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      The Republican Party Sorts Through Its Mess

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicIt may feel too early to be thinking about the 2024 presidential election — but it’s the perfect time to understand where the parties are at, and how their plans for the next election cycle are shaping up.In our first episode, we join the Republican National Committee in Dana Point, Calif., as it gathers for its winter meeting. After a disappointing midterms, fractures have formed within the committee’s ranks. After targeting Kevin McCarthy in the fight for House speaker, the grass roots turned their ire on Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the R.N.C.The effort to replace Ms. McDaniel at this year’s winter meeting is emblematic of what the party is at this moment: a mess of tangled lines and scrambled allegiances.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAbout ‘The Run-Up’First launched in August 2016, three months before the election of Donald Trump, “The Run-Up” is The New York Times’s flagship political podcast. The host, Astead W. Herndon, grapples with the big ideas already animating the 2024 presidential election. Because it’s always about more than who wins and loses. And the next election has already started.Last season, “The Run-Up” focused on grass-roots voters and shifting attitudes among the bases of both political parties. This season, we go inside the party establishment.New episodes on Thursdays.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      Trump’s Indictment Is Karmic Justice, Regardless of the Verdict

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      Finally, here we are: Donald Trump’s first indictment. The 34 felony counts unsealed at his arraignment this week focus on the falsification of business records in the first degree, a low-level felony charge. This indictment may not prove to be the rock-solid legal case one might hope it to be. It neither addresses the gravest allegations leveled at Trump — subverting the vote, attempted coup, rape — nor is it the most potentially persuasive case against him under consideration. Whether the evidence proves strong enough to convict him will be up to legal analysts to parse and ultimately, a jury to decide months from now.But for the moment, let’s appreciate the karmic justice of these particular charges — no matter the outcome. Falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star, brings us full circle to the sleaziness we knew about well before Trump ever set foot in office. In the indictment’s focus on Trump’s financial malfeasance and his flagrant misogyny, the charges recall two pivotal events that took place before his election: his failure to disclose his tax returns and the contemptuous behavior revealed in the “Access Hollywood” tape.Both told us everything we could have expected from a Trump presidency. Both should have stopped Trump from becoming president. And the fact that they didn’t — that roughly half of American voters were willing to overlook Trump’s moral failings in the service of politics — shows why the country is still so intractably polarized. But neither side can claim it didn’t know exactly the kind of person who was elected in the first place.Let’s step back, then, to Trump’s emergence as a presidential candidate in the 2016 election. Anyone who’d been following his antics for decades assumed, wrongly, that nobody would take seriously the prospect of a corrupt businessman, third-tier reality TV showman and object of tabloid ridicule as president.That many Americans nonetheless did take the prospect seriously seemed bound to be undone by those two pre-election events. First, Trump’s refusal to release his tax records was a departure from years of accepted practice. If he had nothing to hide, he would have shared his returns. If he had been telling the truth, he wouldn’t have repeatedly said he intended to share his returns. And if he couldn’t abide by this seemingly innocuous precedent, we knew he would not follow others. And that’s what we got: the blatant graft that marked his term in office, whether it was his rampant financial conflicts of interest, his frequent self-dealings and misuse of the Trump International Hotel and other properties or the taxpayer-funded excesses and shady profit-seeking by members of his extended family.The second event was the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which revealed a man with such disdain for women that he would respect neither their humanity nor their bodily autonomy. To anyone paying attention, Trump’s vocal contempt for women had been on display in New York and on “The Howard Stern Show” for decades. But “Access Hollywood” made it plain to everyone, immediately before the election, exactly what kind of man they were getting: one who would callously separate mothers from their children at the border and deliberately appoint people to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade.Perhaps Trump himself recognized the parallel. As The Times reporter Maggie Haberman noted on the day he pleaded not guilty to the charges, “One of the few times Trump has looked as angry as he just did was when he was at the second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton two days after the infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ tape became public in October 2016.”Lying. Cheating, personally and professionally. Financial misdeeds. Sexism. Whatever the eventual outcome of this trial, the moral and political case against Trump now echoes the case against Trump back then.Last Thursday night at the end of a Broadway performance of “Parade,” a musical about the wrongful murder conviction of Leo Frank in Georgia in 1913, the star Ben Platt addressed the audience after the ovations to contrast that woeful history with the rightful indictment of Donald Trump that day. The audience’s resounding cheers in response may have surpassed the considerable applause for the performance itself.Some say the indictment of a former president, however justified, is no cause for celebration. That we should not be happy that a former American president has been charged with a crime. That it sets a dangerous precedent on the road to banana republic-dom.But we should be happy that this president was indicted.Too many years of knowing that Trump’s time in office would deliver on the sleaziness of its promise. Too many years of an endless cycle of revelations and accusations met with impunity have felt like an inconceivable injustice to those of us who continue to believe — against often crushing evidence to the contrary — in the existence of any kind of justice at all. There is, it must be said, a deep satisfaction in knowing that after too many years of suffering through the Trump we got, Trump himself finally has been gotten.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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      What It Was Like Inside the Courtroom During Trump’s Arraignment

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      Here are some of the most important moments from the hearing where criminal charges against Donald Trump were unveiled.Former President Donald J. Trump sat quietly in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday as prosecutors described the accusations against him. The proceeding marked his first experience as a criminal defendant.A 32-page transcript of the hearing offers only a hint of the dramatic implications of the arraignment and the lengthy legal process to come. It was one of the most-anticipated court proceedings in the world. And yet, it was seen firsthand only by the few dozen people who were present in the courtroom where the charges against Mr. Trump were unveiled.Here are some of the most important moments from the arraignment:The hearing begins, and Mr. Trump pleads.THE COURT: Let’s arraign Mr. Trump.THE CLERK: Donald J. Trump, the grand jury of New York County has filed indictment 71543 of 2023 charging you with the crimes of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.How do you plead to this indictment, guilty or not guilty?DEFENDANT MR. TRUMP: Not guilty.The shades were down in the courtroom when Mr. Trump entered around 2:30 p.m., wearing a navy suit, a red tie and a blank expression. Armed court officers flanked him on both sides as he walked down the aisle toward the front. Photographers were briefly allowed to enter the jury box to take his picture, and he turned and stared at the cameras until their operators were made to leave.Mr. Trump’s arraignment did not begin immediately after he came in. He was compelled to wait about 10 minutes, seated silently at the defense table, as a lawyer representing media organizations requested that journalists be granted more access to the proceeding. Mr. Trump visibly scoffed when that lawyer asserted that professional journalists could be trusted.When that lawyer was finished speaking, the judge, Juan M. Merchan, referred to in the transcript as “The Court,” called for Mr. Trump to be arraigned. The former president was read the charges against him — 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. In the hushed courtroom, Mr. Trump leaned forward and, speaking into the microphone at the defense table, said that he was not guilty.A prosecutor previews the case.MR. CONROY: The defendant, Donald J. Trump, falsified New York business records in order to conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election and other violations of election laws.Chris Conroy, a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, then stood up and began to detail the charges. They stem from a hush-money payment that Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, paid to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 election. Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen after he was elected. Prosecutors are accusing Mr. Trump of orchestrating the creation of false business records related to the reimbursements.Falsifying business records is only a felony in New York State when it is committed with the intent to “commit or conceal” another crime. In saying that Mr. Trump had falsified records “to conceal an illegal conspiracy,” Mr. Conroy offered a potential preview of the office’s broader case against Mr. Trump.Members of the defense team were handed copies of the indictment. Mr. Trump passed a copy to one of his lawyers, Joseph Tacopina. The former president was the only person at the defense table not to accept a copy.Mr. Trump’s recent social media posts are entered into the record.An extraordinary moment came when Mr. Conroy began to reference Mr. Trump’s recent social media posts. The former president promised that “death and destruction” would follow were he to be charged and posted racist language and threatening images directed at the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg.MR. CONROY: We have significant concern about the potential danger this kind of rhetoric poses to our city, to potential jurors and witnesses, and to the judicial process.Mr. Conroy then passed out printed copies of Mr. Trump’s posts to the judge and defense team. Mr. Trump passed his copy to Mr. Tacopina, but a minute later requested it back, beckoning with his right hand. Another of his lawyers, Todd Blanche, objected strongly to Mr. Conroy’s comments about the social media posts.MR. BLANCHE: It is true that President Trump has responded, and responded forcefully. It is true that as part of that response, he’s absolutely frustrated, upset, and believes that there is a grave injustice happening with him being in this courtroom today.Mr. Blanche asserted that Mr. Trump “ has rights, he’s allowed to speak publicly.”That appeared to prompt Justice Merchan, who spoke calmly and soberly, to respond that he had no immediate intention of placing a “gag order” on Mr. Trump, counter to concerns expressed recently by the former president’s legal team. Prosecutors have not requested a gag order.THE COURT: Certainly, the court would not impose a gag order at this time even if it were requested.Such restraints are the most serious and least intolerable on First Amendment rights. That does apply doubly to Mr. Trump, because he is a candidate for the presidency of the United States. So, those First Amendment rights are critically important, obviously.But Justice Merchan, a judge in the State Supreme Court since 2009, did warn the defense to speak to Mr. Trump “and anybody else you need to, and remind them to please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest.”The prosecution details potential constraints on Mr. Trump.MS. MCCAW: Defendant may not provide the materials he receives through the discovery process to any third party, including the press, and he may not post them to social media.As Mr. Trump continued to sit in silence, Catherine McCaw, another prosecutor, told the judge that her team was working with Mr. Trump’s lawyers to draft a protective order, a document that would place certain constraints on Mr. Trump.One of those constraints, she said, would bar the former president from posting certain case material on social media, or from sharing it with reporters. Were Mr. Trump to violate any constraints that are in place, Justice Merchan would decide whether and how to sanction him.Mr. Trump speaks again.As his arraignment went on, Mr. Trump increasingly fidgeted. He wove and unwove his fingers repeatedly. He crossed and uncrossed his arms. He knocked his knuckles on the hardwood table. Once, he puffed out his cheeks in a sigh.Finally, more than a half-hour after he entered his plea, he spoke again — after being prompted by his lawyers — but only to respond to Justice Merchan when the judge informed the former president about his right to be present at proceedings — and the ways that right could be forfeited.THE COURT: If you become disruptive to such a degree that it affects my ability to preside over this case and my ability to ensure that the case is treated the way it needs to be treated for both sides, I do have the authority to remove you from the courtroom and continue in your absence, do you understand that?DEFENDANT MR. TRUMP: I do.The judge requests Mr. Trump’s presence.THE COURT: I expect all other defendants to appear in court, even high-profile defendants.Given that Mr. Trump was charged with nonviolent crimes, prosecutors were barred from even requesting that he be put in jail. As Justice Merchan prepared to release the former president, Mr. Blanche suggested that Mr. Trump might not appear at his next court date, scheduled for Dec. 4. When asked for his reasoning, Mr. Blanche cited “the incredible expense and effort and security issues” that attended the arraignment.The judge acknowledged that it had been a huge undertaking for everyone involved. But he noted that December was “quite a ways out.” Finally, he noted that “in the interest of transparency and assuring the rules of law evenhandedly,” he was going to disagree with Mr. Blanche. The implication: As much as possible, the judge intends to treat Mr. Trump like any other defendant.When the arraignment adjourned around 3:25 p.m., Mr. Trump was the slowest person at the defense table to stand up. He smoothed the lapels of his blue suit jacket, neatened a stack of paper in front of him and walked out of the courtroom.Embed Only More

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      Nikki Haley Raises Over $11 Million to Start Her 2024 Campaign

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      Former President Donald J. Trump, in comparison, raised only $9.5 million during the same period after announcing his third presidential run.Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, raised more than $11 million in the first six weeks of her presidential run, her campaign said on Wednesday, a sizable sum that easily eclipses what former President Donald J. Trump was able to raise during the same period after announcing his candidacy.Ms. Haley received 70,000 donations, from all 50 states, the vast majority of which were under $200, her campaign said in a news release that described the contributions as a sign of her broad appeal and effective fund-raising efforts.Ms. Haley was the first major Republican candidate to enter the race with Mr. Trump, who announced his third bid for the White House shortly after the midterm elections in November. He raised only $9.5 million in his first six weeks, his campaign said in February, a relatively weak showing.But the announcement of criminal charges against him in a hush-money case appears to be helping him make up for the sluggish start: He has pulled in more than $12 million since his indictment on Friday, his campaign said on Wednesday.Early polling has shown Ms. Haley trailing significantly behind Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not yet formally entered the race. She has sought, in her early and energetic campaign stops, to position herself as a “tough-as-nails woman” who could offer a seasoned, reasonable alternative.The fund-raising sum reflects the six-week period between Feb. 14, when Ms. Haley formally entered the race, and the end of March. An official figure will be released in the coming weeks as part of the campaign’s required quarterly filing. She had about $7.8 million cash on hand at the end of the quarter, her campaign said.Eric J. Tanenblatt, a Georgia-based Republican strategist and fund-raiser who has supported Ms. Haley since her state campaigns, said the numbers “solidify” her as a serious candidate and give her “a good foundation to build on.”“It is a robust number,” said Mr. Tanenblatt, who hosted a fund-raiser for Ms. Haley last month. “I don’t think anyone should underestimate her.”The numbers released Wednesday do not include money raised by Stand for America PAC, the political action committee she created in 2021 and which is aligned with her campaign. Such groups can raise unlimited funds from donors, while funds raised by the campaign committees are held to strict caps for individual donors.Her super PAC had raised $17 million and reported $2 million on hand at the end of 2022, filings show. The next round of figures is due in July.A super PAC supporting Mr. Trump reported having $54.1 million on hand at the end of 2022. As for Mr. DeSantis, a super PAC aligned with him said Tuesday it had raised $30 million since March 9. He also had at least $80 million in a state committee at the end of February, Florida records show.But it is the funds raised by campaign committees, despite the restraints, that are considered a more critical measure of a candidate’s popular appeal. The money they raise goes further — for example, federal law allows political candidates to pay the lowest available price for broadcast ads, while super PACs have no such protections.“In just six weeks, Nikki Haley’s massive fund-raising and active retail campaigning in early voting states makes her a force to be reckoned with,” Ms. Haley’s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, said in a statement Wednesday. “Voters and donors are clearly responding to Nikki’s conservative message and her call for a new generation of leadership to make America strong and proud.”Ms. Haley has made a big ground-level push in early primary states. In February and March, she made several trips to Iowa and New Hampshire for town halls, meetings with local lawmakers, and other voter events. More

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      Trump’s Charges Bring Doubts, Hopes and Uncertainty in Both Parties

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      To some Republicans and Democrats, the charges appeared flimsy and less consequential than many had hoped. To others, the case had the potential to reverberate politically.In an ordinary presidential-primary season, the indictment of a front-runner over hush money paid to a porn star would, at the least, be an opening for rivals to attack. But a day after the arraignment of former President Donald J. Trump on 34 felony counts, one thing was clear: This will not be an ordinary political season.The failure of Mr. Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination to go on offense — indeed, their willingness to defend him — underscored the centrality of the former president in the G.O.P. His opponents appeared to be using the same playbook that a crowded field of White House hopefuls ran in 2016, laying back, absorbing Mr. Trump’s blows and hoping external factors would take him down.“The sad thing is that so many people accept it as part of the character and conduct of the former president,” Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas who on Sunday announced that he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, said of the charges. “That’s not something from a candidate perspective that I’m wanting to dwell on.”Still, the political landscape remains uncertain as Mr. Trump’s legal peril grows.To some Republican and Democratic leaders, including former and current elected officials, strategists and others, the charges appeared to be flimsy, a hodgepodge of bookkeeping accusations that felt far less consequential than many had hoped. To others in both parties, the charges and attendant spectacle were troubling and had the potential to reverberate and hurt the former president politically.Mr. Trump leaving Trump Tower on Tuesday on his way to his arraignment. His official and potential rivals for the 2024 presidential nomination have mostly defended him against the charges. Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesAt the very least, the charges will have to be answered in a court of law, extending a tawdry tale of extramarital affairs into a courtroom for a party that once considered itself the home of family values.Mr. Trump might rail against the Manhattan district attorney who is leading the prosecution, Alvin L. Bragg, and the judge who will preside, but the court proceedings and possibly a trial will unfold in a potentially damaging manner as a Republican race for the White House runs alongside them.“It’s still serious,” said former Representative Reid J. Ribble of Wisconsin, a Republican critic of Mr. Trump who has doubts about the case. “Who wants to be charged with any crime? Most normal Americans will never be charged with a misdemeanor their entire life. To be charged with 30 of them? I mean, it’s shocking, and for somebody who you want to have as a leader in the country, it’s a disqualifier for me.”Mr. Trump’s arraignment on charges that he falsified business records to cover up payments to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, certainly did make history. Mr. Trump is now the first former president to face criminal charges — and he does so amid his third run for the White House.But the moment did not yield a rush to abandon him by many voters or party leaders. On Friday, the day after the news of Mr. Trump’s indictment, Sarah Longwell, a Republican pollster and Trump critic, assembled a focus group of voters who had cast ballots for him in 2016 and 2020 to ask how the charges were affecting their next vote.Every one of the voters said they would cast a ballot again for the former president, the first unanimous verdict since she began assembling such groups for the 2024 election cycle.On Wednesday, former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, who is exploring a run for the Republican nomination, told a Fox News reporter in New Hampshire: “Sometimes we have to put all our politics aside and say, ‘Is this the right thing to do for the country?’ This sure doesn’t look right.”“The sad thing is that so many people accept it as part of the character and conduct of the former president,” former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican running for president, said of the nature of the charges against Mr. Trump. Win McNamee/Getty ImagesEven conservative evangelical leaders who might be expected to look askance at the extramarital dalliances contained in the allegations were supportive, continuing a pattern of overlooking Mr. Trump’s personal conduct that dates back most prominently to their response to the “Access Hollywood” tape in 2016. Ms. Daniels said she had sex with Mr. Trump in California in 2006, as his wife, Melania Trump, was home caring for their baby, Barron, in New York.“This has already been litigated by evangelicals in 2016 and 2020,” said the Rev. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of a Texas megachurch, who delivered an opening prayer at Mr. Trump’s campaign rally in Waco last month. “And I don’t think evangelicals want to re-litigate it.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Asked whether he believed Mr. Trump’s denials about having a sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels, Mr. Jeffress said that was not his judgment to make: “That’s really between him, Stormy Daniels and God.”If anything, Mr. Trump’s rivals now see a moment of peak power for him that they hope will dissipate.“Trump just got a big old shot in the arm with people who don’t like where we are and don’t trust the government,” said Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party who this year helped start the presidential campaign of Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations. “They are frightened of the unfairness that seems to be coming from the judiciary right now.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is widely expected to be Mr. Trump’s biggest threat for the Republican presidential nomination, was silent on the subject on Wednesday, though he did win the endorsement of a conservative House Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Mr. Massie said in a text message that he had planned to make the endorsement “without regard to the arraignment, and decided not to let Alvin Bragg get in the way.”Ms. Haley, a former South Carolina governor who was the second major candidate to declare for the Republican nomination, also kept her head down. Mr. Dawson said Ms. Haley and others would bring up the charges at some point, but not at a moment when conservative voters were rallying around the former president.“There’s going to be a contest with real players eventually,” Mr. Dawson said. “Certainly, it’s Trump’s to lose right now.”The worry, even among some Trump skeptics in the G.O.P., was that charges brought by a grand jury in Manhattan would only inflame the distrust of voters, some of whom had been drifting away from the former president. Others questioned the ultimate political impact in the primary and noted that Mr. Trump could face more serious legal troubles to come — but said that for now, the moment gave his message to Republicans a new opening.“It feeds into Donald Trump’s whole theme that the Democrats are out to get him at any cost, and will stretch any law and come up with any novel legal theory to do so,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. He added, “It plays right into his hands.”Democrats expressed frustration bordering on contempt.David Pepper, the former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, said the charges against Mr. Trump might not have been as sweeping as some of the other cases still pending against the former president. But Mr. Pepper argued that any other candidate or political figure who was accused of engaging in the same activities would be under the same microscope.“Is it as problematic as Jan. 6 or what happened at Mar-a-Lago? No,” Mr. Pepper said, referring to federal investigations into Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t investigate it.”Supporters gathered on Tuesday at the top of the bridge that leads to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s resort in Florida, and waited for his remarks after returning from New York. Hilary Swift for The New York TimesOther Democrats were sharper in their criticism.“I won’t use the word ‘criminal’ until after he’s convicted, but he’s a morally bankrupt liar, and he’s been that for a while,” State Senator Sharif Street, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said of Mr. Trump.But other Democrats echoed Republicans who said the Stormy Daniels episode seemed stale after so many years, and trivial compared with more pressing kitchen-table issues. And some expressed skepticism that the charges unveiled Tuesday would change many minds.“It would be wonderful if those that worship Trump started to understand how much of a bad president he was and how much of a bad person he is,” said Raymond Buckley, the longtime chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. “I’m not betting on that.”Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, suggested that the events in Manhattan were not top of mind for his constituents.“Hopefully we’re talking about actual issues and the future of the country and things kind of at that level rather than worrying about” court proceedings, Mr. Pocan said. “I don’t think that’s probably what the average person is going to be talking about. But it certainly gives them an idea of who Donald Trump is as a person and as a candidate.”Mr. Trump’s critics within the G.O.P. said his Republican rivals were again hoping that outside factors would trip him up without their having to raise a word of protest and risk alienating his core supporters. There is no more reason to believe that will work this time around, said Ms. Longwell, the Republican pollster.A spate of polling released Wednesday showed a one-on-one contest between Mr. Trump and President Biden at a dead heat. A Reuters/Ipsos survey found that 54 percent of Republicans believed the indictment would help Mr. Trump secure the presidency, even as 58 percent of Republicans said the charges that the former president paid hush money to cover up an affair were believable.“The concern is that Trump will get all the oxygen, which allows him to be the nominee,” Ms. Longwell said. More

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      For Now, Trump and Allies Focus on Political Upside of a Criminal Case

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      The indictment of the former president has unlocked a rush of fund-raising and has frozen the 2024 Republican primary, but he faces deeper legal peril in multiple inquiries.Just hours after he became the first former president in American history to be indicted, Donald J. Trump sat on the patio of his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Tuesday night and played disc jockey.Sitting with a group that included his daughter Tiffany and her husband, as well as his longest-serving adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump used an iPad to choose the music blaring over speakers: “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown — one of Mr. Trump’s favorite performers — “Macho Man” by the Village People and the national anthem sung by a choir of inmates arrested after storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.When the anthem played, people rose to their feet, put their hands over their hearts and sang along, according to two attendees. In the song, Mr. Trump’s own voice periodically cut into the soundtrack to chant the Pledge of Allegiance, a recording experience he has boasted about as the song topped Billboard’s digital song chart.Mr. Trump’s campaign said that by Wednesday afternoon it had raised more than $12 million in online donations since news of his indictment broke last Thursday, according to a person briefed on the numbers, which won’t be available to be checked in filings for weeks. Roughly a third of those donors had never given to Mr. Trump before, two other people briefed on the data said, a statistic that suggested he might be able to gain new Republican supporters in the 2024 presidential primary race.In the long term, an indictment is not something any candidate seeks, a fact that some of Mr. Trump’s close associates acknowledge privately. Its impact on the months ahead remains unclear, particularly if Mr. Trump is also indicted in other investigations, which are being conducted in Georgia and by the Justice Department.Some of Mr. Trump’s close associates concede that in a general election indictments are unlikely to draw more moderate suburban and independent voters who have been wary of the former president for several election cycles. And all of that is outside of the substantial legal peril Mr. Trump now faces.Watching at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump held court at his club on Tuesday night playing music.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesSeveral people in his orbit have privately acknowledged that, absent a recession, it is hard to visualize the circumstances that would lead an independent voter who supported Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020 because they were fed up with chaos to turn around — four years and potentially multiple indictments later — and look at Mr. Trump and figure he’s worth another shot.But Mr. Trump and some of his allies and advisers view politics through a narrow, and short, lens, and for the moment, they are looking for the upside of an undesirable situation. For now, they are treating the indictment brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, as a political gift, and one that contained nothing that surprised them.Mr. Trump’s adviser Jason Miller said prosecutors had “awakened a sleeping giant” with what he said was a “weaponized” justice system. “It served as a reminder to Americans from all walks of life, including those who don’t normally follow politics, that this is a fight to save our country, and if we want to save our country, we need to rally around our strongest fighter,” he said.The day of the arrest had been “exhausting” but “energizing,” aides said. Before Mr. Trump began playing music on Tuesday night, he said to several people, “Don’t you know I’m tired.” He then went on to deliver roughly 20 minutes of remarks lighting into the Manhattan district attorney, the judge overseeing the case, investigators in Georgia and the special counsel, Jack Smith, who he seemed to suggest goes by a fake name, a claim he has made privately as well..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Besides the money pouring in to bolster what had been a slow start to his 2024 campaign’s fund-raising, influential voices on the right who had been gravitating away from Mr. Trump, or outright criticizing him, have become more muted or said they are now supporting him.Mr. Trump’s advisers have gleefully noted that it has become politically painful for a Republican to attack Mr. Trump after the indictment. Doing so now, they say, makes those Republican critics co-conspirators with Democrats who Mr. Trump says are bent on destroying him. Some of his allies have painted him in starkly martyr-like terms, comparing him to Jesus Christ.“We the American people need to stand behind this guy,” said Mark Levin, the influential conservative television and radio host, hours after Mr. Trump’s arraignment in Lower Manhattan. “There’s not another Republican I can think of that can fight back, and fight back this way.”At Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night. The crowd was highly supportive of the former president.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesThe New York Post, which, like other properties owned by the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has been campaigning aggressively against the former president and playing up Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, on Wednesday gave Mr. Trump his best coverage in its pages in a long while, splashing his face on the front page with the big block headline declaring Mr. Bragg’s charges “Trumped Up.”Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal critics within the party who voted to convict the former president in his two impeachment trials, said after the arraignment that he took issue with the case.“I believe President Trump’s character and conduct make him unfit for office. Even so, I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda,” Mr. Romney said. “No one is above the law, not even former presidents, but everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law.”Even a string of frequent critics of Mr. Trump, including on the left, have raised questions about the strength of Mr. Bragg’s case, which rests on a novel legal theory aimed at proving Mr. Trump falsified business records with an intent to defraud while he was a presidential candidate in 2016 with regard to hush-money payments to a porn star made by Mr. Trump’s former fixer and lawyer, Michael D. Cohen.The statement of fact accompanying the indictment, however, offers less-than-flattering details for Mr. Trump. It lays out Mr. Trump’s reimbursing Mr. Cohen while he was president and speaking with him in the Oval Office about it. It also describes Mr. Trump’s hosting David Pecker — the former chief executive of the parent company of the tabloid National Enquirer, which is said to have killed articles detailing questionable personal conduct by Mr. Trump — at a White House meeting to thank him for his help during the campaign.Mr. Trump’s support in public opinion polls has jumped among Republicans, showing his perceived limits in gaining back those voters is higher than some of his opponents had believed. Some of Mr. DeSantis’s allies have been surprised at the extent of the bump Mr. Trump has garnered.In the lead-up to Mr. Trump’s arraignment, he and his team devoured media coverage around his impending arrest, trading screen grabs of the news. Mr. Trump monitored cable news while his aides took note of how much the coverage was blotting out almost everything else.Mr. Trump, after what was described as some snappishness before he walked into the courtroom in Manhattan for his arraignment, described the experience as relatively pleasant in a statement Wednesday.“The GREAT PATRIOTS inside and outside of the Courthouse on Tuesday were unbelievably nice, in fact, they couldn’t have been nicer. Court attendants, Police Officers, and others were all very professional, and represented New York City sooo well,” he wrote. “Thank you to all!” More

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      After His Arraignment, Trump Lashes Out

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      More from our inbox:‘A Great Day for Liberals’ in Wisconsin and ChicagoA Renewed Interest in Freudian PsychoanalysisLos cargos contra Trump representan la culminación de una investigación de casi cinco años de duración.Dave Sanders para The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Charged With 34 Felonies” (front page, April 5):After Judge Juan M. Merchan warned at Donald Trump’s arraignment that all parties must refrain from making statements about the case with the potential to incite violence and civil unrest, what does the former president who can’t keep his mouth shut do during his speech a few hours later?He says hateful things about Judge Merchan and his family, and vilifies District Attorney Alvin Bragg, District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia and the special counsel Jack Smith.And one of the former president’s sons put a photograph of Judge Merchan’s daughter on social media — a clear invitation to violence.It’s time for the former president to be gagged. And when he speaks out with hateful words again, a contempt order and jail time may put a sock in his mouth. About time.Gail ShorrWilmette, Ill.To the Editor:Crowd size has always been important to Donald Trump. It is the metric he uses, along with TV ratings, to measure his impact, to gauge his popularity, to feed his ego.The crowd that showed up Tuesday at his arraignment was hardly composed overwhelmingly of Trump supporters. It looked as if the media and anti-Trump people more than countered his base.No matter how Mr. Trump spins it, no matter how many times at his future rallies he proclaims an overwhelming showing of support in New York City, the camera doesn’t lie.It was good to see him cut down to size Tuesday. For the first time in his adult life he could not control the narrative. He called for a massive protest, he predicted “death and destruction” if he was charged, and he got neither.Len DiSesaDresher, Pa.To the Editor:The April 5 front-page headline “Even as Biden Has Oval Office, Predecessor Has the Spotlight” is a statement that is true only because your newspaper and other media outlets allow Donald Trump to occupy center stage.This behavior of the media has been mentioned many times before, and many believe that the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of free publicity provided to Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign contributed to his winning the election.It is now 2023 and we are facing an election that could well decide the future of America. I am therefore requesting that The Times stop paying so much attention to Mr. Trump (we’ve heard everything he has to say many times before) effective immediately.David SommersKensington, Md.To the Editor:I felt a real jolt seeing the photo of former President Donald Trump seated at the table in a Manhattan courtroom. It was the jolt of the norms of American justice falling back into alignment.Christopher HermanWashington‘A Great Day for Liberals’ in Wisconsin and ChicagoJanet Protasiewicz, the liberal candidate in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, during her election night party in Milwaukee on Tuesday. She ran on her open support of abortion rights.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Liberal Wins Wisconsin Court Race, in Victory for Abortion Rights Backers” (news article, April 5):While New York and the nation were fixated on the circus that was Donald Trump’s arraignment, a special election was held in Wisconsin that decided whether conservatives or liberals would control that state’s Supreme Court. Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County judge, won the race and gave liberals control of the highest court in Wisconsin.Wisconsin is an important swing state, and this new balance of power in the court will have dramatic effects on abortion rights, potential election interference and how election districts are drawn. Conservatives, who have had control of the Supreme Court, will no longer be able to gerrymander voting districts to favor Republicans, nor will they be able to successfully challenge the results of a free and fair election.While this is only one state, we may see similar results in other swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and, yes, even Texas. Donald Trump is to Democrats the gift that just keeps on giving.Henry A. LowensteinNew YorkTo the Editor:Three news stories from your newspaper indicate that Tuesday was a great day for liberals and progressives: “Trump Charged With 34 Felonies,” “Liberal Wins Wisconsin Court Race, in Victory for Abortion Rights Backers” and “Rejecting a ‘Republican in Disguise,’ Chicago Voters Elect Johnson as Next Mayor.”While conservative Republicans are obsessed with culture wars and MAGA, progressives are making political headway. Let’s hope that we continue on this march to liberalism till our nation is free from prejudices, curbs on reproductive and gender freedoms, relentless gun-related violence, etc.Michael HadjiargyrouCenterport, N.Y.A Renewed Interest in Freudian Psychoanalysis Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Back to the Couch With Freud” (Sunday Styles, March 26):It is true that people “see what they want in Freud.” Thus, a younger generation might think Freud “gay friendly” because a 1935 letter declared, “Homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation.”However, the article omits that Freud went on to describe homosexuality in that same letter as an “arrest of sexual development.”Freud’s theory that gay people suffered from psychological stunted growth rationalized many decades of discrimination in which openly gay men and women were refused psychoanalytic training because they were “developmentally arrested.” Only in 1991 did the American Psychoanalytic Association change its policies refusing admission to gay candidates.I am glad that Freud is having a renaissance. However, any reading or interpretation of his work should not ignore the historical context in which he lived and the ways, for better or worse, in which some of his theories have been used to discriminate.Jack DrescherNew YorkThe writer, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, is the author of “Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man.”To the Editor:I was pleased to see New York Times coverage of the “Freudaissance,” which I have been a joyful participant in for more than a decade now, both personally and professionally.One of the understandings I have come to, having spent countless hours on both sides of the proverbial couch, in both psychoanalytic and cognitive behavioral contexts, is that these two approaches do not really diverge from each other as much as many tend to assume that they do.I see the C.B.T. founder Aaron Beck’s three levels of cognition (automatic thoughts, core beliefs and cognitive schemas) mapping neatly onto Freud’s topographical model of the mind (the conscious, preconscious and unconscious, respectively).And I see the dialectic behavioral therapy founder Marsha Linehan’s construct of the “wise mind” as an integration of the rational and emotional minds matching Freud’s structural model of the ego as a synthesis of superego and id.Different terms resonate differently in different generations and with different individuals, but rather than disproving or undermining Freud’s theories, I see today’s evidence-based approaches as indications that the father of modern psychology was apparently onto something more than a century ago.Rachel N. WynerWest Hempstead, N.Y.The writer is a clinical psychologist. More

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      Trump’s Day of Martyrdom Didn’t Go Quite as He Expected

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      Court officials didn’t take a mug shot of former President Donald J. Trump at his arraignment on Tuesday. But it’s not because he didn’t want one. The authorities didn’t really need an ID photo of one of the most recognizable faces on earth.Mr. Trump wanted that mug shot, CNN reported, and when he didn’t get it, his presidential campaign put a fake one on a fund-raising T-shirt. He wanted it for the same reason he brought his private videographer from Florida to the courthouse: to contrive physical relics of his martyrdom at the hands of his leftist oppressors, proof of the vast conspiracy that he can wave at rallies and blare on his social media platform.But a few things happened on Tuesday that Mr. Trump didn’t count on. The images — and the details of the case itself — sent a far more serious message than he expected.Instead of a defiant N.Y.P.D. photo or a raised fist, the lasting image of the day may well be that of a humbled former president looking hunched, angry and nervous at the courtroom defense table, a suddenly small man wedged between his lawyers, as two New York State court officers loomed behind him in a required posture of making sure the defendant stayed in his place.And the 34 felony charges, to which Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty, turned out to be more significant and more sweeping than previously suspected. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, described a broad conspiracy, with Mr. Trump at the center, to falsify business records for the purpose of unlawfully influencing the 2016 presidential election. The former president, he said, “orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.”It’s been known for a while that the case revolved around hush-money payments that Mr. Trump made to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, to cover up an affair they had. Falsifying business records can sometimes be charged as a misdemeanor in New York State, and to bump up the charges to felonies requires proof that they were falsified to conceal another crime. That crime was widely believed to be a federal campaign finance violation, and some legal experts described that combination as an untested legal theory, because federal violations are outside Mr. Bragg’s jurisdiction.But it turned out that Mr. Bragg and the grand jury had more than one basis for making the charges felonies. The prosecutor argued on Tuesday that in addition to the federal campaign finance violations, Mr. Trump violated a state election law that makes it a crime to prevent any person from being elected to public office by unlawful means while acting in a conspiracy with others. Mr. Bragg is on much safer ground tying fraudulent business records to a violation of state law, because the defense cannot argue that he lacks jurisdiction on the matter — though Mr. Trump’s lawyers can still argue that state law doesn’t apply to a federal election.And that wasn’t the only state law that Mr. Bragg said he would cite. The payments to Ms. Daniels were made by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, who was reimbursed by Mr. Trump in a fraudulent way, the prosecution said. The charging document said this reimbursement was illegally disguised as income in a way that “mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.” So add state tax violations to the list.The charges also revealed the breadth of Mr. Bragg’s case, showing he intends to persuade a jury of a conspiracy that extended from Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to David Pecker, a former publisher of The National Enquirer, who was allegedly paid $150,000 by Mr. Trump to procure the silence of a second woman with whom Mr. Trump had an affair, the former Playboy model Karen McDougal. It was not certain until Tuesday that the relationship with Ms. McDougal would be part of the case. The felony charges are specifically about Ms. Daniels, but to prove them, Mr. Bragg made it clear that he would describe a much broader pattern of payoffs that included Ms. McDougal.Prosecutors also revealed that they would rely on more than just the oral testimony of their star witness, Mr. Cohen, who already served a year in federal prison for his role in the payments and whose credibility will be challenged. There will, for example, be an audio recording of Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen discussing how exactly the payment to Ms. McDougal should be made to The National Enquirer’s parent company. And the evidence will also include texts and email messages discussing Mr. Trump’s suggestion to delay paying Ms. Daniels until after the election, “because at that point it would not matter if the story became public,” prosecutors said. (Those texts may effectively short-circuit any attempt by Mr. Trump to claim the payments were made solely to prevent his wife from learning about his affairs.)Mr. Bragg will have to prove all these charges in court, of course, assuming the case goes to trial, and the charging documents did not reveal more than the surface of the evidence he plans to use. It’s still not a slam-dunk case. But these crimes are hardly novel ones for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is used to prosecuting business record cases, and are far from the one-off political persecution that Republicans are claiming it to be.Inevitably, the images of the day and the details of the charges will have a cumulative and wearying effect on many voters. Mr. Trump thinks only of his core supporters, who will share his rage at his ordeal on Tuesday and demand revenge. But there aren’t enough base Trump voters to guarantee him even the Republican nomination, let alone the general election in 2024. Will the images of Mr. Trump at a defendant’s table, not to mention the headlines about 34 counts of paying hush money to a porn star, win a substantial number of swing voters to his side?It’s hard to imagine all of this will really do him any good, particularly if there are charges down the road from other prosecutors alleging abuse of his presidential office. Mr. Trump may sell a few fake T-shirts, but with the law closing in on him, he will have a much harder time selling himself.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