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      How Kari Lake Went From News Anchor to Outspoken Critic of the Press

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      Former friends and colleagues of Ms. Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, say they remember her far differently from the candidate they see today.One longtime former co-worker in the television news business recalled that Kari Lake detested guns and practiced Buddhism. Another former local news anchor, Stephanie Angelo, who did not work with Ms. Lake but later became close friends with her, described Ms. Lake back then as “a free spirit” and “liberal to the core.”“Her saying that abortion should be illegal — absolutely not,” Ms. Angelo said. “The Kari I knew would never have said that, and she wouldn’t have believed it either.”But in her run for governor of Arizona, Ms. Lake — a former local Fox News anchor — has refashioned herself as a protégé of Donald Trump and a die-hard Christian conservative who wields her media expertise as a weapon and has turned her former industry into a foil. In her closing pitch to voters ahead of the election on Tuesday, Ms. Lake, 53, has been campaigning against the press as much as she has against Katie Hobbs, her Democratic rival, riling up audiences against reporters in attendance, whom she calls the “fake news,” and pledging to become the media’s “worst nightmare” if elected.It’s a far cry from the person many journalists she worked with remember.Seven of Ms. Lake’s former colleagues at the local Fox station in Phoenix, where she read the news for more than two decades, and two others who consider themselves her former friends said Ms. Lake had once expressed more liberal views on subjects including guns, drag queens and undocumented immigrants. They said she used to admire Barack and Michelle Obama, and pointed out that she had donated to Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign. Some requested anonymity because they did not have permission to speak to the press or feared retaliation from Ms. Lake or her supporters.During a campaign stop with veterans in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Wednesday, she called reporters “monsters” and said, “Let’s defund the press.” In another rally on Thursday night in Phoenix, she lashed out at “the media” more times than she mentioned Ms. Hobbs.The attacks on her former industry exploit trends that, in recent years, have shown stark declines in Americans’ trust in television and newspapers — and that, most recently, amid bitter partisan fights over local school boards and pandemic restrictions, have even captured increasing charges of bias against local news, long seen as one of the most trusted sources of information.Many supporters first got to know Ms. Lake as a local television anchor before she decided to run for governor. Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMs. Lake has adapted many of the skills she learned in television to her campaign for governor. Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThey are also part of an old playbook: Mr. Trump, a former reality television star, criticized networks over their ratings and media coverage he disliked throughout his time in the White House and his presidential campaigns. At his recent rallies, he still takes time to denounce news stories and the reporters in attendance. Republicans’ trust in traditional media continues to drop, with many preferring to rely on a thriving ecosystem of fringe right-wing outlets and partisan fare.At Ms. Lake’s events, some of her loudest applause lines and showers of boos come when she mentions the news industry, even though many of the reporters at her events now increasingly include those from right-wing media who amplify her message. In Scottsdale, many people raised their hands when she asked how many of them consumed little to no “fake news media.” In Phoenix, people cheered and whistled when she expressed indifference toward negative coverage of her campaign. She asked them to look at the reporters set up on risers in the back. “How many of you really don’t care what the big news media says?” she said to applause.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.House Democrats: Several moderates elected in 2018 in conservative-leaning districts are at risk of being swept out. That could cost the Democrats their House majority.A Key Constituency: A caricature of the suburban female voter looms large in American politics. But in battleground regions, many voters don’t fit the stereotype.Crime: In the final stretch of the campaigns, politicians are vowing to crack down on crime. But the offices they are running for generally have little power to make a difference.Abortion: The fall of Roe v. Wade seemed to offer Democrats a way of energizing voters and holding ground. Now, many worry that focusing on abortion won’t be enough to carry them to victory.Her supporters tend not to care or believe that she once leaned liberal. Those who watched her newscast often cannot cite specific stories she worked on, but they do recall her charisma and sharp presentation. They now appreciate her TV-polished and combative style.That includes Jeanine Eyman and her daughter, Joanna, who were waiting in line outside a sports park in Mesa, Ariz., in October to watch Ms. Lake speak at a Trump rally. They said they admired that she was a news insider turned outsider. “To step down when you don’t agree with the politics going on, I think that made a huge statement for what she believes and the person that she is,” Jeanine Eyman said.Reece Peck, a media scholar and the author of “Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class,” placed Ms. Lake in an influential class of conservatives that includes former President Ronald Reagan: telegenic Republicans who had no political experience or public ideological core but quickly rose in politics because they came from the media world.Ms. Lake was particularly effective as a candidate, he said, because she emerged from “square and trusty local news.” He added: “She was a student of mass tastes” and could now “speak to audiences on that mass register.”Ms. Lake has declined to respond to multiple requests for interviews or to criticism from her former news colleagues.Before Ms. Lake started her professional journalism career, she interned at the same radio station where Mr. Reagan once worked. She often cites this fact on the trail, along with her admiration for Mr. Reagan, a conservative hero who she said spurred her to register as a Republican as soon as she turned 18.Ms. Lake taking a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesBut she often says now that she left her job as a prominent television news anchor in Phoenix in early 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, when she came to believe the media was pushing a “biased” and “immoral” agenda by refusing to cover unproven Covid treatments and by repeating talking points from Dr. Anthony Fauci.She started her campaign for governor with a debut ad that featured her smashing television sets playing newscasts with a sledgehammer. She has since called for the arrest of Mr. Fauci, publicized unproven Covid treatments and fueled Mr. Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was “crooked.”She has criticized drag queens and surgery for transgender people, and she echoes Mr. Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, promising to finish his border wall and declare an “invasion” on the nation’s southwestern border. She has presented herself as a staunch opponent of abortion and “a lifetime member” of the National Rifle Association. And she has called reporters “the right hand of the Devil.”It is a metamorphosis that has shocked former colleagues and others who knew her.Richard Stevens, who performs as the popular drag queen Barbra Seville, said Ms. Lake used to invite him as a news contributor to comment on L.G.B.T.Q. issues. He recalled watching Ms. Lake argue in defense of undocumented immigrants on air. She often came to his drag shows, he said, and the two became close. He also performed as Ms. Seville at her house, including in front of her children, he said.“Kari is not afraid of drag queens, Kari is not afraid of gay people,” Mr. Stevens said, calling Ms. Lake “an opportunist.” “I have had every reason to believe that she is as liberal as me.”The contradictions have not stopped Ms. Lake’s momentum in what remains a neck-and-neck race. “People know her,” Ms. Angelo, the former local news anchor, said. “They are familiar with her face, with her voice, and they trust her even though her positions now are contrary to everything that she has stood for up until the last year.”Ms. Lake is engaged in a tight race with the Democratic nominee for governor, Katie Hobbs. Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMs. Lake speaks during a “Latinos for Lake” rally in Tucson in September.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesBrenda Roberts, 67, a retired legal secretary who was in the audience at the Phoenix rally, said she was initially skeptical of Ms. Lake but came around because the candidate seemed to believe in what she said. “She expresses what we’re all feeling — we’re really upset about the border,” Ms. Roberts said. “We’re upset about inflation. We’re really upset about the way that Biden has destroyed the economy.”Part of Ms. Lake’s rise has had to do with how she has applied the Trump media playbook, sometimes with her own touches. Some of her campaign videos resemble movie trailers and are embellished with cinematic sound effects. Her husband, Jeff Halperin, an independent videographer, often films her events and interactions with the press. She has also been quick to call impromptu news conferences seemingly timed for the early-evening newscast.Ms. Lake assembled one of those gaggles last month after a man was arrested in connection with a burglary at Ms. Hobbs’s campaign headquarters. Pointing to a large placard with a photo of someone in a chicken suit, Ms. Lake joked that a person had been caught rummaging through her campaign headquarters and that she had evidence to believe it was Ms. Hobbs herself — a jab at Ms. Hobbs, as well as reporters, whom she claimed were suggesting the Lake campaign bore responsibility for the Hobbs campaign burglary.“You love to smear Republicans,” Ms. Lake told reporters.In a statement responding to Ms. Lake’s news conference, Sarah Robinson, a spokeswoman for the Hobbs campaign, doubled down on Ms. Hobbs’s earlier remarks charging Ms. Lake with fanning “the flames of extremism and violence.” Ms. Lake released another video on Thursday again slamming Ms. Hobbs and reporters for the burglary coverage.In the final stretch of the midterms, top Democrats, including Mr. Obama, have made stops in Phoenix urging people not to support Ms. Lake, as they have cast the election as a battle to preserve democracy. “If we hadn’t just elected someone whose main qualification was being on TV, you can see maybe giving it a shot,” Mr. Obama said to laugher from the audience. At her event in Phoenix, Ms. Lake argued she was not in the race for the fortune or fame — “I’ve already had fame — it’s overrated” — but for Arizonans.She lamented the loss of friends over her evolution and told supporters that she had not believed her former television news colleagues would unfairly attack her as they did Mr. Trump. “But I’ll tell you what: The patriotic America-loving friends I’ve gained will make up for any friend that I lost a million times over,” she said, as people broke into another round of cheers.Ms. Lake has adapted the Trump media handbook to her own campaign. Rebecca Noble for The New York Times More

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      The Unruly Heirs of Sarah Palin

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      Whether for her pathbreaking role as the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket or for rapping “Baby Got Back” on the Masked Singer, Sarah Palin has, since her debut on the national scene in 2008, made an art of attracting the spotlight.But fame — even in America — can get you only so far, and Ms. Palin’s campaign this year for Alaska’s only House seat has exposed the limits of her celebrity. Her fund-raising has lagged. Her campaign schedule has been unusually light for a candidate heading into a competitive election. And she announced recently that she’d received “crappy advice” from advisers and was no longer trying to raise money. In an unexpectedly close ranked-choice race, she has had to endure the indignity of encouraging voters to support her Republican opponent, in a last-ditch effort to prevent the Democrat, Mary Peltola, from running away with the seat.Ms. Palin may be about to fade once again from national politics, but the “mama grizzly” brand she invented is here to stay. Already, a group of female leaders is embracing and iterating on Ms. Palin’s trademark mom-knows-best Republicanism. Some are politicians, railing against the powers-that-be; others are activists, speaking out against school closures and vaccine mandates. As these new mama bears enter the political sphere, they are transforming American discourse, harnessing motherhood itself as a political asset, just as Ms. Palin did before them. Even if she loses her battle to make it to Washington next week, in a broader cultural sense, Ms. Palin has already won the war. And a new generation of GOP women stand poised to carry her complex legacy forward.When John McCain chose Ms. Palin as his running mate in 2008, she was in her 40s and had only served less than two years as governor. Her many doubters noted, correctly, that she wasn’t ready for the job of vice president. But their criticisms were often shot through with a condescension and sexism that had less to do with Ms. Palin’s experience than with her looks, clothes and identity as a mother of five.Few female politicians before her had emphasized their lives as mothers to the extent she did. She held her baby onstage right after accepting the nomination, deliberately presenting herself as a down-to-earth “hockey mom” and later on as a protective “mama grizzly.” Ms. Palin’s folksy demeanor was often ridiculed as a gimmick and Ms. Palin herself as an ignoramus. But the course of political events soon proved that she was on to something. The Tea Party wave during Barack Obama’s first term swept Palin imitators like Michele Bachmann and Christine O’Donnell to national prominence, women who were likely to be found in jeans at the gun range, when they weren’t giving a speech in stilettos. Rather than leaving family life at home the way men always had, which a previous generation of women had seen as a necessity to succeed professionally, this new generation saw how womanhood and motherhood added significantly to their brand. By signaling their tenacity in the domestic sphere, they implied their toughness in the political arena. And they increased their populist appeal.Among those who noticed their potential was Donald Trump’s future adviser, Steve Bannon, who made a 2010 documentary called “Fire from the Heartland” glorifying Mrs. Bachmann and other Tea Party women, as well as a 2011 documentary about Ms. Palin herself called “The Undefeated,” framing her femininity and Everywoman image as an unsung asset for the GOP.Of course, Mr. Bannon and the right as a whole eventually found a different champion, and while Mr. Trump left little room for also-rans like Ms. Palin, his time in office helped her particular strain of conservatism mutate and spread — giving rise to a new, Trumpier version of Ms. Palin’s mama grizzly.This new generation’s pugnaciousness makes Ms. Palin’s “Going Rogue” days look subdued. Conservative moms from all over the country have turned local school board meetings into contentious showdowns over policy and curriculum, organized by groups like Moms for Liberty who say they are “on a mission to stoke the fires of liberty.” “We do NOT co-parent with the government,” reads the back of one of the T-shirts for sale in the moms’ online merch store.Shades of Ms. Palin can be seen in Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, whose gun-toting photo-ops recall Ms. Palin’s rural, hunting-and-fishing image. But Kari Lake, the hard-right former news anchor running for governor in Arizona, is perhaps the paradigmatic New Mama Bear. One moment, she’s literally vacuuming a red carpet for Mr. Trump; the next, she’s calling her Democratic opponent a coward and the media the “right hand of the Devil.” Ms. Lake shares Ms. Palin’s instinct for the spotlight and feel for optics, as well as her affection for copacetic mama bears (Ms. Lake has often used the term). But while Ms. Palin lost control of her image to a skeptical, often condescending news media (remember the infamous Katie Couric interview in which the candidate couldn’t name any newspapers she read?), the steely, intense Ms. Lake has made a sport of antagonizing the reporters on her trail and excelled at turning the exchanges into content. The rise of the New Mama Bear might not have been possible without the fragmentation of a media now more drawn than ever toward controversy and the outrageous.Ms. Lake, who has a knack for generating outrage, stands a very good chance of winning. And she is far from the only one. In the heated conservative debate over schools, the new mama bears have been racking up some important wins, crashing school meetings to protest critical race theory and banning books with L.G.B.T.Q. themes or other content they deem inappropriate from school libraries. Moms for Liberty has claimed huge growth in membership over the past year and made itself a key player in the education battles that have marked this midterm cycle. Top Republicans have embraced the school controversies, showing just how potent this new paradigm has become on a national scale. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who gave the keynote speech at Moms for Liberty’s “Joyful Warriors” conference this summer, endorsed several of their school board candidates, and they went on to win their primaries. The effect could be that the new mama bears see their trademark political issues high on the agenda for the 2024 Republican primary.It’s ironic that Ms. Palin, the mother of mama bear politicking, should be an afterthought during a moment so clearly borne of her own trailblazing prime. But that’s often how it goes in politics, where an innovation’s impact is obvious only in hindsight — once someone else has perfected it.Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) is a reporter who has covered politics for BuzzFeed News and The Atlantic.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Marjorie Taylor Greene-ing of America

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      WASHINGTON — Are we ready for our new Republican overlords?Are we ready for an empowered Marjorie Taylor Greene?Are we ready for a pumped-up, pistol-packing Lauren Boebert?“How many AR-15s do you think Jesus would have had?” Boebert asked a crowd at a Christian campaign event in June. I’m going with none, honestly, but her answer was, “Well, he didn’t have enough to keep his government from killing him.”The Denver Post pleaded: “We beg voters in western and southern Colorado not to give Rep. Lauren Boebert their vote.”The freshman representative has recently been predicting happily that we’re in the end times, “the last of the last days.” If Lauren Boebert is in charge, we may want to be in the end times. I’m feeling not so Rapturous about the prospect.And then there’s the future first female president, Kari Lake, who lulls you into believing, with her mellifluous voice, statements that seem to emanate from Lucifer. She’s dangerous because, like Donald Trump, she has real skills from her years in TV. And she really believes this stuff, unlike Trump and Kevin McCarthy, who are faking it.As Cecily Strong said on “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, embodying Lake, “If the people of Arizona elect me, I’ll make sure they never have to vote ever again.”Speaking of “Paradise Lost,” how about Ron DeSantis? The governor of Florida, who’s running for a second term, is airing an ad that suggests that he was literally anointed by God to fight Democrats. God almighty, that’s some high-level endorsement.Much to our national shame, it looks like these over-the-top and way, way, way out-of-the mainstream Republicans — and the formerly normie and now creepy Republicans who have bent the knee to the wackos out of political expediency — are going to be running the House, maybe the Senate and certainly some states, perhaps even some that Joe Biden won two years ago.And it looks as if Kevin McCarthy will finally realize his goal of becoming speaker, but when he speaks, it will be Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan and Lauren Boebert doing the spewing. It will be like the devil growling through Linda Blair in “The Exorcist” — except it will be our heads spinning.Welcome to a rogue’s gallery of crazy: Clay Higgins, who’s spouting conspiracy theories about Paul Pelosi, wants to run the House Homeland Security Committee; Paul Gosar, whose own family has begged Arizonans to eject him from Congress, will be persona grata in the new majority.In North Carolina, Bo Hines, a Republican candidate for the House, wants community panels to decide whether rape victims are able to get abortions or not. He’s building on Dr. Oz’s dictum that local politicians should help make that call. Even Oprah turned on her creation, Dr. Odd.J.D. Vance, the Yale-educated, former Silicon Valley venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” who called Trump “America’s Hitler” in 2016, before saluting him to gain public office, could join the Senate in January. Talk about American Elegy.Even though he wrote in his best seller that Yale Law School was his “dream school,” he now trashes the very system that birthed him. Last year, he gave a speech titled “The Universities Are the Enemy”: His mother-in-law is a provost at the University of California San Diego.It’s disturbing to think of Vance side by side with Herschel Walker. Walker was backed by Mitch McConnell, who countenanced an obviously troubled and flawed individual even if it meant degrading the once illustrious Senate chamber.Overall, there are nearly 300 election deniers on the ballot, but they will be all too happy to accept the results if they win.People voting for these crazies think they’re punishing Biden, Barack Obama and the Democrats. They’re really punishing themselves.These extreme Republicans don’t have a plan. Their only idea is to get in, make trouble for President Biden, drag Hunter into the dock, start a bunch of stupid investigations, shut down the government, abandon Ukraine and hold the debt limit hostage.Democrats are partly to blame. They haven’t explained how they plan to get a grip on the things people are worried about: crime and inflation. Voters weren’t hearing what they needed to hear from Biden, who felt morally obligated to talk about the threat to democracy, even though that’s not what people are voting on.As it turns out, a woman’s right to control her body has been overshadowed by uneasiness over safety and economic security.To top it off, Trump is promising a return. We’ll see if DeSantis really is the chosen one. In Iowa on Thursday night, Trump urged the crowd to “crush the communists” at the ballot box and said that he was “very, very, very” close to deciding to “do it again.”Trump, the modern Pandora, released the evil spirits swirling around us — racism, antisemitism, violence, hatred, conspiracy theories, and Trump mini-mes who should be nowhere near the levers of power.Heaven help us.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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      Justice Dept. Weighs Special Counsel for Trump Inquiries if He Runs

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      The department is hoping to make decisions on whether to charge the former president in the documents and Jan. 6 inquiries before the 2024 campaign heats up.WASHINGTON — The Justice Department hopes to reach a decision on whether to bring charges against former President Donald J. Trump before the 2024 campaign heats up, and is considering appointing a special counsel to oversee investigations of him if he runs again, according to people familiar with the situation.The department is investigating Mr. Trump’s role in the efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and his retention of sensitive government documents at his residence and resort in Florida. It has made no decision in either case, but the inquiry into the former president’s handling of the documents is more straightforward, with prosecutors having publicly cited potential crimes that could be charged.Senior department officials and veteran prosecutors with the department’s national security division, in conjunction with the U.S. attorney’s office in South Florida, have spent recent weeks quietly navigating the thicket of thorny issues needed to file charges in the documents investigation, weighing evidence, analyzing legal precedents and mulling practical considerations such as the venue of a possible trial.The investigation, while proceeding quickly by Justice Department standards, has been slowed by Mr. Trump’s efforts in court to restrict the government’s access to the files removed from his home, and by the department’s self-imposed 30-day pause in issuing subpoenas ahead of this year’s midterm elections.But behind the scenes, prosecutors have been busily compiling evidence and case law that could be used to frame a memo that would be the basis for any prosecution. And some involved in that effort have become concerned that an indictment or trial of Mr. Trump during the campaign could generate fierce criticism that could undercut the department’s commitment to being seen as enforcing the law in a nonpartisan manner.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and his team have long considered creating a layer of protection for the department by tapping a special counsel, a veteran prosecutor appointed by Mr. Garland to run the day-to-day investigation. But even with the appointment of a special counsel, any final decisions on whether to charge Mr. Trump would still be made by Mr. Garland and the department’s senior leadership.Under federal law, a special counsel functions, in essence, as a pop-up U.S. attorney’s office with broad discretion over every aspect of an investigation in “extraordinary circumstances” in which the normal chain of command could be seen as creating a conflict of interest.An attorney general still has the right to approve or discard a special counsel’s recommendations. But if Mr. Garland were to reject the counsel’s recommendation, he would have to inform Congress, a safeguard intended to ensure transparency and autonomy.The department’s consideration of a special counsel appointment was first reported by CNN.A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Recent special counsels include Robert S. Mueller III, who oversaw the investigation into connections between Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, and John H. Durham, who brought two unsuccessful prosecutions of officials accused of acting improperly in the Trump-Russia inquiry.Some former officials and legal experts said the appointment of a special counsel would give Mr. Garland an opportunity to choose a lawyer to counter charges of a political witch hunt.Mr. Garland “needs to have a lawyer with Republican pedigree on that team to send the message that this is not a political persecution,” said John P. Fishwick Jr., who served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2015 to 2017.“This is the most important criminal case in our country’s history. Ultimately, every person in the United States will be the jury in this case, and they will need to have confidence that the prosecution team reflects all of them,” he said.On Wednesday, the Justice Department offered to allow Kash Patel, a close adviser to Mr. Trump, to testify to a federal grand jury under a grant of immunity about Mr. Trump’s handling of highly sensitive presidential records.It was the latest indication prosecutors are moving aggressively to gather the evidence necessary to determine whether the former president mishandled sensitive government documents and tried to obstruct justice by withholding information about the location of materials he removed from the White House after leaving office.Mr. Trump, who remains the most powerful, most popular and best-funded Republican in the country, has repeatedly suggested he would run, including at a rally in Iowa on Thursday, when he said he would “very, very, very probably” run again.He has been a vocal supporter of candidates who backed his lies about the 2020 election, but has not yet declared his intention to seek a second term.The status of the sprawling investigation related to Jan. 6 remains less clear. Prosecutors have been seeking testimony and evidence from a number of people associated with Mr. Trump, including lawyers like John Eastman. But officials have yet to set out any public indications of what charges, if any, could ultimately be brought against Mr. Trump. More

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      Gingrich Is Willing to Testify to Jan. 6 Panel, His Lawyer Says

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      Mr. Gingrich would speak about his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, a move his lawyer suggested should spare him from having to testify in a separate inquiry in Georgia.ATLANTA — Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker involved in efforts to overturn Donald J. Trump’s 2020 election loss, is willing to give an interview to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol after certain conditions are met, his lawyer said Thursday.Mr. Gingrich, a staunch ally of Mr. Trump, was asked to appear before the committee in a Sept. 1 letter from Representative Bennie Thompson, the Democrat who serves as the panel’s chairman. The letter noted that the committee’s investigators had obtained evidence that Mr. Gingrich had been in touch with senior advisers to Mr. Trump about advertisements that amplified false claims about election fraud in the November 2020 election.According to Mr. Thompson, Mr. Gingrich urged the Trump campaign to run ads focused on the bogus assertion that suitcases of fake ballots had been smuggled into a vote-processing area by election workers in Atlanta.Mr. Gingrich, 79, a former member of Congress from Georgia, rose to power and fame in the early 1990s promoting a so-called “Contract with America,” a statement of conservative governing principles. Mr. Gingrich has also been ordered to give testimony on Nov. 16 before a special grand jury in Atlanta that is conducting a criminal investigation into efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse Mr. Trump’s loss in the Southern state.A court hearing in Fairfax County, Va., where Mr. Gingrich lives, on whether he must testify in Georgia is scheduled for Wednesday.However, in an interview on Thursday, Mr. Gingrich’s lawyer, J. Randolph Evans, said that he hoped a Virginia judge would be convinced that Mr. Gingrich’s testimony before members of Congress would render his client’s appearance in Atlanta unnecessary.“The idea being that if this really is about information, presumably the Jan. 6 committee would do a good job and obviate the need for testimony in Georgia,” Mr. Evans said.Mr. Evans described the outstanding conditions to be agreed upon as “transparency and attorney-driven issues” but did not elaborate further.Mr. Evans said that John A. Burlingame, the lawyer representing Mr. Gingrich in the Virginia hearing, would also likely argue that he does not have to testify in Georgia and follow a legal strategy used, with varying success, by other out-of-state Trump allies who have fought orders to testify in Georgia. The strategy rests on the idea that the special grand jury is civil in nature, not criminal, and therefore lacks the power to compel appearances by people who are not residents of Georgia.A spokesman for Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who is leading the investigation, declined to comment on Thursday. Mr. Evans said that his client had broken no laws and was not a target of the investigation but rather “just a potential witness.”In a court document seeking Mr. Gingrich’s testimony, Ms. Willis referenced the advertisements mentioned by Mr. Thompson in his letter, noting that they had “encouraged members of the public to contact their state officials and pressure them to challenge and overturn the results of the election.”The ads ran, Ms. Willis stated, “in the days leading up to Dec. 14, 2020, when both legitimate and, in several states, nonlegitimate electors met to cast electoral college votes, and they were purportedly personally approved by former President Donald Trump.”Mr. Thompson, in his letter, said that Mr. Gingrich was involved in the plan to put forward pro-Trump electors in states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.Mr. Evans, Mr. Gingrich’s lawyer, was named ambassador to Luxembourg by Mr. Trump and is also mentioned by name in the court documents filed by Ms. Willis.The prosecutor noted that on or around Nov. 12, 2020, Mr. Gingrich wrote an email to Pat Cipollone, then the White House counsel, and to Mark Meadows, then Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, who has also been ordered to testify in the Atlanta investigation.“Is someone in charge of coordinating all the electors?” Mr. Gingrich wrote, according to Ms. Willis. She added that Mr. Gingrich then wrote that Mr. Evans had made the point “that all the contested electors must meet on Dec. 14 and send in ballots to force contests which the House would have to settle.” More

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      Biden and Netanyahu Gear Up for a Complicated New Era

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      The two leaders have forged a relationship over four decades that vacillates between warmth and combat.When President Biden took office last year, he held the advantage in a tumultuous, four-decade relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, the longtime Israeli prime minister.Mr. Biden had vanquished former President Donald J. Trump, who was a close ally of Mr. Netanyahu, and the new American president made clear that one of his first foreign policy initiatives would be to restart the Iran nuclear deal that the Israeli prime minister hated, and consistently sought to undermine.Meanwhile, in Israel, Mr. Netanyahu faced charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Within months, he would be ousted from office after more than a dozen years as the leader of the Jewish state.Now, the tables have turned.Mr. Biden’s hopes for a nuclear deal with Iran have all but collapsed, and Iran has begun supplying missiles and drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. Polls suggest the president faces a stinging rebuke in midterm elections next week that may end his domestic legislative agenda. Mr. Trump remains a potent force in American politics, likely to run again in 2024.And on Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu secured his own return to power with a new, far-right coalition that will once again make him prime minister — an endorsement of the aggressive, in-your-face style that has been at the heart of his clashes with Mr. Biden and other American presidents over the years.The two leaders will find themselves in the position of sparring anew over issues that have long strained their relationship.It is the most complicated of relationships, vacillating between warmth and combat, sometimes on the same day. But Dennis Ross, the former Mideast negotiator who used to accompany Mr. Biden, when he was vice president, on trips to see Mr. Netanyahu, noted in an interview on Thursday that the relationship was better than the one between Mr. Netanyahu and President Barack Obama.“Bibi’s view of Biden is different than Bibi’s view of Obama,” Mr. Ross said, using the common nickname for Mr. Netanyahu. “Bibi was convinced that Obama was trying to undercut him, and Obama was convinced that Bibi was working with the Republicans to undercut him.”“He viewed Biden as someone who he would disagree with, but that Biden’s heart and emotions were all with Israel,” said Dennis Ross, who oversaw Mideast diplomacy at the National Security Council in Mr. Obama’s presidency.Disagreements remain. The president favors a Palestinian state to resolve the decades-long clash with Israel. Mr. Netanyahu does not. The Israeli prime minister called the 2015 Iran nuclear deal a disaster for Israel and the region. Mr. Biden said it was the best way to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And the two men have been at odds for years over the construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.The State of the WarGrain Deal: Russia rejoined an agreement allowing the shipment of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, one of the few areas of cooperation amid the war, easing uncertainty over the fate of a deal seen as crucial to preventing famine in other parts of the world.Nuclear Rhetoric: As President Vladimir V. Putin makes public threats and Russian generals hold private discussions, U.S. officials say they do not believe that Moscow has decided to detonate a tactical nuclear device in Ukraine, but concerns are rising.Turning the Tables: With powerful Western weapons and deadly homemade drones, Ukraine now has an artillery advantage in the Kherson region. The work of reconnaissance teams penetrating enemy lines has also proven key in breaking Russia’s hold in the territory.Sea Drone Attack: The apparent use of remote-controlled boats to attack the Russian naval fleet off the Crimean port city of Sevastopol suggests an expansion in Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities after months of military aid from Western nations.But in the 16 months since Mr. Netanyahu was ousted and then returned to power, the world has changed. Iranian leaders, preoccupied by protests at home, seem uninterested in returning to the nuclear deal from which Mr. Trump — to the delight of Mr. Netanyahu — withdrew in 2018.Meanwhile, Iran is supporting President Vladimir V. Putin’s war in Ukraine, selling drones and missiles to Russia for use on the battlefield. And the frequent source of tension, the future of a Palestinian state, is barely on the agenda these days, in part because of divisions within the Palestinian leadership.During Mr. Trump’s four years in office, Mr. Netanyahu faced little pressure from the United States to bend to the will of an American president. Mr. Trump never challenged Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign of sabotage and assassination in Iran, or his refusal to pursue a two-state solution with the Palestinians. The relationship between the two leaders did not seem to fray until Mr. Netanyahu congratulated Mr. Biden for his victory in 2020, leading the former president to accuse his Israeli counterpart of disloyalty.President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu supported each other on key policies, but Mr. Trump eventually accused the Israeli leader of disloyalty.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu had held off calling to congratulate Mr. Biden for several hours, worried about angering Mr. Trump, the candidate he openly preferred. But the delay did little good in the end. Mr. Biden returned the favor, taking weeks to hold a first phone call with Mr. Netanyahu. And, partly because of Covid-19 lockdowns, the two men did not meet in person before Mr. Netanyahu lost office.As vice president, Mr. Biden often found himself at odds with Mr. Netanyahu or his government.More than a decade ago, according to former officials, it was Mr. Biden who complained during a Situation Room meeting that Israel, under Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership, had been too hasty in updating secret computer code to sabotage Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment plant. The malware spread around the world, its revelation leading to the unraveling of the story of a covert program, code-named Olympic Games, run by both countries.At other times, Mr. Biden voiced concerns that Israel’s assassination of nuclear scientists was undercutting the effort to reach a diplomatic deal to limit its production of nuclear material.The disagreements over policy between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu sometimes seemed to stoke personal animosities.On a visit to Israel in March 2010, Mr. Netanyahu’s government announced the construction of new settlement projects in East Jerusalem, territory that would have been up for negotiation over the boundaries of a Palestinian state. Mr. Biden, who had just hours earlier gushed effusively about the security relationship between the two nations, was surprised by the announcement — and angry.That night, Mr. Biden delayed his arrival at a dinner with Mr. Netanyahu and his wife for more than 90 minutes, a diplomatic rebuke intended to make his displeasure clear. (Mr. Netanyahu maintained he was not involved in the decision on settlements or the timing of the announcement during Mr. Biden’s visit.)After Mr. Netanyahu was ousted by his party in 2021, he lashed out at the Biden administration in his final speech, comparing the hesitance to confront Iran’s nuclear program to the failure by a past American president to more quickly confront Hitler during World War II.“In 1944, at the height of the Holocaust, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt refused to bomb the railway leading to the extermination camps, and refused to bomb the gas chambers, which could have saved millions of our people,” Mr. Netanyahu said.The relationship between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Biden goes back decades, to when Mr. Biden was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Mr. Netanyahu was the deputy Israeli ambassador in Washington.Mr. Biden has often spoken fondly of Mr. Netanyahu since then, despite their political differences, and once described giving him a photograph with a warm caption: “Bibi, I don’t agree with a damn thing you say, but I love you.”“Biden has this instinctive attachment to Israel,” Mr. Ross said. The belief that Israelis feel “existentially threatened” by their adversaries, Mr. Ross said, led Mr. Biden to be more inclined to understand Mr. Netanyahu’s point of view.After Mr. Netanyahu became prime minister in 1996 and then lost the position three years later, Mr. Biden was the only American politician to write him a letter after his election defeat, Mr. Ross said. During moments of heightened friction between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Obama, it fell to Mr. Biden to play peacemaker.But there have been sharp moments when the differences came into open view.In 2015, Mr. Biden declined to attend an address that Mr. Netanyahu delivered in Congress after the Israeli leader accepted an invitation from the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a Republican, without notifying the White House. The speech was devoted to opposing the Iran nuclear deal, and Mr. Biden’s absence exacerbated the dispute between Mr. Netanyahu and the Obama administration about the wisdom of the deal.That deal did freeze Iran’s activity for several years, until it was unwound by Mr. Trump, and the Iranians resumed nuclear fuel production.As president, Mr. Biden used his early political capital to seek a return to the deal that Mr. Trump trashed. He pushed forward at a time when Mr. Netanyahu was politically weak. But even during those moments, Mr. Biden vowed to stand with Israel, whoever its leaders might be.That was on display during Mr. Biden’s visit to Israel in mid-July, when he met with the government of Yair Lapid.Mr. Biden was clearly relaxed and enjoyed the trip, especially in comparison to his next stop, in Saudi Arabia. He went to see Mr. Netanyahu, in what was described as a warm but brief meeting. Later, Mr. Netanyahu said he had told Mr. Biden that the United States needed to threaten Iran with more than economic sanctions or a defensive military partnership between Middle Eastern states.“We need one thing,” he said. “A credible offensive military option is needed.”Mr. Netanyahu will undoubtedly press that point as prime minister, now that negotiations on re-entering the nuclear deal are stalled. With Iran producing more and more uranium enriched at near bomb-grade levels, he will surely call for more sanctions and more threats of military action. And with little prospect of a diplomatic solution, Mr. Biden may have less room to push back.Mr. Biden, for his part, will likely press Israel to declare itself on the side of containing Russia, a step Israel has refused to take, saying it needs to work with Moscow in Syria.Each of these problems has a different shape than when Mr. Biden came to office. History suggests that the inevitable tensions with Mr. Netanyahu, born of different national interests, are nonetheless bound to emerge quickly. More

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      The Grass Roots, Part 2

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis moment in politics will be defined by shifts at the grass-roots level. It wasn’t long ago that Democrats used to brag about the coalition they had built — full of young people, minority voters and college-educated women. Today, we talk to members of the Democratic base, many of whom no longer see a clear path forward for the party.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesOn today’s episodeAstead Herndon, host of “The Run-Up,” spoke with voters who had participated in New York Times polling, including Delaney Elliott Miller, Nelson Aquino, Katharine Hinson and Rochelle Nelson.Additional readingIn the final days of the midterm elections, top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s campaign tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Once a G.O.P. stalwart, Representative Liz Cheney has been hitting the trail for Democrats. Her approach is part of a last-ditch push by Republican opponents of former President Donald J. Trump to try to thwart a comeback of his political movement.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      Justice Dept. Offers Immunity to Kash Patel for Testimony in Documents Case

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      The adviser, Kash Patel, had previously declined to answer questions from prosecutors in front of a federal grand jury, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.The Justice Department offered on Wednesday to allow Kash Patel, a close adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, to testify to a federal grand jury under a grant of immunity about Mr. Trump’s handling of highly sensitive presidential records, two people familiar with the matter said.The offer of immunity came about a month after Mr. Patel invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in front of the grand jury and refused to answer questions from prosecutors investigating whether Mr. Trump improperly took national security documents with him when he left the White House and subsequently obstructed attempts by the government to retrieve them.During Mr. Patel’s initial grand jury appearance, one of the people familiar with the matter said, Judge Beryl A. Howell of Federal District Court in Washington acknowledged Mr. Patel’s Fifth Amendment claims and said the only way he could be forced to testify was if the government offered him immunity.The decision by the Justice Department to grant immunity in the case, the person said, effectively cleared the way for the grand jury to hear Mr. Patel’s testimony.A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment.The disclosure that Mr. Patel has received immunity for his testimony comes as prosecutors have increased their pressure on recalcitrant witnesses who have declined to answer investigators’ questions or have provided them with potentially misleading accounts about Mr. Trump’s handling of documents.What to Know About the Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 6Numerous inquiries. More