller has stayed close to Mr. Trump and is expected to play an even more important role in shaping policy if Mr. Trump returns to power.While out of office, Mr. Miller has been running a foundation focused on suing the Biden administration and recruiting a new generation of “America First” lawyers, with some from attorney general and solicitor general offices in Texas and other Republican-controlled states. “America First” Republicans are often opposed to both legal and illegal immigration, protectionist on trade and skeptical of international alliances and military intervention overseas.One first-term Trump lawyer who would most likely serve in a second term is Mark Paoletta, who served as general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget and worked closely with Mr. Vought, the agency’s director. The O.M.B. team saw itself as an island of facilitators within an executive branch they believed was too quick to tell Mr. Trump that his ideas were unachievable or illegal.“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” said Russell Vought, a former senior Trump administration official.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTogether, Mr. Vought and Mr. Paoletta came up with the idea of having Mr. Trump declare a national emergency and invoke special powers to spend more taxpayer money on a border wall than Congress was willing to appropriate.Mr. Paoletta also believed that Mr. Trump could have exerted greater personal control over the Justice Department, although Mr. Paoletta said in an interview that he did not advocate using the presidency’s command over federal law enforcement for partisan and personal score-settling. He and other advisers likely to follow Mr. Trump back into power view White House authority to direct the Justice Department as proper under the so-called unitary executive theory. It holds that presidents can directly command the entire federal bureaucracy and that pockets of independent decision-making authority are unconstitutional.“I believe a president doesn’t need to be so hands-off with the D.O.J.,” Mr. Paoletta said, adding: “It’s not an independent agency, and he is the head of the executive branch. A president has every right to direct D.O.J. to look at items that are his policy priorities and other matters of national importance.”Mr. Trump is not known for pondering legal philosophy. But he has found common cause with lawyers who have a sweeping view of presidential power.In his 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump has promised to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after” President Biden and his family — shattering the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence. More than any legal policy statement on his campaign website, retribution may be the closest thing to a governing philosophy for Mr. Trump as he seeks a second term.‘Legal Creativity’Mr. Trump has rarely looked closely at a lawyer’s area of specialty. Instead, he has often looked at whether a particular lawyer can help him gain something he wants. He spent much of his first term railing against the lawyers who worked for him and wondering aloud why none of them could live up to the memory of his notoriously ruthless mentor, Roy Cohn, who represented Mr. Trump in his early business career in New York.When he sought to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. Trump was unsatisfied with his government lawyers, including his second White House counsel, Mr. Cipollone, who largely rejected his efforts to subvert the results. Mr. Trump turned to a different set of outside lawyers.Those lawyers included Rudolph W. Giuliani, John C. Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney K. Powell, all of whom have since been indicted in Georgia in a racketeering case that charged the former president and 18 of his allies with conspiring to overturn his election loss there in 2020. Ms. Powell, Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Ellis have pleaded guilty.Mr. Trump was also infuriated that the justices he had put on the Supreme Court declined to repay his patronage by intervening in the 2020 election. As Mr. Trump criticized the court, Mr. Leo with the Federalist Society is said to have told associates he was disappointed that the former president’s rhetoric made his judicial appointment record look “transactional,” aimed at advancing Mr. Trump’s personal interests rather than a broader philosophical mission.Jeffrey Clark, a former high-ranking Justice Department official, was criminally charged in Georgia in connection with efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in that state.Pool photo by Susan WalshIn the same way, Mr. Trump had a falling-out with his attorney general, William P. Barr, who refused to falsely say that the Justice Department had evidence of widespread voter fraud. After Mr. Barr resigned, his deputy and successor, Jeffrey A. Rosen, also refused to throw the department’s weight behind Mr. Trump’s claims. Mr. Trump then explored the idea of installing Jeffrey Clark — an official who was willing to raise concerns about purported election fraud — as acting attorney general.Mr. Clark has also been indicted in the Georgia case, but remains in favor with Mr. Trump and has met with the former president at his private clubs. Over the summer, at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Clark attended a fund-raiser for the people who have been imprisoned for rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Clark will most likely be in contention for a senior Justice Department position in any second Trump administration, depending on the outcome of his legal travails. He has written a constitutional analysis, titled “The U.S. Justice Department Is Not Independent,” that amounts to an intellectual blueprint for direct presidential control of federal law enforcement.He declined to comment. On a conservative podcast last year, Mr. Clark said that “extraordinary times call for extraordinary, responsive legal creativity.” More

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      Supreme Court Weighs When Officials May Block Citizens on Social Media

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      The justices struggled to distinguish private conduct, which is not subject to the First Amendment, from state action, which is.The Supreme Court worked hard in a pair of arguments on Tuesday to find a clear constitutional line separating elected officials’ purely private social media accounts from ones that reflect government actions and are subject to the First Amendment. After three hours, though, it was not clear that a majority of the justices had settled on a clear test.The question in the two cases was when the Constitution limits officials’ ability to block users from their accounts. The answer turned on whether the officials’ use of the accounts amounted to “state action,” which is governed by the First Amendment, or private activity, which is not.That same question had seemed headed to the Supreme Court after the federal appeals court in New York ruled in 2019 that President Donald J. Trump’s Twitter account was a public forum from which he was powerless to exclude people based on their viewpoints.Had the account been private, the court said, Mr. Trump could have blocked whomever he wanted. But since he used the account as a government official, he was subject to the First Amendment.After Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election, the Supreme Court vacated the appeals court’s ruling as moot.Justice Elena Kagan said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed was in an important sense official and therefore subject to the First Amendment.“I don’t think a citizen would be able to really understand the Trump presidency, if you will, without any access to all the things that the president said on that account,” Justice Kagan said. “It was an important part of how he wielded his authority. And to cut a citizen off from that is to cut a citizen off from part of the way that government works.”Hashim M. Mooppan, a lawyer for two school board officials, said none of that implicated the First Amendment.“President Trump could have done the same thing from Mar-a-Lago or a campaign rally,” Mr. Mooppan said. “If he gave every one of those speeches at his personal residence, it wouldn’t somehow convert his residence into government property.”The cases argued Tuesday were the first of several this term in which the Supreme Court will consider how the First Amendment applies to social media companies. The court will hear arguments next year on both whether states may prohibit large social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express and whether Biden administration officials may contact social media platforms to combat what they say is misinformation.The first case argued Tuesday concerned the Facebook and Twitter accounts of two members of the Poway Unified School District in California, Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane. They used the accounts, created during their campaigns, to communicate with their constituents about activities of the school board, invite them to public meetings, ask for comments on the board’s activities and discuss safety issues in the schools.Two parents, Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, frequently posted lengthy and repetitive critical comments, and the officials eventually blocked them. The parents sued, and lower courts ruled in their favor.“When state actors enter that virtual world and invoke their government status to create a forum for such expression, the First Amendment enters with them,” Judge Marsha S. Berzon wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco.Mr. Mooppan said the accounts were personal and were created and maintained without any involvement by the district.Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh pressed Mr. Mooppan on what it would take to make the accounts official and so subject to the First Amendment. “Is announcing rules state action?” the justice asked.Mr. Mooppan said it would be if the announcement was not available elsewhere. He gave a more equivocal answer to a question about notifications of school closures. But he said a general public safety reminder was not state action.Pamela S. Karlan, a lawyer for the parents, said Ms. O’Connor-Ratcliff’s Facebook feed was almost entirely official. “Of the hundreds of posts, I found only three that were truly non-job-related,” Ms. Karlan said, adding, “I defy anyone to look at that and think this wasn’t an official website.”The second case, Lindke v. Freed, No. 22-611, concerned a Facebook account maintained by James R. Freed, the city manager of Port Huron, Mich. He used it to comment on a variety of subjects, some personal and some official. Among the latter were descriptions of the city’s responses to the coronavirus pandemic.The posts prompted critical responses from a resident, Kevin Lindke, whom Mr. Freed eventually blocked. Mr. Lindke sued and lost. Judge Amul R. Thapar, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, said Mr. Freed’s Facebook account was personal, meaning that the First Amendment had no role to play.“Freed did not operate his page to fulfill any actual or apparent duty of his office,” Judge Thapar wrote. “And he did not use his governmental authority to maintain it. Thus, he was acting in his personal capacity — and there was no state action.”Justice Kagan told Allon Kedem, a lawyer for Mr. Lindke, that Mr. Freed’s page did not look particularly official.“There are a lot of baby pictures and dog pictures and obviously personal stuff,” she said. “And intermingled with that there is, as you say, communication with constituents about important matters. But it’s hard to look at this page as a whole, unlike the one in the last case, and not think that surely this could not be the official communications channel.” More

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      Trump Sues to Ensure He Is on the Ballot in Michigan

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      Donald Trump’s lawsuit was the latest turn in a nationwide battle over his eligibility to hold office again, including a case being heard this week in Colorado.Former President Donald J. Trump sued Michigan’s top elections official, seeking to ensure he would be on the ballot for the 2024 presidential election.In a 64-page filing on Monday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers said that Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, had created “uncertainty” by failing to respond to communications from the Trump campaign about his ballot eligibility. Mr. Trump is the dominant front-runner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.His lawyers added that other parties had sued Ms. Benson to keep Mr. Trump off the ballot in 2024, arguing that he was ineligible to hold office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — a section that disqualifies anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution after having taken an oath to support it.Ms. Benson previously declined to disqualify Mr. Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, saying she did not have the authority to determine who was or was not eligible to run under the 14th Amendment. Plaintiffs in that case then sued in Michigan state court to have the court order Ms. Benson to disqualify Mr. Trump. Ms. Benson has noted that she is watching for the results of that case.Cheri Hardmon, a spokeswoman for Ms. Benson, said on Tuesday that the Michigan Department of State could not comment on pending litigation.The Michigan lawsuit was the latest turn in a nationwide battle over Mr. Trump’s eligibility to run for president. The suit was filed Monday afternoon in Michigan state court as a trial played out in Colorado to determine whether Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election met the disqualification criteria in the 14th Amendment.That trial continued on Tuesday with testimony related to Mr. Trump and far-right extremists and their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.Peter Simi, an expert witness on political extremism and violence called by the plaintiffs, said during questioning that far-right extremists often communicate in ambiguous language, and that many of Mr. Trump’s comments before and on Jan. 6 were a key influence on extremists who rioted at the Capitol.Mr. Simi focused on Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse that day, where he repeatedly called on his supporters to “fight” to prevent the election from being stolen.“A call to fight for far-right extremists — especially within the context as it’s laid out, that these threats are imminent, that you’re going to lose your country — then fighting would be understood as requiring violent action,” Mr. Simi testified.Lawyers for Mr. Trump argued during cross-examination that Mr. Simi had selectively chosen particular moments that made Mr. Trump look bad, and sought to cast doubt on whether the president had intended for the far right to interpret his remarks the way they did.Other cases on Mr. Trump’s eligibility are soon to follow: A similar lawsuit has been filed in New Hampshire. Oral arguments in a case in Minnesota are scheduled to begin Thursday. Separately, Democratic legislators in California asked their state’s attorney general last month to seek a court opinion on Mr. Trump’s eligibility.Whatever rulings come in these cases will not be final. They will almost certainly be appealed by the losing side, and the Supreme Court — which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices appointed by Mr. Trump — is likely to have the final say. More