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      Trump Allies Pressure DeSantis to Weigh In on Expected Indictment

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      The effort previews how an indictment would jolt the still-nascent race for the Republican presidential nomination — and perhaps already has.Former President Donald J. Trump’s political operation is trying to use the news of his expected indictment by a Manhattan grand jury to turn the strident base of the Republican Party against his expected rival for the 2024 presidential nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Immediately after the former president predicted on Saturday that his arrest was imminent, Mr. Trump’s operatives and friendly media outlets began publicly pressuring Mr. DeSantis to condemn the law enforcement officials in New York, portraying his silence on the matter as bordering on treason.Jason Miller, the former president’s senior adviser, said on Twitter that the Trump team was taking note of Mr. DeSantis’s “radio silence” about the likely indictment.And the Trump campaign’s “War Room” account posted on Sunday: “It has been over 24 hours and some people are still quiet. History will judge their silence.”Mr. Trump’s most influential online allies disseminated the message fast and deep into right-wing online networks. Jack Posobiec, a far-right political activist with a large social-media following, was especially vocal in the pressure campaign.“I’m taking receipts on everyone,” Mr. Posobiec said in a brief interview. “For DeSantis to make that post yesterday, talking about the Hurricane Ian response and nothing from the personal account whatsoever about the arrest — it was a message that was received.”An aide to Mr. DeSantis did not respond to a request for comment.The effort previews how an indictment would jolt the still-nascent race for the Republican presidential nomination — and perhaps already has. Mr. Trump has used the possibility of charges, which would stem from an investigation into hush money Mr. Trump’s lawyer paid to a porn actress before he was elected in 2016, to cast himself as a victim of political persecution.Although his rivals largely want to keep a distance, Mr. Trump’s team is bent on pushing them to choose sides, risking the wrath of Republicans loyal to the former president.The former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., amplified Mr. Posobiec’s message, writing: “Pay attention to which Republicans spoke out against this corrupt BS immediately and who sat on their hands and waited to see which way the wind was blowing.”And the Gateway Pundit, a conspiratorial website with a large far-right following that often pushes narratives helpful to Mr. Trump, declared “The Silence is Deafening” in its headline about Mr. DeSantis’s avoidance of the matter..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.But even as many leading Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, have rallied to Mr. Trump’s aid, the comments from the field of declared and potential G.O.P. presidential candidates has been muted.Some — including Vivek Ramaswamy, and former Vice President Mike Pence — have decried the prospect of an indictment that relies on what would be a novel legal theory.“I called on my fellow GOP candidates @RonDeSantisFL and @NikkiHaley to join me in condemning the potential Trump indictment because those of us *running against Trump* can most credibly call on the Manhattan DA to abandon this disastrously politicized prosecution,” Mr. Ramaswamy wrote in a message on Twitter.Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor who entered the presidential race last month, and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina have not said a word.But Mr. DeSantis’s silence is more freighted.He is the governor of the state where Mr. Trump resides, which, should Mr. Trump be charged and refuse to surrender, could lead Mr. DeSantis to play a role in efforts by New York to extradite the former president.As a purely political matter, Mr. DeSantis is Mr. Trump’s closest rival in every public opinion poll of Republicans about the 2024 presidential primary. He is expected to announce his intentions in May or June. But his hopes depend on appealing to a coalition of voters that includes both supporters and critics of Mr. Trump.And Mr. Trump’s allies believe that a refusal by Mr. DeSantis to condemn an expected indictment — one that even some of Mr. Trump’s fiercest critics have questioned — could make Mr. DeSantis’s efforts to peel away Trump supporters more difficult.Republicans who have seized on news of the anticipated indictment to demonstrate their allegiance to Mr. Trump include House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.Few seized the opportunity faster than Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the third-ranking House Republican, who is widely seen as angling to be chosen as Mr. Trump’s running mate.By midday on Saturday, Ms. Stefanik had issued a statement calling the expected indictment “unAmerican” and an example of the “Radical Left” reaching “a dangerous new low of Third World countries.” More

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      Trump Grand Jury Could Hear From Critic of Prosecution’s Star Witness

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      The grand jury considering the hush-money case against Mr. Trump might hear the testimony of lawyer Robert J. Costello, a critic of the ex-president’s fixer.A Manhattan grand jury that is expected to vote soon on whether to indict Donald J. Trump may hear testimony Monday attacking the prosecution’s star witness, according to people with knowledge of the matter.The testimony would come from a lawyer, Robert J. Costello, who would appear at the request of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the people said. Mr. Costello was once a legal adviser to Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, who has been a key witness for the Manhattan district attorney’s office.Mr. Costello and Mr. Cohen had a falling out, and Mr. Costello would appear solely to undermine Mr. Cohen’s credibility, the people said.Under New York law, a person who is expected to be indicted can request that a witness appear on his or her behalf. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have asked that Mr. Costello testify, but the final decision rests with the grand jury; it is unclear whether they have made a decision. The grand jury has been hearing evidence about the former president’s involvement in a hush money payment to a porn star.Mr. Costello’s appearance would come soon after Mr. Cohen concluded his own grand jury testimony. If Mr. Costello testifies, there is also a chance that Mr. Cohen will be asked to return to rebut some of Mr. Costello’s assertions.A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment, as did Mr. Costello. A lawyer for Mr. Cohen, Lanny J. Davis, declined to comment.The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat, is expected to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump as soon as this week. There have been several signals that charges may be imminent: The prosecutors gave Mr. Trump an opportunity to testify, a right given to people who will soon face indictment. They have now questioned nearly every major player in the hush money saga in front of the grand jury.Mr. Cohen made the $130,000 hush money payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, to bury her story of an affair with Mr. Trump.Michael D. Cohen arriving at 80 Centre Street for his 19th appearance being interviewed by the District Attorney’s office in New York this month.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesThe payment came in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Mr. Trump subsequently reimbursed Mr. Cohen. Prosecutors are expected to accuse Mr. Trump of overseeing the false recording of the reimbursements in his company’s internal records. The records falsely stated that the payments to Mr. Cohen were for “legal expenses.”Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, as well as having had an affair with Ms. Daniels, and has blasted the investigation as politically motivated. He has also called Mr. Bragg, a Democrat and the first Black person to serve as the district attorney, a “racist.”Mr. Costello’s appearance in the grand jury on Monday would likely kick off a string of attacks from Mr. Trump’s lawyers on Mr. Cohen’s credibility. If the case goes to trial, they are expected to highlight that Mr. Cohen himself pleaded guilty to federal crimes in 2018 stemming from the hush money payment, and to bring up other episodes from the former fixer’s personal history.But prosecutors may counter that Mr. Cohen was lying about the hush money payment on Mr. Trump’s behalf, and has been consistent in the telling of his story in recent years.Mr. Costello is likely to argue that Mr. Cohen can’t be trusted. In 2018, as Mr. Cohen was facing the federal investigation into the hush money, a mutual friend introduced the two men. Mr. Costello offered to represent Mr. Cohen, and they spent hours meeting and speaking by phone.As a Republican lawyer with ties to Mr. Trump’s legal team, Mr. Costello offered to serve as a bridge between Mr. Cohen and the president’s lawyers. At one point, Mr. Costello contacted one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers to ask if the president might pardon Mr. Cohen.But the pardon never came, and Mr. Cohen never formally retained Mr. Costello. Mr. Cohen later waived their attorney-client privilege, Mr. Costello has said.Their relationship worsened as Mr. Cohen broke from Mr. Trump, and became one of his primary antagonists.“We will not be involved in that journey,” Mr. Costello wrote Mr. Cohen in a 2018 email, adding that his law firm “will be sending you a bill.” When it came, Mr. Cohen refused to pay. More

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      Inside the Payoff to Stormy Daniels That May Lead to Trump’s Indictment

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      Manhattan prosecutors investigating a payout to Stormy Daniels may be poised to make Donald J. Trump the first former president ever to be criminally indicted.At the time, it all was more tawdry than momentous. A reality star invited a porn actress half his age to a hotel room after a round in a celebrity golf tournament. She arrived in a spangly gold dress and strappy heels. He promised to put her on television and then, she says, they slept together.Yet the chain of events flowing from the 2006 encounter that the adult film star, Stormy Daniels, has said she had with the television personality, Donald J. Trump, has led to the brink of a historic development: the first criminal indictment of a former American president.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, has signaled he is preparing to seek felony charges against Mr. Trump; Mr. Bragg is expected to accuse him of concealing a $130,000 hush-money payment that Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s lawyer and fixer, made to Ms. Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election.A conviction would be likely to hinge on prosecutors’ proving that Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen and falsified business records when he did so, possibly to hide an election law violation.It would not be a simple case. Prosecutors are expected to use a legal theory that has not been assessed in New York courts, raising the possibility that a judge could throw out or limit the charges. The episode has been examined by both the Federal Election Commission and federal prosecutors in New York; neither took action against Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump has denied having sex with Ms. Daniels and said he did nothing wrong. The former president, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the White House, has made it clear that he will cast the indictment as a political “witch hunt” and use it to rally his supporters. On Saturday, he predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday and called for protests.The prosecutors’ chief witness would be Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations in August 2018, admitting he helped arrange the Daniels payment — and another to a former Playboy model — to aid Mr. Trump’s presidential bid at the behest of Mr. Trump.Any indictment of Mr. Trump brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, would rely on a legal theory that has not been tested in New York courts, making its success far from assured.Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesAn indictment would mark another extraordinary episode in the Trump era: The former president — whose tenure closed with a riot at the Capitol, who tried to overturn a fair election and who is under investigation for failing to return classified material — may face his first criminal charge for paying off a porn star.A Lake Tahoe encounterMs. Daniels, born Stephanie Gregory and raised mostly in a ramshackle ranch house in Baton Rouge, La., was 27 in July 2006, when she met Mr. Trump, then 60, at the celebrity golf tournament in Nevada.As a child, she wrote in her 2018 memoir, “Full Disclosure,” she felt ashamed and motivated after overhearing a friend’s father refer to her as “white trash.” Attracted by the money she could make, Ms. Daniels started as an exotic dancer even before she finished high school, working at a local joint called Cinnamon’s. At 23, she began acting in pornographic movies and soon married the first of her four husbands: Bartholomew Clifford, who directed adult films under the name “Pat Myne.”When he met Ms. Daniels, Mr. Trump had largely transitioned from real estate mogul to reality star; he had traveled to the tournament without his third wife, Melania, who remained behind with their newborn son. Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels crossed paths on the golf course and later in the gift room, where they were photographed together at a booth for her porn studio, Wicked Pictures. He invited her to dinner.As they chatted that night in Mr. Trump’s penthouse at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe — she has said he wore black silk pajamas and slippers — he told her that she should be on “The Apprentice,” an NBC reality show. She doubted he could make it happen. He assured her he could, she said.Afterward, he would phone her occasionally from a blocked number, calling her “Honeybunch.” They saw each other at least twice more in 2007, at a launch party for the short-lived Trump Vodka and at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where they watched “Shark Week.” But they did not sleep together again. And Mr. Trump never put her on “The Apprentice.” Still, he kept calling, she has said. Eventually, she stopped answering.Selling storiesStormy Daniels, an adult film star, was paid $130,000 by Mr. Trump’s fixer in exchange for her silence.Shannon Stapleton/ReutersSince 2000, Mr. Trump had staged long-shot presidential runs that more resembled publicity stunts than serious bids for office. He kicked off another in 2011, promoting conspiracy theories that then-President Barack Obama had been born outside the United States. As he did so, Ms. Daniels, still bitter, began working with an agent to see if she could sell the story of their liaison.They negotiated a $15,000 deal with Life & Style, a celebrity magazine, telling its reporter that Ms. Daniels believed Mr. Trump’s offer to make her a contestant had been a lie, according to a transcript later published online.“Just to impress you, to try to sleep with you?” the reporter asked. “Yeah,” Ms. Daniels responded. “And I guess it worked.”When the magazine contacted the Trump Organization for comment, Michael Cohen returned the call. A lawyer who had joined the company four years earlier, Mr. Cohen had become Mr. Trump’s fixer, diving headlong into resolving thorny problems for his boss and the Trump family. Mr. Cohen threatened to sue, the magazine killed the story, and Ms. Daniels did not get paid.Mr. Trump, for his part, dropped out of the race and continued hosting “The Apprentice.”That October, Ms. Daniels’s story about Mr. Trump surfaced briefly after her agent leaked it to a gossip blog called “The Dirty,” trying to gin up interest from a paying publication. A couple of media outlets followed up, but none offered payment. Ms. Daniels denied the story, and her agent had a lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif., Keith Davidson, get the post taken down.As Mr. Obama prepared to leave office in 2015, Mr. Trump decided to run for president once more. That August, he sat in his office at Trump Tower with Mr. Cohen and David Pecker, the publisher of American Media Inc. and its flagship tabloid, The National Enquirer.Mr. Pecker, a longtime friend of Mr. Trump’s, had used The Enquirer to boost Mr. Trump’s past presidential runs. He promised to publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and negative ones about opponents, according to three people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Pecker also agreed to work with Mr. Cohen to find and suppress stories that might damage Mr. Trump’s new efforts, a practice known as “catch and kill.”The National Enquirer, a tabloid run by David Pecker, played a central role in efforts to “catch and kill” negative stories about Mr. Trump.Marion Curtis, via Associated PressIn spring 2016, Ms. Daniels attempted through her agent to sell her story again — this time for more than $200,000. But the publications she approached all passed, including The Enquirer.Around the same time, Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model, began exploring how to monetize her own tale of sleeping with Mr. Trump. Ms. McDougal, Playboy’s 1998 Playmate of the Year, has said she had an affair with Mr. Trump starting in 2006, when she was 35. They had spent time together in his Trump Tower apartment and at the same golf tournament where Ms. Daniels encountered him. But Ms. McDougal ended the relationship in 2007, she has said. Mr. Trump has denied the affair.In 2016, with her modeling career flagging, Ms. McDougal hired Mr. Davidson, the same lawyer who had helped Stormy Daniels remove the 2011 blog post.Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, said she also had an affair with Mr. Trump and was paid by The National Enquirer for her story, which was never published.Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for BacardiThe lawyer approached The Enquirer’s editor, Dylan Howard, about buying Ms. McDougal’s story, and Mr. Howard and Mr. Pecker both briefed Mr. Cohen, three people with knowledge of the discussions have said. In late June, Mr. Trump personally appealed to Mr. Pecker for help in keeping Ms. McDougal quiet, according to an account Mr. Pecker gave federal prosecutors.But the tabloid did nothing until Ms. McDougal was about to give an interview to ABC News. In early August, American Media agreed to pay Ms. McDougal $150,000 for the exclusive rights to her story about Mr. Trump, camouflaging the real purpose of the deal by guaranteeing she would appear on two magazine covers, among other things, five people familiar with the events have said.American Media would later admit, in a deal to avoid federal prosecution, that the principal purpose of the agreement was to suppress Ms. McDougal’s story, which the company had no intention of publishing.Stormy Daniels, meanwhile, still had not found any takers for her story. Her luck changed in early October.‘It could look awfully bad’Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael D. Cohen, right, went to prison in part for campaign finance violations related to hush-money payments. He has turned against the former president and could testify against him.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesThe news hit the presidential race like a bomb. On Oct. 7, 2016, The Washington Post published what would become known as the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Mr. Trump, unwittingly on a live microphone, was recorded describing in lewd terms how he groped women.The people surrounding Stormy Daniels immediately realized that Mr. Trump’s new vulnerability made her more of a threat — and thus gave her story value.Mr. Davidson, the Los Angeles lawyer, was also friendly with Ms. Daniels’s agent, Gina Rodriguez, and with The Enquirer’s editor, Mr. Howard. On the day after the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged, Mr. Davidson and Mr. Howard texted about the damage it had done to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Then Mr. Howard asked Ms. Daniels’s agent to send another pitch for his boss, Mr. Pecker.The Enquirer executives alerted Mr. Cohen; Mr. Cohen asked Mr. Pecker for help containing it.Mr. Howard haggled with Ms. Daniels’s agent, but when he presented Mr. Pecker with an offer to buy the story for $120,000, the publisher refused.“Perhaps I call Michael and advise him and he can take it from there,” Mr. Howard wrote.Dylan Howard, the editor of The National Enquirer, connected Mr. Cohen to a lawyer for Ms. Daniels to discuss a payment for the story of her tryst with Mr. Trump.Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for American MediaThat night, Mr. Cohen spoke by phone to Mr. Trump, Mr. Pecker and Mr. Howard, according to records obtained by federal authorities. Mr. Howard connected him to the lawyer, Mr. Davidson, who would negotiate the deal for Ms. Daniels.Three days after the “Access Hollywood” tape’s release, Mr. Cohen agreed to pay $130,000 in a deal that threatened severe financial penalties for Ms. Daniels if she ever spoke about her affair with Mr. Trump. The contract used pseudonyms: Peggy Peterson, or “P.P.,” for Ms. Daniels, and David Dennison, or “D.D.,” for Mr. Trump. Their identities were revealed only in a side letter.Ms. Daniels signed her copy on the trunk of a car near a porn set in Calabasas, Calif. Mr. Cohen signed on Mr. Trump’s behalf.But Mr. Cohen delayed paying. He has said he was trying to figure out where to get the money while Mr. Trump campaigned. According to Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trump had approved the payment and delegated to him and the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer the task of arranging it. They considered options for funneling the money through the company, Mr. Cohen said, but did not settle on a solution.Ms. Daniels began to believe that Mr. Trump was trying to stall until after the Nov. 8 election; if he lost, her story would lose its value. In mid October, after Mr. Cohen had blown two deadlines, Ms. Daniels’s lawyer canceled the deal, and the porn actress again began shopping the story. The next week, Mr. Howard texted Mr. Cohen that if Ms. Daniels went public, their work to cover up the sexual encounter might also become known.“It could look awfully bad for everyone,” Mr. Howard wrote.Mr. Cohen agreed to make the payment himself. He spoke briefly by phone with Mr. Trump, twice. Then he transferred about $130,000 from his home equity line of credit into the account of a Delaware shell company and wired it to Ms. Daniels’s lawyer.Mr. Davidson circulated a new hush-money agreement. Ms. Daniels signed and notarized it at a UPS store near a Walmart Supercenter in Forney, Texas, near her home.“I hope we are good,” Mr. Cohen texted Mr. Davidson afterward.“I assure you we are very good,” the lawyer replied.Ms. Daniels remained silent. A week and a half later, Mr. Trump won the election.Once he was in the White House, Mr. Trump handled one more piece of business related to Stormy Daniels. He signed checks to reimburse Mr. Cohen for paying her off.Jonah E. Bromwich More

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      Ron DeSantis Has a Secret Theory of Trump

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      Ron DeSantis has an enemies list, and you can probably guess who’s on it.There’s the “woke dumpster fire” of the Democratic Party and the “swamp Republicans” who neglect their own voters. There’s the news media, with modifiers like “legacy” or “corporate” adding a nefarious touch. There’s Big Tech, that “censorship arm of the political left,” and the powerful corporations that cave to the “leftist-rage mob.” There are universities like Harvard and Yale, which DeSantis attended but did not inhale. There’s the administrative state and its pandemic-era spinoff, the “biomedical security state.” These are the villains of DeSantis’s recently published book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” and its author feels free to assail them with a fusillade of generically irate prose.There is one more antagonist — not an enemy, perhaps, but certainly a rival — whom DeSantis does not attack directly in his book, even as he looms over much of it. The far-too-early national polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination show a two-person contest with Donald Trump and DeSantis (who has yet to announce his potential candidacy) in the lead, and the Haleys, Pences and Pompeos of the world fighting for scraps. During his 2018 governor’s race, DeSantis aired an obsequious ad in which he built a cardboard border wall and read Trump’s “Art of the Deal” with his children, one of whom wore a MAGA onesie. Now DeSantis no longer bows before Trump. Instead, he dances around the former president; he is respectful but no longer deferential, critical but mainly by implication.Yes, there is a DeSantis case against Trump scattered throughout these pages. You just need to squint through a magnifying glass to find it.In the 250-plus pages of “The Courage to Be Free,” for instance, there is not a single mention of the events of Jan. 6, 2021. DeSantis cites Madison, Hamilton and the nation’s founding principles, but he does not pause to consider a frontal assault on America’s democratic institutions encouraged by a sitting president. The governor does not go so far as to defend Trump’s lies about the 2020 election; he just ignores them.However, DeSantis does write that an energetic executive should lead “within the confines of a constitutional system,” and he criticizes unnamed elected officials for whom “perpetuating themselves in office supersedes fulfilling any policy mission.” Might DeSantis ever direct such criticisms at a certain former president so willing to subvert the Constitution to remain in power? Perhaps. For the moment, though, such indignation exists at a safe distance from any discussion of Trump himself.When DeSantis explains how he chose top officials for his administration in Florida, he offers an unstated yet unsubtle contrast to Trump’s leadership. “I placed loyalty to the cause over loyalty to me,” DeSantis writes. “I had no desire to be flattered — I just wanted people who worked hard and believed in what we were trying to accomplish.” Demands for personal fealty have assumed canonical status in Trump presidential lore (who can forget his “I need loyalty” dinner with the soon-to-be-fired F.B.I. director James Comey?), and it is hard to recall another recent leader whose susceptibility to flattery so easily overpowered any possibility of political or ideological coherence.Where he describes his personal dealings with the former president, DeSantis jabs at Trump even as he praises him. In a meeting with Trump after Hurricane Michael struck Florida in late 2018, DeSantis asked for increased federal aid, particularly for northwestern Florida, telling the president that the region was “Trump country.” In the governor’s account, Trump responded with Pavlovian enthusiasm: “I must have won 90 percent of the vote out there. Huge crowds. What do they need?” DeSantis recalls how, after the president agreed to reimburse a large portion of the state’s cleanup expenses, Mick Mulvaney, then the acting White House chief of staff, pulled the governor aside and urged him to wait before announcing the help, explaining that Trump “doesn’t even know what he agreed to in terms of a price tag.”Even as DeSantis appears to thank Trump for assistance to Florida, he is showcasing an easily manipulated president who does not grasp the basics of governing.DeSantis boasts of how Florida stood apart from other states’ lockdown policies and how Tallahassee dissented from the federal response. Though he criticizes Trump-era federal guidelines, particularly early in the crisis, he rarely blames the president directly. “By the time President Trump had to decide whether the shutdown guidance should be extended beyond the original 15 days, there were reasons to question the main model used by the task force to justify a shutdown,” DeSantis writes, in his most pointed — yet still quite polite — disapproval.Rather than question the former president’s actions on Covid, DeSantis goes after Anthony Fauci, “one of the most destructive bureaucrats in American history,” an official whose “intellectual bankruptcy and brazen partisanship” turned major U.S. cities into hollowed-out “Faucivilles.” Fauci is the supervillain of DeSantis’s book, the destroyer of jobs and freedoms, the architect of a “Faucian dystopia.” Trump, it seems, was not in charge during the early months of Covid, but Fauci wielded unstoppable and unaccountable power — until a courageous governor had finally had enough. “As the iron curtain of Faucism descended upon our continent,” DeSantis writes, “the State of Florida stood resolutely in the way.”In “The Courage to Be Free,” DeSantis displays only enough courage to reprimand Trump by proxy.In fact, DeSantis’s broadest attack against Trump is also his most oblique. In the governor’s various references to Trump, the former president emerges less as a political force in his own right than a symptom of pre-existing trends that Trump was lucky enough to harness. Trump’s nomination in 2016 flowed mainly from the failure of Republican elites to “effectively represent the values” of Republican voters, the governor writes. DeSantis even takes some credit for Trump’s ascent: The House Freedom Caucus, of which DeSantis was a member, “identified the shortcomings of the modern Republican establishment in a way that paved the way for an outsider presidential candidate who threatened the survival of the stale D.C. Republican Party orthodoxy.”Trump has argued, not without reason, that he enabled DeSantis’s election as governor with his endorsement in late 2017 — and now DeSantis is suggesting he helped clear the path for Trumpism. The governor even notes the “star power” that Trump brought to American politics, the kind of thing critics used to say when dismissing Barack Obama as a celebrity candidate.If Trump’s success was not unique to him, but flowed from larger cultural or economic forces that rendered him viable, presumably someone else could channel those same forces, perhaps more efficiently, if only Republican voters had the courage to be free of Trump. And who might that alternative be?DeSantis pitches himself as not only a culture warrior, but a competent culture warrior. The culture warrior who stood up for parents and stood against Disney (yes, the Magic Kingdom rates its own chapter here). The culture warrior with the real heartland vibe (DeSantis’s family’s roots in Ohio and Pennsylvania come up a lot). The culture warrior who is “God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving” in the face of enemies who are oppressive, unbelieving, unpatriotic. The culture warrior who takes “bold stands,” displays “courage under fire,” is willing to “lead with conviction,” “speak the truth” and “stand for what is right.”The Free State of Florida, as DeSantis likes to call it, is not just the national blueprint of his book’s subtitle. It is “a beachhead of sanity,” a “citadel of freedom in a world gone mad,” even “America’s West Berlin.” (I guess the rest of us still live behind the Iron Curtain of Faucism.) No wonder Trump, who now says he regrets endorsing DeSantis for governor, has begun denigrating his rival’s achievements in the state where they both live.The governor’s prose can be flat and clichéd: Throughout the book, cautions are thrown to winds, less-traveled roads are taken, hammers are dropped, new sheriffs show up in town, dust eventually settles and chips fall wherever they may. (When members of Congress attempt to “climb the ladder” of seniority, he writes, they “get neutered” by the time they reach the top. That is one painful metaphor — and ladder.) And DeSantis’s red meat tastes a bit over overcooked. “Clearly, our administration was substantively consequential,” DeSantis affirms in his epilogue. Still, DeSantis’s broad-based 2022 re-election victory suggests there the competent culture warrior may have an appeal that extends beyond the hard-core MAGA base, even if Make America Substantively Consequential Again doesn’t quite fit on a hat.At times, DeSantis’s culture-war armor slips, as with his awkward ambivalence about his Ivy League education. He experienced such “massive culture shock” when arriving at the “hyper-leftist” Yale, he writes, that after graduating he decided to go on to … Harvard Law School? “From a political perspective, Harvard was just as left-wing as Yale,” DeSantis complains. Yes, we know. DeSantis informs his readers that he graduated from law school with honors, even if “my heart was not into what I was being taught in class,” and he mentions (twice) that he could have made big bucks in the private sector with a Harvard Law degree but instead chose to serve in the Navy. “I am one of the very few people who went through both Yale and Harvard Law School and came out more conservative than when I went in,” he assured voters during his 2012 congressional campaign.DeSantis wants both the elite validation of his Ivy League credentials and the populist cred for trash-talking the schools. Pick one, governor. Even Trump just straight-up brags about Wharton.Of course, whether DeSantis’s culture-war instincts are authentic or shtick matters less than the fact that he is waging those wars; the institutions, individuals and ideologies he targets are real regardless of his motives. But the blueprint of his subtitle implies a more systematic worldview than is present in this book. DeSantis’s professed reliance on “common sense” and “core” national values is another way of saying he draws on his own impulses and interpretations. It’s a very Trumpian approach.When DeSantis highlights his state’s renewed emphasis on civics education and a high-school civics exam modeled on the U.S. naturalization test — an idea that this naturalized citizen finds intriguing — it is a particularistic vision informed by the governor’s own political preferences. When DeSantis goes after Disney’s governance or tax status over its opposition to a Florida law over what can and cannot be taught in elementary schools, he is not making a statement of principle about business and politics; he just opposes the stance Disney has taken. When he brings up Russia more than two dozen times in his book, it never concerns Vladimir Putin’s challenges to America or war against Ukraine; it is always about DeSantis’s disdain for the “Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory.” (DeSantis’s subsequent dismissal of the war as a mere “territorial dispute” is therefore little surprise.) When he accuses the news media of pushing “partisan narratives,” he is not striking a blow for objective, independent coverage; he just prefers narratives that fit his own.DeSantis asserts that he has a “positive vision,” beyond just defeating his enemies on the left. But in “The Courage to Be Free,” defeating his enemies is the only thing the governor seems positive about. That may be enough to compete for the Republican nomination, but it’s not a blueprint for America. It’s not a substantive vision, even if it may prove a consequential one.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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      Trump Says He Will Be Arrested on Tuesday as Indictment Looms

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      His indictment by a Manhattan grand jury is expected, but its timing is unclear.With former President Donald J. Trump facing indictment by a Manhattan grand jury but the timing of the charges uncertain, he declared on his social media site on Saturday that he would be arrested on Tuesday and demanded that his supporters protest on his behalf.Mr. Trump made the declaration on his site, Truth Social, at 7:26. a.m., in a post that ended with, “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”Two hours later, a spokesman issued a statement clarifying that Mr. Trump had not written his post with direct knowledge of the timing of any arrest.“President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system,” the statement said.The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.Although prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, have signaled that an indictment of Mr. Trump could be imminent, they have not told Mr. Trump’s lawyers when charges would be sought or when an arrest would be made, people with knowledge of the matter said. At least one more witness is expected to testify in front of the grand jury, which could slightly delay any indictment, the people said.And one of the people said that even if the grand jury were to vote to indict the former president on Monday, a Tuesday surrender was unlikely given the need to arrange timing, travel and other logistics.The statement from Mr. Trump’s spokesman did not explain how he landed on Tuesday as the arrest date, but one of the people with knowledge of the matter said that his advisers’ best guess was that it could happen around then, and that someone may have relayed that to the former president.Mr. Trump, who faced his first criminal investigation in the late 1970s, has been deeply anxious about the prospect of arrest, which is expected to include being fingerprinted, one of the people said. When the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, was arrested in 2021, Mr. Trump watched in horror as television news showed Mr. Weisselberg flanked by officers in the courthouse and said he couldn’t believe what was being done to him.Mr. Trump’s post urging his supporters to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” carried unmistakable echoes of the incendiary messages he posted online in the weeks before the attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the most notorious of those messages, he announced on Twitter that he would hold a rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. “Be there,” he told his millions of followers. “Will be wild.”At that rally, at the Ellipse near the White House, Mr. Trump told supporters to march to the Capitol, where the certification of the 2020 presidential election was taking place. He is under investigation by federal prosecutors for his activities in the lead-up to the attack.Investigators later determined that far-right extremist groups as well as ordinary Trump supporters had read that tweet — posted on Dec. 19, 2020 — as a clear-cut invitation and almost immediately sprung into action, acquiring protective gear, setting up encrypted communications channels and, in one case, preparing heavily armed “quick reaction forces” to be staged outside of Washington for the event.Leaders of groups like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenter militia movement also started to whip up their members with bellicose language as their private messaging channels were increasingly filled with plans to rush to Mr. Trump’s aid.On Friday evening, Mr. Trump’s campaign announced what could be his first rally after an indictment: an event in Waco, Texas, where deadly clashes between federal officials and extremists occurred 30 years ago around this time..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.New York officials have been discussing security arrangements in and around the Manhattan Criminal Court in case of an indictment of Mr. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the planning, which was first reported by NBC News. He is expected to be charged in connection with a hush money payment his former fixer and lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, made to an adult-film actress who claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump.Mr. Cohen made the $130,000 payment to the actress, Stormy Daniels, to bury her story of the affair.The payment came in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Mr. Trump subsequently reimbursed Mr. Cohen. Prosecutors are expected to accuse Mr. Trump of overseeing the false recording of the reimbursements in his company’s internal records. The records falsely stated that the payments to Mr. Cohen were for “legal expenses.”There have been several signals that charges may be imminent: The prosecutors gave Mr. Trump an opportunity to testify, a right afforded to people who will soon face indictment, and have questioned nearly every major player in the hush money saga in front of the grand jury.Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, as well as having had an affair with Ms. Daniels.Early on Saturday morning, there was little evidence that Mr. Trump’s new demand for protests had been embraced by extremist groups.But Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rallies following the 2020 election, reposted a message on his Telegram channel on Saturday suggesting that he supported a mass protest to protect Mr. Trump.“Previously, I had said if Trump was arrested or under the threat of a perp walk, 100,000 patriots should shut down all routes to Mar-a-Lago,” Mr. Alexander wrote. “Now I’m retired. I’ll pray for him though!”Without the platform provided by the White House or the machinery of a large political campaign, it is unclear how many people Mr. Trump is able to reach, let alone mobilize, via Truth Social.And it remained unclear if he would repeat his call for action or increase the stakes with more aggressive language. But his political allies made plain this week that they were preparing for a political war on Mr. Bragg.For months Mr. Trump has been attacking Mr. Bragg, who is Black, as “racist.” Mr. Bragg won a conviction for tax fraud against the Trump Organization last year, though he did not charge Mr. Trump personally.Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters responded of their own accord with violence after F.B.I. agents, acting on a search warrant, descended on Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, in August and carted away boxes of documents in an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified material.Days after the search, an armed Ohio man who had posted online about his outrage over what happened at Mar-a-Lago tried to breach the F.B.I.’s field office outside Cincinnati. He was later killed in a standoff with local officers.The unexpected Saturday morning salvo from the former president provided a preview of the kind of chaos that Mr. Bragg is likely to face if he moves forward with an indictment in the near future.Mr. Bragg, a former federal prosecutor and deputy New York attorney general, has some history of prosecuting public officials. But he is unaccustomed to dealing with a figure as high-profile, erratic and pugilistic as the former president, and it is unclear how his office will deal with future outbursts from Mr. Trump. More

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      For Trump and His Potential 2024 G.O.P. Rivals, It’s All About Iowa

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      As former Vice President Mike Pence visits the state on Saturday, Iowa has become pivotal for possible Republican presidential contenders, and for Donald Trump in particular.DES MOINES, Iowa — Donald Trump was in Iowa on Monday. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida made his first visit last week. Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina have each made recent trips. And on Saturday, former Vice President Mike Pence will be speaking.Even as Democrats have chosen to snub Iowa in 2024, the state has never loomed so large for Republicans in the presidential nominating race. For one Republican, it has taken on a do-or-die feel — the first real-world test of the strength or vulnerability of Mr. Trump.No former president has sought to regain the White House in modern times. A loss or even a less-than-convincing win for Mr. Trump in the state’s caucuses, the kickoff contest for Republicans early next year, would signal a near-fatal weakness for his campaign, according to G.O.P. strategists in and out of the state. For that reason, both his challengers and Mr. Trump himself are paying extra attention to Iowa.“I don’t see a formula where Trump loses Iowa and it doesn’t really wound him and his chances as a candidate,” said Terry Sullivan, who managed Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.Even though Mr. Trump easily carried Iowa in the general elections of 2016 and 2020, Republican activists in the state said a 2024 caucus victory was not assured for him, although he remains the front-runner.Last week, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll found that Mr. Trump’s appeal was eroding: If he is the nominee in 2024, only 47 percent of Iowa Republicans would definitely support him in the general election. That was a double-digit decline from the 69 percent who in 2021 said that they would definitely support him.“For the former president, winning the Iowa caucuses is everything,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential leader of the state’s evangelical voters. “If he loses, it’s ‘game on’ to the nomination” for everyone else, he said. “If he wins the Iowa caucuses, there’s nobody stopping him.”Supporters gathered around Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for photos during an event in Des Moines promoting Mr. DeSantis’s new book.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIowa residents participated in a group prayer when Mr. DeSantis visited Des Moines.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAfter Democrats decided that Iowa’s nearly all-white, largely rural population was not representative and substituted South Carolina as the kickoff state for their 2024 primaries, Republicans are embracing the state’s traditional role as a proving ground.The Trump campaign has hired experienced state leaders and plans to build an Iowa caucus infrastructure that signals its wish for a do-over of 2016, when Mr. Trump was shocked to finish second in the caucuses.Back then, the politically inexperienced reality TV star had believed that big crowds at his rallies would easily translate into a surge of caucusgoers. Instead, he lost to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Mr. Trump was so angry that he flew out of Iowa without thanking his local staff, baselessly tweeting later that Mr. Cruz had won because of “fraud” — a preview of his approach after losing re-election in 2020.Trump advisers said they did not intend to repeat the mistakes of 2016. “We have a serious political operation in the state of Iowa, run by and coordinated with extraordinarily competent professionals who know what they’re doing,” said Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. “We’re doing that because, one, we’re serious, and two, we’re in it to win it.”Mr. Trump has hired as his state director Marshall Moreau, who managed the upset victory last year of Iowa’s Republican attorney general. He also hired as his director of early voting states Alex Latchman, a former political director of the Iowa Republican Party. Mr. Latchman witnessed close-up the bumbling Trump effort in 2016.“We have the benefit of learning from that lesson,” Mr. Latchman said.In contrast to a primary election, a caucus is a low-turnout gathering that requires voters to brave a usually cold winter’s night for hours of speeches and voting at their local precincts.In 2016, Mr. Trump’s Iowa staff members — including a former “Apprentice” contestant — signed up volunteer organizers but failed to teach them how to reach caucusgoers or even to provide literature to leave at their doors. The Trump headquarters in suburban Des Moines was dark many nights when rivals had scores of volunteers working the phones.Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, greeted supporters after holding a rally last month in Urbandale, Iowa.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTrump advisers said things would run differently this time. They pointed to Mr. Trump’s first visit to Iowa on Monday as a 2024 candidate. The campaign said it was following up on the names and emails of thousands of people who registered to attend and filled the packed hall, seating 2,400, in Davenport, Iowa..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.“The real work of the campaign starts when the president is wheels up,” Mr. Latchman said. “We’re going to continue to engage these people constantly every single day up until February.”Mr. Trump has also bowed to campaign traditions he once eschewed. At his Davenport appearance, he took unscripted questions from the audience for 20 minutes. Before the rally, he made an unannounced visit to a Machine Shed restaurant, a popular Iowa chain.One of Mr. Trump’s rivals, Ms. Haley, a former United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration, has twice visited Iowa since entering the race last month, and on both visits she engaged voters at length, leaning into the one-on-one campaign style that helped her win elections as South Carolina governor.Drop-ins at restaurants are a not-so-subtle way in which Mr. Trump’s 2024 advisers mean to draw a contrast with his likely chief rival, Mr. DeSantis, who is combating a reputation for woodenness.“In the past, the big rallies worked,” said Mr. LaCivita, the senior Trump adviser. “It’s a different campaign most definitely than it was in 2016. It’s a different time. We’re going to do a mix of retail politics and large-scale rallies.”One national Republican strategist, Kyle Plotkin, had a contrarian view of the importance of Iowa to Mr. Trump, noting that even if he lost there, his die-hard supporters — about 30 percent of Republicans in national polls — would be enough for him to prevail in a field of challengers who split the opposition votes.Iowa G.O.P. activists said that Mr. Trump maintained a fervent base of supporters but that many Republicans were open to an alternative, especially one they saw as more electable.Mr. Trump made his first visit to Iowa on Monday as a 2024 candidate and held an event for supporters in Davenport.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesMark Kearon, 42, wore a hat with pins from every Trump campaign event he had attended as he stood outside the Davenport theater where Mr. Trump was speaking.Desiree Rios/The New York Times“I think Trump’s favored, but I wouldn’t say it’s in the bag,” said Steve Scheffler, one of Iowa’s two Republican National Committee members.Gloria Mazza, the Republican chair in Polk County, the largest county in the state, said of the G.O.P. base: “Are they looking for somebody else? They might be.”And Mr. Vander Plaats, the leader of evangelical voters, who make up a large Republican bloc in Iowa, said many were wide open to an alternative to Mr. Trump. “My fear, along with a lot of other people’s fears, is we’re concerned about how America has largely made up its mind about Donald Trump,” he said. “I think it’s time to get behind the next leader who can win in 2024.”Mr. Vander Plaats said evangelicals had not forgotten that Mr. Trump blamed the broad Republican losses in the 2022 midterms on candidates’ putting too much focus on the “abortion issue.”“It showed a character thing with Trump that he cast the blame on the pro-life movement,” Mr. Vander Plaats said. “If you’re trying to win the Iowa caucuses, I would not put that base under the bus.”Should Mr. Pence enter the race, as widely expected, the Trump campaign could have a problem cutting into the former vice president’s appeal among evangelical voters. And Mr. Pence may adopt a strategy of camping out in Iowa — spending most of his time in the state to make a strong caucus showing.“Mike Pence could do very well in Iowa,” said Rick Tyler, a top aide to Mr. Cruz in 2016. “I don’t think Trump has a shot in Iowa this time because he’s so offended the evangelical base.”Maggie Haberman More

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      YouTube Restores Donald Trump’s Account Privileges

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      The Google-owned video platform became the latest of the big social networks to reverse the former president’s account restrictions.YouTube suspended former President Donald J. Trump’s account on the platform six days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The video platform said it was concerned that Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election could lead to more real-world violence.YouTube, which is owned by Google, reversed that decision on Friday, permitting Mr. Trump to once again upload videos to the popular site. The move came after similar decisions by Twitter and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.“We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, while balancing the chance for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run up to an election,” YouTube said on Twitter on Friday. Mr. Trump’s account will have to comply with the site’s content rules like any other account, YouTube added.After false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen circulated online and helped stoke the Jan. 6 attack, social media giants suspended Mr. Trump’s account privileges. Two years later, the platforms have started to soften their content rules. Under Elon Musk’s ownership, Twitter has unwound many of its content moderation efforts. YouTube recently laid off members of its trust and safety team, leaving one person in charge of setting political misinformation policies.Mr. Trump announced in November that he was seeking a second term as president, setting off deliberations at social media companies over whether to allow him back on their platforms. Days later, Mr. Musk polled Twitter users on whether he should reinstate Mr. Trump, and 52 percent of respondents said yes. Like YouTube, Meta said in January that it was important that people hear what political candidates are saying ahead of an election.The former president’s reinstatement is one of the first significant content decisions that YouTube has taken under its new chief executive, Neal Mohan, who got the top job last month. YouTube also recently loosened its profanity rules so that creators who used swear words at the start of a video could still make money from the content.YouTube’s announcement on Friday echoes a pattern of the company and its parent Google making polarizing content decisions after a competitor has already taken the same action. YouTube followed Meta and Twitter in suspending Mr. Trump after the Capitol attack, and in reversing the bans.Since losing his bid for re-election in 2020, Mr. Trump has sought to make a success of his own social media service, Truth Social, which is known for its loose content moderation rules.Mr. Trump on Friday posted on his Facebook page for the first time since his reinstatement. “I’M BACK!” Mr. Trump wrote, alongside a video in which he said, “Sorry to keep you waiting. Complicated business. Complicated.”Despite his Twitter reinstatement, Mr. Trump has not returned to posting from that account.In his last tweet, dated Jan. 8, 2021, he said he would not attend the coming inauguration, held at the Capitol. More

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      DeSantis, on Defense, Shows Signs of Slipping in Polls

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      For now, the Florida governor isn’t firing back at Trump.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida with Donald J. Trump in 2019. He has not attacked Mr. Trump, who has not hesitated to attack him. Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated PressIt’s been a tough few months for Ron DeSantis.Donald J. Trump and his allies have blasted him as “Meatball Ron,” “Ron DeSanctimonious,” a “groomer,” disloyal and a supporter of cutting entitlement programs. Now, he’s getting criticism from many mainstream conservatives for calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute.”Is all of this making a difference in the polls? There are signs the answer is yes.In surveys taken since the Trump offensive began two months ago, Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, has steadily lost ground against Mr. Trump, whose own numbers have increased.It can be hard to track who’s up and who’s down in the Republican race, since different pollsters have had such wildly divergent takes on Mr. Trump’s strength. In just the last few days, a CNN/SSRS poll showed a tight race, with Mr. DeSantis at 39 percent and Mr. Trump at 37 percent among registered voters, while a Morning Consult poll found Mr. Trump with nearly a two-to-one lead, 52 percent to 28 percent.In this situation, the best way to get a clear read on recent trends is to compare surveys by the same pollsters over time.Over the last two months, we’ve gotten about a dozen polls from pollsters who had surveyed the Republican race over the previous two months. These polls aren’t necessarily of high quality or representative, so don’t focus on the average across these polls. It’s the trend that’s important, and the trend is unequivocal: Every single one of these polls has shown Mr. DeSantis faring worse than before, and Mr. Trump faring better.A Widening Gap Between Trump and DeSantisEvery recent poll has shown Mr. DeSantis faring worse than he did two months ago — around the time Mr. Trump began publicly attacking him. More