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      Trump’s Extremists Are Now In Charge of the House

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      The three-week battle to choose a House speaker may be over, yet the fallout for the United States and its reputation as a sound government and a beacon of democracy will be long-lasting and profound.The Republicans in the House unanimously voted for a man who made it his mission to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election, who put the political whims and needs of former President Donald Trump ahead of the interests and will of the American people. A party that once cared deeply about America as the leader of the free world, and believed in the strength, dependability and bipartisan consensus that such a role required, has largely given way to a party now devoted to an extremism that is an active threat to liberal values and American stability.Americans and the world are starting to get to know Mike Johnson, now the second in line to the presidency, and it’s a troubling introduction. Donald Trump may not be in the White House, but Trumpism as an institution has transcended the man and provided the operating principles for the House of Representatives and much of the Republican Party.Those operating principles include allowing Mr. Trump to all but select the speaker, and elevating, in Mr. Johnson, one of the party’s most prominent election deniers. It has been disturbing to watch the slide from Republican speakers like Paul Ryan and John Boehner, who denounced attempts to challenge the election results, to the hemming-and-hawing of Kevin McCarthy, to the full-blown anti-democratic stands of Mr. Johnson. And it has certainly been a long slide from the party of Ronald Reagan — whose 11th Commandment was not speaking ill of other Republicans and who envisioned the party as a big tent — to the extremism, purity tests and chaos of the House Republican conference this year.Every Republican present in the chamber voted on Wednesday for Mr. Johnson, reflecting the exhaustion of a party that has been ridiculed for incoherence since it deposed Mr. McCarthy for working with Democrats to fulfill the basic function of Congress, to fund the federal government. The choice of Mr. Johnson came after Mr. Trump helped engineer the result by torpedoing a more moderate candidate, setting the stage for the 2024 presidential election to unfold with someone in the speaker’s chair who has proved his willingness to go great lengths to overturn a free and fair vote.It’s obvious why the former president was so supportive of the new speaker. Mr. Johnson was “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections” to Mr. Trump’s loss in 2020, as a New York Times investigation found last year. He made unfounded arguments questioning the constitutionality of state voting rules, he agreed with Mr. Trump that the election was “rigged,” cast doubt on voting machines, and supported a host of other baseless and unconstitutional theories that ultimately led to a violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Johnson now refuses to talk about his leading role in that shameful drama. When a reporter for ABC News tried to ask him about it on Tuesday night, he would not respond; his fellow Republicans booed the question, and one yelled at the reporter to “shut up.” Such questions cannot be dismissed when Mr. Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Though changes in the law and Democratic control of the Senate make it much harder for the House of Representatives to impede certification of the vote, the American public deserves a speaker of the House who will uphold the will of the people, not someone willing to bend the rules of an election for his own side.More immediately, while his election as speaker will make it possible for the House to continue functioning, it is not clear that Mr. Johnson is committed to the work of actually governing. At the end of September, he voted against the stopgap spending measure negotiated by Mr. McCarthy that prevented a government shutdown. That bill was an important litmus test; Mr. McCarthy brought it to a vote and got it passed with bipartisan support, over the objections of Mr. Trump, leading to his downfall as speaker. Two other Republican speaker candidates, Tom Emmer and Steve Scalise, also voted for it — and were also vetoed by the extreme right.Mr. Johnson now says he would support another temporary stopgap to give the House time to pass drastic spending cuts. That promise may have won over the Republicans who blocked the candidacy of another extremist, Jim Jordan, last week. But Mr. Johnson’s voting record so far leaves little doubt that he prefers the performance of taking positions to actual lawmaking.This leaves Congress in a precarious state. The 22 days of indecision, backbiting and bullying that followed Mr. McCarthy’s ouster did significant damage to the reputation of the United States as a country that knows how to govern itself. One of the country’s two major political parties sent a piercing signal to the world and the nation that it is no longer a reliable custodian of the legislative branch — and many party members knew it.“This is junior-high stuff,” Representative Steve Womack, Republican of Arkansas, said a few days ago. “We get wrapped around the axle of a lot of nonsensical things. But, yes, the world is burning around us. We’re fiddling; we don’t have a strategy.”Nevertheless, Mr. Womack voted for Mr. Johnson. His preferred choice was Mr. Emmer, a Republican whose views are more moderate and who might have led the party out of its hard-line cul-de-sac. Mr. Emmer had the support of many other Republicans, but his candidacy never even got to the House floor for a vote.That’s because Mr. Trump exacted retribution for Mr. Emmer’s willingness to recognize the true outcome of the 2020 election. Mr. Emmer voted to certify those results, defying Mr. Trump, and the former president has never forgiven him. On Tuesday, he denounced Mr. Emmer on social media as a “globalist” and a fake Republican who never respected the MAGA movement. After Mr. Emmer dropped out in the face of growing opposition from the far right, Mr. Trump boasted to a friend: “I killed him.”Mr. Johnson will take control of the House at a moment when the United States needs to demonstrate leadership on the world stage. One of the most important decisions is coming right up: Will Mr. Johnson support Mr. Biden’s request for nearly $106 billion for aid to Ukraine and Israel? He has already voted against most bills to support Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression.As speaker of the House, he plays a crucial role in the legislative system, determining the agenda by choosing which bills will reach the House floor for a vote, supervising committee appointments, and hammering out compromises to get legislation passed. (Nancy Pelosi, for example, demonstrated make-or-break leadership in creating the Affordable Care Act.)Mr. Johnson believes that the “true existential threat to the country” is immigration and led the Republican Study Committee, the largest group of conservatives in the House, which issued a plan to erode the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid. It also refers to free public education as “socialist-inspired.”On social issues, Mr. Johnson has also embraced the positions of the hard right. He supported state laws that criminalized gay sex, and wrote in 2004 that gay marriage would “place our entire democratic system in jeopardy” and lead to people marrying their pets. As a congressman, he celebrated the demise of Roe v. Wade in 2022.It bears repeating that this Trump loyalist is now second in line to the presidency. The former president has never accepted being out of the White House, and it’s clear he still commands firm control over half of the Capitol building.Source photograph by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Where Mike Johnson Stands on Key Issues: Ukraine, LGBTQ Rights and More

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      The new House speaker, an evangelical Christian, has a staunchly conservative record on gay rights, abortion, gun safety and more.Speaker Mike Johnson, the little-known congressman from Louisiana who won the gavel on Wednesday, is deeply conservative on both fiscal and social issues, reflecting the G.O.P.’s sharp lurch to the right.Mr. Johnson, a lawyer, also played a leading role in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, helping to push a lawsuit to throw out the results in four battleground states he lost and then offering members of Congress a legal argument upon which to justify their votes to invalidate the results.He has a career rating of 92 percent from the American Conservative Union and 90 percent from Heritage Action for America.Here’s where he stands on six key issues.Government fundingMr. Johnson is a fiscal conservative who believes Congress has a “moral and constitutional duty” to balance the budget, lower spending and “pursue continued pro-growth tax reforms and permanent tax reductions,” according to his website.He voted in favor of the deal in May to suspend the debt ceiling negotiated between former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the Biden administration. But alongside 89 other Republicans, Mr. Johnson voted against the stopgap funding bill Mr. McCarthy put forth last month to stave off a government shutdown just hours before it was to commence. That bill ultimately passed with more Democratic than Republican support and cost Mr. McCarthy the gavel.In a letter this week, before he was elected speaker, Mr. Johnson proposed a short-term funding bill to avoid a shutdown and an aggressive calendar for passing yearlong spending bills in the interim. But he did not specify what spending levels he would support in the temporary bill, and many Republicans have refused to back such measures without substantial cuts that cannot pass the Democratic-controlled Senate or be signed by President Biden.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      Could Mike Johnson, the New House Speaker, Undermine the 2024 Election?

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      The Louisiana Republican played a pivotal role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But his elevation to the top post in the House does not give him special powers in the certification process if he tries again.Ever since Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana assumed office on Wednesday, a question has been on Democrats’ minds: Could the elevation of Mr. Johnson, who worked in league with former President Donald J. Trump in trying to undermine the 2020 election results, allow him to succeed in 2024 where he failed the last time?The speakership, which is second in line to the presidency, comes with broad powers over the functioning of the House. And Mr. Johnson, a constitutional lawyer whose stature in his party has grown with his election to the top post, could try again to interfere. But there are several reasons that Mr. Johnson’s new job alone would not allow him special powers to overturn the will of the voters unilaterally.Here’s how it works.The vice president, not the speaker, presides over Congress’s counting of electoral votes.When Mr. Trump was attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, his pressure campaign focused on his own vice president, Mike Pence, who was presiding over the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, to count the electoral votes. Mr. Trump encouraged Mr. Pence to throw out legitimate votes in favor of false slates of electors, a move Mr. Pence said was unconstitutional.Vice President Kamala Harris is in line to preside over the joint session on Jan. 6, 2025, when Congress will meet in a joint session to certify the results of the 2024 election. The speaker has no special role in the proceedings.Johnson may not even be speaker by then.Mr. Johnson, 51, just became speaker, but his term will expire before Jan. 6, 2025.Should Democrats prevail in the House in the 2024 election — an outcome many analysts see as a strong possibility — a Democrat would take over control of the chamber, likely the current minority leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York.Should Republicans hold the House, Mr. Johnson would need to win another leadership election among his party. Given how raucous the Republican conference has been in recent months, that’s not a sure thing either.The Electoral Count Reform Act has tightened safeguards.In the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s attempt to cling to power, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, passed a reform bill to try to ensure no similar plan could be carried out in the future.The new law makes clear that a vice president’s role in counting electoral votes is “solely ministerial,” with no power to reject electors. It also requires that one-fifth of both the House and Senate sign on before any objection to state’s electors can be heard. The law also limits the grounds for objections.Republicans who defend Mr. Johnson’s actions related to the 2020 election note that Democrats have objected to certain states’ electors during previous congressional certifications. But they have never done so as part of an organized campaign directed by their candidate, with false slates of electors being put forward and a violent mob assembled at the Capitol demanding that the election results be reversed. Mr. Johnson could still attempt to undermine the election.While Mr. Johnson cannot unilaterally overturn the 2024 election, he could attempt other extreme steps to try to interfere with certification.For example, Mr. Johnson could use the power of his bully pulpit and his status as a party leader to organize Republican lawsuits or pressure state boards of elections to throw out legitimate votes. He could attempt to refuse to seat new Democratic members of the House.“His main power would be as party leader,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, who served on the House Jan. 6 committee.Mr. Johnson also could demand that Republicans in Congress vote as a bloc on Jan. 6, 2025, against certifying election results. But he would need 20 percent of both chambers to agree to object, and then a majority of both chambers to vote to sustain the objection.Should that occur, the presidential election could fall to a contingent election of the House, in which state delegations would decide who became the next president. Such a scenario — in which the House selected a president who had lost at the ballot box — would almost certainly end up in the courts.Those who have studied the reforms to the Electoral Count Act see it as highly unlikely that Mr. Johnson could lead enough Republicans in both chambers against the will of the voters.“The election deniers are far from having 51 votes in the United States Senate, and that’s not going to change for many, many years,” said Norman L. Eisen, who was a special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee and testified on the need for reform legislation. “Fortunately, the Electoral Count Reform Act has closed off many of the avenues that would be available to mischief makers. But given his history, we will have to be on our guard.” More

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      Speaker Mike Johnson’s Rise: ‘The Republicans Have Elevated an Extremist’

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      More from our inbox:Baseball on the ClockIron DeficiencyGovernors, Join Together to Solve the Immigration Crisis Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “G.O.P. Elects Speaker, Ending Bitter Feud” (front page, Oct. 26):Our nation flails on the brink of disaster now that the Republicans have elevated an extremist to the honorable position of House speaker. A Times online newsletter article says all we need to know about Mike Johnson: “His elevation now places a socially conservative lawyer who opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage, and who played a leading role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election, second in line to the presidency.”Citizens of this great nation should fear this election-denying, rights-resisting, bigotry-promoting zealot. This turn of events underscores the importance of getting out the vote.May the universe and all things holy protect our republic from doom.M. Corinne CorleyIsleton, Calif.To the Editor:Republicans have elected a speaker of the people’s House who attempted to subvert the people’s will in the last election by leading a bogus effort to overturn the election that Joe Biden clearly and convincingly won, an effort that if it had succeeded could well have ended our democracy — a man who won the position as leader because Donald Trump, twice impeached and indicted on many felony charges, approved of him.America is full of second acts, but they begin with contrition.Mike Johnson, the new speaker, can get a fresh look from me if he admits he was wrong about the 2020 election, apologizes to Mr. Biden and the country, says clearly that Mr. Biden won, and commits to operate the people’s House for all of us, independently of Mr. Trump!John E. ColbertArroyo Seco, N.M.To the Editor:When all is said and done, what did the Democrats achieve? By voting to oust Kevin McCarthy, they exchanged the frying pan for what Matt Gaetz and his circus barkers wanted all along: the fire.Sabin WillettBostonTo the Editor:There can be no clearer evidence of the stranglehold that Donald Trump continues to have on subservient members of the Republican Party than the seemingly endless House speaker vote fiasco just played out in Congress.The former president was openly intimidating House speaker candidates whose credentials, in Mr. Trump’s view, were disqualifying if they included rejection of his claims that the 2020 election was stolen.Astoundingly, even as the walls of justice close in on the beleaguered former president and as a growing list of his administration cronies cooperates with prosecutors, a large and entrenched component of congressional Republicans remains complicit in abetting Mr. Trump’s obsession with a stolen election.Roger HirschbergSouth Burlington, Vt.To the Editor:Unfortunately I am shocked and beyond despair. It appears that the G.O.P. is set on self-destruct. I cannot imagine anything good coming out of this speaker selection. Congress is now slated to be all but gridlocked until the next election.It would appear that the party of gerrymandered districts is dead set on destroying our country and doesn’t care what most Americans want or think.Rob WheelerSummertown, Tenn.To the Editor:The “squishes” got squashed. Moderate Republicans once more prostrated themselves before their far-right overlords. As a result we have a new speaker of the House who was a leader of the effort to overthrow the government of the United States by overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election, and who ironically now stands second in the line of succession to the presidency. Squishy indeed.Steve NelsonWilliamstown, Mass.Baseball on the Clock Melanie LambrickTo the Editor:“Baseball Has Lost Its Poetry,” by Jesse Nathan (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 21), is an excellent piece of baseball writing. Baseball, however, is not played on the page. It’s played on the field.Mr. Nathan could not be more wrong about the pitch clock, which he opposes.As an author of baseball books, articles, essays, reviews and short stories, I have an appreciation for good writing, and include Mr. Nathan’s piece in this category. As a fan since 1957, an attendee at 50 opening days at Fenway Park and an inveterate TV watcher, I love the game.Starting about 10 years ago, the game became unwatchable. Each batter had his ritual of stepping out of the batter’s box, adjusting batting gloves, touching body parts, to reset focus and interrupt the pitcher’s rhythm. This happened on virtually every pitch.Pitchers, for their part, could hold the ball, throw to first with a man on base unlimited times, stare, even walk behind the mound, to reset and interrupt the batter’s timing. This could happen on every pitch. It was not a timeless escape from modern life. It was not poetry. It was a waste of time.If Mr. Nathan desires the timeless, I suggest Shakespeare’s sonnets.Luke SalisburyChelsea, Mass.The writer is the author of “The Answer Is Baseball.”Iron Deficiency Marta MonteiroTo the Editor:Two online articles on Oct. 17, “More Than a Third of Women Under 50 Are Iron-Deficient” and “How to Know if You’re Iron-Deficient, and What to Do About It,” call attention to a significant condition that affects millions of women worldwide.As noted in these articles, heavy menstrual bleeding is a major driver of iron deficiency. Hormonal contraceptives, including pills and certain IUDs, are important tools for managing heavy bleeding because they often reduce or completely pause menstrual periods.While research on this “side benefit” of contraceptives is continuing, the potential for contraceptives to complement other treatments for iron deficiency should be part of the conversations all providers have with patients to enable a fully informed choice.Contraception and menstruation are topics that hold significant stigma, which is why the connection between nutrition and contraception has lacked appropriate attention and traction. We call on our fellow health care providers and researchers across both disciplines to engage in this conversation now.By breaking the silos between these fields, we can bring these issues out of the shadows and help individuals manage heavy menstrual bleeding and iron deficiency while also improving the reproductive health care they desire and deserve.Laneta DorflingerAndrée SoslerEmily HoppesThe writers work on contraceptive technology innovation at FHI 360, an organization that aims to promote equity, health and well-being worldwide.Governors, Join Together to Solve the Immigration CrisisA bus full of migrants who turned themselves in to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in El Paso in May.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Busing 50,000 People North, Texas Reframes Debate on Immigration” (news article, Oct. 19):Where are the nation’s 50 governors in trying to solve the immigration crisis? Despite the clear, purposeful and odious vengefulness of Texas Republicans in busing immigrants to Democratic cities and states, they have a point.Isn’t it in fact the responsibility of all states and all communities to share the burden that just a few states must now shoulder because of their proximity to the border? If so, shouldn’t the governors, through the National Governors Association, come up with a plan for them to do so?That they haven’t — that all states haven’t stepped up to assume responsibility for meeting and solving this crisis — just adds to, and illustrates, the grievous state of American governance.James M. Banner, Jr.Washington More

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      North Carolina Republicans’ Gerrymandered Map Could Flip at Least Three House Seats

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      The gerrymandered congressional map, made possible by a new G.O.P. majority on the state Supreme Court, ensures Republican dominance in a closely divided state.Republicans in North Carolina approved a heavily gerrymandered congressional map on Wednesday that is likely to knock out about half of the Democrats representing the state in the House of Representatives. It could result in as much as an 11-3 advantage for Republicans.The State House, controlled by a Republican supermajority, voted for the new lines a day after the State Senate approved them. Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Democrat, cannot veto redistricting legislation.The map creates 10 solidly Republican districts, three solidly Democratic districts and one competitive district. Currently, under the lines drawn by a court for the 2022 election, each party holds seven seats.The new lines ensure Republican dominance in a state that, while leaning red, is closely divided. President Donald J. Trump won it by just over a percentage point in 2020, and Republicans won the last two Senate elections by two and three points.The Democratic incumbents who have been essentially drawn off the map are Representatives Jeff Jackson in the Charlotte area, Kathy Manning in the Greensboro area and Wiley Nickel in the Raleigh area. A seat held by a fourth Democrat, Representative Don Davis, is expected to be competitive.“If either of these maps become final, it means I’m toast in Congress,” Mr. Jackson said in a video on X last week after the release of two draft maps, one of which became the final product. “This is the majority party in the state legislature in North Carolina basically saying, ‘We want another member of our party in Congress, so we’re going to redraw the map to take out Jeff.’”On Thursday, he announced that he would run for attorney general of North Carolina “to fight political corruption,” a label he applied to the gerrymandered maps.Mr. Nickel, who won a close race last year, was also defiant.“I don’t want to give these maps credibility by announcing a run in any of these gerrymandered districts,” he said on X. “The maps are an extreme partisan gerrymander by Republican legislators that totally screw North Carolina voters. It’s time to sue the bastards.”Ms. Manning did not announce specific plans but said she was “not willing to let these partisan maps take away my constituents’ right to representation.” She criticized Republicans for diluting voters in Guilford County, which includes Greensboro, by dividing them among three districts that also include distant parts of the state.Republicans openly acknowledged the advantage they were drawing for themselves. “There’s no doubt that the congressional map that’s before you today has a lean towards Republicans,” State Representative Destin Hall, the chairman of the redistricting committee, said on the floor, while adding that legislators had “complied with the law in every way.” (Mr. Hall did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)The new map and the events that led to it illustrate both the power of gerrymandering to render voters’ preferences electorally irrelevant, and the extent to which control of the House is being determined by courts’ interpretation of what lines are permissible.North Carolina has long been one of the most gerrymandered states in the country, as well as the subject of years of legal battles. Last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that a previous gerrymandered map was illegal, and court-drawn lines were used in the midterm elections, producing more competitive districts and, ultimately, an evenly divided congressional delegation.But something else also happened in the midterms: A Republican won a seat on the state Supreme Court, flipping it from a Democratic to a Republican majority. Though none of the facts had changed except the composition of the court, the justices promptly threw out the 2022 ruling, opening the door for Republican legislators to restore their party’s advantage.In several other states, the courts are also prevailing.In Wisconsin, where voters recently elected a liberal justice, the state Supreme Court is widely expected to rule against an existing Republican gerrymander. In Alabama, a court ordered a map this month that includes two districts, instead of one, where Black voters have or are close to a majority. That change, stemming from a United States Supreme Court decision earlier this year, will most likely result in one more Democratic representative.The same Supreme Court ruling could lead to a new majority-Black district in Louisiana, though that is tied up in another lawsuit. Separately, a contentious redistricting process is on the table in New York. More

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      The House Finally Has a Speaker

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      Michael Simon Johnson and Rachel Quester and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicWarning: this episode contains strong language.After 21 days without a leader, and after cycling through four nominees, House Republicans have finally elected a speaker. They chose Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a hard-right conservative best known for leading congressional efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The Times, was at the capitol when it happened.On today’s episodeLuke Broadwater, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana won the election on Wednesday to become the 56th speaker of the House of Representatives.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBackground readingThe House elected Mike Johnson as speaker, embracing a hard-right conservative.Speaker Johnson previously played a leading role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Luke Broadwater More

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      Trump’s Allies Pledged Loyalty to Him. Until They Didn’t.

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      The former president is facing down Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer, in a Manhattan courtroom, while other ex-loyalists are cooperating in a case against him in Georgia.Donald J. Trump could not hide his anger. Sitting at the front of a crowded New York courtroom this week, he folded his arms tightly across his chest. He tossed his head and scowled. He stared into the middle distance and scrolled through his phone.His ire was directed at Michael D. Cohen, his former personal lawyer and fixer, who had taken the witness stand 15 feet away and had promptly called Mr. Trump a liar. Mr. Cohen has told his share of lies as well. But in court, he swore he had done so “at the direction of, in concert with and for the benefit of Mr. Trump.”Mr. Cohen’s two days of dramatic testimony this week provided the first glimpse of what could become a familiar scene: Mr. Trump, sitting at a defense table, watching as a lawyer who once did his bidding now cooperated with the authorities seeking to hold him to account.On the same day Mr. Cohen began his testimony, Jenna Ellis, who had sought to help Mr. Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election, pleaded guilty to state charges in Georgia. She was preceded by Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, both lawyers who worked with Mr. Trump’s campaign, both now expected to cooperate in the criminal case that the Georgia prosecutors brought against him.The circumstances surrounding the Georgia criminal case and the Manhattan civil fraud trial are vastly different. But near the center of each case are lawyers who pledged public fealty to Mr. Trump — until they very publicly did not.Mr. Trump has long relied on a phalanx of legal attack dogs to speak on his behalf, or to do or say things he would rather not do or say himself. And because Mr. Trump has such a tenuous relationship with the truth, those lieutenants often spread a message that prosecutors and investigators consider to be outright lies. Lies about an election he lost, a relationship with a porn star he may have had and a net worth he may not quite have achieved.Now those statements are ricocheting back at Mr. Trump as he contends with the civil trial in New York, brought by the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, and with four criminal indictments up and down the East Coast. And while Mr. Trump is quick to blame his betrayers — Mr. Cohen is “proven to be a liar,” he said outside the courtroom this week — his predicament was born from his own lopsided approach to relationships.Mr. Trump has a history of disavowing people who were once close to him and find themselves in trouble. He had long since cut ties with Mr. Cohen — until Tuesday, they had not seen each other in five years — and more recently he distanced himself from the lawyers in the Georgia case. He had also refused to pay their mounting legal bills.Their relationships, a one-way street flowing in Mr. Trump’s direction, appeared to work for a time. But when those loyal soldiers faced their own legal jeopardy, their allegiance to the former president became strained or even shattered.There have been exceptions since Mr. Trump’s split with Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump’s political action committee has picked up the legal bills for his co-defendants in the federal criminal case involving his handling of classified government documents, as well as those of several witnesses connected to the case.Mr. Trump’s company also agreed to dole out a $2 million severance payment to his longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, and continues to pay for Mr. Weisselberg’s lawyers. Mr. Weisselberg pleaded guilty to tax fraud and testified at the company’s criminal trial last year, but has stopped short of turning on Mr. Trump.Mr. Cohen was among several in a series of people who Mr. Trump turned to over decades in the hopes they would emulate his first fixer and defender, the lawyer Roy Cohn. “Roy was brutal, but he was a very loyal guy,” Mr. Trump told one of his biographers, Timothy O’Brien, in an interview. “He brutalized for you.”That brutality — along with Mr. Cohn’s method of conflating public relations defenses with legal ones, making showy displays in court and accusing the federal government of “Gestapo-like tactics” against Mr. Trump in a 1970s suit alleging housing discrimination — became Mr. Trump’s preferred model for a lawyer.Mr. Cohen has often said that those sort of tactics influenced what Mr. Trump looks for in those who defend him.While it is unclear how useful Ms. Ellis and the other two lawyers will be to the case against Mr. Trump in Georgia, Mr. Cohen has already been tormenting Mr. Trump for the last five years. Ms. Ellis became critical of him publicly in the last several months.Mr. Trump made a point of attending the trial in Manhattan this week to watch Mr. Cohen’s testimony in person.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesFor Mr. Trump, the feud with Mr. Cohen is personal. Although he is running for president and fighting the four indictments, none of those obligations could pry him away from the Manhattan courtroom to watch Mr. Cohen’s testimony. Mr. Trump did not have to attend the testimony, but people close to him say he believes events go better for him when he is present.Mr. Trump’s falling out with Mr. Cohen stemmed from their dealings with the porn star Stormy Daniels.In the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Cohen paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 to silence her story of an affair with Mr. Trump years earlier — an affair that Mr. Trump denied had ever taken place.The deal came to light in 2018, and soon, the F.B.I. had searched Mr. Cohen’s home and office. As Mr. Cohen’s life imploded, Mr. Trump began to distance himself from his fixer, and eventually, his company stopped paying Mr. Cohen’s legal bills altogether.Mr. Cohen soon lashed out and began to speak with prosecutors. When he pleaded guilty that year for his role in the hush-money deal, he stood up in court and pointed the finger at the then-president. Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen declared, had directed the payment of the hush money.Although the federal prosecutors declined to indict Mr. Trump, this year the Manhattan district attorney’s office brought charges against him related to the deal, using Mr. Cohen as a potential star witness for a trial scheduled to start in the spring. Mr. Cohen has also testified before Congress that the former president’s company had manipulated financial statements to reach Mr. Trump’s desired net worth. That testimony was the catalyst for Ms. James to open her investigation.When Ms. James’s team questioned Mr. Cohen on Tuesday, he repeated many of the same accusations, testifying that Mr. Trump had directed him to “reverse engineer” annual financial statements to reach the former president’s desired net worth.Mr. Cohen spoke calmly and confidently as he recounted Mr. Trump’s obsession with his net worth.But the Trump team’s cross-examination exposed the perils of relying on a disgruntled former aide, especially one as temperamental as Mr. Cohen.Mr. Trump’s lawyers seized on Mr. Cohen’s inconsistent statements about the former president and his own crimes, leading him to admit to having lied a number of times. Toward the end of the second day of cross-examination, Mr. Cohen appeared visibly flustered as he tripped over rapid-fire questions about whether Mr. Trump had personally directed him to inflate numbers on his annual financial statements. Mr. Cohen said he had not, prompting Mr. Trump and one of his lawyers, Alina Habba, to throw their hands up in victory.Ms. Habba also resurfaced a series of glowing remarks Mr. Cohen once made about his boss, further underscoring his about-face.“I think he’s going to be an amazing president”; “I’m the guy who would take the bullet for the president”; “I think the world of him, I respect him as a business man and I respect him as a boss,” Ms. Habba emphatically read, as she circled the courtroom with a hand-held microphone like a preacher delivering a sermon.This appeared to delight Mr. Trump, who turned to watch Ms. Habba while draping his arm over her empty chair.Before Mr. Cohen completed his testimony on Wednesday, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked Justice Arthur J. Engoron to dismiss the case, citing Mr. Cohen’s contradictions.Justice Engoron denied the request, and Mr. Trump stormed out of the courtroom.Kate Christobek More

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      Solidarity Between American Activists and Palestinians — Including a Rebuke of Biden

      by

      Since the heinous Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s declaration of war against the terrorist group, I have been going over and over a question I’ve not been able to answer fully: During this episode, why has the Palestinian cause sparked so much passion among veteran activists of the movement for Black lives?Last week, I wrote that this could be traced to the ideological lens and residual energy of a younger generation attuned to protest and the ideas of equality and justice. But after interviewing several prominent activists in recent days, I realize there’s more to explore in the critical dynamics fueling that passion, which is born, in part, out of longstanding personal connections and a common sense of purpose.There are two pivotal events that seem to have ignited the new era of solidarity between some young American activists and the people of Palestine. The first came in the form of Palestinian activists expressing support on social media for the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Mo., which activists describe as an uprising, not just a series of protests. Palestinians provided not just moral support, but offered practical tips that, as activist Cherrell Brown told me, included advice for protesters about how to protect themselves from tear gas.Around that time, a small delegation of Palestinians even traveled to Ferguson and St. Louis to meet with American activists. This all created a moment of bonding around a shared sense of resistance.The second event was a 2015 pilgrimage to Israel and the Palestinian territories organized by Ahmad Abuznaid, a Jerusalem-born Palestinian American who co-founded the Dream Defenders, a group of activists who came together in response to the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin.The small delegation included some people who would also become central in the American movement, like the journalist and scholar Marc Lamont Hill.When we spoke, Abuznaid, who has been criticized for his support for B.D.S., a movement calling for boycott, divestment and sanctioning of Israel, said he has led or been a part of several delegations to the Palestinian territories focused on what he describes as the injustices caused by the Israeli occupation.These trips help not only to develop strong bonds between communities half a world away from each other, but also to connect the issues facing them. Hill, who lost his job as a CNN contributor after he gave a speech at the United Nations about Israel and Palestine that was condemned by groups including the Anti-Defamation League, would go on to be a co-author of a book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics.”The events during this period reinforced a sense of internationalism among activists and connected a present solidarity with a historical one. It called back to a time when an American figure as notable as Malcolm X spoke out for the Palestinian cause.Even activists who didn’t make these journeys describe coming to this cause in part through personal connections with Palestinians and Palestinian Americans.And unlike some conflicts around the world, this one continues to play out in full view, in traditional media and social media. As the comedian, actress and activist Amanda Seales told me, this crisis has an urgency around it that others don’t because “we’re able to see it” in an unfiltered way.The other thing that I initially underestimated is the level of criticism of the Biden administration for its response to this conflict and what effect that might have in 2024.Shaun King, a former writer for The Daily News who has millions of followers on Facebook, Instagram and X, the site formerly known as Twitter, posted recently about how he would not vote for President Biden next year because of his embrace of Israel.King, who has never been a strong Biden supporter and is far from a mainline Democrat, told me, “I feel like a voter without a candidate.”While most activists I spoke to didn’t sound a note as strident as King’s about their voting intentions, several of them sounded an alarm about a possible wave of voter disappointment on the left over Biden’s stance in this conflict.As Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, told me, he couldn’t think of a more “demobilizing experience” for young, democracy-minded, multiracial coalition voters than an escalating war and escalating human suffering “with the understanding that our country and our government could have done more to prevent it.”Tiffany Loftin, who describes herself as a civil rights activist and labor union organizer, and is a former national director of the N.A.A.C.P. youth and college division, said she would have a difficult time casting her ballot for “somebody who supported genocide” of Palestinians, which is how she characterized Biden’s position in the Israel-Gaza war. “I don’t know if I can do that, Charles,” she said.The questions for the Democratic Party and the Biden administration are: How much of their support base does this discontent represent, and how much voter abstention can they absorb?A lot will happen next year, and public attention will inevitably turn to other issues and controversies, but in a tight presidential race, an increasingly disaffected activist base on the left could be disastrous for Biden, and in a rematch with Donald Trump, that could be disastrous for our democracy.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More