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      Trump Asks Judge to Block Pence’s Testimony to Grand Jury

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      The former president’s lawyers cited executive privilege, a tactic they have used with other ex-Trump aides.Former President Donald J. Trump has filed a motion asking a federal judge to prevent his former vice president, Mike Pence, from testifying to a grand jury about specific issues that Mr. Trump is claiming are protected by executive privilege, a person briefed on the matter said.The filing is unsurprising — Mr. Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly sought to assert executive privilege over former aides as a means of blocking testimony — but it underscores how much the Justice Department’s attempts to get Mr. Pence to testify in the investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power may be drawn out.The sealed filing was made on Friday, according to the person briefed on the matter. Its existence was reported earlier by CNN. A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Pence was recently subpoenaed for grand jury testimony after negotiations between his team and the Justice Department over his appearance came to an impasse, people briefed on the matter said. Mr. Pence is a key potential witness in the investigation, as the person Mr. Trump pressured repeatedly to thwart the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory by Congress.Mr. Trump took his pressure campaign public several times, including on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the congressional session, which Mr. Pence had a ceremonial role in overseeing. At a rally near the White House before it began, Mr. Trump publicly pressured Mr. Pence and then directed his supporters to go to the Capitol in protest.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.The pro-Trump mob ultimately overran the Capitol building, with some chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!”The New York Times reported earlier that the Justice Department had filed what amounted to a pre-emptive move to say executive privilege did not apply, seeking to compel Mr. Pence’s testimony in the matter. Before that motion was filed, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had sent a letter to prosecutors saying they were not going to waive executive privilege with regard to Mr. Pence’s testimony.Mr. Pence has said he will try to fight the subpoena, but has indicated it will be under the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution, which applies to legislators. His argument is under the auspices of his role as president of the Senate..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 investigation is being led by a special counsel, Jack Smith, whose aggressive moves to advance the case have contrasted with the Justice Department’s handling of the Jan. 6-related investigation previously.But it is unclear how quickly it will be settled. The matter could take months, at a time when Mr. Trump is a presidential candidate for the Republican nomination and Mr. Pence is considering a campaign of his own.Mr. Trump’s lawyers also sought to block testimony by two of Mr. Pence’s top aides: his former chief counsel Greg Jacob and his former chief of staff Marc Short. The privilege disputes have been dealt with by the chief federal judge in Washington, Judge Beryl A. Howell, who is stepping down this month and will be replaced by a new chief judge.In the cases of Mr. Jacob and Mr. Short, she ruled that they had to testify on issues that Mr. Trump had sought to shield through executive privilege, people briefed on the matter said at the time.Grand jury subpoenas in the Jan. 6 case were also recently issued to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. It remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will seek to assert executive privilege there. More

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      A Battle Over Murals Depicting Slavery

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      More from our inbox:Corporal Punishment in SchoolsWhat We Don’t Know About Ron DeSantisHelp for CaregiversCalifornia and the Colorado RiverGuns and CrimeThe murals in the Chase Community Center have been covered at Vermont Law and Graduate School in South Royalton, Vt.Richard Beaven for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Artist and School Spar Over Murals of Slavery” (front page, Feb. 22):The decision to cover these murals is totally outrageous. One doesn’t learn from the past by covering it over. You learn by studying, and that is what an educational institution should provide. You don’t erase, or cover over, the past because it is unpleasant or disturbing.Of course it is, and continues to be, disturbing, but when you literally come face to face with it as these murals make possible, you then must consider what that discomfort means in terms of both our history as a nation and our laws and actions today.The school should take down the panels, expose the murals and their history once again and provide context and the opportunity for discussion.Elaine Hirschl EllisNew YorkThe writer is the president of Arts and Crafts Tours, which hosts trips about 19th- and 20th-century art and architecture.To the Editor:The quote from a law student who was distressed by a visual depiction of slavery by a white artist — “The artist was depicting history, but it’s not his history to depict” — is most disturbing. The argument is not whether the artistic merits of the mural should be considered? Or that the mood of the piece may be too harsh for a student center?Those who think censoring painters or other artists by limiting their creative themes according to their race or ethnic identity are closed-minded, and will erode free artistic expression.Steve CohenNew YorkTo the Editor:The diverse reactions to the murals in the article can be attributed to a debate over the periods that influenced the artist’s painting style.The intent of the school and the artist to represent the state’s role in helping slaves escape via the Underground Railroad was admirable. Yet the figurative style still harkens back to the comedically formulaic and stereotypical blackened ones of minstrels’ stage entertainment prevalent in the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries.The spirit of mockery seen in the most famous minstrel, Jim Crow, persists today in the form of white supremacy, voter restriction and inequity. That style’s history would not be lost on many viewers.A discussion hosted by the school’s National Center for Restorative Justice about this issue could be a powerful learning tool for us all.Theresa McNicholCranbury, N.J.The writer is an art historian.Corporal Punishment in SchoolsCharles Lavine, the chairman of the New York State Assembly Judiciary Committee, is among the lawmakers who have filed bills to bar corporal punishment in private schools.Mark Lennihan/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Bills Push Corporal Punishment Ban in New York Private Schools” (news article, March 3):I was shocked to read that physical violence against children is still tolerated in some New York schools. I suffered the occasional whack from the nuns in parochial school, usually for “having a fresh mouth,” but that was many years ago. I thought that anachronistic practice had long since ended.I support the effort of Assemblyman Charles Lavine and his colleagues to protect students and bring all of our schools into line with the progressive values of a modern society.John E. StaffordRye, N.Y.What We Don’t Know About Ron DeSantis Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “My Fellow Liberals Are Exaggerating the Dangers of Ron DeSantis,” by Damon Linker (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Feb. 27):Mr. Linker misses the point of voters’ anxiety about Florida’s governor. The fear stems not from what we know about Ron DeSantis, but what we do not. We know that he shares Donald Trump’s penchant for bullying, bigotry, trolling and media manipulation.What we do not know is whether Mr. DeSantis shares Mr. Trump’s contempt for the presidential oath of office. Will Mr. DeSantis use the bully pulpit to undermine faith in our elections, as Mr. Trump did? Will he try to overturn the results of a free and fair election, as Mr. Trump did? We cannot know, because Mr. DeSantis refuses to enlighten us.Until he speaks forthrightly to these questions, voters (not just “liberals”) have a right to view Mr. DeSantis as more dangerous than Donald Trump.Indeed, all Republican candidates should be expected to repudiate Mr. Trump’s malfeasance. Trust has been violated, and must be restored if we are to move forward together again as one nation.Andrew MeyerMiddletown, N.J.Help for CaregiversPresident Biden at an Intel facility under construction in New Albany, Ohio, in September. Pete Marovich for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Funds to Bolster U.S. Chip-Making Come With Catch” (front page, Feb. 28):The Biden administration’s efforts to leverage its investments in semiconductor infrastructure to expand child care are laudable and much needed, but the policy falls short of supporting millions of Americans caring for aging or disabled loved ones who also need support to stay and succeed in the work force.The 32 million working caregivers at this end of the spectrum continue to be left out of administrative and federal action to support working families. For example, working caregivers of older adults, people with disabilities and people living with serious medical conditions were excluded from the expansion of paid leave for federal workers and from the emergency paid leave provisions of Covid response legislation. As a result, these caregivers are more likely to report negative impacts at work because of caregiving responsibilities.Using administrative authority to help caregivers balance care and work is urgently needed given stalled efforts in Congress to pass policies like paid family and medical leave, affordable child care, and strengthened aging and disability care. But without a comprehensive approach, millions of family caregivers will continue to be left behind.Jason ResendezWashingtonThe writer is the president and C.E.O. of the National Alliance for Caregiving.California and the Colorado RiverA broken boat, which used to be underwater in Lake Mead now sits above the lake’s water line because of a decades-long megadrought, outside Boulder City, Nev., Feb. 2.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “California Wants to Keep (Most of) the Colorado River for Itself,” by John Fleck (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Feb. 23):The essay does not acknowledge that only California has voluntarily offered to significantly cut its use of Colorado River water in the near term under a proposal that also ensures that cities in Arizona, Nevada and across the Southwest have the water they need for their residents.California’s proposal strikes a balance between respecting longstanding law and recognizing that every city and farm that relies on the river must reduce its water use — precisely the sense of fairness and shared sacrifice that Mr. Fleck lauds.The six-state proposal took the presumptuous approach of assigning the vast majority of cuts to water users that didn’t sign on: California, Native American tribes and Mexico. Ignoring existing laws will likely land us in court, costing time we don’t have.We have to work together to keep the Colorado River system from crashing and protect all those who rely on it. We can do this through developing true consensus through collaboration — not by bashing one state or community.J.B. HambyEl Centro, Calif.The writer is chairman of the Colorado River Board of California and the state’s Colorado River commissioner.Guns and CrimeTo the Editor:Re “Chicago Reflects Democratic Split on Public Safety” (front page, March 2):As Republicans look to exploit crime — gun violence in particular — as a campaign issue, Democrats would do well to point out the G.O.P.’s unwillingness to prevent illegal guns from spilling across state borders early and often.Bruce EllersteinNew York More

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      Kellyanne Conway Meets With Prosecutors as Trump Inquiry Escalates

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      The Manhattan district attorney’s office is scrutinizing the former president’s role in the hush money payment to a porn star.Kellyanne Conway, who managed the final months of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign, met with prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Wednesday, the latest sign that the office is ramping up its criminal investigation into the former president.The prosecutors are scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s role in a hush money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who has said she had an affair with him. The $130,000 payment was made by Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, in the closing days of the 2016 campaign, and Mr. Trump ultimately reimbursed him.Mr. Cohen has said that Ms. Conway played a small yet notable role in the payment: she was the person Mr. Cohen alerted after making the payment, he wrote in his 2020 memoir.“I called Trump to confirm that the transaction was completed, and the documentation all in place, but he didn’t take my call — obviously a very bad sign, in hindsight,” he wrote. Instead, he wrote, Ms. Conway “called and said she’d pass along the good news.”Ms. Conway, who was seen walking into the district attorney’s office shortly before 2 p.m. on Wednesday, is the latest in a string of witnesses to meet with prosecutors in the last month or so. Since the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, impaneled a grand jury in January to hear evidence about Mr. Trump’s role in paying the hush money, at least five witnesses have testified: Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, employees of Mr. Trump’s company; David Pecker and Dylan Howard, two former leaders of The National Enquirer, which helped arrange the hush money deal; and Keith Davidson, a former lawyer for Ms. Daniels.The decision to question those central players in the hush money saga before the grand jury suggests that Mr. Bragg is nearing a decision on whether to seek an indictment of the former president.A spokeswoman for the office and a lawyer for Ms. Conway declined to comment. It is unclear whether Ms. Conway appeared before the grand jury or was only interviewed by prosecutors.Still, the investigation is not complete. Mr. Cohen has met with the prosecutors for several hours of questioning, though he has yet to testify in front of the grand jury. Ms. Daniels herself has yet to be interviewed, and Ms. Conway might not be the last 2016 campaign official to face questioning.It is one of three potential criminal cases looming over Mr. Trump, even as he remains a front-runner in the 2024 presidential campaign. In addition to Mr. Bragg’s inquiry, Mr. Trump could face charges from a local prosecutor in Georgia investigating whether he interfered in the 2020 election. And at the federal level, a special counsel is scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election — including whether he committed any crimes in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — as well as his handling of classified documents.Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and accused the investigators of carrying out a politically motivated witch hunt. He has also denied having an affair with Ms. Daniels.In Manhattan, any case would likely center on whether Mr. Trump was involved with the falsification of business records related to the payment to Ms. Daniels. When Mr. Trump repaid Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 payout to Ms. Daniels, the Trump Organization falsely recorded the reimbursements as legal expenses.It can be a crime in New York to falsify business records. But to make it a felony, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors would have to show that Mr. Trump was involved in the falsification of the records to help commit or conceal a second crime — in this case, likely a violation of New York State election law, a legal theory that has not been tested.The case would rely on testimony from Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges over the payments in 2018. Mr. Cohen is expected to meet with prosecutors again in the coming days.If Mr. Trump were ultimately convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of four years, though prison time would not be mandatory and a conviction is hardly assured. Mr. Trump’s lawyers would likely seek to undermine Mr. Cohen’s testimony, arguing that he is a convicted criminal and admitted liar who has an ax to grind against Mr. Trump.Ms. Conway remained one of Mr. Trump’s top aides when he ascended to the White House, staying on until the summer of 2020. She still speaks with Mr. Trump and is close to his wife, Melania. But Ms. Conway has been equivocal about his chances at regaining the White House.In January, she considered his prospects in an Op-Ed, writing that the case against his candidacy rested in part on concerns that he “cannot outrun the mountain of legal woes.”Kate Christobek More

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      This Is Trump’s ‘Magic Trick’

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      In his effort to outflank Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida — his most potent challenger-in-waiting for the Republican presidential nomination — Donald Trump goes only in one direction: hard right.At the start of this year, Trump announced his education agenda, declaring that he would issue mandates to “keep men out of women’s sports,” end teacher tenure and cut federal aid to any school system that teaches “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children.”“As the saying goes,” Trump declared, “personnel is policy and at the end of the day if we have pink-haired communists teaching our kids we have a major problem.”Later in January, Trump revealed his “Plan to Protect Children from Left-Wing Gender Insanity,” in which he promised to bring a halt to “gender-affirming care,” to punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors and to pass legislation declaring that “the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female and they are assigned at birth.”“No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender,” Trump declared. “Under my leadership, this madness will end.”At one level, these pronouncements reflect Trump’s determination to prevent DeSantis from outflanking him. On a larger scale, they reveal a predicament facing not only the former president as he seeks renomination in 2024, but the conservative movement in general, including white evangelicals, the Republican Party and Fox News.Trump’s strategy requires him to continue his equivocation on white supremacism and his antisemitic supporters and to adopt increasingly extreme positions, including the “termination” of the Constitution in order to retroactively award him victory in the 2020 election. The more he attempts to enrage and invigorate his MAGA base in the Republican primaries, the more he forces his fellow partisans and conservatives to follow suit, threatening Republican prospects in the coming general election, as demonstrated by the poor showing of Trump clones in the 2022 midterm contests.Questions about the pandemicCard 1 of 4When will the pandemic end? More

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      Reader Mailbag: Bots and Other Business

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      Answering questions on topics including polling, independent voters and Black turnout.Voters in College Park, Md., in November. There are still some things to review about the midterm elections. T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesWe’ve gotten a lot of great questions and feedback over the last few months, and I think we’re inclined to make a mailbag a regular feature, especially during the off-season. If you have a question, send it to dear.upshot@nytimes.com.Bots in pollingLet’s start with a question on an issue that I’d already been mulling:Mr. Cohn, you mentioned “bots” in passing as a potential issue for nonprobability polls. Which makes me wonder, how easy/hard would it be for a malign outside actor to interfere in the polling and make Donald Trump’s chances look better than they are? Because if that would be possible, I’d say countries with an interest in a divided U.S. (Russia and China come to mind) would certainly be tempted to pull that off. — Moritz, ViennaThis is a serious question. A Pew Research study a few years ago used a few simple techniques to find that 4 percent to 7 percent of respondents to nonprobability surveys were “bogus,” to use their term. These “bogus” respondents took the survey multiple times, took the poll too quickly, stated that they lived outside the United States, or offered nonsensical answers in open-ended questioning.Anecdotally, I’ve heard more complaints about these kinds of issues from pollsters. I routinely hear about pollsters who toss as many as half of their respondents for data quality issues. It is reasonable to assume that the better-known pollsters take these challenges seriously, but we don’t know much about their practices, let alone whether they work.Could this be part of Donald J. Trump’s strength in online panel polls? It’s hard to prove, but one emerging pattern has caught my attention: Mr. Trump has fared quite poorly in two online nonprobability polls linked to voter registration files, which require the panelist to provide personal information that matches a real registered voter.Or put differently: Mr. Trump has done quite poorly in the nonprobability polls where there’s an extra layer of confidence that the respondents are human. It’s the pattern we would expect if bogus respondents were a factor.Still, I wouldn’t get too excited about this emerging pattern if you’re a Ron DeSantis fan. It’s just two polls, after all. And Mr. Trump’s poll numbers have gone up over the last few weeks, including in telephone polling. So perhaps these voter-file-matched polls are really the outliers. As we’ve written before, voter-file-matched polls like these can be biased in other ways.I’ve asked a few smart and well-positioned pollsters to look into the “bogus” respondent question in their own data. If you’re a similarly well-positioned pollster interested in digging in, you know where to find me.The tilt of independent voters in the midtermsWe’ve written that Republicans enjoyed a pretty meaningful turnout advantage in the midterm elections, but a few of you thought we overlooked one important group in this analysis: independents.It’s always the independents who determine who wins. How did they vote?— Ed from Calhoun, Ga.Article does not mention the impact of the growing number of independent voters who choose not to vote in the primaries but decide final elections.— Julio Stieffel, MiamiDemocrats did quite well among independent voters, and that’s partly why the party held up despite a Republican turnout advantage.Nationwide, self-identified independent voters backed Democrats by two percentage points, according to the network exit polls. It doesn’t sound so impressive, but it is by the standards of recent midterms, when the president’s party has tended to lose independent voters by double digits.And in the high-profile statewide contests — think Senate races in Pennsylvania and Arizona — the Democratic candidates fared even better among independent voters than that, allowing Democrats to win marquee races by unusually wide margins.Black turnout before ObamaOn a related midterm note, we observed that the Black share of the electorate was the lowest it has been since Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008. That left an important question unaddressed:I am interested if the Black voter turnout, which has dropped, is higher or lower than historical norms before the 2008/2012 increase in turnout due to Obama. Thank you. — Lisa Pate, Birmingham, Ala.It depends a bit on how you measure it.By the simplest measure — the proportion of Black adult citizens who vote — Black turnout actually remains slightly higher than it was before Mr. Obama’s historic campaign in 2008.The catch, however, is that turnout is higher across the board than it was before 2008. As a result, the racial gap in turnout in 2020 — that is, the difference between the share of eligible Black voters who turn out, compared with the share of eligible white voters who do — returned almost exactly to what it looked like in the 2004 presidential election. Based on what we’ve seen so far, the racial turnout gap in 2022 will probably look like 2006 or 2002.There’s one last twist to consider: the Black share of the electorate. Oddly enough, the Black share of the electorate has usually remained above pre-Obama levels, even though the gap between white and Black turnout is basically the same as it was back then. That’s because white voters, who turn out at higher rates than Black voters, have dipped as a share of eligible voters, while Hispanic and Asian voters, who turn out at lower rates than Black voters, have increased their share of eligible voters.Put it all together and the Black share of the electorate in 2020 was about halfway between where it was in 2004 and 2012.Alternatives to BidenWe haven’t done much to touch on the possibility of a Democratic primary, but that hasn’t stopped many of you from asking about it:Here is a question my friends and I keep wondering: Is there are any Democrat who could stand a chance if Mr. Biden decided not to run? Thanks much!— The Rev. Lorenzo LebrijaWhoever wins the Democratic nomination will at least stand a chance, and probably more than a chance if Mr. Trump is the nominee. Whether there’s a Democrat who would do as well as or better than President Biden is a slightly different question, and it’s really quite hard to say. I hope you don’t ask me that next time!Mrs. Clinton?Believe it or not, the most frequent question we received was about this sentence I wrote:“After all, most modern presidential nominees — Joe Biden, Mrs. Clinton, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Al Gore, to name eight recent ones — were not exactly superstar political talents distinguished by soaring oratory, made-for-television charisma, clap-backs on social media or dominant debate performances.”Here’s one (nice) version of the question it raised:“Can you please explain why you thought it was appropriate to list each male you were referring to with their full name (first and last) and list Hillary Clinton as Mrs. Clinton?” — Maura FitzgeraldThe answer is actually quite mundane. The Times uses people’s full names when they’re mentioned for the first time, but they typically receive courtesy titles, like Mr. and Ms., when mentioned again. In this case, Hillary Clinton had already been mentioned, but the male presidential candidates were being mentioned for the first time. Consequently, Mrs. Clinton, who prefers Mrs. to Ms., received her courtesy title while the male candidates got their full names.I see how it ended up looking a little weird in this case, so we adjusted the sentence after publication. More

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      Fox Leaders Wanted to Break From Trump but Struggled to Make It Happen

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      Executives and top hosts found themselves in a bind after Donald Trump began pushing unfounded claims about election fraud, court filings show.Five days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol, a board member of the Fox Corporation, Anne Dias, reached out to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch with an urgent plea.“Considering how important Fox News has been as a megaphone for Donald Trump,” she said, it was time “to take a stance.” Ms. Dias, who sounded shaken by the riot, said she thought Fox News and the nation faced “an existential moment.”As quickly as the two Murdochs began discussing how to respond, their bind became evident.“Just tell her we have been talking internally and intensely,” Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls the company, wrote in an email. Fox News, he told his son, “is pivoting as fast as possible.” But he sounded a note of caution: “We have to lead our viewers, which is not as easy as it might seem.”Ever since Donald J. Trump announced his presidential campaign in 2015, Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News Channel have struggled with how to handle the man and the movement they helped create.“Navigating” the delicate balance between truth and “crazy” was how Mr. Murdoch described his challenge in emails made public this week as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which is expected to go to trial in April.For the most part, Mr. Murdoch has been wildly successful at striking the balance. Fox converted Mr. Trump’s mass following into loyal viewers who deliver Mr. Murdoch and his shareholders huge profits.A 2018 headline about President Donald J. Trump that was displayed outside Fox News studios in New York.Mark Lennihan/Associated PressBut the emails among the Murdochs and the senior leadership of their companies, along with depositions of both men as part of the case, revealed just how Fox and its leaders strained to push back against Mr. Trump when he began spreading unfounded claims about widespread election fraud.The leadership of Fox and its star hosts are often viewed from the outside as power brokers in Republican politics — with much justification. But in the wake of the election, they appeared fearful of alienating Mr. Trump’s supporters, almost to the point of powerlessness, court filings containing internal communications and depositions show.Privately, the executives and hosts expressed despair and disgust at the Trump associates who were using Fox News’s platforms to spread bogus allegations of voter fraud. Yet the wishes of the audience — or how the network’s executives interpreted them — dictated which guests were booked, what kind of new programming was created, what correspondents could say on the air and even which people lost their jobs, according to the details in a 212-page brief that Dominion filed in a Delaware state court this week.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.Fox News has expressed confidence that Dominion’s claims will fall apart once their full context becomes apparent at the trial. “Dominion blatantly misconstrued the facts by cherry-picking sound bites, omitting key context and mischaracterizing the record,” a Fox News spokeswoman said.As it became evident that some of Fox’s audience was turning against it after it projected President Biden’s victory, and viewers started switching to hard-right alternatives like Newsmax, people inside the network scrambled to stanch the bleeding.Even as executives raised concerns about Mr. Trump to one another, they came down hard on those seen as too tough on him.Eleven days after the election, for instance, Lachlan Murdoch became irritated watching the Fox News correspondent Leland Vittert’s reporting on a pro-Trump rally in Washington, considering it too critical. Mr. Murdoch called Mr. Vittert’s coverage “smug and obnoxious” in a message to Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media. Ms. Scott responded that she was “calling now,” to direct someone to relay the message to the correspondent and his producer.As word of Mr. Murdoch’s complaint made its way down the food chain, the executive in charge of Fox’s weekend programming, David Clark, also weighed in, telling a colleague in an email that he had texted Mr. Vittert “and told him to cut it out.”To Lachlan Murdoch, there seemed to be no detail too small to complain about if he believed it was hurting the bond that Fox News had forged with its audience over the years. He also complained to Ms. Scott at one point about what he saw as the negative tone toward Mr. Trump in the chyron — the block of text that appears at the bottom of the screen. It was too wordy, he said, and too negative about the president.Lachlan Murdoch complained that a Fox News reporter’s coverage of a pro-Trump rally was “smug and obnoxious.”Mike Cohen for The New York TimesRupert Murdoch offered Ms. Scott suggestions on booking guests who were known to Trump supporters as loyal defenders. One person he proposed in late November 2020 was the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, who had pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with a Russian ambassador. A week after Mr. Murdoch sent his note, Dominion’s filing says, Mr. Flynn appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business program.The elder Mr. Murdoch also told Ms. Scott to get rid of a senior Fox News manager, Bill Sammon, telling her that it would go a long way with the former president’s core supporters. “Maybe best to let Bill go right away,” he told Ms. Scott on Nov. 20. Mr. Sammon ran the network’s Washington bureau and oversaw the unit that was responsible for Fox’s early — and correct — decision to project that Mr. Biden would win Arizona. That call had infuriated Mr. Trump and his supporters.Mr. Murdoch explained to Ms. Scott that the firing would “be a big message with Trump people.” According to the Dominion brief, Mr. Sammon was told that he was being let go that same day.As Fox executives stamped out skepticism of Mr. Trump in the network’s coverage, they also grew disillusioned with the increasing amount of “crazy” on their airwaves, as Rupert Murdoch described the Trump legal adviser Sidney Powell in an email to a friend, according to the legal filings. By early December 2020, as Mr. Trump’s claims of being cheated grew more far-fetched, Mr. Murdoch acknowledged how difficult it had become to continue delivering coverage that didn’t insult loyal, pro-Trump viewers without stating the obvious: The president was lying to them about his loss.In one message to Ms. Scott, Mr. Murdoch lamented Mr. Trump’s performance at a rally in Georgia where he called for Gov. Brian Kemp to help overturn the election, as well as other recent comments from the president. “All making it harder to straddle the issue! We should talk through this,” he wrote.After Jan. 6, 2021, as hopes among many conservatives skeptical of Mr. Trump swelled that the Republican Party might finally be done with him, some of his biggest stalwarts inside Fox News seemed to be backing away from him — even the host Sean Hannity, one of Mr. Trump’s most dedicated on-air supporters, according to Mr. Murdoch’s emails.“Wake-up call for Hannity,” Mr. Murdoch wrote in an email on Jan. 12, 2021, to Paul D. Ryan, the former Republican speaker of the House and a Fox Corporation board member. Mr. Murdoch explained that the host had been “privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers.”For a time, at least. It did not take long for Mr. Hannity and other prime-time hosts, including Tucker Carlson, to begin talking about the attack and its aftermath as Mr. Trump and his supporters preferred.In the opening monologue of one of his shows in June 2022, with a congressional investigation into the assault in full swing, Mr. Hannity told his audience, “January 6 is just another excuse to smear Donald Trump and anyone who supports them.” More

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      For Republicans’ Rising Stars, CPAC Is Losing Its Pull

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      At the annual conference this week, conservative celebrities like Mike Lindell and Kari Lake will attend, as will Donald Trump, but many possible 2024 rivals are skipping it.For decades, the Conservative Political Action Conference occupied a center ring in Republican politics.In 1974, Ronald Reagan used the inaugural event to unveil his brand of optimistic conservatism, describing a “city on the hill” to the conservative activists. In 2010, libertarian supporters of Ron Paul lifted their candidate to victory at the event’s presidential straw poll, an early harbinger of the Tea Party upheaval that would soon shake the party. And in 2011, a Manhattan businessman walked onto the stage to the tune of “For the Love of Money,” declared himself an opponent of abortion and began a yearslong takeover of the Republican Party.That businessman, Donald J. Trump, will be back at the four-day conservative gathering known as CPAC this week near Washington. He’ll be joined by a long list of right-wing media provocateurs, culture-war activists and a smattering of senators. Missing from the agenda: many of the Republicans seen as the future of the party.When Mr. Trump became leader of the Republican Party, he remade the conference in his political image. Now, as the party’s voters, donors and officials consider a future that may not include Mr. Trump as their leader, some Republicans say the decades-old CPAC gathering has increasingly become more like a sideshow than a featured act, one that seems made almost exclusively for conservative media.“It’s a content machine for the right-wing media ecosystem,” said David Kochel, a strategist on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012, who noted that many of the catchiest lines from speeches will be replayed on Breitbart, Newsmax and the radio show hosted by Stephen K. Bannon. “But I don’t think it makes any difference in the 2024 run-up to the primary. You’ve got a couple people who aren’t going and a couple people who will go. It has faded in its importance.”Some of that fade, Mr. Kochel said, is directly linked to the allegations against Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs the conference. He was accused of groping an aide to Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign last year. Mr. Schlapp has denied the accusations. The campaign aide filed a lawsuit against Mr. Schlapp in January.Those accusations were cited by some Republicans as one of the reasons they were steering clear of the conference, including Mike Pence, the former vice president who is considering a run for the White House. He passed on accepting an invitation, according to a person briefed on his decision. Instead, Mr. Pence is spending his week being hosted by other conservatives, including at a Club for Growth donor retreat to which Mr. Trump was not invited.Who’s Running for President in 2024?Card 1 of 6The race begins. More

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      My Fellow Liberals Are Exaggerating the Dangers of Ron DeSantis

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      To judge by several early polls, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has a decent shot of beating former President Donald Trump in the race to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Some liberals have pronounced this terrible news — because, they say, a DeSantis presidency would be just as awful as, and perhaps even worse than, a second Trump term.This is wrong. A DeSantis presidency would be bad in many ways, and my fellow liberals should fight with all they have to prevent it. But Mr. DeSantis almost certainly would not be worse than Mr. Trump.Exaggerating the threat posed by the Florida governor could inadvertently increase Mr. Trump’s prospects in the Republican primaries. And if Mr. DeSantis does get the nomination, progressive overreaction toward him in the primary contest could ultimately undermine the case against him in the general election.The case against Mr. DeSantis is rooted in his policy commitments. During his time as Florida’s chief executive, he has governed from the hard right, taking aggressive aim at voting rights, pursuing politicized prosecutions, restricting what can be taught in public schools and universities, strong-arming private businesses, using refugees as human props to score political points and engaging in flagrant demagogy about vaccines. Before that, as a congressman, he supported cuts to Social Security and Medicare and voted for a bill that would have severely weakened Obamacare. All of that provides ample reason to rally against him should he end up as the Republican nominee in 2024.But none of it makes Mr. DeSantis worse than Mr. Trump, who also did and sought to do bad things in office: the Muslim travel ban, forcibly separating migrants from their children, and much else.Could the Trump era have been worse? Absolutely, and here liberals have a point when they suggest Mr. Trump’s ability to wreak havoc was limited by his ineptness. Based on what we’ve seen of Mr. DeSantis’s performance as governor of Florida, a DeSantis administration would likely display much greater discipline and competence than what the country endured under Mr. Trump.Yet it’s also the case that people in the Trump orbit recognize this problem and plan to ensure things work out differently next time. That includes ideas for bolder action on policy and much tighter and more focused management of the president, with an eye toward running an administration capable of acting much more shrewdly and ruthlessly than the last time.So let’s stipulate that Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis would both try to do bad things in office. Mr. Trump still brings something distinctive and much more dangerous to the contest — or rather, several things. He’s flagrantly corrupt. He lies constantly. He’s impulsive and capricious. And he displays a lust for power combined with complete indifference to democratic laws and norms that constrain presidential power.The way to summarize these various personal defects is to say that Mr. Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president. That was obvious to many of us before his surprise victory in 2016. It was confirmed on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis throughout his presidency. And it became indisputable when he refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and helped spur efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.That makes Mr. Trump categorically more dangerous than anyone else running or likely to run for president in 2024 — including Mr. DeSantis.Those who suggest Mr. DeSantis would be worse than Mr. Trump often make the additional point that Mr. Trump was quite unpopular and outrightly repulsive to many, whereas Mr. DeSantis has proved himself capable of winning over mainstream voters in his home state. That makes Mr. DeSantis potentially a more popular candidate and president than Mr. Trump was or is likely to be. And that could empower Mr. DeSantis to enact more sweeping policy changes were he elected.There are other things to worry about. Mr. Trump’s lack of popularity added to his dangerousness because it made his administration appear illegitimate. He was a president with an anti-mandate — he lost to Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes in 2016 and suffered persistently low approval ratings — who nonetheless pressed on with enacting extreme shifts in policy. That made the Trump years uniquely polarizing and unstable.Policies can be reversed. A shredded civic fabric is much more difficult to mend.Liberals have a long history of hyping fears of Republican presidential candidates, from Lyndon Johnson’s “daisy” ad (about Barry Goldwater and a potential threat of nuclear war) to sometimes hysterical warnings about various dire threats posed by John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.We heard similarly terrible things about Donald Trump in 2016 — but this time they were true. As with the story of the boy who cried wolf, a real wolf had finally arrived.It’s crucially important that liberals make what should be a cogent case against Mr. DeSantis without resorting to exaggeration that will undermine their own credibility, particularly with persuadable voters. The most effective approach will be to build a case tailored to the distinctive defects of whichever candidate makes it to the general election. Stick to the facts: Mr. DeSantis is a bully who’s ready and willing to trample freedom of speech and expression, voting rights and common decency to win the applause of the Republican base so he can win office and advance the G.O.P. dream of gutting the social safety net in return for tax cuts that benefit wealthy right-wing donors.To make the unconvincing claim that a DeSantis presidency would be even worse than another four years of Mr. Trump isn’t necessary and could even undercut the liberal argument.Calling Mr. DeSantis bad should be good enough.Damon Linker, a former columnist at The Week, writes the newsletter “Eyes on the Right” and is a senior fellow in the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center.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