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    Trump, in Pitch to Black Voters in Detroit, Casts Biden as Anti-Black

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    Former President Donald J. Trump, courting Black voters at a church on the west side of Detroit on Saturday, sought to harness animus toward migrants crossing the border, sanitized his track record on race and sold himself as the best president for Black Americans since Abraham Lincoln.As he spoke to roughly 200 people, Mr. Trump largely ignored his history of racist statements and his decades of calls for tougher policing that have fueled his three presidential campaigns.Instead, during short remarks before a panel with Black residents of Detroit at the city’s 180 Church, Mr. Trump tried to cast Mr. Biden as anti-Black, focusing intently on the president’s role in shepherding the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a sweeping bill that criminal justice experts have said laid the groundwork for mass incarceration that disproportionately hurt America’s Black communities.Though Black voters have overwhelmingly favored Democrats since the civil rights era, recent polls have shown the party losing some of their support.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMr. Trump, at one point, seemed determined to ensure that Mr. Biden’s role in the crime bill would be the event’s main takeaway. He falsely accused Mr. Biden of coining the term “super predators” and then insisted that those in the audience should not forget Mr. Biden’s role, as a U.S. senator, in championing the bill and helping pass it.“He was the one with the super predators,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Biden. “So just please remember that if you’re going to vote Democrat — because you shouldn’t vote Democrat.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Las Vegas, Trump Appeals to Local Workers and Avoids Talk of Conviction

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      Former President Donald J. Trump stood in blazing heat in a Las Vegas park on Sunday and directly appealed to working-class voters by promising to eliminate taxes on tips for hospitality workers.But beyond that proposal, little at Mr. Trump’s campaign rally suggested that his new status as a felon had changed his message. And when Mr. Trump’s teleprompter apparently stopped working, his speech — which his campaign advisers had billed as focused on issues of local concern to Nevada voters — devolved into familiar stories and riffs.“I got no teleprompters, and I haven’t from the beginning,” Mr. Trump said after speaking for roughly 15 minutes, though his speech included excerpts from prepared remarks that his campaign had provided to reporters. “That probably means we’ll make a better speech now.”Mr. Trump repeatedly voiced his frustration with the lack of a teleprompter, even though he has often boasted of his ability to give long speeches without one.His remarks, which lasted roughly an hour, felt unfocused as he cycled through well-worn territory, railing against electric vehicles, immigration, the four criminal cases brought against him and President Biden’s physical and mental condition.Once again, Mr. Trump broadly depicted migrants crossing the border illegally as violent criminals or mentally ill people, and then recited “The Snake,” a standby poem he has used since 2016 to expound on the threat that he believes undocumented immigrants pose to the country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Pro-Trump Crowd, Sensing Disloyalty, Drowns Out Dissent

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      A day after former President Donald J. Trump headlined the Turning Point conference in Florida, two of his Republican opponents were booed and heckled at the same event.Not long ago, the names on the marquee would have been right at home on Fox News: Stephen K. Bannon, Tucker Carlson and Roger J. Stone Jr.But Fox News ousted Mr. Carlson three months ago, and Mr. Bannon, Mr. Stone and a boisterous pro-Trump crowd at the Turning Point Action Conference were eager to take shots at the conservative network, arguing that it has not been sufficiently supportive of former President Donald J. Trump as he seeks to regain the office he lost in 2020.At the two-day gathering, with thousands of pro-Trump activists in attendance this weekend in South Florida, jeers flew on Sunday at the mention of Rupert Murdoch, the Fox media mogul, as well as Speaker Kevin McCarthy.Donald J. Trump spoke to roughly 6,000 attendees for more than an hour and a half on Sunday.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesAnd after Mr. Trump spoke to this crowd on Saturday, any of his Republican rivals for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination took the stage at their own peril.In a speech on Sunday, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s onetime chief strategist who was found guilty of contempt of Congress, suggested that Mr. Murdoch had been using Fox News to hype Republican governors from battleground states to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy. He cited Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mr. Trump’s main rival in the party, who trails him by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, as a cautionary tale.“Come on down,” Mr. Bannon said. “Bring it because we’ll destroy you just like we destroyed DeSantis.”Mr. Bannon — the host of a right-wing podcast, which he has used to promote election falsehoods and conspiracy theories — criticized Fox News for its lack of coverage of the pro-Trump conclave and called Mr. Trump’s political battles a “jihad.”“Donald Trump is our instrument for retribution,” he said.While Fox News did not carry the event on its main network, it did show conference speeches by Mr. Trump and the other Republican candidates on Fox Nation, its subscription streaming service. A Fox Corporation spokesman declined to comment on behalf of Mr. Murdoch.Two of Mr. Trump’s long-shot Republican opponents — Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor; and Francis X. Suarez, the mayor of Miami — experienced the wrath of Mr. Trump’s supporters firsthand on Sunday when they were heckled and booed.When Mr. Suarez, whom The Miami Herald has reported as being under F.B.I. investigation in a corruption case, stepped up to the microphone, a few people in the crowd yelled “traitor.”He responded by mentioning his Cuban American heritage and saying that dissenting voices were welcome in America, unlike in his ancestors’ home country.A woman yelling at Francis X. Suarez, the Miami mayor and Republican presidential candidate.Saul Martinez for The New York Times“It’s OK to have a little bit of hate,” Mr. Suarez told the crowd.Saul Martinez for The New York Times“It’s OK to have a little bit of hate,” Mr. Suarez said. Later, he asked conservative activists to chip in to his campaign.Mr. Hutchinson paused his remarks as the crowd began chanting Mr. Trump’s name, and one of his biggest applause lines came when he mentioned his successor in the Arkansas governor’s office: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr. Trump’s onetime White House press secretary.Contending with cross-talk for much of his speech, Mr. Hutchinson said that Republicans needed to have respect for people with different opinions.At the conference, attendees could attach sticky notes to cutouts of the Republican candidates’ heads.A man placed one with a homophobic slur on the face of Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s former vice president. Later, it appeared to have been removed. But a number of stickers branding Mr. Pence a “traitor” for refusing to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, covered his face.On a cutout of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Mr. Trump’s United Nation’s ambassador, one sticky note said: “Woman in Politics? Cringe.”At the event’s apex on Saturday, about 6,000 people filled the Palm Beach County Convention Center to hear Mr. Trump speak for nearly 100 minutes. Mr. Carlson ruminated about his dismissal from Fox News in April.Roger J. Stone Jr. speaking to the pro-Trump crowd.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesIn a speech on Sunday, Mr. Stone, who had a felony conviction pardoned by Mr. Trump, claimed that federal prosecutors had offered him a deal to dredge up dirt implicating Mr. Trump in wrongdoing and recalled a predawn F.B.I. raid at his home in South Florida in 2019 during which he was arrested.“I said, ‘You can go to hell,’” he said. More

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      Trump Taunts DeSantis Onstage at Turning Point Action Conference

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      Former President Donald J. Trump taunted Gov. Ron DeSantis, his chief Republican rival, for his absence from the conservative Turning Point Action Conference.On the home turf of his chief Republican rival and in his adopted state, former President Donald J. Trump told a sprawling conservative gathering in Florida on Saturday night that it was futile for Gov. Ron DeSantis to keep battling him for the party’s presidential nomination.In a prime-time speech at the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump claimed that his polling lead over Mr. DeSantis and every other G.O.P. candidate was insurmountable, and suggested that the Florida governor should stand down for the good of the party.Mr. Trump, who leads Mr. DeSantis by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, dismissed Mr. DeSantis’s early momentum before he officially entered the race in May as a mirage.“He was never that close, by the way,” Mr. Trump told about 6,000 grass-roots activists at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. Turning Point Action is a political arm of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump grass-roots group focusing on millennial conservatives that was founded by Charlie Kirk.Mr. Trump seized on his rival’s absence from the two-day event, which drew about a third of the Republican presidential field as speakers.“I don’t know why he’s not here,” he said. “He should be here representing himself.”In a statement on Saturday, Bryan Griffin, the campaign press secretary for Mr. DeSantis, shrugged off Mr. Trump’s criticism.“Governor DeSantis spent the day with Iowans and spoke to a packed house at the Tennessee G.O.P. Statesman Dinner later that night,” he said. “This was a day after he delivered the strongest interview at the Family Leadership Summit, which Donald Trump notably skipped. Ron DeSantis is campaigning to win.”Mr. Trump was greeted onstage with pyrotechnics and a nearly three-minute video montage of the former president. While organizers prepared the stage for his entrance, Mr. Trump’s supporters, many in their ubiquitous red caps, watched musical performances of Elvis and Pavarotti on giant screens.Mr. DeSantis declined an invitation to speak at the end of the conference on Sunday, according to organizers, who noted that he had worked closely with Turning Point Action during the midterm elections last year and took part in several rallies that supported Trump-endorsed candidates.Mr. Trump spoke for nearly 100 minutes at the conference, meeting a warm reception from the conservative crowd of about 6,000.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesBut on the same day that Mr. DeSantis announced his campaign in May, the conservative group announced that Mr. Trump would headline its conference in Florida, perhaps miffing the host governor.The lineup of speakers on Saturday may have given Mr. DeSantis further pause. It included three Republican House members from Florida who have endorsed Mr. Trump’s candidacy: Representatives Byron Donalds, Anna Paulina Luna and Matt Gaetz.In succession, each professed their loyalty to the former president, as booming subwoofers and smoke machines added to the theatrical effect.Mr. Gaetz, the provocateur who nominated Mr. Trump for House speaker earlier this year during the G.O.P.’s protracted leadership fight, got a roar from the crowd when he said that Mr. Trump’s allies were unflinching.“Of course, we ride or die with President Donald John Trump,” he said.And when Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News commentator, dared to suggest at the event that the Republican nominating contest was probably a two-candidate race between Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, several thousand activists booed.Ms. Kelly, who famously tangled with Mr. Trump in a G.O.P. debate in 2015, relented.“The vast majority of the Republican Party wants Trump,” she said, adding that Mr. Trump’s indictments had only burnished his stock with conservative voters. “We all know who the best middle-finger candidate is.”In a nearly 100-minute speech, Mr. Trump noted that Mr. DeSantis had once been his ally and had sought his endorsement in his first race for governor in 2018.“I got him elected,” he said. “He was dead. He begged me to endorse him.”Mr. Trump said that he had been taken aback when Mr. DeSantis later declined to say whether he might challenge him for the Republican nomination, using an expletive to refer to the Florida governor.Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox News in April, whipped the audience into a frenzy with an appearance immediately before the former president.“I don’t think most unemployed people get a reception like that,” Mr. Carlson said.Mr. Carlson doubled down on his baseless claims that voting machines had been rigged during the 2020 election and expressed sympathy for the Capitol rioters, saying that a country that squashes discussions about the electoral process was not a democracy.Vivek Ramaswamy, the multimillionaire entrepreneur running for the Republican nomination, also spoke on Saturday. Three other long-shot candidates — Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas; Francis X. Suarez, the mayor of Miami; and Perry Johnson, a wealthy businessman from Michigan — are scheduled to speak on Sunday.So are Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s onetime chief strategist who was found guilty of contempt of Congress; and Roger J. Stone Jr., the pro-Trump operative who was convicted of obstruction but had his sentence commuted by Mr. Trump. In the convention center’s lobby, Mr. Stone took selfies with Mr. Trump’s supporters.“All the cool people are here,” Mr. Carlson said. More