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      Book Review: ‘Blowback,’ by Miles Taylor; ‘Renegade,’ by Adam Kinzinger; ‘Losing Our Religion,’ by Russell Moore

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      Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official in the Trump administration and the author of the new book BLOWBACK: A Warning to Save Democracy From the Next Trump (Atria, 335 pp., $30), made his dramatic entrance in 2018 with an anonymous essay for The New York Times entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” In it, he heralded the “unsung heroes” who were “working diligently from within” to impede Trump’s “worst inclinations.” The following year, having resigned from the D.H.S., Taylor published “A Warning,” also under the moniker “Anonymous.” Finally, in 2020, Taylor criticized Trump under his own name, endorsed Joe Biden and identified himself as “Anonymous.”Taylor now provides a more detailed accounting of the chaos inside the White House. Some of his allegations — that the Trump aide Stephen Miller wanted to blow up migrants with a predator drone; that the former White House chief of staff John Kelly described the president as a “very, very evil man” in response to Trump’s sexual comments about his daughter Ivanka — have made headlines and prompted some denials.The reference to “the next Trump” in the subtitle is already moot (we’re still dealing with the original one), but “Blowback” is bedeviled by a bigger problem: The more we learn of the outrageous behavior behind closed doors, the more enraging it is that Taylor — and his allies among the “axis of adults” — failed to speak out sooner. In 2018, after a particularly deranged set of phone calls about the so-called migrant caravan, Taylor told Kelly that things were getting really messed up. I wanted to shake him. Yes, Miles, it was getting pretty messed up.To Taylor’s credit, “Blowback” is full of regret. The 2018 opinion piece, while gutsy, was a sly justification for silence. By book’s end, Taylor has decided that anonymity itself, the mask he wore for years, “symbolizes the greatest threat to democracy.” The most moving passages in the book are those in which Taylor wrestles not with political monsters, but with his own demons. The mask of anonymity is entwined with his alcoholism; his recovery only arrived when he spoke truthfully in his own name. Taylor describes how falsity gnaws at the soul. Courage doesn’t always come on time, but as many an addict has ruefully remarked, it’s better late than never.The former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger — one of 10 Republicans to vote for Trump’s second impeachment and one of two to serve on the House’s Jan. 6 committee — is a late-breaking hero of the anti-Trump cause. RENEGADE: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country (The Open Field, 295 pp., $30) tracks Kinzinger’s childhood in the 1980s, his Air Force career, his six terms in Congress and his disillusionment with Trump’s Republican Party.Alas, it has none of “Blowback”’s redeeming anguish. Even Kinzinger’s sporadic insights about the roots of Trumpism (e.g. in the Tea Party) serve less to implicate the pre-Trump G.O.P. than to flatter Adam Kinzinger, who always appears presciently distressed by the intransigent drift of his own party.“Renegade” has applause lines for Kinzinger’s new liberal fans — he describes the senator and presidential aspirant Ted Cruz as an “oily, sneering manipulator” with a “punchable face” — and he adds some (unrevelatory) texture to the cowardice and bullying displayed by his colleagues. Kevin McCarthy, Kinzinger writes, behaved “like an attention-seeking high school senior who readily picked on anyone who didn’t fall in line” when he was minority leader. Twice after Kinzinger turned on Trump, he reports, McCarthy shoulder-checked him in the House chamber. (A spokesman for McCarthy has dismissed such criticism from Kinzinger as “unhinged tirades.”)What “Renegade” resembles most of all — down to its professional co-authoring by the award-winning journalist Michael D’Antonio — is a campaign book in search of a campaign. When Kinzinger announced his retirement in 2021, he said, “This isn’t the end of my political future, but the beginning.” Still, it’s difficult to imagine what sort of future that might be — unless Kinzinger gets much better at persuading other Republicans to join him out in the cold. “Renegade,” a book primarily about how much nobler Kinzinger is than his former colleagues, is unlikely to do the trick.Russell Moore’s LOSING OUR RELIGION: An Altar Call for Evangelical America (Sentinel, 256 pp., $29) is another book about a conservative suffering exile from his tribe for turning on Donald Trump.It is far more interesting, however, because Moore — the editor in chief of Christianity Today and a former bigwig in the 13-million-member Southern Baptist Convention — remains a dedicated evangelical. His “altar call” is addressed to fellow believers; to leaders of congregations riven by conflict; to pastors, like himself, whose theology is orthodox but whose politics, by Trump-era standards, are liberal; to churchgoers who’ve lost faith in their church but not in Jesus Christ. It is a startlingly open, honest and humble book, a soulful, fraternal entreaty for integrity, repair and renewal.Taylor and Kinzinger, putatively trying to convince readers to take the danger of Trump seriously, adopt a tone that is only tolerable if you already agree with them. Their books, in other words, are most likely to appeal to liberals eager for apostates from conservatism to flatter their anti-Trump indignation. By literally “preaching to the choir,” Moore, on the other hand, ironically avoids preaching to it figuratively.He is better equipped to lovingly cajole, carefully critique and persuade his readers, because he speaks to his audience in their own idiom, relying on theological concepts that hold particular potency for his fellow congregants, especially those who find themselves called to decry an evil they fear they have abetted.He is also sympathetic to the ways in which belligerent Trumpism can seduce Christian conservatives; it satisfies many of the same longings that religion does. “There is more than one way for you to secularize,” Moore writes. “All it takes is substituting adrenaline for the Holy Spirit, political ‘awakening’ for rebirth, quarrelsomeness for sanctification and a visible tribal identity for the kingdom of God.”Most of all, Moore resists the impulse to try to beat Trump at his own game. So many prophets of Trumpian doom respond to the former president’s howling narcissism with a narcissism of their own, implicitly ratifying Trump’s most noxious conceit: that he alone can fix it. But our moment calls for less heroism than humility; fewer grand self-portraits and more intimate self-searching. More

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      An Anti-Obesity Drug and Cultural Stigmas

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      More from our inbox:Seeking More Insight Into Republican VotersScandal at Liberty UniversityFree Analysis? Alice Rosati/Trunk ArchiveTo the Editor:Re “Ozempic Can’t Fix What Our Culture Has Broken,” by Tressie McMillan Cottom (column, Oct. 15):By “broken” in the headline, the column implies that we still perpetuate a cultural bias against obese people.Yes, we do stigmatize fat people. I’m fat. What’s also broken, though, is our habit of blaming society for failing to accept us, and medical institutions for failing to fix us, before we take an honest look at our own choices contributing to becoming unhealthy in the first place.Clearly obesity is an epidemic with complex environmental, economic and genetic factors. But for most, physical activity and healthy eating are still nature’s best prevention and remedy. Unlike Ozempic, they’re not a sexy quick fix. They’re work.Maybe healthy eating and activity are just too simple. But viewing ourselves first as victims of unfair systems is also not the answer.Society will always judge. Institutions will always be profit-driven. Blaming is easy. Honest self-assessment and changing habits are hard.Leslie DunnCarmel, Calif.To the Editor:Tressie McMillan Cottom’s fine column covers almost all the issues that I, as a slightly overweight but not obese woman, have with the new weight-loss drugs.But one issue needs to be addressed: What will we think about and how will we treat people (women) who choose not to take this drug, for whatever reason? Maybe it’s because it’s too expensive; maybe because it’s a commitment to a lifetime of taking the drug; maybe it’s just, amazingly, because they are comfortable in their rounded, plush bodies, and don’t desire to change them. Will they face even more opprobrium for that choice than they already do?I’ve spent the last 66 years (and counting) being told that my body isn’t “right,” by doctors, family and society. I’ve just finally come to terms with the fact that I’m stuck in it, and I’m lucky to be able to wake up every morning and get out of bed. Isn’t that enough?Naomi Weisberg SiegelPittsburghTo the Editor:While I agree with the author on many points, one point she didn’t address effectively is that Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs help cover up a main culprit that is causing our obesity: the U.S. food industry and “ultraprocessed foods.”Up until about the 1980s the U.S. didn’t have such a serious obesity problem. Then sugar began being added to everything, along with other things not found in any garden or kitchen.Dr. McMillan Cottom points out that people can be obese and be healthy, but that is not true of most obese people. Ozempic was created because of rampant diabetes in the U.S., the risk of which is increased by eating ultraprocessed foods.Our food industry is killing us with slow deaths from chronic diseases.Deborah JerardMontpelier, Vt.The writer is a pediatrician.Seeking More Insight Into Republican VotersWhy These 11 Republican Voters Like Trump But Might Bail on HimThe group discusses what it would take for a candidate other than Trump to win their vote.To the Editor:Re “Could These Republican Voters Abandon Trump?” (“America in Focus” series, Opinion, Oct. 22):This piece was disturbing but unenlightening about why voters support Donald Trump.Focus groups are supposed to probe for deeper understanding of participants’ views, yet your moderator accepted answers without delving into how participants reached those views.For example, when Cristian said about Donald Trump that “he does get things done,” the moderator could have asked for specifics. It would have been an interesting answer because Mr. Trump actually got very little done.The most glaring omission was Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election. Do participants agree with Mr. Trump? Where do they get their news? Does this issue even matter to them?We have known for months that Mr. Trump maintains strong voter support. We might have gotten some insight into why had the moderators asked more clarifying questions.Ann LaubachAustin, TexasTo the Editor:First, I will applaud both Kristen Soltis Anderson for her skilled questions and moderation, as well as Patrick Healy and the Times Opinion team for sticking with your amazing series, most recently “Could These Republican Voters Abandon Trump?” Fascinating stuff.But just like the infamous CNN town hall with Donald Trump, it leaves an urgent set of questions. Mainly these:1. What about the criminal cases against Mr. Trump?2. What about climate change and the green agenda?Without understanding in depth these 11 Republicans on these topics, I just don’t see how I can evaluate. Of course, I recognize that these individuals have most likely completely dismissed these entire areas of thought. Nonetheless, to understand the situation in my country, I need to see what rationales they are using to do that.George OdellNewburyport, Mass.Scandal at Liberty University Julia Rendleman for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Worst Scandal in American Higher Education,” by David French (column, Oct. 23):Thank you to Mr. French for bringing the truly appalling behavior of Liberty “University” officials to our attention. Yet while he reports that the $37.5 million fine Liberty might face would be “unprecedented,” I can’t help but wonder why the Department of Education wouldn’t strip Liberty of its accreditation altogether, making it ineligible to receive federal money.Such a move is long overdue, and not just because Liberty has lied about campus crime and pressured victims of sexual assault to stay quiet. Liberty, and a host of other Christian institutions, are not colleges in the critical sense. These are places where answers precede questions, where intellectual exploration is hemmed in by theological dogma, and where basic tenets of academic freedom are treated as optional.Why should taxpayers be funding education at such places at all?Steven ConnYellow Springs, OhioThe writer is a professor of history at Miami University.Free Analysis?James AlbonTo the Editor:“How Do You Charge a Friend for a Professional Favor?” (Business, nytimes.com, Oct. 21): Another favor-asking situation that commonly occurs is asking physicians, be they friends or a recent acquaintance at a social event, for free medical opinions or even advice. The many ways of handling those situations would warrant an entire New York Times article.There is another common experience that occurs when one is introduced to someone as a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst or therapist in nonprofessional settings.Such introductions often evoke the question, “Are you analyzing me?” To which I almost always respond, “Not if you’re not paying me.” And we move on.Jack DrescherNew YorkThe writer, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is past president of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry. More

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      Jenna Ellis Could Become a Star Witness Against Trump

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      When Jenna Ellis last week became the most recent lawyer to join in an accelerating series of guilty pleas in the Fulton County, Ga., prosecution of Donald Trump and his co-conspirators, she offered a powerful repudiation of the “Big Lie” that could potentially cut the legs out from under Donald Trump’s defense, make her a star witness for prosecutors and a potent weapon against the former president’s political ambitions.Ms. Ellis admitted that the allegations of election fraud she peddled as an advocate for the effort to overturn the 2020 election were false. Two other plea deals, from Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have been important, but Ms. Ellis is in a unique position to aid prosecutors in the Georgia case and possibly even the parallel federal one — as well as Mr. Trump’s opponents in the court of public opinion.Ms. Ellis pleaded guilty to a felony count of aiding and abetting the false statements made by co-defendants (including Rudy Giuliani) to the Georgia Senate about supposed voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. These included that “10,315 or more dead people voted” in Georgia, “at least 96,000 mail-in ballots were counted” erroneously and “2,506 felons voted illegally.”These lies were at the cutting edge of Mr. Trump’s assault on the election. Both the state and federal criminal prosecutions allege that Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators knowingly deployed falsehoods like these in their schemes to overturn the election.Ms. Ellis emerged from her plea hearing as a likely star witness for prosecutors, starting with the one who secured her cooperation, the Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis. Unlike Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell, in pleading guilty Ms. Ellis spoke in detail about her “responsibilities as a lawyer.” Tearing up, she talked about the due diligence that “I did not do but should have done” and her “deep remorse for those failures of mine.” The judge, a tough former prosecutor, thanked her for sharing that and noted how unusual it was for a defendant to do so.Trials are about the evidence and the law. But they are also theater, and the jury is the audience. In this case, the jury is not the only audience — the Georgia trials will be televised, so many Americans will also be tuned in. Ms. Ellis is poised to be a potent weapon against Mr. Trump in the courtroom and on TVs.That is bad news for her former co-defendants — above all, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump. Ms. Ellis was most closely associated with Mr. Giuliani, appearing by his side in Georgia and across the country. If her court appearance last week is any indication, she will be a compelling guide to his alleged misconduct. She will also add to what is known about it; she and Mr. Giuliani undoubtedly had many conversations that are not yet public and that will inform the jury. And because Mr. Giuliani was the senior lawyer on the case, her pointed statement that she was misled by attorneys “with many more years of experience” hits him directly.Ms. Ellis’s likely trial testimony will also hit Mr. Trump hard. She has now effectively repudiated his claims that he won the election — an argument that is expected to be a centerpiece of his trial defense. Coming from a formerly outspoken MAGA champion, her disagreement has the potential to resonate with jurors.It also builds on substantial other evidence against the former president, which includes voluminous witness testimony collected by the House Jan. 6 committee indicating that many advisers told him the election was not stolen — and that in private he repeatedly admitted as much.Ms. Ellis’s testimony may also compromise one of Mr. Trump’s main defenses. He has made clear he intends to claim he relied on advice of counsel. But that defense is available only if the lawyers are not part of the alleged crimes. Ms. Ellis’s plea puts her squarely within the conspiracy, as do those of Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell. That will hamper Mr. Trump’s effort to present a reliance-on-counsel defense.In comparing Ms. Ellis to the two other lawyers who pleaded guilty, it is also critical to note that she is promising full cooperation with Ms. Willis. Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell have important contributions to make to the prosecution, but they merely agreed to provide documents, preview their testimony and testify truthfully if called.Ms. Ellis took the additional step of also agreeing “to fully cooperate with prosecutors,” which could include doing interviews with prosecutors, “appearing for evidentiary hearings, and assisting in pretrial matters.”To our knowledge, Ms. Ellis is not yet cooperating with prosecutors in the federal case led by the special counsel Jack Smith, but if she does, she would have a comparative advantage for the prosecution over Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell: They are identified as unindicted co-conspirators in that case and would be more problematic for Mr. Smith to deal with. He may not, for example, be willing to immunize them should they assert their privilege against self-incrimination, since that would hamper prosecuting them. But because he has not named Ms. Ellis among Mr. Trump’s alleged federal co-conspirators, he may feel more free to extend immunity to secure her valuable testimony. (He has reportedly done just that with Mark Meadows, a former Trump White House chief of staff.)Ms. Ellis’s guilty plea may also have political reverberations. It is riveting to see a MAGA champion who helped lead the election assault tearfully admitting she and that effort misled the American people. Her court appearance was live-streamed and repeated in a loop on television and social media.Looking ahead in the Georgia case, the judge just got back the five months that he had set aside for the Chesebro and Powell trial. Even if Mr. Trump manages to postpone appearing before a Georgia jury during that window, the trial of other defendants could begin within it — and certainly during 2024. That means Ms. Ellis and other existing and potential witnesses against Mr. Trump will likely be critical not only in the legal arena, but the political one.With Mr. Trump showing no signs of backing down from his claims of 2020 election fraud and a new election upon us, Ms. Ellis’s plea — like the televised Jan. 6 committee testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, another Trump insider who turned on him with powerful effect — could be a potential turning point in the court of public opinion. When Mr. Trump’s lies are repeated in the future, in whatever venue, expect to see Ms. Ellis often.Norman Eisen was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. Amy Lee Copeland, a former federal prosecutor, is a criminal defense and appellate lawyer in Savannah, Ga.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Devil’s Bargain Mike Pence Could Not Escape

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      The former vice president tied himself to Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign and it may have cost him a political future.The decision by Mike Pence to end his presidential campaign on Saturday was a bow to what had finally become inevitable. He was struggling to raise money, win support from the party’s base and manage the torments from the man who had made him nationally famous, Donald J. Trump.But the root of his campaign’s collapse — and, very possibly, his political career — goes back to 2016, when Mr. Pence accepted Mr. Trump’s offer to be his running mate.“He got it completely wrong,” said the Rev. Rob Schenck, an evangelical clergyman and a one-time leader of the anti-abortion movement who gave ministerial counsel to Mr. Pence 20 years ago but later turned against him because of his affiliation with Mr. Trump. “This ended up being disastrous for his political career.”The two men were not close before Mr. Trump’s decision to put Mr. Pence on the ticket. In many ways, beyond sharing a party affiliation, they could not have been more different.When Donald Trump announced Mike Pence as his running mate in July 2016, the two became inextricably linked.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Pence was the governor of Indiana, an evangelical Christian — he titled his memoir “So Help Me God” — who grew up in the rolling farmland of Indiana. He had endorsed one of Mr. Trump’s primary opponents, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. And he was, friends said, discomfited by the freewheeling ways of Mr. Trump, a Queens-born playboy entrepreneur and casino owner who had thrived in the Democratic world of New York.But Mr. Pence was facing a challenging re-election campaign against a Democrat he had only narrowly defeated in 2012. He was, his advisers said, also drawn into the presidential race by the prospect of a spot on the national stage, positioning himself to be either vice president or a strong candidate for president in 2020 should Mr. Trump lose to Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, which polling suggested was likely.After a few days of consideration — and speaking to his wife, Karen, consulting political advisers and friends, and spending time in prayer, by his account — Mr. Pence accepted Mr. Trump’s offer.It was a deal that, by Saturday morning in Las Vegas, as a former vice president was forced to exit the race for president without even making it to the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Pence had almost surely come to regret.He had never learned to manage his relationship with Mr. Trump, to navigate the deep cultural and personal differences between a taciturn Midwestern governor and a flashy New Yorker who never played by the rules of politics that had governed Mr. Pence’s career.Mike Pence found electoral success in 2001 when he was elected to Congress from the Second District of Indiana. Jeff Wolfram/Getty ImagesAfter more than a decade in Congress, one term as governor and another as vice president, Mr. Pence, 64, is, by every appearance, entering the bleakest period of his public life since being elected to Congress from the Second District of Indiana in 2001.His decision to break with Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 incursion at the Capitol and his challenge to his former boss for the nomination in 2024 angered the former president and alienated the Trump supporters who define the party today. But Mr. Pence’s four years of loyalty to Mr. Trump while he was vice president ultimately made it impossible for him to to win over voters eager to turn the page on the Trump presidency.His decision to align himself with Mr. Trump came in June 2016, when a mutual associate of the two men, an Indiana insurance industry executive named Steve Hilbert, called Mr. Pence to see if he would consider an offer to join Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence, who was in the middle of an effort to recover from a potentially ruinous misstep he had made the year before, was open to the idea.Mr. Pence had signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which effectively authorized businesses to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples, such as Christian businesses that did not want to cater same-sex wedding celebrations. It set off a storm of protest, prompting threats of boycotts from business leaders and sports teams across the nation. The outcry caught Mr. Pence by surprise and put his political future in doubt.“Even our critics — who said we should have seen it coming — they didn’t see it coming,” said Jim Atterholt, who was then Mr. Pence’s chief of staff. “In fairness to the governor, this was not on his agenda, he was not pushing for it. But obviously, it was consistent with the governor’s philosophy in terms of protecting religious freedom.”Mr. Pence was never quite a perfect fit for his running mate, as an evangelical and one who was more of a conservative in the Reagan model. Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty ImagesMr. Pence spent much of the next year talking about state issues like education and taxes, traversing Indiana on what he described as a listening tour as he sought to put the religious freedom bill behind him and turn to his re-election campaign.“Mike was a wounded incumbent,” said Tim Phillips, a conservative activist who was a close friend and an adviser to Mr. Pence. “I think he would have won that race, if it was a good presidential cycle. But it wasn’t like he was cruising to an easy re-elect and a future presidential run in 2020.”If Mr. Pence had any qualms when Mr. Trump approached him, he never voiced them publicly or even to many of his advisers. “Mike sent a message saying ‘If I’m being called to serve, I will serve,’” Mr. Atterholt said. “Mike was open to serving, but he was fully planning for the re-election.”And there were other reasons the offer was tempting. Mr. Pence had never made any secret of his ambitions to run for president himself one day, having given it serious consideration that year. Win or lose, a campaign with Mr. Trump would put him near the front of the line — or so he thought. And Republicans who were concerned about Mr. Trump, and in particular the attention he would pay as president to the evangelical issues that animated Mr. Pence, urged him to do it.“There was a genuine significant role that the V.P. needed to play for Trump,” Mr. Phillips said. “The evangelical right and the conservatives right were very uneasy with Trump. Having a Sherpa who could guide him and provide credibility with Trump, that really mattered in 2016.”Mr. Pence never quite caught on with conservative voters, despite being attached to Mr. Trump.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesToday, nearly eight years later, after having served as Mr. Trump’s vice president before turning against him, Mr. Pence’s short-lived campaign stands as testimony to the unexpected consequences of that decision. For all the kind words said about him by his opponents after he dropped out — “I have no doubt Mike and Karen will continue to serve this nation and honor the Lord in all they do,” said one of his former rivals, Tim Scott — his own future is now uncertain.Mr. Schenck said that he had always been disappointed that Mr. Pence, a man with whom, by his account, he had prayed and read the Scriptures, had aligned himself with a man whom Mr. Schenck called the “diametrical opposite” of the moral leader he and Mr. Pence used to talk about.“There must have come a point where Mike either thought, ‘I can get the better of Donald Trump or I can rise above his immorality,’” Mr. Schenck said. “He has had to do too much accommodation and adjustment. It might have been fatal to his leadership.” More

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      Mike Pence Drops Out of 2024 Presidential Race

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      The former vice president said he would end his bid in a surprise announcement at a gathering of Jewish Republican donors. “It’s become clear to me that this is not my time,” he said.Former Vice President Mike Pence, who spent four years dutifully serving President Donald J. Trump but refused to carry out Mr. Trump’s demand that he block the 2020 election results, ended his presidential bid on Saturday, with a final appeal for his party to return to conservative principles and resist the “siren song of populism.”The surprise announcement came at the end of his remarks before a crowd of Jewish Republican donors in Las Vegas, and was met with gasps. Mr. Pence had received a standing ovation, opening his speech with a full-throated endorsement of Israel’s military operations in Gaza.Then he pivoted to a more “personal note,” saying that after much prayer and deliberation, he had decided to drop out of the race.“It’s become clear to me that this is not my time,” he told the crowd of 1,500, promising to “never leave the fight for conservative values.”Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations and a crowd favorite, opened her address to the group with praise for Mr. Pence, adding several lines to her prepared remarks.“He’s been a good man of faith. He’s been a good man of service. He has fought for America and he has fought for Israel,” she said. “We all owe him a debt of gratitude.”We 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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      Team Trump Revives Attack Ads Against DeSantis in Iowa

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      A super PAC supporting Trump is shifting its strategy again, with less than three months before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.The super PAC supporting Donald J. Trump will begin airing an attack against Ron DeSantis in Iowa, a shift in strategy after months of focusing their messaging on their likely general election opponent.It will enter the rotation as part of an ad buy totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars by the group Make America Great Again Inc., which supports Mr. Trump. It aims to paint Mr. DeSantis, with less than three months before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, as insufficiently conservative, by accusing him of supporting statehood for Puerto Rico.It marks a change in approach by the super PAC, which abandoned negative ads about Mr. DeSantis at the start of the summer. The group shifted to focusing on the likely general election opponent, and attacking President Biden, beginning in August, a move that might appeal to some primary voters but which also sent the message that Team Trump saw Mr. DeSantis as a fading threat.Mr. DeSantis’s team took something of a victory lap over the existence of the ad, with Andrew Romeo, a spokesman, saying it showed that “after months of pounding their chest that they already had the race won, Team Trump is now being forced to publicly admit that Ron DeSantis is climbing in Iowa, and is a dire threat to their chances of securing the nomination.”Mr. Romeo described a litany of problems such as the southern border crisis and the war in the Middle East and said that amid all of it, “Team Trump inexplicably has decided to level false and hypocritical attacks on Ron DeSantis … about Puerto Rico.”An official with the super PAC declined to comment on the ad.Mr. Trump’s team appears to be trying to crush Mr. DeSantis in the state where he has turned his focus in the remaining weeks before the caucuses. And the fresh attacks are coming as he tries to stave off Ms. Haley, pushing him into a two-front political battle with reduced resources.“Liberals have a plan to make Puerto Rico a state, adding two Democrats to the Senate, and Ron DeSantis sided with the liberals’ power play,” the ad says. “Ron DeSantis sponsored the bill to make Puerto Rico a state.”It ends by saying, “DeSantis sided with the liberals and sold out Iowa conservatives. Ron DeSantis is just plain wrong.”The topic of statehood for Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory since 1898, has been politically charged for years, with many Republicans opposing it, suggesting it would help Democrats electorally. As a congressman, Mr. DeSantis, along with several other members, co-sponsored a bill that did not openly call for statehood for Puerto Rico, but laid out a path by which it could be accomplished.The ad comes as Mr. DeSantis is fending off the threat of movement in the state by Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, after Mr. DeSantis had held steady in second place for months, though well behind Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis’s team pointed to a statement Mr. Trump gave in early 2016, as a first-time candidate, in which he also supported a process for Puerto Rican statehood.But since then, and during his presidency, Mr. Trump was adamantly opposed to statehood, primarily after officials in Puerto Rico criticized his performance in response to Hurricane Maria.Mr. DeSantis has also been critical of Puerto Rican statehood more recently, and in starkly political terms.In a recent virtual event with voters in the Virgin Islands, which is holding its primary in February, Mr. DeSantis was asked about whether he would support territories gaining a voice in the Electoral College.“Well, how would the Virgin Islands vote for president — would they be red or blue?” he said to laughs, according to a recording of his remarks.“I don’t want to pony up three electoral votes for the other team.”He later added, “People are Americans and they should be treated as equal citizens. How that works with the Electoral College, you know, I’m not sure that there’s going to be necessarily a movement on that front.” More

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      Larry Elder Ends Long-Shot Presidential Bid

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      Mr. Elder, a Los Angeles Republican who bills himself as “the sage from South Central,” endorsed Donald Trump.Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host from California whose run for the Republican presidential nomination never gained traction, ended his campaign on Thursday and endorsed Donald J. Trump, the front-runner in the crowded field.“Throughout my campaign,” Mr. Elder wrote in a message posted online, “I have been steadfast in my belief that the biggest issues facing our nation are the crisis of fatherlessness, the dangerous lie that America is systemically racist, the need for an amendment to the constitution to set federal spending to a fixed percentage of the GDP — otherwise government gets bigger whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, and the need to remove the Soros-backed DAs across the country who refuse to endorse the law.”(George Soros’s indirect donations to a prosecutor’s campaign have animated Mr. Trump’s allies, and Mr. Soros’s name comes up often among conspiracy theorists in attacks frequently viewed as antisemitic.)Mr. Elder added, “I hope my campaign has helped shine a light on these critical issues and sparked important conversations about how we can solve them.”He never surpassed the Republican Party’s donation or polling thresholds to qualify for candidate debates.Mr. Elder, a Los Angeles Republican who bills himself as “the sage from South Central,” was the top vote-getter among challengers to Gov. Gavin Newsom in the state’s attempted recall election in 2021. Voters instead chose to keep Mr. Newsom in office.“Now that I am exiting the race,” Mr. Elder added in his message on Thursday, “I am proud to announce my endorsement of Donald Trump for President of the United States. His leadership has been instrumental in advancing conservative, America-first principles and policies that have benefited our great nation. We must unite behind Donald Trump to beat Joe Biden.”While Mr. Trump is the dominant front-runner for the Republicans’ presidential nomination, he is facing seven major cases in six courthouses in four cities. Two of the cases relate to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, which he still falsely maintains was rigged. More

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      Blake Masters Announces Run for Congress, Skipping New Senate Bid

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      After losing his Senate race last year in Arizona, Mr. Masters, a Trump-backing Republican, is running in a primary against a onetime conservative ally.Blake Masters, a Republican who lost his U.S. Senate campaign in Arizona last year, announced on Thursday that he would run to represent the state’s Eighth Congressional District — ending speculation that he would pursue a second Senate run in 2024.“I’m running for Congress, to fight for Arizona’s 8th,” Mr. Masters wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “Biden has failed. We need Trump back. We need to stop inflation, Build the Wall, avoid WW3, and secure Arizona’s water future. We need to fight for our families.”Representative Debbie Lesko, a Republican, has represented the district, in the Phoenix suburbs, since 2018. Ms. Lesko announced this month that she would not seek re-election.Also this month, Kari Lake, a former news anchor who ran for governor in Arizona last year, declared that she would run for the seat held by Senator Kyrsten Sinema.The New York Times reported in September that former President Donald J. Trump had called Mr. Masters to tell him that he didn’t believe Mr. Masters could win a primary race against Ms. Lake, a staunch Trump ally. Last fall, Mr. Masters lost an expensive race trying to unseat Senator Mark Kelly after gaining Mr. Trump’s endorsement in the primary.In a video accompanying Mr. Masters’s announcement — which depicted him standing with Mr. Trump — Mr. Masters said he was particularly concerned about border security, the economy and water rights issues with California.Already running in the Eighth District is Abraham Hamadeh, who ran for Arizona attorney general last year on a ticket alongside Mr. Masters. Mr. Hamadeh entered the race shortly after Ms. Lesko announced she would not seek re-election and was endorsed by Ms. Lake on Thursday.“It is sad to see the establishment tricking @bgmasters into driving up all the way from Tucson and getting in the race,” Mr. Hamadeh wrote on X. (Property records indicate that Mr. Masters lives in Tucson, more than 100 miles from the Eighth District.)Mr. Hamadeh continued, “They want the America First movement divided. Voters will remember who stood tall against the entrenched political class and who ran into their arms.”Sheelagh McNeill More