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      Does Robert Menendez Have Enough Teflon to Survive Again?

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      Senator Menendez, who has defeated prosecutors and political challengers, faces his sternest test yet in his federal indictment in Manhattan.In a state long attuned to the drumbeat of political corruption — salacious charges, furious denials, explosive trials — Senator Robert Menendez has often registered as the quintessential New Jersey politician.He successfully avoided charges in one case, and after federal prosecutors indicted him in another, he got off after a mistrial in 2017. “To those who were digging my political grave,” Mr. Menendez warned then with characteristic bravado, “I know who you are and I won’t forget you.”Six years later, he is once again on the brink, battling for his political life after federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed a jarring new indictment on Friday charging the powerful Democratic senator and his wife in a garish bribery scheme involving a foreign power, piles of cash and gold bars.A defiant Mr. Menendez, 69, immediately vowed to clear his name from what he cast as just more smears by vengeful prosecutors. A top adviser said that he would also continue running for re-election in 2024, when he is trying to secure a fourth full term.But as details of the case quickly spread through Trenton and Washington — including images of an allegedly ill-begotten Mercedes-Benz convertible and cash bribes hidden in closets — it was clear Mr. Menendez may be confronting the gravest political challenge in a career that started 49 years ago in the shadow of New York City.Calls for his resignation mounted from ethics groups, Republicans and even longtime Democratic allies who stood by him last time, including the governor, state party chairman and the leaders of the legislature. And party strategists and elected officials were already openly speculating that one or more of a group of ambitious, young Democrats representing the state in Congress could mount a primary campaign against him.“The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state,” said Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat. “Therefore, I am calling for his immediate resignation.”Representatives Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell, two of the state’s longest serving Democrats who have served alongside Mr. Menendez for decades, joined them later. So did Representatives Mikie Sherrill and Andy Kim, two of the younger representatives considered possible primary challengers or replacements should the senator step down.For now, Mr. Menendez appeared to be on firmer footing among his colleagues in the Senate, including party leaders who could force his hand. They accepted his temporary resignation as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, but did not ask him to leave office.In a statement, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, called Mr. Menendez “a dedicated public servant” and said that his colleague had “a right to due process and a fair trial.”The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, right, urged against a rash judgment, saying Mr. Menendez had a “right to due process and a fair trial.”Erin Schaff/The New York TimesCalls for his ouster seemed to only embolden Mr. Menendez, who spent part of Friday afternoon trying to rally allies by phone. “It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat,” he wrote in a fiery retort to Democrats who broke with him. “I am not going anywhere.”The electoral stakes were high, and not just for Mr. Menendez.Though he had yet to formally answer the charges in court, some party strategists were already gauging the possibility that Mr. Menendez could be scheduled to stand trial in the middle of the campaign — an unwelcome distraction for Democratic candidates across the nation.Republicans were already using the indictment to attack the party. “Democrats covered for Menendez the first time he got indicted for corruption,” said Philip Letsou, a spokesman for the Senate Republican campaign committee. “It would be a shame if they did so again.”Democrats have not lost a Senate race in New Jersey since the 1970s. But allowing Mr. Menendez to stay in office could at the least force the party to spend heavily to defend the seat at a time when it already faces daunting odds of retaining a razor-thin majority.“I understand personal loyalty, and I understand the depths of friendships, but somebody needs to take a stand here,” said Robert Torricelli, the former Democratic senator from New Jersey. “This is not about him — it’s about holding the majority.”Mr. Torricelli speaks from experience. He retired rather than seek re-election in 2002 after his own ethics scandal ended without charges. He was also widely believed to be a target of Mr. Menendez’s ire after the former senator put his hand up to succeed Mr. Menendez had he been convicted in 2017.“In the history of the United States Congress, it is doubtful there has ever been a corruption allegation of this depth and seriousness,” Mr. Torricelli added. “The degree of the evidence. The gold bars and the hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash. It’s incomprehensible.”The details laid out in the 39-page indictment were nothing short of tawdry. Prosecutors said that Mr. Menendez had used his position to provide sensitive government information to Egypt, browbeat the Department of Agriculture and tamper with a criminal investigation. In exchange, associates rewarded him with the gold bullion, car and cash, along with home mortgage payments and other benefits, they said.Prosecutors referred to a text between an Egyptian general and an Egyptian American businessman in which Mr. Menendez was referred to as “our man.” At one point, prosecutors said, the senator searched in a web browser “how much is one kilo of gold worth.”Damien Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, laid out details of a 39-page indictment against Mr. Menendez.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesMr. Menendez is far from the first elected official in New Jersey to face serious criminal allegations. With a long tradition of one-party rule, a bare-knuckle political culture and an unusual patchwork of governmental fiefs, the state has been a hotbed for corruption that has felled city councilors, mayors, state legislators and members of Congress.The Washington Post tried to quantify the criminality in 2015 and found that New Jersey’s rate of crime per politician easily led any other state. Mr. Menendez already has a Democratic primary opponent, Kyle Jasey, a real estate lender and first-time candidate who called the indictment an “embarrassment for our state.” But political strategists and elected Democrats said Mr. Jasey may not have the lane to himself for long.New Jersey has a glut of ambitious Democratic members of Congress with outsize national profiles; it took barely minutes on Friday for the state’s political class to begin speculating about who might step forward.Among the most prominent were Ms. Sherrill, 51, and Josh Gottheimer, 48, moderates known for their fund-raising prowess who have proven they can win difficult suburban districts and were already said to be looking at statewide campaigns for governor in 2025, when Mr. Murphy cannot run because of term limits. Other names included Mr. Kim and Tom Malinowski, a two-term congressman who lost his seat last year.National Republicans cast their focus on Christine Serrano Glassner, the two-term mayor of a small community roughly 25 miles west of Newark, N.J., who announced this week she would run.Mr. Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, was elected to his first local office at age 20. At 28, he donned a bulletproof vest as he testified in a corruption trial against his former mentor. He won the mayoralty of Union City, before moving onto the State Assembly, the Senate, the House of Representatives and, in 2006, an appointment to the Senate.It was only a matter of months before he was in the sights of the U.S. attorney’s office of New Jersey. The senator was never charged, but the investigation became campaign fodder after the U.S. attorney, then Chris Christie, issued a subpoena to a community agency that paid rent to Mr. Menendez while getting lucrative federal grants.Almost a decade later, federal prosecutors went further, making Mr. Menendez the first sitting senator in a generation to face federal bribery charges in 2015. They accused him of exchanging political favors with a wealthy Florida eye surgeon for luxury vacations, expensive flights and campaign donations.A jury heard the case two years later and could not reach a verdict; the Justice Department later dropped the prosecution, but the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee “severely admonished” him for accepting gifts while promoting the surgeon’s interests.Even so, Mr. Menendez handily won his party’s nomination and re-election in 2018.To longtime analysts of the state politics, though, Friday’s case crossed a new threshold.“Even by New Jersey standards, this one stands out — how graphic it is, how raw it is,” said Micah Rasmussen, a seasoned Democratic political hand who now leads Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.“There is a world of difference between not reporting a plane ride and having half a million in hundreds stashed around your house,” Mr. Rasmussen added. “By all rights, this should be the end of the line.”Tracey Tully More

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      UAW Strike: Biden to Visit Michigan to Support Autoworkers on Picket Line

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      In an extraordinary show of support for organized labor, President Biden said he would join workers in Michigan on the front lines of their strike against leading automakers.President Biden announced that he would travel to Michigan on Tuesday to “join the picket line” with members of the United Automobile Workers who are on strike against the nation’s leading automakers, in one of the most significant displays of presidential support for striking workers in decades.“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of U.A.W. as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create,” Mr. Biden wrote on Friday on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.The trip is set to come a day before Mr. Biden’s leading rival in the 2024 campaign, Donald J. Trump, has planned his own speech in Michigan, and was announced hours after Shawn Fain, the union’s president, escalated pressure on the White House with a public invitation to Mr. Biden.“We invite and encourage everyone who supports our cause to join us on the picket lines, from our friends and family all the way to the president of the United States,” Mr. Fain said in a Friday morning speech streamed online.It was not immediately clear where Mr. Biden would go in Michigan. The White House had already announced plans for Mr. Biden to fly to California on Tuesday as part of a three-day trip to the West Coast. Mr. Biden made the decision on Friday, after Mr. Fain’s public invitation, according to two people familiar with the White House deliberations.Mr. Fain on Friday announced the expansion of the U.A.W.’s work stoppage from three facilities to 38 assembly plants and distribution centers in 20 states, including six — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia — that are expected to be presidential battlegrounds in next year’s election.Michigan, the home of the American automotive industry, is home to the bulk of the facilities and striking workers.There is little to no precedent for a sitting president joining striking workers on a picket line.Seth Harris, a former top labor policy adviser for Mr. Biden, said he was not aware of any president walking a picket line before.“This president takes seriously his role as the most pro-union president in history,” Mr. Harris said. “Sometimes that means breaking precedent.”Earlier Friday, Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign posted on social media a video of Republican presidential candidates and Fox News anchors bemoaning his support for unions. The caption from Mr. Biden read: “Yes.”Mr. Fain’s invitation came a week into an expanding work stoppage by autoworkers at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis plants. The union president announced on Friday that the strike, which began last week at three plants in the Midwest, would expand to 38 more locations in 20 states across the country. He said that talks with General Motors and Stellantis had not progressed significantly, but that Ford had done more to meet the union’s demands.Mr. Biden has defended the striking autoworkers since the stoppage began last week, and the White House has dispatched Julie Su, the acting secretary of labor, and Gene Sperling, a top White House economic adviser, to seek an end to the strike.Mr. Biden has referred to himself as “the most pro-union president in American history” and has long made his alliances with and support for organized labor a central part of his political identity. But his administration’s push for a transition to electric vehicles has put him at odds with the U.A.W., because electric vehicles require fewer workers to produce.The U.A.W. has broken with other major unions in so far declining to endorse Mr. Biden’s re-election bid.Mr. Trump is skipping next week’s Republican presidential primary debate and instead delivering a speech in Michigan before current and former union workers. Mr. Trump pulled away significant portions of union workers from Democrats in his 2016 victory by denouncing international free trade agreements. In his current campaign, he has staked out a position against the federal push for more electric vehicles.Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said Mr. Biden would not be going to Michigan if Mr. Trump had not announced a trip there first. On social media, he called Mr. Biden’s visit “nothing more than a cheap photo op as he finds himself between a rock and a political hard place.”Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina — who, like the rest of the Republican presidential candidates, trails far behind Mr. Trump — sought to inject himself into the news cycle about the strike this week by suggesting that the autoworkers should be fired, a move the companies are legally prohibited from carrying out.On Thursday, the U.A.W. postured back by filing a complaint against Mr. Scott with the National Labor Relations Board (such complaints are often dismissed). On Friday, Mr. Scott called the U.A.W. “one of the most corrupt and scandal-plagued unions in America” and said the union’s contract proposal would lead to government bailouts.Mr. Fain, who appeared at a rally with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont when the strike began, has been critical of Mr. Trump and Republicans. More

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      Request for Gag Order on Trump Raises Free Speech Dilemma

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      By putting the prospect of political violence at the heart of their argument to limit the former president’s statements about the election case, federal prosecutors raised issues that have little precedent.The request by prosecutors that a judge impose a gag order on former President Donald J. Trump in the federal election-subversion case presents a thorny conflict between the scope of his First Amendment rights and fears that he could — intentionally or not — spur his supporters to violence.There is little precedent for how the judge overseeing the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, should think about how to weigh strong constitutional protections for political speech against ensuring the functioning of the judicial process and the safety of the people participating in it.It is one more example of the challenges of seeking to hold to account a norm-shattering former president who is being prosecuted in two federal cases — and two state cases — as he makes another bid for the White House with a message that his opponents have weaponized the criminal justice system against him.“Everything about these cases is making new law because there are so many gaps in the law,” said Paul F. Rothstein, a law professor at Georgetown University and a criminal procedure specialist. “The system is held together by people doing the right thing according to tradition, and Trump doesn’t — he jumps into every gap.”Citing a spate of threats inspired by the indictment of Mr. Trump in the election case, the special counsel overseeing the prosecutions for the Justice Department, Jack Smith, asked Judge Chutkan this month to order the former president to cease his near-daily habit of making “disparaging and inflammatory or intimidating” public statements about witnesses, the District of Columbia jury pool, the judge and prosecutors.A proposed order drafted by Mr. Smith’s team would also bar Mr. Trump and his lawyers from making — or causing surrogates to make — public statements, including on social media, “regarding the identity, testimony or credibility of prospective witnesses.” The motion cited Mr. Trump’s attacks on former Vice President Mike Pence and former Attorney General William P. Barr, who refused to go along with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The draft order would allow Mr. Trump to say he denies the charges “without further comment.”Jack Smith, the special counsel, asked the judge to order Mr. Trump to cease his habit of making “disparaging and inflammatory or intimidating” public statements about witnesses, the District of Columbia jury pool, the judge and prosecutors.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA version of the motion was unsealed late last week. Judge Chutkan, of the Federal District Court in Washington, has ordered Mr. Trump’s legal team to file any opposition to it by Monday and is likely to hold a hearing on the request next month. A spokesman for Mr. Trump has called the request “blatant election interference” and a corrupt and cynical attempt to deprive the former president of his First Amendment rights.Gag orders limiting what trial participants can say outside of court are not uncommon, especially to limit pretrial publicity in high-profile cases. Courts have held that orders barring participants from certain public comments are constitutional to avoid prejudicing a jury, citing the public interest in the fair and impartial administration of trials.The context of the gag request for Mr. Trump, though, is different in fundamental ways.Mr. Smith’s filing nodded to the potential for Mr. Trump’s statements to complicate the process of seating an unbiased jury in the case, which is scheduled to go to trial in March. But the request for the gag order focused primarily on a different concern: that Mr. Trump’s angry and vengeful statements about the proceedings against him are putting people in danger now.The motion cited “multiple threats” to Mr. Smith. It noted that another prosecutor, Jay I. Bratt, had been subject to “intimidating communications” after the former president targeted him in “inflammatory public posts,” falsely saying Mr. Bratt had tipped off the White House before Mr. Trump’s indictment in the case accusing him of mishandling classified documents.And it cited the case of a Texas woman who has been charged with making death threats to Judge Chutkan last month. She left the judge a voice message using a racist slur, court filings show, and said, “You are in our sights — we want to kill you.”“If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, bitch,” the message said, adding that “you will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.”Prosecutors connected their request to the threats and harassment that election officials and other people carrying out election-related duties experienced after Mr. Trump attacked them in late 2020 as part of his false claims that the election had been stolen.“The defendant knows that when he publicly attacks individuals and institutions, he inspires others to perpetrate threats and harassment against his targets,” the motion said, adding: “Given the defendant’s history described above and the nature of the threats to the court and to the government, it is clear that the threats are prompted by the defendant’s repeated and relentless posts.”In that sense, the request for the gag order was as much about what is sometimes called stochastic terrorism — the idea that demonizing someone through mass communication increases the chances that a lone wolf will be inspired to attack the target — as it was about more traditional concerns of keeping a jury from being influenced by statements outside of court.The request raises both legal and political issues and carries the risk of playing into Mr. Trump’s hands.The former president and his defense team have made clear that they want people to think the case is about whether he had a First Amendment right to say whatever he wanted about the election. Mr. Smith sought to head off that move by acknowledging in the indictment that Mr. Trump had a right to lie to the public and by not charging him with inciting the Capitol riot.But the gag order request is directly about what Mr. Trump is allowed to say. Moreover, it has given him more fodder to portray the case as intended to undercut his presidential campaign — and, if he is under a gag order and loses again in 2024, to once again tell his supporters that the election was rigged.Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington has ordered Mr. Trump’s legal team to file any opposition to the motion by Monday.Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, via Associated PressWhen the motion became public, Mr. Trump riffed on it with apparent glee.“They want to see if they can silence me. So the media — the fake news — will ask me a question. ‘I’m sorry, I won’t be able to answer’ — how do you think we’ do in that election?” Mr. Trump said at a summit of religious conservatives. “So we are going to have a little bit of a fun with that, I think. That’s a tough one. Can you imagine?”Implicit in the ways he could “have a little bit of a fun” is the question of how Judge Chutkan could enforce any such order if Mr. Trump skirted its edges or even boldly defied its limits. It would be one thing for her to impose a fine, but if he refused to pay or to tone down his statements, a next step for a judge in a normal case would be to order imprisonment.Any such step in this case would be legally and politically explosive.At a hearing last month, Judge Chutkan vowed to “take whatever measures are necessary to protect the integrity of these proceedings” and warned lawyers for Mr. Trump that they and their client should consider their public statements in the case.“I intend to ensure the orderly administration of justice in this case, as I would with any other case,” she said, “and even arguably ambiguous statements from parties or their counsel, if they could reasonably be interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors, can threaten the process.”The judge also suggested that she could speed up the trial date as an alternative penalty. “The more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case, which could taint the jury pool or intimidate potential witnesses,” she said, “the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly to ensure a jury pool from which we can select an impartial jury.”Most cases about gag orders affecting criminal defendants have focused on limits imposed on what their lawyers, not the defendants themselves, can say outside of court — in part because defense lawyers typically order their clients to say nothing in public about their cases anyway. That is one of many ways Mr. Trump operates from a different playbook.In a 1991 case, which prosecutors cited in their motion, the Supreme Court upheld local court rules that bar defense lawyers from making comments outside court that are substantially likely to materially prejudice a jury. Such a regulation, it said, “constitutes a constitutionally permissible balance between the First Amendment rights of attorneys in pending cases and the state’s interest in fair trials.”But the Supreme Court also suggested that greater speech restrictions might be permissible on lawyers because they are officers of the court. The justices have never addressed what standard a gag order on a defendant must meet to pass First Amendment muster. A handful of appeals courts have addressed gag orders imposed on trial participants who are not lawyers and set different standards.Margaret C. Tarkington, a law professor at Indiana University, Indianapolis, and a specialist in lawyers’ free-speech rights, predicted that any gag order would be more likely to survive on appeal if Judge Chutkan barred Mr. Trump only from attacking witnesses and jurors. The First Amendment provides particularly strong protections for criticism of government officials, she noted.Still, Professor Tarkington acknowledged that a gag order that still permitted demonizing the judge and prosecutors would not address much of the concern that prosecutors are raising. She also said past gag-order cases offered few guideposts because Mr. Trump is such a unique figure: His megaphone and its potential impact on his more extreme supporters — as demonstrated by the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021 — puts him in a different realm.“It’s a really hard argument in normal circumstances to say the government, who is prosecuting someone, can shut them up from defending themselves in public,” Professor Tarkington said. “What makes this backward from everything else is that normally, in every criminal prosecution I can think of, the power imbalance is that the state has all the power and the defendant has none. But in this case, you have a defendant who has very significant power.”In their motion to Judge Chutkan, prosecutors also cited an appeals court ruling in 2000 that involved a rare example of a defendant who challenged a gag order. A judge had prevented all trial participants from making statements outside the court “intended to influence public opinion” about the case’s merits, and the defendant, an elected insurance commissioner in Louisiana named Jim Brown, wanted to be exempted. But the appeals court upheld it.The motion said the Brown precedent showed that the reasoning of the 1991 Supreme Court case upholding gag orders on defense lawyers “applies equally” to defendants. But prosecutors omitted another seemingly relevant factor: The gag order was lifted for about two months to avoid interfering with Mr. Brown’s re-election campaign and reimposed only after the election was over.“Brown was able to answer, without hindrance, the charges of his opponents regarding his indictment throughout the race,” the appeals court noted, adding, “The urgency of a campaign, which may well require that a candidate, for the benefit of the electorate as well as himself, have absolute freedom to discuss his qualifications, has passed.” More

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      Menendez Accused of Brazen Bribery Plot, Taking Cash and Gold

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      Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, was charged six years after his trial in a different corruption case ended in a hung jury.The indictment against Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, comes after a lengthy investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesSenator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been charged in a sweeping federal corruption indictment, the authorities said on Friday.The three-count indictment, which also charges the senator’s wife and three New Jersey businessmen, accuses him of using his official position in a wide range of corrupt schemes at home and abroad. In one, he sought to benefit the government of Egypt, including secretly providing it with sensitive U.S. government information, while in two others, he aimed to influence criminal investigations of two New Jersey businessmen, one of whom was a longtime fund-raiser for Mr. Menendez.Toward that end, the senator, a Democrat, recommended that President Biden nominate a lawyer, Philip R. Sellinger, for the post of U.S. attorney for New Jersey because Mr. Menendez believed he could influence Mr. Sellinger’s prosecution of the fund-raiser. Mr. Sellinger, who was ultimately confirmed for the post, was not accused of any wrongdoing.In another scheme, Mr. Menendez used his position to try to disrupt the investigation and prosecution of a businessman by the New Jersey State attorney general’s office, according to the indictment.In exchange for all those actions, the indictment said, the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes, including cash, gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, a luxury vehicle and other valuable things.Ms. Menendez’s lawyer, David Schertler, said that his client denied criminal wrongdoing.“Mrs. Menendez denies any criminal conduct and will vigorously contest these charges in court,” Mr. Schertler said.Representatives for the senator and the two businessmen could not immediately be reached for comment on the charges.A spokesperson for Mr. Hana said in a statement: “We are still reviewing the charges but based upon our initial review, they have absolutely no merit.”The charges against Mr. Menendez, 69, follow a lengthy investigation by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Manhattan and comes nearly six years after his trial on unrelated claims of corruption ended with a hung jury.Read the IndictmentRead Document 39 pagesThe businessmen named in the indictment, which was unsealed in Manhattan federal court, are Fred Daibes, a prominent New Jersey real estate developer and fund-raiser for Mr. Menendez; Wael Hana, a longtime friend of Ms. Menendez’s who founded a halal meat certification business and Jose Uribe, who works in the trucking and insurance business.It has been known for some time that Mr. Menendez was under federal scrutiny, and he has said he was willing to assist investigators and was confident the matter would be “successfully closed.”The 39-page indictment charges the senator, his wife and the businessmen with conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud. It also charges Mr. Menendez and his wife with conspiracy to commit extortion under the color of official right, meaning using his official position to force someone to give them something of value.Federal agents executed search warrants on the New Jersey home of Robert and Nadine Menendez last year. They found $480,000 in cash, some of it hidden in clothing, and over $100,000 worth of gold bars.U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New YorkThe indictment will quickly resound in Washington and in New Jersey.Mr. Menendez is already facing at least one Democratic challenger in his planned run for re-election to a fourth term in the Senate, and the Republican mayor of Mendham Borough, N.J., has also announced that she will compete for the seat.If Mr. Menendez were to step down before the end of his term, New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy, would be responsible for appointing a successor.Mr. Daibes, who pleaded guilty last year to a financial crime and is awaiting sentencing, is among a small group of builders responsible for converting parts of the polluted Hudson River waterfront into a bustling hive of residential and commercial activity.Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James Smith, the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s New York office, are to announce the charges at a news conference Friday morning.Mr. Menendez, his wife and their three co-defendants are expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, according to Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the Southern District.The charges are not the senator’s first encounter with the law. In 2015, Mr. Menendez was indicted in New Jersey on bribery charges in what federal prosecutors called a scheme between the senator and a wealthy eye doctor to trade political favors for gifts worth close to $1 million, including luxury vacations in the Caribbean and campaign contributions. Mr. Menendez’s corruption trial ended in a mistrial in November 2017, after the jury said it was unable to reach a verdict.The judge later acquitted Mr. Menendez of several charges and the Justice Department dismissed the others.As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Menendez is one of Washington’s most influential Democrats.He climbed there rung by rung, quickly, a consummate survivor.The son of Cuban immigrants, he rose to power in Hudson County, a famously rough political proving ground in northern New Jersey, where he began serving on the school board in Union City as a 20-year-old college student. By 32, he was mayor. Mr. Menendez won the post after wearing a bulletproof vest to testify against Mafia members and a mentor, William V. Musto, the city’s mayor who was convicted of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from a contractor hired to build schools.Mr. Menendez served in the State Assembly and Senate before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives; he was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2005 to fill the vacancy created when Jon Corzine left the body to become governor.Soon after being sworn in to the Senate, Mr. Menendez faced a federal inquiry led by Chris Christie, then the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, over payments by a nonprofit group that rented a house he owned. It went nowhere, but shadowed him for nearly six years.This is a developing story and will be updated.Kirsten Noyes More

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      Concerns About Biden’s Re-election Bid

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      More from our inbox:Is Mitch McConnell ‘a Decent Man’?A Comedian’s ‘Lies’Working on Solutions to the Groundwater CrisisIn poll after poll, Democratic voters have expressed apprehension about President Biden’s bid for a second term.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Biden 2024 Has Party Leaders Bullish. But ‘in Poll After Poll,’ Voters Are Wary” (news article, Sept. 17):Have we not learned anything from 2016? The coverage of President Biden’s age has become beyond stale and repetitive. It is Hillary Clinton’s emails all over again, and look at what happened that time.Joe Biden has been a steady leader when we needed it most, with significant legislative accomplishments and a restoration of our image abroad. This kind of dangerous and irresponsible coverage is partly what got Donald Trump elected in 2016.Simply put, I don’t care how old Joe Biden is. I don’t want to hear about it anymore. Focus on his accomplishments and the danger that is Donald Trump running for office again after the damage he did last time.I am a young voter, and I cannot wait to vote for Joe Biden again.Ryan PizarroNew YorkTo the Editor:The Democrats should nominate the person most likely to defeat Donald Trump. It defies reason that a candidate who a large majority of voters, including those of his own party, think is too old and should not run is that person.You write that party officials maintain that having a discussion of an alternative is a “fantasy” because doing so would appear disloyal and almost certainly would fail. Democrats should act in the best interests of the country, rather than out of slavish loyalty to an individual and fear of reprisal, as is the case with the Republicans and Mr. Trump.And based on the polls it is far from certain that a challenge of Mr. Biden would fail. If a new generation of candidates such as Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan compete with Mr. Biden, either Mr. Biden would emerge as the popular choice or a new, more electable leader will emerge through the democratic process.Could it be that the disparity between the party leaders’ bullishness and the voters’ wariness is due to the leaders’ fear of letting the democratic process work?David SchlitzWashingtonTo the Editor:Perhaps if The Times wrote as glowing a report about the accomplishments of President Biden as it did of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones (both Mick and Joe are 80), voters wouldn’t be as concerned about Mr. Biden’s age.Coverage of the president is consistently ageist, questioning his ability, even as he has addressed climate change, gun violence and income inequality, saved us from an economic crisis and succeeded at rebuilding alliances with the world’s democracies.Where’s the headline, “Are the Stones Too Old to Record and Tour? Fans Worry”?Mindy OshrainDurham, N.C.To the Editor:Re “Go With the Flow, Joe!,” by Maureen Dowd (column, Sept. 17):Ms. Dowd is absolutely, urgently right about the overmanagement of President Biden by his staff. It powerfully (if subliminally) reinforces the impression that he needs careful management.Sure, there’s a risk he will sometimes go off the rails. But on the other side of the ledger, many Americans value authenticity — even as a good portion of our electorate has no shame making up and promulgating outrageous stuff. That, after all, is at least 80 percent of Donald Trump’s appeal to his base.So I hope both the president and his staff take Ms. Dowd’s advice to heart. They could at least give us more glimpses of the genuine Joe Biden. More give-and-take with reporters would be a good first step. What have they got to lose?They stand to lose more if they persist in reinforcing the perception that he has to be carefully “handled.” As the polls show, he’s not getting the credit he deserves.Richard KnoxSandwich, N.H.Is Mitch McConnell ‘a Decent Man’? Samuel Corum for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Romney Has Given Us a Gift,” by David Brooks (column, Sept. 15):I cannot agree with Mr. Brooks’s assessment of Senator Mitch McConnell as “a decent man who is trying to mitigate the worst of Trump’s effect on his party.” I think Mr. McConnell helped pave the way for Donald Trump and has probably done more to undermine democracy than anyone else in my lifetime.After the 2008 election resulted in Democratic control of the House, the Senate and the presidency, Mr. McConnell embarked on a scorched earth effort to filibuster major legislation regardless of the desires of most voters.This cynical and anti-democratic tactic would sour people on government, drive voters to abandon Democrats, and increase his chances of becoming Senate leader. But the paralyzing of government and anti-government animus set the stage for authoritarians like Mr. Trump who claim “I alone can solve it” and promise to blow up the system.Mr. McConnell could have spoken forcefully against Mr. Trump many times if he really wanted to curb Mr. Trump’s influence but, with rare exceptions, chose not to do so. He voted twice to acquit Mr. Trump over his abuses of power.It seems that Mr. McConnell is fine going along with Mr. Trump if it helps his efforts to become Senate majority leader again. I believe that “a decent man” would not be so willing to sacrifice our democracy in the pursuit of power.Daniel A. SimonNew YorkA Comedian’s ‘Lies’Hasan Minhaj in 2018.Bryan Derballa for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Can a Comic Stretch the Truth Too Far?,” by Jason Zinoman (On Comedy, Sept. 21), about the comedian Hasan Minhaj:It was bound to happen. The ever-hungry censor is hungry for the flesh of the comedian.All stand-up comics tell “lies.” This is their bread and butter. Most audiences know the difference between “pure” truth and comedic “lies.”I hope artists like Mr. Minhaj don’t crawl off or moderate their material.If anything, we need more, not fewer, comedians to show us the real truth, even if they need to lie to get at it.Anne BernaysCambridge, Mass.Working on Solutions to the Groundwater Crisis Loren Elliott for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “America Is Using Up Its Groundwater” (“Uncharted Waters” series, Sept. 2):In a lifetime of trying to rouse action on America’s unfolding groundwater crisis, I’ve often longed for a moment of mutual clarity where everyone together sees and understands the scale of the problem. This piece provided one such moment. Seeing the collated data play out in the graphics accompanying the text should leave no one in doubt about the urgency of the crisis. So I hope.What was not conveyed is the labor of thousands working on solutions. Farmers, Indigenous leaders, rural communities, scientists and even some lawmakers are pioneering new efforts that need attention and support.Satellite data is not used just to track the scale of the problem; farmers are increasingly using new satellite-based platforms to track and address water consumption in their fields. California growers are being paid to repurpose once-thirsty farmland in creative ways that encourage groundwater recharge and other public benefits — a model Congress could soon encourage elsewhere (multiple bills have been proposed).Just this summer, Indigenous communities successfully protected a huge section of northern Arizona groundwater from new mining contamination.Yes, all these efforts will need to be significantly scaled up. In the meantime, the labor and sacrifices of farmers and communities on the front lines of the crisis deserve our attention and support.Ann HaydenSan FranciscoThe writer is vice president for climate resilient water systems, Environmental Defense Fund. More

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      Donald Trump’s Abortion Shell Game

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      As a candidate for president in 2016, Donald Trump promised to put “pro-life justices” on the Supreme Court. He even issued a list of potential nominees that featured some of the most conservative judges in the country.As president, Trump made good on his promise, appointing three of the six justices who voted last year to overturn the Supreme Court’s precedent in Roe v. Wade and end, after years of erosion, the constitutional right to an abortion.Each of these appointments — Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 — was a landmark occasion for the Trump administration and a major victory for the conservative movement. Trump used his court picks to energize Republican voters ahead of the 2020 presidential election and, later, took credit for the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that made Roe obsolete.The Dobbs decision, Trump said in a statement, was “the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation” and was “only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court.” It was, he continued, “my great honor to do so!”As recently as last week, in remarks to the Concerned Women of America Summit, Trump bragged about the anti-abortion record of his administration. “I’m also proud to be the most pro-life president in American history,” he said. “I was the first sitting president ever to attend the March for Life rally right here in Washington, D.C.” The biggest thing, he emphasized, was his appointment of three Supreme Court justices who “ruled to end the moral and constitutional atrocity known as Roe v. Wade.”“Nobody thought that could be done,” Trump said.Whether or not Trump is personally opposed to abortion is immaterial. The truth, established by his record as president, is that he is as committed to outlawing abortion in the United States as any other conservative Republican.There is no reason, then, to take seriously his remarks on Sunday, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he criticized strict abortion bans and tried to distance himself from the anti-abortion policies of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake,” Trump said, taking aim at Gov. Ron DeSantis’s decision to sign a six-week ban into law in Florida in April. Trump also rejected the 15-week federal ban pushed by his former vice president, Mike Pence, and promised to negotiate a compromise with Democrats on abortion. “Both sides are going to like me,” he said. “I’m going to come together with all groups, and we’re going to have something that’s acceptable.”Trump is triangulating. He sees, correctly, that the Republican Party is now on the wrong side of the public on abortion. By rejecting a blanket ban and making a call for compromise with Democrats, Trump is trying to fashion himself as an abortion moderate, a strategy that also rests on his pre-political persona as a liberal New Yorker with a live-and-let-live attitude toward personal behavior.There is a real chance this could work. In 2016, voters did not see Trump as a conservative figure on either abortion or gay rights, despite the fact that he was the standard-bearer for the party that wanted restrictions on both. It would be a version of the trick he pulled on Social Security and Medicare, where he posed as a defender of programs that have been in the cross-hairs of conservative Republicans since they were created.But there’s an even greater chance that this gambit falls flat. There are the Democrats, who will have his record to highlight when they go on the offensive next year, assuming he’s on the ballot as the Republican nominee. There is the political press, which should highlight the fact that Trump is directly responsible for the end of Roe (so far, it mostly has). And there are his rivals, like DeSantis, who are already pressing Trump to commit to further anti-abortion policies in a second term.It’s probably no accident then that Trump went to Iowa — where the Florida governor is investing the full resources of his campaign — to remind voters of his role in ending Roe. “They couldn’t get the job done. I got the job done,” Trump said. “I got it done. With the three Supreme Court justices that I appointed, this issue has been returned to the states, where all legal scholars on both sides said it should be. Of course, now the pro-life community has tremendous negotiating power.”Trump is no longer the singular figure of 2016. He is enmeshed within the Republican Party. He has real commitments to allies and coalition partners within the conservative movement. He is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party, yes, but he can’t simply jettison the abortion issue, which remains a central concern for much of the Republican base.“We’re at a moment where we need a human rights advocate, someone who is dedicated to saving the lives of children and serving mothers in need. Every single candidate should be clear on how they plan to do that,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement issued in response to Trump’s comments on “Meet the Press.”Trump will have to talk about abortion again and again, in a context that does him no political favors.There is a larger point to make here. Because we are almost certain to see a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it is easy to think that the next election will be a replay of the previous one in much the same way that the 1956 contest between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson was virtually identical to the one in 1952.But conditions will be very different in 2024 from what they were in 2020. Trump will not be an incumbent and, according to my colleague Nate Cohn, he may not have the same scale of Electoral College advantage he enjoyed in his previous races. He’ll be under intense legal scrutiny and, most important, he’ll be a known quantity.The public won’t have to imagine a Trump presidency. It will already know what to expect. And judging from Trump’s attempt to get away from his own legacy, he probably knows that a majority of the voting public isn’t eager to experience another four years with him at the helm.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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      Biden Sharpens Focus on Trump as He Tries to Re-Energize Democrats for 2024

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      Months before the first Republican primaries, the president is turning his attention to his old adversary as he tries to re-energize his party’s voters and donors.This spring, as the Republican presidential primary race was just beginning, the Democratic National Committee commissioned polling on how the leading Republicans — Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis — fared against President Biden in battleground states.But now, as Mr. Trump’s lead in the primary has grown and hardened, the party has dropped Mr. DeSantis from such hypothetical matchups. And the Biden campaign’s polling on Republican candidates is now directed squarely at Mr. Trump, according to officials familiar with the surveys.The sharpened focus on Mr. Trump isn’t happening only behind the scenes. Facing waves of polls showing soft support for his re-election among Democrats, Mr. Biden and his advisers signaled this week that they were beginning to turn their full attention to his old rival, seeking to re-energize the party’s base and activate donors ahead of what is expected to be a long and grueling sequel.On Sunday, after Mr. Trump sought to muddy the waters on his position on abortion, the Biden operation and its surrogates pushed back with uncommon intensity. On Monday, Mr. Biden told donors at a New York fund-raiser that Mr. Trump was out to “destroy” American democracy, in some of his most forceful language so far about the implications of a second Trump term. And on Wednesday, as the president spoke to donors at a Manhattan hotel, he acknowledged in the most explicit way yet that he now expected to be running against “the same fella.”The mileposts all point to a general election that has, in many ways, already arrived.David Axelrod, the architect of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, said engaging now with Mr. Trump would help Mr. Biden in “getting past this hand-wringing period” about whether the president is the strongest Democratic nominee.“The whole predicate of Biden’s campaign is that he would be running against Trump,” Mr. Axelrod said. “Their operative theory is, once this is focused on the race between Biden and Trump, that nervousness will fade away into a shared sense of mission. Their mission is in getting to that place quickly and ending this period of doubt.”Mr. Trump has undertaken a pivot of his own, skipping the Republican debates and seeking to position himself as the inevitable G.O.P. nominee, with allies urging the party to line up behind him even before any primary votes are cast.Mr. Biden, in his remarks to donors on Monday on Broadway, issued a blunt warning about his likely Republican opponent.“Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” the president said. “And I will always defend, protect and fight for our democracy. That’s why I’m running.”Mr. Biden is planning to follow up those off-camera remarks with what he has billed as a “major speech” about democracy. The White House said the speech, in the Phoenix area the day after the next Republican debate, would be about “honoring the legacy of Senator John McCain and the work we must do together to strengthen our democracy.”Instead of attending that debate, on Wednesday, Mr. Trump is making a trip to Michigan planned during the autoworker strike — aiming to appeal to the blue-collar workers who helped deliver him the White House in 2016. The Biden campaign has been building out a plan to counter him there, in addition to its planned response to the Republican debate.Mr. Trump has maintained dominance in the Republican primary, both in national polls and in Iowa and New Hampshire.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesMr. Biden is facing a moment of turbulence. His son Hunter was just indicted. The Republican-controlled House is moving toward impeachment. Polls show a lack of Democratic excitement for his re-election. And voters continue to dismiss rosy economic indicators and hold a more dour financial outlook, even as the president has tried to sell a success story under the banner of “Bidenomics.”The focus on democracy and Mr. Trump is not new for Mr. Biden. The opening images of his 2024 campaign kickoff video showed the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol, and he delivered two major addresses on the stakes for democracy before the 2022 midterm elections.Yet Mr. Biden, White House officials and his campaign have remained studiously silent on the biggest developments surrounding Mr. Trump this year: the 91 felony counts he faces in indictments in four jurisdictions. The president wants to avoid giving credence to the evidence-free idea that he is personally responsible for Mr. Trump’s legal travails.“Trump was his own worst enemy throughout the last year,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster and strategist. “While most of the punditry talked about how much the indictments helped with his base, it hurt with everyone else.”Ms. Greenberg said it was almost inevitable that Mr. Trump would energize Democratic voters if he won the Republican nomination again. “For better or worse, Trump has been the driver of the highest turnout we’ve seen in the last 100 years in the last three election cycles,” she said. “I fully believe Trump will be a driver of turnout in 2024 as well.”“Joe Biden is an unmitigated disaster and his policies have hurt Americans and made this country weaker,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump. “President Trump continues to dominate the primary because voters know he’s the only person who will beat Biden and take back the White House.”Mr. Biden also faces a key fund-raising deadline at the end of September. In his 2020 run, he struggled to raise money from small donors online — until he became the nominee against Mr. Trump, when he shattered fund-raising records.Mr. Biden’s fund-raising during the reporting period that ended in June showed that he was again slow to attract vigorous support from small donors online, though people familiar with the campaign’s fund-raising have said the numbers have been better during the current quarter.At the start of this year, Democrats close to the White House had hoped for a long and bloody Republican primary that would consume the party, leaving its eventual nominee undecided until deeper into 2024 and by then weakened.But as Mr. Trump has consolidated his lead — he has consistently drawn more than 50 percent support in national polling averages since late spring — Democrats are resigned to something of a political consolation prize: the chance to draw an early contrast with Mr. Trump.Some of Mr. Biden’s top aides and advisers have believed, despite ample polling earlier in the year that suggested the opposite, that Mr. Trump would be a tougher general-election opponent than Mr. DeSantis or any of the other Republican presidential candidates.This spring, months before the D.N.C.’s pollsters stopped testing matchups between Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis, the party’s polls showed the Florida governor faring better than Mr. Trump against the president in battleground states.Now, Democrats in the few states where the 2024 presidential election is likely to be decided have come to the same conclusion as Mr. Biden: It’s going to be Mr. Trump again.“I don’t see any of the other Republicans gaining any traction against Trump,” said Representative Dina Titus of Nevada, a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board. “DeSantis has dropped even further in the polls and nobody else has moved much ahead.”Most of the advertisements Mr. Biden’s campaign has broadcast so far have been positive messages highlighting his record on foreign policy and the economy. But a spot about abortion rights that has run for three weeks shows Mr. Trump boasting that “I’m the one who got rid of Roe v. Wade” and saying, in a quickly recanted 2016 interview, that women should be punished for having abortions. The ad also shows Mr. DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina speaking about legislation to restrict abortion.Mr. Biden has spoken, off and on, about Mr. Trump for months. He has also used several right-wing figures, including Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, as stand-ins to paint the whole Republican Party as in thrall to Mr. Trump.In a Labor Day speech in Philadelphia that Mr. Biden’s aides described as framing the forthcoming general-election campaign, he made five references to “the last guy” and one to “my predecessor” but never mentioned Mr. Trump by name.The shift toward Mr. Trump was reflected in Mr. Biden’s remarks to donors this week. At his New York fund-raiser, Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump’s name four times in 12 minutes.“I don’t believe America is a dark, negative nation — a nation of carnage driven by anger, fear and revenge,” he said. “Donald Trump does.”Mr. Biden’s Instagram feed, meanwhile, offers a road map of the issues on which his campaign wants to draw a contrast with Mr. Trump in 2024: abortion, guns, infrastructure, jobs and prescription drug prices.“I think,” said Representative Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, “that we are set for a rematch.” More

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      David McCormick Is Set to Announce Republican Senate Bid in Pennsylvania

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      Brutal primary fights weakened the party’s nominees in several states last year. Now, as David McCormick runs again for Senate in the battleground state, he appears to have cleared the field.To avoid costly Senate battleground defeats in 2024, Republicans have a plan: run like Democrats.That means trying to replicate Democrats’ success at avoiding the kinds of vicious intraparty battles that have weakened Republican nominees in recent years.It remains to be seen whether the party’s attempt to sidestep fault lines between Trumpian loyalists and traditional conservatives will be effective, but the strategy’s first victory could come in Pennsylvania, where David McCormick appears to have cleared the Republican primary field of any major challengers.Mr. McCormick — a former hedge fund executive who lost one of the party’s nastiest and most expensive Senate primaries to Dr. Mehmet Oz last year — announced his new campaign on Thursday evening in Pittsburgh. He is aiming to unseat Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat who has announced plans to seek a fourth six-year term in office.“The truth is both parties need to be shaken up — what they’re doing just isn’t working” Mr. McCormick said during a 15-minute speech in which he portrayed himself as “the only candidate in this race that can change Washington.”Senate Republicans have begun similar efforts to clear the path for Gov. Jim Justice in West Virginia, where Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat, is weighing a re-election bid. Mr. Justice, however, faces a primary fight against Representative Alex Mooney, who has vowed to oppose the “establishment swamp.”In Montana, Senator Steve Daines, who is the chairman of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, has endorsed Tim Sheehy’s bid to take on Senator Jon Tester, the incumbent Democrat. But Mr. Sheehy, a wealthy businessman and military veteran, could face a primary challenge from Representative Matt Rosendale, who lost to Mr. Tester in 2018 and said last month that Montanans should decide the race, “not Mitch McConnell and the D.C. cartel.”But in Pennsylvania, Mr. McCormick appears to have assuaged concerns from the right. He announced endorsements from all eight Pennsylvania Republicans in Congress. One of his competitors in the Senate primary race last year, Kathy Barnette, is working for Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2024 presidential bid.And crucially, Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator who was viewed as a potential Senate candidate from the Trumpian wing of the party, has declined to run.Mr. Mastriano appeared on the verge of endorsing Mr. McCormick after meeting with him and his wife, Dina Powell, a former Goldman Sachs executive who served in the Bush and Trump administrations. During their meeting, the two men found common ground over their military service, according to two McCormick allies familiar with the conversation.“It’s time to unify,” Mr. Mastriano, who lost the governor’s race by 15 percentage points last year, said on Monday in an interview with Real America’s Voice, a conservative news outlet. “If he’s our nominee, I’m backing him.”Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator who was viewed as a potential Senate candidate from the Trumpian wing of the party, has suggested that he would support Mr. McCormick’s candidacy.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesStill, Mr. McCormick’s ability to avoid a primary — at least so far — does not necessarily signal a new willingness by Republicans to put aside their differences.Instead, the lack of a serious contender may stem from Mr. McCormick’s continued politicking in Pennsylvania, and a reluctance from others to take on the enormous challenge of unseating an incumbent.Pennsylvania Democrats argue that President Biden’s unpopularity will not be as much of a problem in their state. Mr. Biden has already traveled to Pennsylvania at least nine times this year, and Mr. Casey has greeted him at several of those stops. Mr. Casey helped John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro campaign in their successful bids for Senate and governor last year, and aides to both men said they were eager to return the favor.The race last year to replace the retiring Senator Patrick J. Toomey ended up costing more than $360 million, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group. Similar amounts could be spent in 2024, when Pennsylvania — unlike Montana and West Virginia — will double as a top battleground in the presidential race.Mr. McCormick will be able to bring his own financial firepower to the race: He earned a salary of more than $22 million at his most recent job and listed assets worth between $116 million and $290 million on his candidate financial disclosure last year.His deep pockets were on display on Thursday in Pittsburgh, where his announcement on the fifth floor of the Heinz History Center — an event space overlooking the Allegheny River — included passed appetizers of chicken tacos, pierogies and kielbasa and bacon-wrapped sweet potatoes, a buffet of Tuscan antipasto and “farmers crudités,” a cocktail bar and a live band that played Taylor Swift, Van Morrison and other rock covers.Mr. McCormick addressed his audience of about 200 people from a stage framed by giant U.S. flag and behind a lectern adorned with a placard with only his first name: Dave.“America is in decline — economically, militarily, spiritually — you see it, you know it, you feel it,” Mr. McCormick said. “I’m here to tell you tonight it doesn’t have to be that way. With your help, with your support, with your leadership, we can have a much brighter future ahead.”Still, many Republicans contend that Pennsylvania is not among the three states where the party has the best chance to win back a majority that has eluded them since 2021. Republicans’ clearest opportunities to flip seats appear to be in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia, all of which Donald J. Trump easily won in 2020.But Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, raised eyebrows this year when he added Pennsylvania to his list of top priorities. Some Republicans involved in efforts to recruit Senate candidates have privately wondered whether Mr. McConnell’s statement was meant to help persuade Mr. McCormick to enter the race.“Dave has the guts — and the money — to run,” said Doug McLinko, a county commissioner in Bradford County who describes himself as a “hard-core Republican on ballot security” and a Trump loyalist.Mr. McLinko did not support Mr. McCormick in the 2022 race but said he would next year because he had gotten to know the businessman.Even after losing the primary last year, Mr. McCormick helped Pennsylvania Republicans campaign and raise money for the general election, and he has since continued those efforts.His political committee, Pennsylvania Rising, has contributed more than $100,000 to conservative candidates and causes since last year. Multiple Republicans described Mr. McCormick as a ubiquitous presence at state party events since the 2022 election.Jackie Kulback, the Republican chairwoman in Cambria County, said she was backing Mr. McCormick partly because her choice last year, Jeff Bartos, was not running, but also because she had been impressed by Mr. McCormick when he spoke at a recent event about his private-sector experience in China.“I like to win and try to get behind winners,” Ms. Kulback said. “Not many have Dave McCormick’s résumé, and I just feel like he’s the whole package.”Mr. Trump, who backed Dr. Oz last year, attacked Mr. McCormick over that same experience in China during the primary race and derided him as a globalist, which helped sink Mr. McCormick’s campaign.The former president has not endorsed anyone in the Pennsylvania race this time. A campaign spokesman declined to comment.Mr. McCormick lost the primary by fewer than 1,000 votes. He earned good will among some Pennsylvania Republicans by not pressing for a recount, said Sam DeMarco, the Allegheny County Republican chairman. Mr. DeMarco helped collect signatures from more than half of the state party’s 67 county chairs supporting Mr. McCormick’s candidacy.“I’m tired of losing,” Mr. DeMarco said. “David is someone who can appeal to both sides of the party.”Mr. McCormick was largely unknown in Pennsylvania political circles before last year, partly because he spent much of his adult life outside the state. Democrats are already attacking him over his residency, a strategy that helped torpedo Dr. Oz.Last year, Mr. McCormick lost the Senate primary race to Dr. Mehmet Oz by fewer than 1,000 votes. He earned good will among some Pennsylvania Republicans by not pressing for a recount.Matt Rourke/Associated PressOn Thursday, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party described Mr. McCormick in a news release as a “Wall Street mega-millionaire who is lying about living in Pennsylvania.”Pennsylvania Democrats also criticized Mr. McCormick on Wednesday for deleting from his YouTube page a 2022 interview in which he said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a “huge step forward and a huge victory for the protection of life.”“He does not reside in Pennsylvania and has built his career as a Wall Street executive, advocating for policies that support job outsourcing and tax cuts primarily benefiting himself and his Wall Street associates,” said Sharif Street, a state senator and chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.But McCormick’s allies insist he is ready to beat back residency questions and to appeal to suburban women — and other voters turned off by Mr. Trump’s brand of politics — by leaning on his private-sector experience and his personal background.“I’m Pennsylvania First,” Mr. McCormick said Thursday, adopting Mr. Trump’s “America First” slogan.Mr. McCormick grew up in Bloomsburg, Pa., about an hour southwest of Scranton, Mr. Biden’s birthplace. He graduated from West Point, served five years in the Army — where he was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the Persian Gulf war of 1991 — and earned a Ph.D. in international relations at Princeton.He returned to Pennsylvania and joined FreeMarkets, a Pittsburgh-based internet auction company. After the company was sold in 2004, Mr. McCormick held multiple roles in the Bush administration.In 2009, Mr. McCormick moved to the Northeast and joined Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund in Westport, Conn., that manages $150 billion in assets. After becoming chief executive in 2017, he resigned in 2022 and turned his attention to a Senate campaign.As much as Mr. McCormick may try to focus on issues, he will also have to answer questions about Mr. Trump and seek to satisfy the competing factions inside his own party.“If anyone is drawing the conclusion that a clear path for McCormick is because fractures are gone and we’re all singing ‘Kumbaya,’ they’re sadly mistaken,” said Sam Faddis, who leads a coalition of right-wing activist groups in the state, adding that he liked Mr. McCormick but remained on the fence about his candidacy.Mr. Faddis added, “The division between the grass roots and the establishment is massive in Pennsylvania, and massive nationwide.” More