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      Trump Agrees to Be Interviewed by F.B.I. in Its Investigation Into Gunman

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      The F.B.I. also provided the most comprehensive portrait to date of the shooter, revealing that he carefully concealed more than two dozen online purchases of weapons and explosives using aliases.Former President Donald J. Trump has agreed to be interviewed by the F.B.I. as part of its investigation into the motives of the 20-year-old man who tried to assassinate him during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, bureau officials said on Monday.“We want to get his perspective on what he observed, like any other witness,” Kevin Rojek, the head of the bureau’s Pittsburgh field office, said on a call with reporters. “It is a standard victim interview, like we would do.”Mr. Trump’s supporters had sharply criticized Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, for telling a House committee last week that investigators had not definitively determined the cause of the minor injury to the former president’s ear. By week’s end, the F.B.I. offered its most definitive explanation yet, saying it was a bullet or a fragment of one, a statement it reiterated on Monday.The F.B.I. also provided the most comprehensive portrait to date of the gunman, Thomas Crooks, revealing that he carefully concealed more than two dozen online purchases of weapons and explosives using aliases, and that he gathered information on other assassination attempts, including the shooting of Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, in May.Mr. Rojek also provided information about a critical — and lost — opportunity to stop Mr. Crooks. He said that a local law enforcement officer who was boosted onto the warehouse roof where Mr. Crooks had positioned himself just before the shooting “dropped down” to the ground after the shooter aimed at the officer.About 25 to 30 seconds later, Mr. Crooks fired eight rounds — hitting Mr. Trump’s ear, killing a bystander and injuring two other people.F.B.I. officials said they were taking the unusual step of providing investigative details, even though their efforts were continuing, to combat conspiracy theories and misinformation.They also said that their investigation was not geared toward identifying or analyzing security failures by the Secret Service and local enforcement that allowed Mr. Crooks to get within a few hundred yards of Mr. Trump to discharge a deadly volley with a clear line of sight.The investigation, they said, has been entirely focused on determining whether he was motivated by political animus — they have found no evidence to suggest that so far — and to find out if he was part of a larger conspiracy. They have not ruled that possibility out, but thus far, the bureau has found that Mr. Crooks had few contacts outside of his immediate family, and did not even seem to interact much with co-workers or fellow participants on gaming platforms.“We do still believe that he was a loner,” Mr. Rojek said. More

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      From Believers to Bitcoin: 24 Hours in Trump’s Code-Switching Campaign

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      When Donald J. Trump tries to win over a crowd that is not inherently his own, the results can be awkward.In a matter of just 24 hours this weekend, Donald J. Trump traversed two very different worlds, neither one of them his own.On Friday night, he appeared before religious leaders in West Palm Beach, Fla. The next afternoon, he was in Nashville, yukking it up with thousands of crypto-evangelists at a Bitcoin conference.The two groups could hardly be less alike, and Mr. Trump — neither a pious man, nor technologically savvy one — made for an unlikely champion at each. And yet, taken together, the two appearances provided a case study in how he code switches — from Christianity to crypto — as he campaigns.He begs, he blusters, he makes outlandish promises. And his attempts to win over a crowd that is not inherently his own can be acutely awkward.On Friday, he spoke at the Believers Summit, a religious conference put on by Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative activist group. It was a slickly produced affair befitting the Southern televangelists and hundreds of pastors and ministry heads who turned up for it.In this setting, martyrdom was the motif, and Mr. Trump leaned into it, hard. (“I took a bullet for democracy,” he said at one point.)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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      Hulk Hogan Is Not the Only Way to Be a Man

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      The Democratic Party must join the battle for the hearts and minds of young men. It matters not just for this election, though the vast and growing gender gap means that disaffected men could hand Donald Trump the presidency. It matters for how we mentor young men, and it matters for how we view masculinity itself.And yes, the Democrats can do it. Within the Kamala Harris coalition, there are men who can show a better way.If you ever wondered whether the Republican Party sees itself as the party of men, I’d invite you to rewatch the last night of the Republican National Convention. Prime time featured a rousing speech by the wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, a song by Kid Rock and a speech by Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship — all as warm-up acts before Trump delivered his acceptance speech. Republican manliness was the capstone of the convention.But what kind of men were featured? They’re all rich and powerful, and as a longtime fan of professional wrestling, I loved watching Hogan as a kid, but none of them are the kind of man I’d want my son to be. White was caught on video slapping his wife. Kid Rock has his own checkered past, including a sex tape and an assault charge related to a fight in a Nashville strip club. Hogan faced his own sex scandal after he had a bizarre sexual relationship with a woman who was married to one of his close friends, a radio host who goes by “Bubba the Love Sponge.”We know all about Trump, but it’s worth remembering some of his worst moments — including a jury finding that he was liable for sexual abuse, his defamation of his sex-abuse victim, the “Access Hollywood” tape and the countless examples of his cruelly insulting the women he so plainly hates.JD Vance is different. No one should denigrate his personal story. He has overcome great adversity, served his country honorably as a Marine and, by all accounts, is a good husband and father. But he now wears Trumpist masculinity like an ill-fitting suit. Last week, he was justifiably attacked for a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson in which he declared that the country is run, “via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies.” He identified Harris (who has two stepchildren) as just the kind of person he was talking about.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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      JD Vance Stumbles in His Debut as Democrats Go on Offense

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      In the 12 days since Ohio’s junior senator was tapped as the future of Donald J. Trump’s movement, old comments and a chorus of derision have blunted any sense of invulnerability.The choice of Senator JD Vance as former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate reflected the confidence of a campaign so sure of victory in November that it could look beyond a second Trump term to the legacy of his movement.But in less than two weeks, Mr. Vance has found himself on the defensive, and his struggles have dented the sense of invulnerability that only a week ago seemed to be the overriding image of the Trump campaign.A stream of years-old quotes, videos and audio comments unearthed by Democrats and the news media in recent days has threatened to undermine the Trump campaign’s outreach to women, voters of color and the very blue-collar voters to whom Mr. Vance, a first-term Ohio senator, was supposed to appeal.His past comments deriding “childless cat ladies,” supporting a “federal response” to stop abortion in Democratic states and promoting a higher tax burden for childless Americans have yielded a chorus of criticism from Democrats. Mr. Vance’s fresh efforts to explain them have provided Democrats more material, with the Harris campaign promoting one short clip in which he seems to suggest that when he spoke of childless cat ladies, he meant no insult to cats — “I’ve got nothing against cats,” he said.And his first handful of appearances on the stump have drawn unflattering attention. During an appearance in his hometown, Middletown, Ohio, he tried to explain how his critics would call his drinking Diet Mountain Dew racist, with an awkward aside assuring the audience that Diet Mountain Dew was good.Mr. Vance’s stumbles have come after a remarkable two weeks when Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt, and then rallied the party — and even some skeptics — behind him. The Republican National Convention began with calls for national unity, and though those calls were at times undercut by the Republican presidential nominee, the ticket vaulted out of Milwaukee with a head of steam and an expanded lead in the polls.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 Tells Christians ‘You Won’t Have to Vote Anymore’ If He’s Elected

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      In the closing minutes of his speech to a gathering of religious conservatives on Friday night, former President Donald J. Trump told Christians that if they voted him into office in November, they would never need to vote again.“Christians, get out and vote. Just this time,” he said at The Believers’ Summit, an event hosted by the conservative advocacy group Turning Point Action, in West Palm Beach, Fla. “You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”Mr. Trump, who never made a particular display of religious observance before entering politics, continued: “I love you, Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”Mr. Trump’s comments came at the end of a nearly hourlong speech in which he appealed to religious conservatives by promising to defend them from perceived threats from the left. Earlier in his remarks, he lamented that conservative Christians do not vote in large numbers, a complaint he had made repeatedly on the trail.“They don’t vote like they should,” Mr. Trump said of Christians. “They’re not big voters.”Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Christians would not have to vote again if he is elected quickly spread across social media. Some argued that it was a threat that the 2024 election could be the nation’s last if he were to win and claimed it was further evidence of an authoritarian, anti-democratic bent he has displayed throughout his political candidacy.The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment to clarify Mr. Trump’s intent.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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      Embattled Democrats Express New Hope With Harris at Top of Ticket

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      Incumbents who had feared President Biden would drag them down to defeat say the electoral environment has improved rapidly since he left the race.Senator Martin Heinrich, a two-term Democrat from New Mexico, was not on anyone’s watch list of incumbents facing serious re-election trouble given the reliable partisan tilt of his state, which has not voted for a Republican for Senate since 2002 or a Republican presidential candidate since 2004.But in the weeks after President Biden turned in a disastrous debate performance against Donald J. Trump last month, Mr. Heinrich was among the Democrats privately panicking. Polls showed New Mexico slipping into an expanding universe of potentially winnable states for the former president — foretelling an electoral disaster for Mr. Biden and trouble in the senator’s own re-election race.So Mr. Biden’s decision last weekend to exit the race took a weight off the shoulders of Mr. Heinrich and other Democratic incumbents, who now describe a sense of hope and momentum overtaking the doom and gloom that had permeated their party since late June.“It just feels like a completely different world than a week ago,” said Mr. Heinrich, who is facing a challenge from Nella Domenici, the daughter of the state’s last Republican senator, Pete Domenici, a popular figure and household name in New Mexico. “Across the board — engagement, social media, anecdotal — everything feels different. I feel better about the broad momentum.”Mr. Biden’s withdrawal is still fresh, polling is only beginning to come in and Democrats still face significant challenges in holding their thin Senate majority and gaining control of the House.But lawmakers who just days ago were bracing for what they feared would be a November wipeout say the ascension of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket has stabilized races and given Democrats a fighting chance. Instead of running from awkward questions about Mr. Biden’s age, mental acuity and fitness, Democrats are hoping to benefit from a surge of grass-roots support for Ms. Harris.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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      Silent No More, Harris Seeks Her Own Voice Without Breaking With Biden

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      The vice president’s expressions of concern for Palestinian suffering marked a shift in emphasis from the president’s statements as she moved to establish herself as the leader of her party.After meeting with Israel’s prime minister this week, Vice President Kamala Harris said she “will not be silent.” She was referring to her concerns about Palestinian suffering in the Gaza war, but in a way it was a larger declaration of independence.For nearly four years, she has been the quiet understudy, relegated to the role of the supportive deputy while President Biden made pronouncements. Now she has suddenly been thrust to the fore as the new presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and neither silence nor agreeable head nods are sufficient any more.The challenge for her over the next 100 days will be to find her own voice without overtly breaking with Mr. Biden, a delicate political high-wire act without a reliable net. Every statement she makes, every sentence she utters, will be scrutinized to determine whether it is consistent with the president she serves. Yet even as she wants to demonstrate loyalty to Mr. Biden, she also hopes to show the public who she is.She is fortunate in that she and Mr. Biden do not diverge all that much, according to people who have worked with them. While friction between presidents and their vice presidents is common, there have been few notable instances where Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have been reported to be at odds. So for her, it may not be as difficult to suppress contrary instincts in the truncated election campaign she faces as it has been for other vice presidents eager to differentiate themselves.But this is a balancing act being figured out on the fly. Because Mr. Biden was running himself until less than a week ago, neither he nor Ms. Harris has had much time to figure out how to coordinate their messages. It was notable that Mr. Biden left it to Ms. Harris on Thursday to be the public voice of the administration during the White House visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, taking the silent role himself.Mr. Biden cares deeply about keeping former President Donald J. Trump out of the White House and therefore has reason to be invested in Ms. Harris’s success. He also knows that because, until he was forced to quit the race, he had insisted on running again despite concerns about his age, many will blame him for not ceding the stage earlier if Mr. Trump wins.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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      With Kamala Harris, U.S. Free Trade Skepticism May Continue

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      The vice president has been critical of past trade deals. But her record suggests she could push for trade measures that address environmental issues.In a 2019 presidential debate, Kamala Harris insisted, “I am not a protectionist Democrat.”But Ms. Harris is not a free-trade Democrat, either. She has said she would have opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1992, which President Biden voted for while serving in the Senate, as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement supported by the Obama administration. And in 2020, she was one of only 10 senators to vote against the deal to replace NAFTA, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.As she pursues the presidential nomination, Ms. Harris’s views on trade and economic issues are likely to become a focal point. Yet unlike former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, trade has never been a major focus for Ms. Harris. As a result, her positions on trade issues are not entirely known.William A. Reinsch, the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Ms. Harris “a bit of a blank slate, but one most likely to be filled in with trade skepticism.”In part that is because of her no vote on the U.S.M.C.A., which Mr. Reinsch said “leads me to assume she is part of the progressive wing of the party which is skeptical of trade agreements in general, and particularly of those that involve market access.” But, he said, “there’s not a lot out there to go on.”Still, in her time as a senator from California and as the vice president, Ms. Harris has adopted some recurring positions that hint at what trade policy might look like if she wins the White House. For example, on several occasions, her objection to trade deals revolved around a common issue: their impact on the environment, and their lack of measures to address climate change.While the U.S.M.C.A. was negotiated by the Trump administration, it won over many Democrats by including tougher protections for workers and the environment. But Ms. Harris concluded that the deal’s environmental provisions were “insufficient — and by not addressing climate change, the U.S.M.C.A. fails to meet the crises of this moment.”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