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    Right-Wing Media Praises U.S.-Russia Talks as ‘Breath of Fresh Air’

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    Many of President Trump’s media allies were quick to celebrate this week’s negotiations, a contrast to the deep unease expressed by the foreign policy establishment.News that the Trump administration had agreed with Russia to try to negotiate a peace settlement for Ukraine, without including Ukraine in the talks, was a revelation that many believed reversed years of efforts to isolate Moscow.But prominent voices in the right-wing media world interpreted the development this week as cause for celebration.“Every day has kind of felt like Christmas morning, hasn’t it?” Kari Lake, the former TV news anchor who is poised to run Voice of America, said during a podcast interview on Tuesday. “President Trump wants peace for every nation.”Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA and podcast host who has more than 4.6 million followers on the social media platform X, praised the discussions as “a breath of fresh air.”And Jack Posobiec, a die-hard Trump loyalist perhaps best known for spreading the infamous “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, invoked the title of Mr. Trump’s 1987 best-selling book. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said on his podcast, “it’s the art of the peace deal.”Secretary of State Marco Rubio, seated second from left on Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was once a champion of Ukraine.Pool photo by Evelyn HocksteinWe 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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      Onstage Together in Arizona, Trump and Kennedy Signal New Alliance

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      Fresh from ending his long-shot presidential bid, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared alongside Donald J. Trump at a rally for the former president in Arizona on Friday, a potential headline-grabber that the Trump campaign hopes will help its efforts in battleground states.Mr. Kennedy received almost a rock-star-style reception, walking onstage to fireworks, raucous cheering and the Foo Fighters song “My Hero” at an arena in Glendale, Ariz. But the political impact of his endorsement of Mr. Trump remains uncertain.Still, Mr. Trump’s allies on Friday relished the fact that the former president had won the backing of a member of America’s most storied Democratic family, albeit one who has had many of his relatives denounce him and his endorsement of Mr. Trump. Of all the outlandish political news stories of the summer, mused Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, which helped organize the rally, “maybe most remarkable of all: A Kennedy has endorsed a Republican.”Hours after Mr. Kennedy announced in nearby Phoenix that he was suspending his campaign and throwing his support behind Mr. Trump, he said at the rally — with Mr. Trump standing next to him — that he and the former president had found common ground.“We talked not about the things that separated us — because we don’t agree on everything — but on the values and the issues that bind us together,” Mr. Kennedy told the crowd, recalling a conversation he had with Mr. Trump. “Don’t you want a president that’s going to make America healthy again?”Despite their past conflicts, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Trump have similar grievances that they could easily weave together on the campaign trail. They both blame a shadowy, bureaucratic deep state for many of the nation’s ills, and they argue that technology companies and Democrats want to suppress free speech.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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      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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      ‘2,000 Mules’ Producer Apologizes to Man Depicted Committing Election Fraud

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      Salem Media Group, which co-produced the 2022 film, issued the apology to a Georgia man who was falsely depicted as stuffing a ballot box near Atlanta.The conservative media company Salem Media Group has apologized to a Georgia man who was falsely depicted as having committed election fraud in the film “2,000 Mules,” which Salem co-produced and released in 2022.The documentary, written and directed by the right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza, claimed that Democrats had conspired with nonprofit groups to rig the 2020 election in favor of President Biden by using “mules” who stuffed ballot boxes in swing states.More than a million people watched “2,000 Mules” in just the first two weeks after its release in May 2022, and the film grossed over $10 million. Its unfounded allegations became an article of faith for an untold number of Americans convinced that the election had been stolen. Five months later, Salem released a companion book.The film features surveillance video of the man from Georgia, Mark Andrews, as he places ballots into a drop box near Atlanta, along with voice-over commentary by Mr. D’Souza calling the action “a crime” and adding, “These are fraudulent votes.”Although Mr. Andrews’s face is blurred in the images, the film’s producers used unblurred versions of the same video to promote the film on a variety of conservative news outlets, including Tucker Carlson’s former show on Fox News and a show hosted by Charlie Kirk, a founder of Turning Point USA, and produced by Salem.Mr. Andrews sued Mr. D’Souza, along with Salem and two individuals associated with the right-wing election-monitoring group True the Vote, for defamation in October 2022. State investigators in Georgia have since found that Mr. Andrews committed no crime and that he had legally deposited the ballots for himself and several members of his family.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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      Nebraska Republicans Renew Push for ‘Winner Take All’ Electoral System

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      A renewed push by Nebraska Republicans to move to a “winner-take-all” system in presidential elections has raised the prospect that the 2024 contest could end in an electoral college tie — with the House of Representatives deciding the winner.Nebraska and Maine are the only states that divide their electoral votes according to the presidential winners of congressional districts. In 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the eastern district around Omaha and its one vote. On Tuesday, Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska, a Republican, threw his support behind a G.O.P.-led bill languishing in the state’s unicameral legislature that would end the practice.“It would bring Nebraska in line with 48 of our fellow states, better reflect the founders’ intent, and ensure our state speaks with one unified voice in presidential elections,” Mr. Pillen wrote in a statement.The resurrection of the state bill was sparked this week by Charlie Kirk, the chief executive of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump conservative advocacy group, who pressed the state legislature to move forward on social media.Former President Donald J. Trump quickly endorsed the governor’s “very smart letter” on his social media site.And for good reason. If Mr. Biden were to hold Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but lose Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and the one Nebraska vote he took in 2020, the electoral college would be deadlocked at 269 votes each. The House would then decide the victor, not by total votes but by the votes of each state delegation. That would almost certainly give the election to Mr. Trump.But that Sun-Belt-sweep-plus-one scenario still might be out of reach. Democrats in the legislature expressed confidence on Tuesday that they could filibuster the measure, and the state legislative session is set to end on April 18.Conversely, Maine, where Democrats hold the governor’s office and a majority in the legislature, could change its system to take back the electoral vote that Mr. Trump won in 2020. Mr. Biden won Maine by nine percentage points, but Mr. Trump took a vote in the electoral college by winning the state’s rural second district. More

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      Justice Thomas Hires Law Clerk Accused of Sending Racist Text Messages

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      Crystal Clanton, who is close with the Thomas family, has said she does not remember sending the messages, which emerged in 2017.Justice Clarence Thomas recently hired a law clerk who was previously accused of sending racist text messages, resurfacing the controversy around her.Crystal Clanton will begin clerking for the justice in the upcoming term, according to the Antonin Scalia Law School, from which she graduated in 2022.In late 2017, a New Yorker story reported that Ms. Clanton, who had served for five years as the national field director at Turning Point USA, a conservative student group, had sent the text messages, including the statement “i hate black people,” to another employee. The New York Times has not seen the messages.Ms. Clanton, who had resigned from the group by the time the article came out, told The New Yorker at the time that she had no recollection of the messages and that “they do not reflect what I believe or who I am and the same was true when I was a teenager.” (Ms. Clanton would have been 20 years old when the messages were sent.) She did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday.In the years since, Ms. Clanton has maintained a close relationship with Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia Thomas. Ms. Thomas once served on the advisory board of Turning Point USA, and subsequently hired Ms. Clanton. The justice has called the allegations against Ms. Clanton unfounded and said that he does not believe her to be racist.Justice Thomas did not respond to a request for comment.The Thomases have welcomed Ms. Clanton into their inner circle. Photos from the Thomases’ 2022 holiday newsletter show that she joined the couple for Thanksgiving dinner. The Thomases also celebrated her graduation from Scalia Law.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