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      Donald Trump Said He Proposed a ‘Migrant League of Fighters’ to U.F.C. Chief Dana White

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      Former President Donald J. Trump said in an address to an evangelical group that he had suggested starting a sports league for migrants to fight one another.Appearing at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s conference in Washington on Saturday, Mr. Trump described migrants with the dehumanizing terms he often uses to refer to them, saying they were “tough,” “come from prisons” and are “nasty, mean.”Mr. Trump then said that he had suggested to Dana White, an ally of the former president’s who is the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, “Why don’t you set up a migrant league of fighters?”He continued, referring to the U.F.C.: “And then you have the champion of your league — these are the greatest fighters in the world — fight the champion of the migrants? I think the migrant guy might win! That’s how tough they are.”Mr. Trump said that Mr. White “didn’t like the idea too much.” But, he added, “It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had. These are tough people.”Mr. White, asked about Mr. Trump’s comment at a U.F.C. event on Saturday, confirmed that the former president had made the proposal, but said, “It was a joke, it was a joke. I saw everybody going crazy online. But yeah, he did say it.”The Biden campaign denounced Mr. Trump’s comments, attacking what it called “a rambling, confused tirade,” at what it said was intended to be “a conference for Christian values.”“Trump’s incoherent, unhinged tirade showed voters in his own words that he is a threat to our freedoms and is too dangerous to be let anywhere near the White House again,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement.Mr. Trump has made immigration a central part of his platform in the 2024 presidential election, as it was in his two previous campaigns. He has pledged to carry out sweeping raids and to use military funds to erect camps to hold undocumented detainees. He has also escalated his rhetoric against migrants, at times using language that invokes the racial hatred of Hitler by describing migrants as “poisoning the blood of our country.”“Fantasies about cage matches are a distraction from the very real plans Trump and his team are making to deport millions of people who have lived here for decades and the resulting inflation, joblessness and economic devastation,” said Doug G. Rivlin, a spokesman for America’s Voice, an immigrant-rights advocacy group that has been tracking the escalation of Republican rhetoric on the issue. “Republican politicians are going to find that hard to defend while campaigning this year.”Jazmine Ulloa More

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      Trump Hawks American Flag Pins with His Name in Gold Splashed Across Them

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      Donald J. Trump’s campaign is billing it as a must-have fashion accessory for his supporters: an American flag lapel pin with the former president’s name scrawled in gold block letters across it — in all caps.The pins were available starting Thursday for a $50 donation to the Trump campaign, the latest merchandising gambit from a candidate who has hawked a plethora of products over the decades, most recently Bibles and Trump sneakers.A donation page for the pins declared that Mr. Trump’s political opponents had rendered him a convicted felon and asked supporters if he could count on their support.His latest marketing pitch is further testing the norms of flag etiquette and drawing fresh scrutiny from critics.It’s not only the flag flap surrounding Mr. Trump, whose birthday, June 14, happens to fall on Flag Day. Some election deniers have flown the flag upside-down, a historical symbol of distress, to protest Mr. Trump’s 2020 election defeat. An inverted flag appeared at the home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a display that he attributed to his wife.Alterations to the flag are forbidden under the U.S. Flag Code, which was created in the 1920s by a group of patriotic and civic groups that included the American Legion and adopted as law by Congress in 1942.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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      David DePape Convicted in Attack of Nancy Pelosi’s Husband

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      In 2022, David DePape broke into Ms. Pelosi’s San Francisco home and eventually beat her husband with a hammer.David DePape was convicted on Friday of five charges, brought by the state of California, for breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s home in 2022 and beating her husband with a hammer.The verdict in the state trial concluded a case that had raised fears of politically motivated violence in a divided America and reflected some of the darkest currents in the country’s politics. In the years leading up to the attack, Mr. DePape was submerged in online conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon and the virulent rhetoric that right-wing figures had for years embraced against their opponents, including Ms. Pelosi.The convictions by a state jury in a San Francisco courtroom followed Mr. DePape’s convictions in federal court last year that resulted in a 30-year sentence. On Friday, he was found guilty of first-degree burglary; false imprisonment of an elder; threatening the family of a public official; kidnapping for ransom that resulted in bodily harm; and dissuading a witness by force or threat.Mr. DePape, 44, now faces a life sentence without parole in state prison, to be completed after he serves his federal term.Over the course of the two trials, he and his lawyers never contested the evidence against him. In interviews with police shortly after the incident in October 2022, he admitted to breaking into Ms. Pelosi’s house and attacking her husband, Paul Pelosi. He did the same in an interview from jail with a local television station and on the witness stand in his federal trial.His lawyer in the state case, Adam Lipson of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, told the jury in his closing statement on Tuesday that the group should find Mr. DePape guilty of some of the charges. But Mr. Lipson tried to convince jurors that the prosecution had not proved other charges beyond a reasonable doubt. He disputed, in particular, that Mr. DePape was guilty of kidnapping Mr. Pelosi because he did not tie up his victim or attempt to extract a ransom.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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      Judge in Trump Documents Case Hears Arguments Over Special Counsel

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      Judge Aileen Cannon held a hearing to consider a question that has been quickly dismissed in other cases: whether there is a constitutional basis for the appointment of a special counsel.Former President Donald J. Trump’s defense team tried on Friday to persuade the judge overseeing the national security documents case to dismiss the indictment, pushing a long-shot argument that the special counsel, Jack Smith, was not properly appointed.Such defense motions are routinely denied in federal cases involving special counsels. But the judge presiding over this case, Aileen M. Cannon, has given Mr. Trump’s request extra import by holding hearings and allowing three outside lawyers time in court to make additional arguments about whether there is a constitutional mechanism for naming special counsels.“This has been very illuminating and helpful,” Judge Cannon said at the close of about four hours of arguments and a steady beat of her own questions, which often began with, “Would you agree that.”Mr. Trump’s team argued that the attorney general lacks constitutional authority to appoint someone with the powers of a special counsel. “The text of these statutes really matters,” said Emil Bove, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers. He also argued that Mr. Smith should have been confirmed by the Senate because his position is so powerful.Prosecutors argued that well-established precedents demonstrate that the attorney general does have that power, citing a string of court decisions upholding special counsel investigations. “We’re interpreting statutory terms consistent with the Constitution,” said James I. Pearce, a member of the special counsel’s team.Judge Cannon’s questions addressed language in specific laws, past precedents and excerpts from lawyers’ written briefs. At times on Friday, her courtroom sounded like a university seminar on the history of the Justice Department, national scandals that have drawn special counsels and the various interpretations of the meaning of words in decades-old laws.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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      Supreme Court Upholds Law Prohibiting Domestic Abusers From Owning Guns

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      The justices rejected a Second Amendment challenge to a federal law that makes it a crime for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders to possess a gun.The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the government may disarm a Texas man subject to a domestic violence order, limiting the sweep of its earlier blockbuster decision that vastly expanded gun rights.That decision, issued in 2022, struck down a New York law that put strict limits on carrying guns outside the home. It also established a new legal standard for assessing laws limiting the possession of firearms, one whose reliance on historical practices has sown confusion as courts have struggled to apply it, with some judges sweeping aside gun control laws that have been on the books for decades.The new case, United States v. Rahimi, explored the scope of that new test. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the majority opinion in the 2022 decision, dissented.Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that Second Amendment rights had limits.“When a restraining order contains a finding that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner, that individual may — consistent with the Second Amendment — be banned from possessing firearms while the order is in effect,” he wrote. “Since the founding, our nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”The case started in 2019 when Zackey Rahimi, a drug dealer in Texas, assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, leading her to obtain a restraining order. The order suspended Mr. Rahimi’s handgun license and prohibited him from possessing firearms.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 Erodes Biden’s Lead in 2024 Election Fundraising After Conviction

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      Just two months ago, President Biden appeared to have a daunting financial advantage. Then Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, and Republicans’ wallets opened.Former President Donald J. Trump out-raised President Biden for the second consecutive month in May, outpacing his successor by roughly $81 million in donations over the last two months as he rode a surge of financial support after his felony conviction.In May, Mr. Biden’s campaign and its joint operation with the Democratic National Committee raised $85 million, compared with $141 million for Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee, according to the two campaigns. In April, the Trump team also brought in $25 million more than the Biden team.The Biden campaign said it entered June with $212 million on hand combined with the party. The Trump operation and R.N.C. have not released a full tally of their cash on hand since the end of March. A partial count on Thursday, revealed in Federal Election Commission filings, showed that Mr. Trump had amassed a war chest of at least $170 million with the party.Overall, Mr. Trump was a daunting $100 million behind Mr. Biden at the start of April. In two months, he cut that cash deficit by at least half.The full accounting of both sides’ finances will be made public in federal filings next month. But the combination of Mr. Trump’s improved fund-raising and Mr. Biden’s heavier spending on advertising this spring appears to put the two sides on a path to enter the summer relatively close to financial parity.“Yes, Trump is raising a lot more money now, and that should scare people,” said Brian Derrick, a strategist who founded a Democratic fund-raising platform called Oath. “But at the end of the day, Biden has the funds that he needs to run a really strong campaign.”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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      Timothy Mellon Donates $50 Million to a Pro-Trump Super PAC

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      Timothy Mellon, a reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune, donated $50 million to a super PAC supporting Donald J. Trump the day after the former president was convicted of 34 felonies, according to new federal filings, an enormous gift that is among the largest single disclosed contributions ever.The donation’s impact on the 2024 race is expected to be felt almost immediately. Within days of the contribution, the pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., said in a memo that it would begin reserving $100 million in advertising through Labor Day.The group had only $34.5 million on hand at the end of April, and Mr. Mellon’s contribution accounted for much of the nearly $70 million that the super PAC raised in May. On Wednesday and Thursday, the super PAC began reserving $30 million in ads to air in Georgia and Pennsylvania around the Fourth of July holiday.Mr. Mellon is now the first donor to give $100 million in disclosed federal contributions in this year’s election. He was already the single largest contributor to super PACs supporting both Mr. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent. Mr. Mellon has previously given $25 million to both.Democrats have sought to portray Mr. Kennedy as a spoiler supported by Republicans, in part by emphasizing Mr. Mellon’s dual contributions and seemingly split loyalties. The pro-Kennedy super PAC has distributed quotations from the hard-to-reach Mr. Mellon, and for a blurb that appears on the cover of Mr. Mellon’s upcoming book, Mr. Kennedy called the billionaire a “maverick entrepreneur.”It is not clear what Mr. Mellon’s mega-donation means for his support of Mr. Kennedy going forward. He has so far toggled between giving to support both candidates. His most recent donation to Mr. Kennedy’s super PAC was a $5 million contribution in April.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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      Supreme Court Upholds Trump-Era Tax Provision

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      The tax dispute, which was closely watched by experts, involved a one-time foreign income tax, but many saw it as a broader challenge to pre-emptively block Congress from passing a wealth tax.The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a tax on foreign income that helped finance the tax cuts President Donald J. Trump imposed in 2017 in a case that many experts had cautioned could undercut the nation’s tax system.The vote was 7 to 2, with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh writing the majority opinion. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and the court’s three liberals. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.The question before the justices appeared narrow at first glance: Is the tax in question allowed under the Constitution, which gives Congress limited powers of taxation?In the majority opinion, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that the tax fell within the authority of Congress under the Constitution.Many tax experts had warned that striking down the tax could have wide repercussions. Such a move could have threatened to fundamentally change how income is defined, block efforts to tax billionaires’ wealth and undermine enforcement for all sorts of other taxes, which amount to billions in revenue for the government.Among the defenders of the law was Paul Ryan, the Republican and former House speaker who helped write the legislation. Upending the tax, Mr. Ryan said, could endanger up to a third of the U.S. tax code. He joined the Biden administration and some other conservatives in seeking to keep the law intact.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