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      Republicans Rally Behind Trump, Who Reprises Favored Role: Victim

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      Arguments used against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 email inquiry are long forgotten as G.O.P. officials rush to condemn the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago.WASHINGTON — Republicans sought Tuesday to turn the F.B.I.’s search of Donald J. Trump’s Florida home into a rallying point, positioning the former president in his political comfort zone as a partisan target and victim, while effectively suspending the party’s efforts to focus on other issues heading into the midterm elections.The immediacy with which Republicans closed ranks and focused on the political ramifications of the search of Mar-a-Lago — without a full understanding of the direction of the F.B.I.’s investigation or the potential criminality that could be uncovered — underscored Mr. Trump’s role as keystone of the party, the single figure upon whom its elected leaders and midterm candidates depend most heavily for support.Some party officials tried to channel conservatives’ rage about the search of the former president’s winter home into productive energy for the coming midterms. Within hours of the news that Mr. Trump’s home had been searched, the Republican National Committee texted an urgent appeal about the search to supporters asking for cash to “take back Congress.”Mr. Trump also sought to capitalize financially. His political committee, Save America, followed Tuesday morning with a fund-raising text message suggesting that the F.B.I. search was proof of a corrupt “radical left.” It added: “Return the power to the people! Will you fight with me?”J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, emailed supporters a fund-raising pitch about the F.B.I. search.Emil Lippe for The New York TimesAnd in Ohio, J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for Senate, who has struggled to match the fund-raising strength of his Democratic opponent, Representative Tim Ryan, emailed supporters an appeal about the F.B.I. search that included two siren emojis and a request to donate and “Join the Trump Strategy Team,” though the money went to the Vance campaign.Republicans largely ignored the possibility of any wrongdoing on the former president’s part, and the fact that law enforcement agents would have had to show probable cause that a crime had been committed in order to obtain a search warrant. The search appeared to be focused on material that the former president had brought with him from the White House, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation.The Republican rush to judgment amounted to a sharp reversal from their quick condemnation of Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s 2016 rival, during an F.B.I. investigation of her personal email system during her time as secretary of state. (Mrs. Clinton, for her part, was selling “But her emails” hats on Tuesday, in reference to that inquiry.)From comparisons to Nazi Germany to warnings that the nation was on the brink of becoming a “banana republic” or “third-world country,” Republicans drew from a short list of dire-sounding metaphors intended to maximize outrage among voters by contending, without knowing what investigators cited as their probable cause, that the pretext for the F.B.I. search was little more than a mere records-retention violation. Their words mostly echoed a statement from Mr. Trump on Monday evening.Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican overseeing his party’s Senate races this year, sounded nearly every one of those themes in an interview Tuesday on Fox News in which he made comparisons to the Nazi secret police, communist Russia and Latin American dictatorships.“This should scare the living daylights out of American citizens,” Mr. Scott said.Senator Rick Scott made comparisons to the Nazi secret police, communist Russia and Latin American dictatorships.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesOther top Republicans demanded answers from the F.B.I. and threatened investigations of the Justice Department should the party capture control of the House. And a group of House Republicans headed to Bedminster, N.J., for a previously scheduled dinner with Mr. Trump on Tuesday that abruptly turned into an opportunity for a symbolic show of solidarity.The search also prompted Mr. Trump’s potential rivals in 2024, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, to fall in line and question the F.B.I.’s action. But even Mr. Trump’s critics in the party, such as Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan, said the unprecedented search of a former president’s home required a public justification from the Biden administration.The speed with which Republicans have rallied around Mr. Trump threatened to drive the former president directly into the spotlight of the 2022 elections, something many party leaders had hoped to avoid.Republicans have sought to focus on rising inflation and President Biden’s poor approval ratings as key midterm issues, and have been divided over whether a presidential campaign from Mr. Trump would present an unhelpful distraction. In Kentucky on Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, sidestepped a question about the search, before issuing a statement Tuesday evening echoing other Republicans’ calls for “a thorough and immediate explanation.”But the F.B.I.’s decision to execute such a fraught and politically high-stakes search warrant further dimmed the hope of some Republican strategists working on key House and Senate races that the 2022 midterms could stay focused on the Democrats.Yet again, it was Mr. Trump dominating the news.Fox News aggressively reported the search, featuring overhead camera shots from above Mar-a-Lago and multiple interviews with Trump family members, including his son Eric and daughter-in-law, Lara, and former administration officials, such as Stephen Miller, his chief policy adviser, and Stephen K. Bannon, the chief strategist. More

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      The F.B.I. Search of Trump’s Home Has No Precedent. It’s a Risky Gamble.

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      The search of former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is a high-risk gamble by the Justice Department, but Mr. Trump faces risks of his own.WASHINGTON — The fight between former President Donald J. Trump and the National Archives that burst into the open when F.B.I. agents searched Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach estate has no precedent in American presidential history.It was also a high-risk gamble by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland that the law enforcement operation at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s sprawling home in Florida, will stand up to accusations that the Justice Department is pursuing a political vendetta against President Biden’s opponent in 2020 — and a likely rival in 2024.Mr. Trump’s demonization of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department during his four years in office, designed to undermine the legitimacy of the country’s law enforcement institutions even as they pursued charges against him, has made it even more difficult for Mr. Garland to investigate Mr. Trump without a backlash from the former president’s supporters.The decision to order Monday’s search put the Justice Department’s credibility on the line months before congressional elections this fall and as the country remains deeply polarized. For Mr. Garland, the pressure to justify the F.B.I.’s actions will be intense. And if the search for classified documents does not end up producing significant evidence of a crime, the event could be relegated by history to serve as another example of a move against Mr. Trump that backfired.Mr. Trump faces risks of his own in rushing to criticize Mr. Garland and the F.B.I., as he did during the search on Monday, when he called the operation “an assault that could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.” Mr. Trump no longer has the protections provided by the presidency, and he would be far more vulnerable if he were found to have mishandled highly classified information that threatens the nation’s national security.A number of historians said that the search, though extraordinary, seemed appropriate for a president who flagrantly flouted the law, refuses to concede defeat and helped orchestrate an effort to overturn the 2020 election.“In an atmosphere like this, you have to assume that the attorney general did not do this casually,” said Michael Beschloss, a veteran presidential historian. “And therefore the criminal suspicions — we don’t know yet exactly what they are — they have to be fairly serious.”The search of Mar-a-Lago put the Justice Department’s credibility on the line months before congressional elections.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesIn Mr. Trump’s case, archivists at the National Archives discovered earlier this year that the former president had taken classified documents from the White House after his defeat, leading federal authorities to begin an investigation. They eventually sought a search warrant from a judge to determine what remained in the former president’s custody.Key details remain secret, including what the F.B.I. was looking for and why the authorities felt the need to conduct a surprise search after months of legal wrangling between the government and lawyers for Mr. Trump.The search happened as angry voices on the far-right fringe of American politics are talking about another Civil War, and as more mainstream Republicans are threatening retribution if they take power in Congress in the fall. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader in the House, warned Mr. Garland to preserve documents and clear his calendar.“This puts our political culture on a kind of emergency alert mode,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “It’s like turning over the apple cart of American politics.”Critics of Mr. Trump said it was no surprise that a president who shattered legal and procedural norms while he was in the Oval Office would now find himself at the center of a classified documents dispute. More

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      Garland Becomes Trump’s Target After F.B.I.’s Mar-a-Lago Search

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      The F.B.I. had scarcely decamped from Mar-a-Lago when former President Donald J. Trump’s allies, led by Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, began a bombardment of vitriol and threats against the man they see as a foe and foil: Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.Mr. Garland, a bookish former judge who during his unsuccessful Supreme Court nomination in 2016 told senators that he did not have “a political bone” in his body, responded, as he so often does, by not responding.The Justice Department would not acknowledge the execution of a search warrant at Mr. Trump’s home on Monday, nor would Mr. Garland’s aides confirm his involvement in the decision or even whether he knew about the search before it was conducted. They declined to comment on every fact brought to their attention. Mr. Garland’s schedule this week is devoid of any public events where he could be questioned by reporters.Like a captain trying to keep from drifting out of the eye and into the hurricane, Mr. Garland is hoping to navigate the sprawling and multifaceted investigation into the actions of Mr. Trump and his supporters after the 2020 election without compromising the integrity of the prosecution or wrecking his legacy.Toward that end, the attorney general is operating with a maximum of stealth and a minimum of public comment, a course similar to the one charted by Robert S. Mueller III, the former special counsel, during his two-year investigation of Mr. Trump’s connections to Russia.That tight-lipped approach may avoid the pitfalls of the comparatively more public-facing investigations into Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election by James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director at the time. But it comes with its own peril — ceding control of the public narrative to Mr. Trump and his allies, who are not constrained by law, or even fact, in fighting back.“Garland has said that he wants his investigation to be apolitical, but nothing he does will stop Trump from distorting the perception of the investigation, given the asymmetrical rules,” said Andrew Weissmann, who was one of Mr. Mueller’s top aides in the special counsel’s office.“Under Justice Department policy, we were not allowed to take on those criticisms,” Mr. Weissmann added. “Playing by the Justice Department rules sadly but necessarily leaves the playing field open to this abuse.”Mr. Mueller’s refusal to engage with his critics, or even to defend himself against obvious smears and lies, allowed Mr. Trump to fill the political void with reckless accusations of a witch hunt while the special counsel confined his public statements to dense legal jargon. Mr. Trump’s broadsides helped define the Russia investigation as a partisan attack, despite the fact that Mr. Mueller was a Republican.Some of the most senior Justice Department officials making the decisions now have deep connections to Mr. Mueller and view Mr. Comey’s willingness to openly discuss his 2016 investigations related to Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump as a gross violation of the Justice Manual, the department’s procedural guidebook.The Mar-a-Lago search warrant was requested by the Justice Department’s national security division, whose head, Matthew G. Olsen, served under Mr. Mueller when he was the F.B.I. director. In 2019, Mr. Olsen expressed astonishment that the publicity-shy Mr. Mueller was even willing to appear at a news conference announcing his decision to lay out Mr. Trump’s conduct but not recommend that he be prosecuted or held accountable for interfering in the Russia investigation.But people close to Mr. Garland say that while his team respects Mr. Mueller, they have learned from his mistakes. Mr. Garland, despite his silence this week, has made a point of talking publicly about the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol on many occasions — even if it has only been to explain why he cannot talk publicly about the investigation.“I understand that this may not be the answer some are looking for,” he said during a speech marking the first anniversary of the Capitol attack. “But we will and we must speak through our work. Anything else jeopardizes the viability of our investigations and the civil liberties of our citizens.” More

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      Which Primary Election Candidates Trump Endorsed So Far

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      As the midterm primary season enters the homestretch, the candidates endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump continue to rack up primary wins.That is partly by design: Of the more than 200 Republicans Mr. Trump has endorsed this year, many ran unopposed or faced little-known, poorly funded opponents. He has also waited to make some endorsements until a clear front-runner has emerged, strategically picking the candidates most likely to win — take, for instance, his last-minute endorsement of Tudor Dixon in Michigan’s Republican primary for governor.But several of his endorsed candidates were defeated in early primaries, including notable losses in Georgia and North Carolina. For candidates like J.D. Vance in Ohio and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, however, Mr. Trump’s support was crucial to securing victory — and his preferred candidates have won in large numbers in the most recent races, including in two important swing states, Arizona and Michigan.Here is a look at Mr. Trump’s endorsement record.A sweep in ArizonaThe former local television news host Kari Lake won the Republican primary for governor with Mr. Trump’s endorsement, narrowly defeating Karrin Taylor Robson, who was the choice of establishment Republicans. Ms. Lake has forcefully promoted Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who has pushed a version of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, won his Senate primary and will challenge Senator Mark Kelly, a vulnerable Democrat, in November.State Representative Mark Finchem, who is affiliated with the far-right Oath Keepers militia group and said before the primary that he would not concede if he lost, won the Republican nomination for secretary of state, a position in which he would be responsible for overseeing Arizona elections.And David Farnsworth, another Trump endorsee, won a State Senate primary against Rusty Bowers, the Arizona House speaker who drew Trump supporters’ fury for resisting efforts to overturn the 2020 election and for testifying before the Jan. 6 congressional committee.A pro-impeachment Republican lost in MichiganRepresentative Peter Meijer, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, John Gibbs, in Michigan’s Third Congressional District.In Georgia, several losses and one victoryGov. Brian Kemp easily defeated former Senator David Perdue, Mr. Trump’s handpicked candidate, in the Republican primary for governor. Mr. Kemp became a Trump target after he refused to overturn the president’s loss in the state in 2020. He will face the Democratic nominee, Stacey Abrams, whom he narrowly defeated four years ago.Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused Mr. Trump’s demand to “find” additional votes after his 2020 loss, also defeated a Trump-endorsed challenger, Representative Jody Hice.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsClimate, Health and Tax Bill: The Senate’s passage of the legislation has Democrats sprinting to sell the package by November and experiencing a flicker of an unfamiliar feeling: hope.Kansas Abortion Vote: After a decisive victory for abortion rights in deep-red Kansas, Democrats vowed to elevate the issue nationwide, while some Republicans softened their stands against abortion.Wisconsin Primary: Former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters have turned the false notion that his 2020 defeat can still be reversed into a central issue ahead of the state’s G.O.P. primary for governor.Senate Races: The key question with less than 100 days until the fall election: Can Democratic candidates in crucial Senate contests continue to outpace President Biden’s unpopularity? Attorney General Chris Carr defeated John Gordon, a Trump-supported opponent, with more than 73 percent of the vote.In a primary runoff for an open seat in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, Rich McCormick, a physician and retired Marine, defeated the Trump-backed candidate Jake Evans, the former chairman of the state’s ethics commission and the son of a Trump administration ambassador.The former professional football star Herschel Walker, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, dominated a Senate primary and will face Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and prolific fund-raiser, in the general election.Victories in PennsylvaniaAfter a close race that prompted a recount, Mehmet Oz, Mr. Trump’s choice, won the state’s Senate primary, narrowly defeating David McCormick.Doug Mastriano, a state senator and retired Army colonel who has promoted false claims about the 2020 election and attended the protest leading up to the Capitol riot, won the Republican nomination for governor. Mr. Trump had endorsed him just a few days before the primary.Two wins and a loss in North CarolinaRepresentative Ted Budd won the Republican nomination for Senate, and Bo Hines, a 26-year-old political novice who enthralled Mr. Trump, was catapulted to victory in his primary for a House seat outside Raleigh.But Representative Madison Cawthorn crumbled under the weight of repeated scandals and blunders. He was ousted in his primary, a stinging rejection of a Trump-endorsed candidate. Voters chose Chuck Edwards, a state senator.A split in South Carolina House racesRepresentative Tom Rice, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, was ousted by his Trump-backed challenger, State Representative Russell Fry, in the Seventh Congressional District.But Representative Nancy Mace defeated her Trump-endorsed opponent, the former state lawmaker Katie Arrington, in the First Congressional District. Ms. Mace had said that Mr. Trump bore responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack, but did not vote to impeach him. She had support from Nikki Haley and Mick Mulvaney, who both held office in the state before working in the Trump administration.Election deniers win in NevadaAdam Laxalt won a Senate primary and will face the incumbent, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, who is seen as one of the most vulnerable Democrats this fall. Mr. Laxalt, a former attorney general, was endorsed by Mr. Trump and had helped lead his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Nevada.Joseph Lombardo, the Las Vegas sheriff, won the Republican nomination for governor and will face the incumbent, Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat.Victories in Illinois, with outside helpState Senator Darren Bailey, who got a last-minute endorsement from Mr. Trump, won the Republican primary for governor. Democratic spending, including by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, may have helped Mr. Bailey, whom Democrats saw as easier to beat in the general election.Representative Mary Miller, endorsed by Mr. Trump months ago, won her House primary against fellow Representative Rodney Davis after redistricting put them in the same district.Victories in OhioThe Senate candidate J.D. Vance defeated a field of well-funded rivals, nearly all of whom pitched themselves as Trump-like Republicans. Mr. Vance, an author and venture capitalist, had transformed himself from a self-described “never Trump guy” in 2016 to a Trump-supported “America First” candidate in 2022.Max Miller, a former Trump aide who denied assault allegations from an ex-girlfriend and was later endorsed by Mr. Trump, won his House primary.Mr. Trump also endorsed Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a lawyer who had been a surrogate for his presidential campaign. She won a seven-way primary for a congressional seat.In Maryland, a win aided by DemocratsDan Cox, a first-term state legislator who embraced Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, handily defeated Kelly Schulz in the Republican primary for governor. Ms. Schulz was seen as a protégé of Gov. Larry Hogan, a leader of the party’s anti-Trump wing.Mr. Cox raised little money. But he benefited from more than $1.16 million in television advertising from the Democratic Governors Association, which helped his primary campaign in hopes that he would be easier to defeat in the general election.A loss in NebraskaCharles W. Herbster, a wealthy agribusiness executive, lost his three-way primary for governor to Jim Pillen, a University of Nebraska regent supported by Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has long clashed with Mr. Trump. Late in the campaign, Mr. Herbster was accused of groping several women. He denied the accusations.And another loss in IdahoGov. Brad Little overcame Mr. Trump’s endorsement of the state’s lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, who was challenging him in the Republican primary.A victory in West VirginiaRepresentative Alex Mooney prevailed over Representative David McKinley in a newly drawn congressional district. Mr. Trump’s backing was seen as the decisive factor.Alyce McFadden More

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      The Politics of Searching a Former President’s Home

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      Experts on high-wire investigations say that the Justice Department would have carefully weighed the decision to poke around Mar-a-Lago — and that it might want to tell the public why it was necessary.The F.B.I. does not take a decision like searching the private home of a former president lightly.As Garrett Graff, the author of a biography of James Comey — the F.B.I. director who oversaw the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server, then went on to run the Russia inquiry before Donald Trump fired him in 2017 — put it, “This was presumably the highest burden of proof that the Justice Department has ever required for a search warrant.”As a matter of political sensitivity, he said, the Mar-a-Lago search ranked with the subpoena of Richard Nixon’s secret Oval Office tapes and the decision to sample the DNA on Monica Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress to see if it belonged to President Bill Clinton.Graff noted that the Justice Department’s “fumbling” of several aspects of its investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign and the controversy over its handling of the Clinton email investigation would probably raise the bar for what might prompt such a high-profile step this time around.Christopher Wray, the director of the F.B.I., Attorney General Merrick Garland and their top deputies would be well aware of the minefields involved — including the possibility, as Trump proved on Monday when he announced the search in a news release, that it would draw the department into the very sort of political maelstrom Garland has sought to avoid.All of that suggests the investigation is both serious and fairly well advanced.In May, Garland reissued the department’s traditional guidance on politically sensitive investigations — and he kept the language approved by his predecessor as attorney general, Bill Barr. That move led someone to leak the memo to Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, who criticized Garland for sticking with Barr’s policy.Former Justice Department officials said the search fell into a gray area, as Trump is not officially a candidate for anything at the moment. The policy, moreover, applies only to the coming midterm elections, not to the 2024 presidential election.But that’s just the technical, legal side of this move. Politics is another story.There are a few hints that Trump thinks — with some justification — that the search will help him secure the Republican nomination in 2024. First, he announced it himself. Second, Republicans have already rallied to his side. Third, there’s no sign that any of his putative rivals in the shadow G.O.P. primary are ready to throw him overboard just yet, which suggests that they fear crossing him.Consider Ted Cruz, who ran against Trump in 2016 and might do so again in 2024. On Tuesday afternoon, Cruz sent a text message to his supporters calling the search “a raw abuse of power.” He also accused the F.B.I. of becoming “the Democrat Party Police Force.” For good measure, he threw in a fund-raising link.News of the search is probably not helpful to Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, either. She has a tough primary next Tuesday, which she is widely expected to lose. Given Cheney’s role as vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee, it’s likely many G.O.P. base voters will associate her with the F.B.I. search.As far as we know, however, that would be a mistaken impression; there’s no reason to think the bureau’s investigation has anything to do with Jan. 6, let alone with Cheney herself.Cheney’s opponent, Harriet Hageman, isn’t worried about the nuances. She tweeted this morning, in a tone that could have been written by the 45th president himself:If the FBI can treat a former President this way, imagine what they can do to the rest of us. It’s a 2-tiered justice system – one for elites & another for their political enemies. Like sending 87k IRS agents to harass citizens. Or the J6 committee. Political persecution!Attorney General Merrick Garland would be well aware of the minefields involved in the search of the private home of a former president.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesMerrick Garland’s Trump dilemmaIn February 2021, when Garland testified before the Judiciary Committee ahead of his confirmation vote, he began his remarks by observing that “the president nominates the attorney general to be the lawyer — not for any individual, but for the people of the United States.”He added, in case anyone didn’t get the message, that he wanted to “reaffirm that the role of the attorney general is to serve the rule of law.” More

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      What’s On the Ballot and How to Vote in Connecticut’s Primary

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      Connecticut might be known as a campaign fund-raising powerhouse that rarely deviates from electing Democrats statewide, but even its primary on Tuesday is drawing the attention of former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Trump made a late endorsement in the Republican Senate primary race. Its winner will challenge Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat on whom the former president has aimed his attention.The three-way Republican contest is not the only competitive race on the ballot.Here is a refresher on the rules for voting and what’s at stake.How to voteThe registration deadlines for voting in person and requesting an absentee ballot have passed. Connecticut does not have same-day registration for the primary, though it does for the general election.You have to be registered with a political party to vote in the primary. The cutoff for switching parties is three months before a primary.No-excuse absentee voting is no longer available in Connecticut, which mailed ballots to all voters at the onset of the pandemic. A referendum would be required for it to be reinstated.Where to voteClick here to look up your assigned place to vote. Absentee ballots must be returned — by mail or by hand to drop boxes or local clerks — by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, which is also when the polls close for in-person voting.What is on the ballotRepublicans will winnow the field of candidates for the Senate, the House in southwestern Connecticut and secretary of the state, an open-seat race to decide who will oversee elections.Democrats have competitive primaries for state treasurer and secretary of the state.Voters will also decide various intraparty races for the Connecticut Legislature. Click here for your sample ballot. More

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      Trump Asked Aide Why His Generals Couldn’t Be Like Hitler’s, Book Says

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      Mr. Trump once asked his chief of staff why his military leadership couldn’t be more like the German generals who had reported to Adolf Hitler, according to an excerpt.WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump told his top White House aide that he wished he had generals like the ones who had reported to Adolf Hitler, saying they were “totally loyal” to the leader of the Nazi regime, according to a forthcoming book about the 45th president.“Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Mr. Trump told John Kelly, his chief of staff, preceding the question with an obscenity, according to an excerpt from “The Divider: Trump in the White House,” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, published online by The New Yorker on Monday morning. (Mr. Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times; Ms. Glasser is a staff writer for The New Yorker.)The excerpt depicts Mr. Trump as deeply frustrated by his top military officials, whom he saw as insufficiently loyal or obedient to him. In the conversation with Mr. Kelly, which took place years before the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the authors write, the chief of staff told Mr. Trump that Germany’s generals had “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.”Mr. Trump was dismissive, according to the excerpt, apparently unaware of the World War II history that Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star general, knew all too well.“‘No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,’ the president replied,” according to the book’s authors. “In his version of history, the generals of the Third Reich had been completely subservient to Hitler; this was the model he wanted for his military. Kelly told Trump that there were no such American generals, but the president was determined to test the proposition.”Much of the excerpt focuses on Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the country’s top military official, under Mr. Trump. When the president offered him the job, General Milley told him, “I’ll do whatever you ask me to do.” But he quickly soured on the president.General Milley’s frustration with the president peaked on June 1, 2020, when Black Lives Matter protesters filled Lafayette Square, near the White House. Mr. Trump demanded to send in the military to clear the protesters, but General Milley and other top aides refused. In response, Mr. Trump shouted, “You are all losers!” according to the excerpt. “Turning to Milley, Trump said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?’” the authors write.After the square was cleared by the National Guard and police, General Milley briefly joined the president and other aides in walking through the empty park so Mr. Trump could be photographed in front of a church on the other side. The authors said General Milley later considered his decision to join the president to be a “misjudgment that would haunt him forever, a ‘road-to-Damascus moment,’ as he would later put it.”A week after that incident, General Milley wrote — but never delivered — a scathing resignation letter, accusing the president he served of politicizing the military, “ruining the international order,” failing to value diversity, and embracing the tyranny, dictatorship and extremism that members of the military had sworn to fight against.“It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country,” the general wrote in the letter, which has not been revealed before and was published in its entirety by The New Yorker. General Milley wrote that Mr. Trump did not honor those who had fought against fascism and the Nazis during World War II.Donald Trump, Post-PresidencyThe former president remains a potent force in Republican politics.Losing Support: Nearly half of G.O.P. voters prefer someone other than Donald J. Trump for president in 2024, a Times/Siena College poll showed.Trump-Pence Split: An emerging rivalry between Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, his former vice president, reveals Republicans’ enduring divisions.Looking for Cover: Mr. Trump could announce an unusually early 2024 bid, a move designed to blunt a series of damaging Jan. 6 revelations.Potential Legal Peril: From the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 inquiry to an investigation in Georgia, Mr. Trump is in legal jeopardy on several fronts.“It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order,” General Milley wrote. “You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that.”Yet General Milley eventually decided to remain in office so he could ensure that the military could serve as a bulwark against an increasingly out-of-control president, according to the authors of the book.“‘I’ll just fight him,’” General Milley told his staff, according to the New Yorker excerpt. “The challenge, as he saw it, was to stop Trump from doing any more damage, while also acting in a way that was consistent with his obligation to carry out the orders of his commander in chief. ‘If they want to court-martial me, or put me in prison, have at it.’”In addition to the revelations about General Milley, the book excerpt reveals new details about Mr. Trump’s interactions with his top military and national security officials, and documents dramatic efforts by the former president’s most senior aides to prevent a domestic or international crisis in the weeks after Mr. Trump lost his re-election bid.In the summer of 2017, the book excerpt reveals, Mr. Trump returned from viewing the Bastille Day parade in Paris and told Mr. Kelly that he wanted one of his own. But the president told Mr. Kelly: “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade. This doesn’t look good for me,” the authors write.“Kelly could not believe what he was hearing,” the excerpt continues. “‘Those are the heroes,’ he told Trump. ‘In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are — and they are buried over in Arlington.’” Mr. Trump answered: “I don’t want them. It doesn’t look good for me,” according to the authors.The excerpt underscores how many of the president’s senior aides have been trying to burnish their reputations in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack. Like General Milley, who largely refrained from criticizing Mr. Trump publicly, they are now eager to make their disagreements with him clear by cooperating with book authors and other journalists.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who never publicly disputed Mr. Trump’s wild election claims and has rarely criticized him since, was privately dismissive of the assertions of fraud that Mr. Trump and his advisers embraced.On the evening of Nov. 9, 2020, after the news media called the race for Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Pompeo called General Milley and asked to see him, according to the excerpt. During a conversation at General Milley’s kitchen table, Mr. Pompeo was blunt about what he thought of the people around the president.“‘The crazies have taken over,’” Mr. Pompeo told General Milley, according to the authors. Behind the scenes, they write, Mr. Pompeo had quickly accepted that the election was over and refused to promote overturning it.The Jan. 6 hearings on Capitol Hill have revealed that a number of the former president’s top aides pushed back privately, if not publicly, against Mr. Trump’s election denials. Kenny Holston for The New York Times“‘He was totally against it,’ a senior State Department official recalled. Pompeo cynically justified this jarring contrast between what he said in public and in private. ‘It was important for him to not get fired at the end, too, to be there to the bitter end,’ the senior official said,” according to the excerpt.The authors detail what they call an “extraordinary arrangement” in the weeks after the election between Mr. Pompeo and General Milley to hold daily morning phone calls with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in an effort to make sure the president did not take dangerous actions.“Pompeo and Milley soon took to calling them the ‘land the plane’ phone calls,” the authors write. “‘Our job is to land this plane safely and to do a peaceful transfer of power the 20th of January,’ Milley told his staff. ‘This is our obligation to this nation.’ There was a problem, however. ‘Both engines are out, the landing gear are stuck. We’re in an emergency situation.’”The Jan. 6 hearings on Capitol Hill have revealed that a number of the former president’s top aides pushed back privately against Mr. Trump’s election denials, even as some declined to do so publicly. Several, including Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House counsel, testified that they had attempted — without success — to convince the president that there was no evidence of substantial fraud.In the excerpt, the authors say that General Milley concluded that Mr. Cipollone was “a force for ‘trying to keep guardrails around the president.’” The general also believed that Mr. Pompeo was “genuinely trying to achieve a peaceful handover of power,” the authors write. But they write that General Milley was “never sure what to make of Meadows. Was the chief of staff trying to land the plane or to hijack it?”Gen. Milley is not the only top official who considered resignation, the authors write, in response to the president’s actions.The excerpt details private conversations among the president’s national security team as they discussed what to do in the event the president attempted to take actions they felt they could not abide. The authors report that General Milley consulted with Robert Gates, a former secretary of defense and former head of the C.I.A.The advice from Mr. Gates was blunt, the authors write: “‘Keep the chiefs on board with you and make it clear to the White House that if you go, they all go, so that the White House knows this isn’t just about firing Mark Milley. This is about the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff quitting in response.’”The excerpt makes clear that Mr. Trump did not always get the yes-men that he wanted. During one Oval Office exchange, Mr. Trump asked Gen. Paul Selva, an Air Force officer and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what he thought about the president’s desire for a military parade through the nation’s capital on the Fourth of July.General Selva’s response, which has not been reported before, was blunt, and not what the president wanted to hear, according to the book’s authors.“‘I didn’t grow up in the United States, I actually grew up in Portugal,’ General Selva said. “‘Portugal was a dictatorship — and parades were about showing the people who had the guns. And in this country, we don’t do that.’ He added, ‘It’s not who we are.’” More

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      In Wisconsin Primary, G.O.P. Voters Call for Decertifying 2020 Election

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      SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — When she started her campaign for governor of Wisconsin, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, a Republican, acknowledged that President Biden had been legitimately elected.She soon backtracked. Eventually, she said the 2020 election had been “rigged” against former President Donald J. Trump. She sued the state’s election commission.But she will still not entertain the false notion that the election can somehow be overturned, a fantasy that has taken hold among many of the state’s Republicans, egged on by one of her opponents, Tim Ramthun.And for that, she is taking grief from voters in the closing days before Tuesday’s primary.At a campaign stop here last week, one voter, Donette Erdmann, pressed Ms. Kleefisch on her endorsement from former Vice President Mike Pence, whom many of Mr. Trump’s most devoted supporters blame for not blocking the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. “I was wondering if you’re going to resort to a RINO agenda or an awesome agenda,” Ms. Erdmann said, using a right-wing pejorative for disloyal Republicans.Ms. Kleefisch’s startled answer — “don’t make your mind up based on what somebody else is doing,” she warned, defending her “awesome agenda” — was not enough.“I’m going to go with Tim Ramthun,” Ms. Erdmann said afterward.Ms. Kleefisch’s predicament illustrates how Mr. Trump’s supporters have turned fury over his 2020 election loss and the misguided belief that its results can be nullified into central campaign issues in the Republican primary for governor in Wisconsin, a battleground state won by razor-thin margins in the last two presidential elections. G.O.P. candidates have been left choosing whether to tell voters they are wrong or to engage in the fiction that something can be done to reverse Mr. Trump’s defeat.Dozens of Republican voters and activists interviewed across the state in the last week said they wanted to see lawmakers decertify the state’s election results and claw back its 10 electoral votes, something that cannot legally be done. Nearly all of them pointed to a July decision from the conservative-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court, which ruled that drop boxes used to collect ballots during the pandemic were illegal under state law, as evidence that hundreds of thousands of 2020 votes should be thrown out.“Everybody that I’ve talked to voted for Trump,” said Cyndy Deeg, a food industry worker from Larsen, Wis. “He should be reinstated and resume the position, because he never surrendered it.”Cyndy Deeg at a campaign event for Tim Michels in Kaukauna, Wis. Mr. Michels says that if elected, he will consider legislation to decertify the 2020 election results. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThere is no mechanism in Wisconsin law or federal law for a state to retract electoral votes or undo presidential election results two years after the contest, a fact Ms. Kleefisch finds herself explaining to voters, reporters and audiences of televised debates.Her top Wisconsin ally, former Gov. Scott Walker, said Republicans wanted to move on from discussing Mr. Trump’s defeat two years ago.“Across the nation, a great many people who love what the president did are starting to grow tired of hearing about 2020 and want to get focused on winning 2022 and 2024,” Mr. Walker said in an interview.But even as Ms. Kleefisch campaigns on an agenda of restricting voting access and eliminating the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, two Republican rivals promise to do that and more.Tim Michels, a wealthy construction magnate who has been criticized for sending his children to school in New York and Connecticut, where he owns a $17 million home, has been endorsed by Mr. Trump and says that if elected, he will consider legislation to decertify the 2020 results. Mr. Ramthun is the state’s leading proponent of decertification, but polling shows him trailing Ms. Kleefisch and Mr. Michels, who are in a tight race.The winner of the primary will face Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who has vetoed more than a dozen voting bills passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in the last two years. Because of the G.O.P.’s large majorities in the gerrymandered Legislature, a Republican governor would be given a wide berth to change how the state casts and counts votes in the 2024 presidential election.Mr. Michels, who has blanketed Wisconsin’s airwaves with advertisements reminding voters that he is Mr. Trump’s choice, has learned that running as the candidate backed by the former president comes with certain obligations.Mr. Michels has walked back recent statements that angered Trump supporters in Wisconsin.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTwice in recent weeks, he has walked back statements that departed from Trump-wing doctrine.First, Mr. Michels said at a debate that decertifying Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election results — which Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly urged the top Republican in the State Assembly to do — would not be a priority in his administration. He soon corrected himself, saying that he was “very, very fired up about this election integrity issue” and pledging to consider signing a decertification bill if legislators passed one.Then, during a town hall-style debate on Monday night, Mr. Michels was asked if he would support a presidential bid by Mr. Trump in 2024.“I’m focused on this election right now,” he said. “I have made no commitments to any candidates in 2024.”Trump supporters saw the remarks as a betrayal of the former president, and the next day, Mr. Michels corrected himself.“The day President Trump announces that he’s going to run for president in 2024, if he does, I will support him and I will endorse him,” he told supporters Tuesday in Kaukauna.Mr. Michels declined to explain the flip-flop. “I talked about it last night,” he said after the Kaukauna stop, as his aides and supporters physically pushed reporters away from the candidate.Complicating matters for both Ms. Kleefisch and Mr. Michels is Mr. Ramthun, a state assemblyman whose campaign for governor is scoring low in the polls but held in high regard by the state’s most devoted conspiracy theorists. It was Mr. Ramthun, in February, who pioneered the decertification push after Robin Vos, the Assembly speaker, prevented his proposal for a “cyber-forensic audit” of the 2020 election from coming to a vote.Tim Ramthun, a state assemblyman running for governor, is the state’s leading proponent of decertifying the 2020 results.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Ramthun’s campaign is infused with Christian nationalism, presenting him as a messianic figure who will lead the state to correct what he presents as the injudicious 2020 election results.“I’m what you’ve been looking for for decades,” he said at Monday’s debate.Mr. Vos has aggressively tried to restrict voting access in Wisconsin. Along with passing the bills Mr. Evers vetoed, last year he called for felony charges against five members of the state election commission for guidance they issued for voting during the pandemic that he said violated state election law. He also ordered a $1 million investigation into the 2020 election, led by a former State Supreme Court justice, that endorsed debunked conspiracy theories.But as with Ms. Kleefisch, Mr. Vos’s refusal to allow a decertification vote has exposed him to an attack — in his case, from a primary challenger, Adam Steen, who has no paid staff and barely enough money to print and mail his campaign literature.Mr. Steen, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump on Tuesday and was given a prime speaking slot at a Trump rally on Friday night in Waukesha, has built his campaign around decertifying the election and has also said he would seek to make contraception illegal.During a lunch of cheeseburgers and cheese curds, Mr. Steen said he would not have challenged Mr. Vos had Mr. Trump been re-elected.Adam Steen, right, has been backed by Donald J. Trump in his challenge to Robin Vos, the powerful Republican speaker of the State Assembly, who has resisted decertification calls.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“Without the knowledge that I have right now, I don’t think I would be running, because it wouldn’t have been exposed,” said Mr. Steen, who drives a Lincoln Town Car with a commemorative license plate from the 2017 presidential inauguration that says “TRUMP.” “I don’t think there was that catalyst to see those problems without him losing.”Mr. Vos declined to be interviewed. After Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Steen, Mr. Vos issued a statement reiterating that decertification is impossible.The party’s grass-roots base is not convinced.In April, a poll from Marquette University Law School found that 39 percent of the state’s Republicans backed decertification. Since then, momentum for decertification has built, especially after the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s drop box decision. The chairwoman of the Assembly’s elections committee, along with dozens of the state’s county Republican Parties, have called for the election to be decertified.Dennis Gasper, the finance director of the Sheboygan County Republican Party, which last month passed a resolution calling for legislators to withdraw the state’s 10 Electoral College votes, said he believed elected officials and Ms. Kleefisch were resisting voters’ decertification calls to spare themselves grief in the news media.“You know, the press is very powerful, and if they would say what they thought, they would be held up as being a little bit crazy,” Mr. Gasper said.Ms. Kleefisch has faced pressure from Republican voters on election issues even though she is campaigning on an agenda of restricting voting access and eliminating the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMs. Kleefisch is left trying to navigate a party that, not long ago, considered her local royalty.A former Milwaukee television reporter, she was Gov. Scott Walker’s deputy when he led Wisconsin Republicans to revoke most public employees’ collective bargaining rights, a political earthquake in state politics that led to weeks of protests and eventually sapped Democrats’ power here for a generation.During two interviews last week, she dismissed the ideas that she had crossed Mr. Trump or that his endorsement of Mr. Michels would be decisive. She said she still supported the former president and praised his policies, though she would not commit to backing him in 2024.But she acknowledged that the issue most forcefully driving Wisconsin Republicans in the current post-Trump era is not grounded in reality.“I’m not saying that the passion is imaginary, I’m not saying that the mistrust is imaginary,” she said after her Sheboygan stop. “I’m saying the idea that you can disavow the Constitution and statutes and do things that are not articulated anywhere in law is a lost cause, and there’s no path that is articulated to do that.”Mr. Michels and Mr. Ramthun, she said, are playing with fire by telling voters they’ll deliver something impossible.“It’s irresponsible to pander,” she said. “You’ve got to tell the truth.” More