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      Want a Job in the Trump Administration? Be Prepared for the Loyalty Test.

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      Applicants for government posts, including inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, say they have been asked about their thoughts on Jan. 6 and who they believe won the 2020 election.At the Trump transition offices in West Palm Beach, Fla., prospective occupants of high posts inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies typically run through a gamut of three to four interviews, conducted in recent weeks by a mix of Silicon Valley investors and innovators and a team of the MAGA faithful.The applicants report that they have been asked about how to overhaul the Pentagon, or what technologies could make the intelligence agencies more effective, or how they feel about the use of the military to enforce immigration policy. But before they leave, some of them have been asked a final set of questions that seemed designed to assess their loyalty to President-elect Donald J. Trump.The questions went further than just affirming allegiance to the incoming administration. The interviewers asked which candidate the applicants had supported in the three most recent elections, what they thought about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen. The sense they got was that there was only one right answer to each question.This account is based on interviews with nine people who either interviewed for jobs in the administration or were directly involved in the process. Among those were applicants who said they gave what they intuited to be the wrong answer — either decrying the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 or saying that President Biden won in 2020. Their answers were met with silence and the taking of notes. They didn’t get the jobs.Three of the people interviewed are close to the transition team and confirmed that loyalty questions were part of some interviews across multiple agencies, and that the Trump team researched what candidates had said about Mr. Trump on the day of the Capitol riot and in the days following. Candidates are also rated on a scale of one to four in more than a half-dozen categories, including competence.Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House press secretary, declined to address specific questions about the topics being raised in job interviews. Instead, she said: “President Trump will continue to appoint highly qualified men and women who have the talent, experience, and necessary skill sets to make America great again.”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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      With Pageantry and Dignitaries, France Unveils a Reborn Notre-Dame

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      Five years after a ruinous fire, the reopening of the cathedral restored it in full glory to the Paris skyline and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France.Five years after a fire that devoured its roof and nearly collapsed its walls, a renovated Notre-Dame Cathedral reopened its doors on Saturday, its centuries-old bell clanging, its 8,000-pipe organ first groaning — and then roaring back to life.It was an emotional rebirth for one of the world’s most recognized monuments, a Gothic medieval masterpiece and cornerstone of European culture and faith.“Brothers and sisters, let us enter now into Notre-Dame,” Laurent Ulrich, the archbishop of Paris, said before poking three times on the cathedral doors with the point of his staff, made with a beam of the roof that survived the fire.As he pushed open the door, the sounds of brass instruments and the melodic voices of dozens of children singing in the cathedral choir filled the nave.The ceremony restored the cathedral to the Parisian skyline in its full glory and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France at a time of political dysfunction, a stagnating economy and a bitter budget standoff that this week resulted in the toppling of the center-right government.With the successful reopening of Notre-Dame, on a schedule that many had derided as too ambitious, France showed off its ability to execute major projects, as it did with the Summer Olympics, and exhibited its artistic and artisanal expertise.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 Attends Notre-Dame Ceremony in First Foreign Trip Since Election

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump made a splashy re-entry onto the global stage on Saturday as he attended the reopening ceremony of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, sitting in the front row between President Emmanuel Macron of France and the French first lady, Brigitte Macron.Mr. Trump was joined by Elon Musk, who is helping run Mr. Trump’s new government-efficiency panel. President Biden, whose international relevance wanes at the close of his term, was not present. Jill Biden, his wife and first lady, took her spot next to Mrs. Macron.Mr. Trump’s first foreign trip since winning the presidential election in November provided a diplomatic undercurrent to the celebration of the cathedral, renovated since a 2019 fire. Before the ceremony, Mr. Trump arrived at Mr. Macron’s office at Élysée Palace, where the men shook hands and briefly hugged. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, also met with Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump there, where he lobbied for Mr. Trump’s support in the war against Russia.Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump last met in late September, when Mr. Trump was still a presidential candidate. Mr. Zelensky stood beside Mr. Trump silently that day as Mr. Trump told reporters that both sides wanted the Russia-Ukraine war to end, including its instigator, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Trump was among the last major leaders to arrive at Notre-Dame on Saturday, and when he did, he was greeted with muted applause. Mr. Zelensky had received a louder ovation.What came next was more akin to a scene on the campaign trail: Mr. Trump walked down a rope line of world leaders, shaking their hands one by one, as the largely seated audience behind them watched. Some clutched their phones to record the moment. Afterward, Mr. Trump took a seat by himself, until the Macrons sat on either side of him.Mr. Macron was eager to use the world stage to celebrate his government’s success in restoring the cathedral with a speed that critics had not expected. But the reopening arrived at an untimely moment for the government: Michel Barnier, France’s prime minister, lost a no-confidence vote on Wednesday, leaving it rudderless. Mr. Barnier was forced to resign, while Mr. Macron must pick his successor.Mr. Trump also met on Saturday with Prince William in Paris. Many nations are bracing for a second Trump administration, and some foreign leaders have already made clear their interest in working with the president-elect. Mr. Trump spoke with Mr. Macron by phone at least once as he planned his trip to Paris.In the past, Mr. Macron has showered Mr. Trump with flattery, and he invited him to attend Bastille Day ceremonies in 2017. But their relationship deteriorated in 2018 when Mr. Macron supported the idea of a true European military defense, one that could counter rivals like Russia but also the United States. More

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      JD Vance, Elon Musk and the Future of America

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      Beneath all the furor around Donald Trump’s appointments — Matt Gaetz down and out, Pete Hegseth down but maybe coming back, the Kash Patel drama waiting the wings — the most important figures in this administration’s orbit have not changed since Election Day: Besides the president himself, the future of Trumpism is still most likely to be shaped and stamped by two men, JD Vance and Elon Musk.Not just because of their talent and achievements, and not just because Vance is the political heir apparent and Musk would be one of the world’s most influential men even if he didn’t have the ear of the president-elect. It’s also because they represent, more clearly than any other appointee, two potent visions for a 21st century right, and their interaction is likely to shape conservatism for the next four years and beyond.Musk is the dynamist, the believer in growth and innovation and exploration as the lodestars of American civilization. His dynamism was not always especially ideological: The Tesla and SpaceX mogul was once a Barack Obama Democrat, happy to support an active and sometimes spendthrift government so long as it spent freely on his projects. But as Musk has moved right, he has adopted a more libertarian pose, insisting on the profound wastefulness of government spending and the tyranny of the administrative state.Vance meanwhile is the populist, committed to protect and uplift those parts of America neglected or left behind in an age of globalization. Along with his support for the Trumpian causes of tariffs and immigration restriction, this worldview has made him more sympathetic than the average Republican senator to certain forms of government investment — from longstanding programs like Social Security to new ideas about industrial policy and family policy.Despite this contrast, the Musk and Vance worldviews overlap in important ways. Musk has moved in a populist direction on immigration, while Vance has been a venture capitalist and clearly has a strong sympathy for parts of the dynamist worldview, especially its critique of the regulatory state. Both men share a farsighted interest in the collapsing birthrate, a heretofore-fringe issue that’s likely to dominate the later parts of the 21st century. And there is modest-but-real convergence between the Muskian “tech” worldview and Vance’s more “neo-trad” style of religious conservatism, based on not just a shared antipathy toward wokeness but also similar views about the intelligibility of the cosmos and the providential place of humankind in history.So you can imagine a scenario, in Trump’s second term and beyond, where these convergences yield a dynamist-populist fusionism — a conservatism that manages to simultaneously aim for the stars and uplift and protect the working class, in which economic growth and technological progress help renew the heartland (as Musk’s own companies have brought jobs and optimism to South Texas) while also preserving our creaking social compact.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 and Harris Campaigns Met to Talk Tactics. It Wasn’t Pretty.

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      Leaders of the Trump and Harris campaigns met this week to talk tactics. It wasn’t pretty.Reader, we wrote you this newsletter in a tense room in Cambridge.The walls were covered in dark-wood paneling. A U-shaped conference table was elegantly draped with maroon tablecloths and decorated with little jars of roses and calla lilies.On one side of the table sat several senior staff members for the Biden-Harris campaign who looked a little bit as if they were undergoing a collective root canal without anesthesia. On the other side sat five leading Trump campaign staff members and allies who looked a little bit as if they were holding the dentist’s drill.After every presidential election, the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School invites campaign strategists for both general-election candidates — as well as key staff members from losing primary campaigns — to unload about what happened. The discussions, which take place on panels moderated by journalists, can get heated, as they did in 2016. Maybe some years the event feels cathartic. This year, though, the big word was flawless.Sheila Nix, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign chief of staff, used it on Thursday as each campaign outlined over dinner what had been its main strategy, saying Ms. Harris “ran a pretty flawless campaign.” And then Chris LaCivita, one of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign managers, lobbed the word back at Team Biden/Harris during one of the panels today.“Flawless execution,” he sarcastically interjected, after Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the chair of the Biden and then the Harris campaign, labored to answer a question about the fateful debate that ended President Biden’s campaign.LaCivita’s interruption got at a central tension in the aftermath of the election, one that has grated on Democrats outside the room and became a target of mockery from the Trump staff members inside it. For a campaign that lost, the Biden-Harris team has been reluctant to admit to specific mistakes — and that pattern continued today. They admitted they had lost, but their diagnosis was more about the mood of the country than tactical errors on their part. The ultimate answer may be a combination of both factors.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 Defends His Imperiled Pick for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump gave a public show of support to his embattled choice for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Friday morning, saying in a social media post that he will be “fantastic” in the job and that he has a “military state of mind.”Mr. Hegseth has spent the last two days fighting to stay as Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Pentagon amid mounting news reports alleging troubling behaviors over time including rape, sexual assault, financial mismanagement and drunken behavior, which he denies.Mr. Trump’s post on Truth Social amounted to a public dare to Republican senators, a number of whom have expressed private concerns about Mr. Hegseth, to vote against his wishes. The president-elect until now has put relatively little of his own capital on the line for Mr. Hegseth and has even floated alternative candidates, such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, for the job.But on Friday, Mr. Trump doubled down publicly on his initial choice.“Pete Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep, much more so than the Fake News would have you believe,” Mr. Trump wrote. “He was a great student — Princeton/Harvard educated — with a Military state of mind. He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defense Defense, one who leads with charisma and skill. Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!”A string of damning news articles have reported problematic behavior. One woman filed a police report in 2017 accusing him of rape, which he denied and said was a consensual encounter. He entered into a settlement agreement with her that included a payment of money years later. The New York Times reported that Mr. Hegseth’s mother sent him an email in 2018 during a contentious divorce saying he had “abused” many women in different ways over the years. NBC News reported about concerns about Mr. Hegseth’s drinking, and The New Yorker reported that he had been accused of mismanagement of groups he had previously led.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 Names David Sacks to Oversee Crypto and A.I.

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump has named one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent conservative investors, donors and media personalities to help oversee American tech policy.David Sacks, a venture capitalist and an early executive at PayPal who launched a hit podcast, will be the “White House A.I. and Crypto Czar,” the president-elect announced in a social media post on Thursday. Mr. Sacks is a close friend of Elon Musk, and Mr. Sacks has been among the people over the last year or so encouraging Mr. Musk to delve deeper into Republican politics.The position will be new, and further cements the expectation that the Trump White House intends to take a lighter hand with the regulation of technology and in particular cryptocurrencies, which have surged in value since Mr. Trump won the election and in which Mr. Trump personally has a business interest. Mr. Sacks, who leads a venture capital firm called Craft Ventures, has in general called for a more permissive policy on both cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.Mr. Sacks won a battle within the Trump transition effort. Some people were pitching Mr. Trump’s team on separate positions where different people would oversee artificial intelligence and crypto, according to a person close to the process. But Mr. Sacks was chosen to oversee them all together in a joint appointment.“David will guide policy for the Administration in Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency, two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday evening. “David will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas.”It is not clear if his role will be full time; Mr. Sacks has previously told friends that he did not want a formal role because it would require him to leave his position overseeing his venture capital fund, The New York Times has previously reported. Mr. Sacks announced a new start-up funding round led by his firm just this week.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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      House Blocks Release of Matt Gaetz Ethics Report as Republicans Close Ranks

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      The House on Thursday night blocked the release of a damaging Ethics Committee report about former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, as Republicans voted to bury it, an expected move that makes it less likely the materials will ever be made public.Republicans closed ranks to turn back two nearly identical Democratic-written resolutions that would have forced the release of the report on the ethics panel’s yearslong investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use by the former congressman.They did so by moving to refer both measures back to the committee, which has so far refused to make public its conclusions.The vote on the first resolution was 206 to 198, almost entirely along party lines, with nearly all Republicans voting to block the report’s release and Democrats voting to make it public. The vote on the second measure, which included language about preserving the records but also demanded their release, was 204 to 198, also almost all along party lines.Just one Republican, Representative Tom McClintock of California, sided with the Democrats.Democrats have continued to press for the release of the ethics report, even though Mr. Gaetz has resigned from Congress and removed himself as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for attorney general, at least in part because the ethics report was complicating his confirmation process.Speaker Mike Johnson has said that because Mr. Gaetz is no longer a sitting member of Congress, the release of the report would set a bad precedent in the House and has urged the Republican-led committee not to release its findings.Democrats have argued that burying the report is concealing credible allegations of sexual misconduct.“No workplace would allow that information to be swept under the rug simply because someone resigned from office,” Representative Sean Casten, the Illinois Democrat who has spearheaded the move to release the report, told ABC News.Mr. Gaetz has denied all of the allegations.Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House majority leader, called the question of releasing the report “moot” since Mr. Gaetz has resigned.Tom Brenner for The New York Times“The member being referenced in the resolution has actually resigned from the House of Representatives; therefore, the question is moot,” Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House majority leader, said on the floor Thursday night, moving to refer the resolution back to the committee.Since 2021, the House Ethics Committee has been investigating allegations about Mr. Gaetz. That year, it opened an inquiry into sexual misconduct allegations as well as claims that Mr. Gaetz misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, accepted impermissible gifts under House rules, and shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, among other transgressions.The secretive, bipartisan committee met earlier on Thursday for close to three hours to discuss the report, but all of its members were mum as they left the meeting.After the session, the committee issued a terse statement saying that it “met today to discuss the matter of Representative Matt Gaetz. The committee is continuing to discuss the matter. There will be no further statements other than in accordance with committee and House rules.” More