Trump, Donald J

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      Trump Again Compares Himself to Navalny While Discussing Legal Woes

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      Former President Donald J. Trump continued to liken himself to the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny during a town hall in South Carolina on Tuesday, at one point directly comparing a civil fraud judgment against him to the case of an anticorruption activist who died in a Russian prison last week.Halfway through the town hall, the host, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, asked Mr. Trump how he would come up with the $450 million penalty issued by a New York judge last week.“It is a form of — Navalny,” Mr. Trump said. “It is a form of communism or fascism.”The remark came after a prolonged discussion in which Mr. Trump continued to suggest that his legal travails were somehow equivalent to those of Mr. Navalny, a staunch opponent of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia who was politically persecuted and imprisoned on charges that supporters believed were fabricated in an attempt to silence him.Mr. Trump did not specifically address Mr. Navalny’s death until Monday, when he posted on social media that the situation was reminiscent of his legal problems. The former president faces four criminal cases, all of which he has attributed to President Biden, although Mr. Biden has no oversight over them.During the town hall, Ms. Ingraham asked Mr. Trump to expand on those comments. The former president commended Mr. Navalny for his courage, calling his death “very sad” and saying that Mr. Navalny “was a very brave guy.” He also expressed his belief that Mr. Navalny — who returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been recovering from being poisoned — would have been better served by “staying away and talking from outside of the country.”But Mr. Trump then said that what had happened to Mr. Navalny was happening “in our country too.” He went on to mention his four indictments, which he said were “all because of the fact that I am in politics.”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 Breaks Silence on Navalny Death, but Doesn’t Condemn Putin

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      His winding social media post on Monday contained no reference to Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, who has been widely condemned after the death of one of his most vocal critics, Aleksei A. Navalny.Days after the death of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny was first reported, Donald J. Trump broke his silence in a social media post on Monday that barely mentioned Mr. Navalny and that did not condemn President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Instead, he used Mr. Navalny’s death to suggest that his own legal battles amounted to political persecution.It was a note he hit first on Sunday, when he shared screenshots of an opinion essay that compared his relationship with President Biden to the one between Mr. Navalny and Mr. Putin.“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” the former president wrote on Truth Social on Monday, using an alternative spelling of Mr. Navalny’s given name. He pointed to what he called “CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.”But the winding social media post contained no reference to Mr. Putin, who has drawn widespread condemnation from politicians in the United States and abroad amid speculation that he or the Russian government had a hand in Mr. Navalny’s death. Instead, Mr. Trump cited “Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions” in casting the U.S., in all capital letters, as a “nation in decline, a failing nation.”Mr. Trump, who has been indicted in four criminal cases and is facing 91 felony counts, was ordered on Friday to pay about $450 million, after a New York judge found in his civil fraud case that he had conspired to manipulate his net worth. He has repeatedly tried to blame Mr. Biden for his legal problems, though Mr. Biden has no purview over the cases.Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s rival in the Republican presidential primary and his former ambassador to the United Nations, attacked him over his response.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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      Con su línea de zapatillas doradas, Trump vende algo más que calzado

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      ¿Qué gana el expresidente Donald Trump cuando vende tenis a 399 dólares?¿Hay algo más trumpiano que las zapatillas Never Surrender de 399 dólares presentadas el fin de semana en la Sneaker Con de Filadelfia? De toda la mercadería promocionada por el expresidente y actual candidato a la presidencia Donald Trump y otras entidades relacionadas con él en los últimos meses —las barras de oro (de chocolate), los vinos, las NFT de superhéroes—, los tenis son como una hoja de ruta del sistema de valores y la estrategia electoral de Trump en forma sartorial.Son unos tenis altos dorados tan brillantes como las lámparas de araña de Mar-a-Lago, con una bandera estadounidense que envuelve el tobillo, algo así como el bosque de banderas que surge detrás de Trump cada vez que sube a un escenario. Tienen las suelas rojas a juego con sus características corbatas rojas (y con la bandera) y quizá como guiño socarrón a los tacones Christian Louboutin y a la semiología del calzado de lujo. Además, tienen una gran “T” en relieve en el costado y en la lengüeta.Aunque son “atrevidas, doradas y resistentes, como el presidente Trump”, según el sitio web de las zapatillas Trump, y permiten a sus posibles propietarios “formar parte de la historia”, no ofrecen ningún atributo técnico de rendimiento. Aunque tienen una forma similar a las Nike Air Force 1 (¿lo entendiste? ¡Air Force One!), son imitaciones descaradas del original.Resulta tentador desestimar la oferta por considerarla pura ostentación y publicidad con poca sustancia. Eso es lo que hizo Michael Tyler, vocero de la campaña de Biden, que dijo: “Que Donald Trump aparezca para pregonar unas Off-Whites piratas es lo más cerca que volverá a estar del Air Force One en lo que le queda de vida”.También es tentador pensar en ellas como la respuesta de Trump a la presencia en TikTok de la campaña de Biden: un esfuerzo por asociarse con lo cool a través de la cultura de las zapatillas deportivas, por no mencionar la energía y el atletismo del modelo “Just Do It”. Pese a que al propio Trump casi nunca se le ve llevando calzado deportivo, ni haciendo mucho ejercicio.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Gold Trump Sneakers Are About More Than Shoes

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      What is Trump really selling when he is selling footwear?Of all the merch hawked by the former president and current presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and related entities over the past few months — the gold (chocolate) bars, the wines, the superhero NFTs — is any of it more Trumpian than the $399 Never Surrender sneakers unveiled over the weekend at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia? They are like a road map to Mr. Trump’s value system and electoral strategy in sartorial form.Gilded hightops as shiny as the chandeliers at Mar-a-Lago, they have an American flag wrapping the ankle like the forest of flags that spring up behind Mr. Trump whenever he takes a stage. They have red soles made to match his trademark red ties (and the flag) and perhaps as a sly nod to Christian Louboutins and the semiology of luxury footwear. Also, there’s a large embossed “T” on the side and on the tongue.While they are “bold, gold and tough, just like President Trump,” according to the Trump sneakers website, allowing potential owners to “be a part of history,” they boast zero technical performance attributes. While they have a shape similar to Nike Air Force 1s (get it? Air Force One!), they are unabashed imitations of the original.It’s tempting to dismiss the offering as all flash and marketing with little substance. That’s what Michael Tyler, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, did, saying, “Donald Trump showing up to hawk bootleg Off-Whites is the closest he’ll get to any Air Force Ones ever again for the rest of his life.”Or to think of them as Mr. Trump’s answer to the Biden campaign’s TikTok presence: an effort to associate himself with the cool embedded in the whole idea of sneaker culture, not to mention the energy and athleticism implied by the “Just Do It” model. Despite the fact that Mr. Trump himself is almost never seen wearing a sneaker, or doing much exercise.Yet the merching of the moment is more dangerous than it may initially appear.There has been a lot of eye-rolling since the sneakers’ debut, and jokes about the fact that, given the millions of dollars in penalties levied on Mr. Trump in his various civil cases, he has to make more money somewhere. And there was a lot of focus on the boos that met his appearance at Sneaker Con. (To be fair, the sneakerhead community is not the market for the kicks since there’s nothing original about them; it’s the MAGA market.)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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      Nikki Haley Again Calls for a TikTok Ban Over Privacy Concerns

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      The Republican Party might have challenges with outreach to Generation Z, but Nikki Haley, appearing in a Fox News town hall event on Sunday, said the answer was not TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media platform.In a conversation with the “America Reports” co-anchor John Roberts, Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador, criticized President Biden for posting a TikTok clip on the night of the Super Bowl, in an appeal to younger voters. She also hit former President Donald J. Trump, her G.O.P. primary rival, for failing to curtail its use while he was in the White House.“President Trump said he would ban TikTok, and when President Xi asked him not to, that fell to the wayside,” she said, referring to Xi Jinping, China’s leader. “We should have banned it from the beginning. It is incredibly dangerous.”The volleys against both men are part of a broader argument Ms. Haley has been making in recent media appearances and on the campaign trail that it is time for fresh leadership. Her attacks on Mr. Trump, whom she served under as ambassador, have become sharper in particular, as the two head into a primary showdown in South Carolina on Saturday.In the town hall event on Sunday, as she has before, Ms. Haley broke with the isolationist wing of her party on foreign policy and pummeled the former president for his friendly relationship with authoritarian leaders like Mr. Jinping and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. She argued that Mr. Putin “knows exactly what he did” with Aleksei A. Navalny, the outspoken Russian opposition leader who died last week in prison, and chastised Mr. Trump for suggesting he would encourage Russian aggression against U.S. allies in Europe.“I think that’s why it’s so damaging when Trump said that he would choose Putin and actually encouraged to invade NATO allies, instead of standing with our allies,” she said.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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      Poll Ranks Biden as 14th-Best President, With Trump Last

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      President Biden may owe his place in the top third to his predecessor: Mr. Biden’s signature accomplishment, according to the historians, was evicting Donald J. Trump from the Oval Office.President Biden has not had a lot of fun perusing polls lately. He has a lower approval rating than every president going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower at this stage of their tenures, and he trails former President Donald J. Trump in a fall rematch. But Mr. Biden can take solace from one survey in which he is way out in front of Mr. Trump.A new poll of historians coming out on Presidents’ Day weekend ranks Mr. Biden as the 14th-best president in American history, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant. While that may not get Mr. Biden a spot on Mount Rushmore, it certainly puts him well ahead of Mr. Trump, who places dead last as the worst president ever.Indeed, Mr. Biden may owe his place in the top third in part to Mr. Trump. Although he has claims to a historical legacy by managing the end of the Covid pandemic; rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure; and leading an international coalition against Russian aggression, Mr. Biden’s signature accomplishment, according to the historians, was evicting Mr. Trump from the Oval Office.“Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,” wrote Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, the college professors who conducted the survey and announced the results in The Los Angeles Times.Mr. Trump might not care much what a bunch of academics think, but for what it’s worth he fares badly even among the self-identified Republican historians. Finishing 45th overall, Mr. Trump trails even the mid-19th-century failures who blundered the country into a civil war or botched its aftermath like James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Andrew Johnson.Judging modern-day presidents, of course, is a hazardous exercise, one shaped by the politics of the moment and not necessarily reflective of how history will look a century from now. Even long-ago presidents can move up or down such polls depending on the changing cultural mores of the times the surveys are conducted.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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      MAGA’s Violent Threats Are Warping Life in America

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      Amid the constant drumbeat of sensational news stories — the scandals, the legal rulings, the wild political gambits — it’s sometimes easy to overlook the deeper trends that are shaping American life. For example, are you aware how much the constant threat of violence, principally from MAGA sources, is now warping American politics? If you wonder why so few people in red America seem to stand up directly against the MAGA movement, are you aware of the price they might pay if they did?Late last month, I listened to a fascinating NPR interview with the journalists Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman regarding their new book, “Find Me the Votes,” about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. They report that Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis had trouble finding lawyers willing to help prosecute her case against Trump. Even a former Georgia governor turned her down, saying, “Hypothetically speaking, do you want to have a bodyguard follow you around for the rest of your life?”He wasn’t exaggerating. Willis received an assassination threat so specific that one evening she had to leave her office incognito while a body double wearing a bulletproof vest courageously pretended to be her and offered a target for any possible incoming fire.Don’t think for a moment that this is unusual today. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal Jan. 6 trial, has been swatted, as has the special counsel Jack Smith. For those unfamiliar, swatting is a terrifying act of intimidation in which someone calls law enforcement and falsely claims a violent crime is in process at the target’s address. This sends heavily armed police to a person’s home with the expectation of a violent confrontation. A swatting incident claimed the life of a Kansas man in 2017.The Colorado Supreme Court likewise endured terrible threats after it ruled that Trump was disqualified from the ballot. There is deep concern for the safety of the witnesses and jurors in Trump’s various trials.Mitt Romney faces so many threats that he spends $5,000 per day on security to protect his family. After Jan. 6, the former Republican congressman Peter Meijer said that at least one colleague voted not to certify the election out of fear for the safety of their family. Threats against members of Congress are pervasive, and there has been a shocking surge since Trump took office. Last year, Capitol Police opened more than 8,000 threat assessments, an eightfold increase since 2016.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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      At Rally in Michigan, Trump Lashes Out at Judge Who Fined Him $355 Million

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      Former President Donald J. Trump vented about his latest legal defeat to freezing supporters at a Michigan rally on Saturday night, a day after a New York judge fined him nearly $355 million plus interest in his civil fraud case.The Republican front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination, Mr. Trump denied that he had conspired to manipulate his net worth, which he was found liable of by Justice Arthur F. Engoron in a ruling that could wipe out Mr. Trump’s entire cash stockpile.“This judge is a lunatic,” he said in his opening salvo at his rally, held inside an airport hangar in Oakland County about 30 miles from Detroit.Mr. Trump used a similar line of attack against Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, who had accused him of exaggerating his wealth in the lengthy case. Barred by the judge for three years from serving in top roles at any New York company, including portions of his own Trump Organization, Mr. Trump cast aspersions on the justice system and said he had been persecuted.Mr. Trump’s visit to Michigan overlapped with the first day of early, in-person voting in the state, which is using both a primary and a caucus-style convention to award delegates for the first time in Republican Party contests.At the rally, the Trump campaign placed large signs urging supporters to take advantage of early voting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More