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      Chris Christie Drops Out of 2024 Presidential Race

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      Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey suspended his presidential campaign on Wednesday, but he undermined his effort to stop Donald J. Trump when he sweepingly dismissed his Republican rivals during a hot-mic moment.Minutes before his announcement in Windham, N.H., Mr. Christie could be heard on the event’s livestream, saying, “She’s going to get smoked, and you and I both know it,” in a reference to Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor. “She’s not up to this.” He added of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, “DeSantis called me, petrified.”Mr. Trump immediately seized on the remarks, writing on Truth Social that Mr. Christie’s comments about Ms. Haley, who appears to be the most significant obstacle to a Trump victory in New Hampshire, were a “very truthful statement.”In his speech, Mr. Christie did not endorse any of his rivals, nor did he address their prospects against Mr. Trump, dashing the hopes of Republican moderates that his exit would unify remaining members of the party who oppose Mr. Trump.In fact, Mr. Christie denounced his opponents’ long-running public deference to the former president, and offered no positive remarks about their candidacies.“I would rather lose by telling the truth than lie in order to win,” he said. “And I feel no differently today because this is a fight for the soul of our party and the soul of our country.”His departure, which came after mounting pressure from within his party, effectively ends a phase of the Republican presidential contest, removing from the field its most aggressive Trump critic. He was the only prominent contender who declared that Mr. Trump was unfit for office — an argument that all but doomed his candidacy from the start.Nonetheless, Mr. Christie used the final moments of his campaign to unleash one last extended criticism of Mr. Trump, eviscerating his policies, lamenting the direction in which he has taken the country and asserting that he did not have the nation’s best interests at heart.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey was caught on a hot mic saying that a Republican presidential rival was “not up to this,” presumably referring to former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina.“Imagine just for a moment if 9/11 had happened with Donald Trump behind the desk,” Mr. Christie said. “The first thing he would have done was run to the bunker to protect himself. He would have put himself first, before this country.”His speech doubled as a dark warning for a party — and a country — that the former governor portrayed as veering dangerously off course, criticizing “the hate and the division and the selfishness of what our party has become under Donald Trump.”Mr. Christie also acknowledged regret for his actions after Mr. Trump defeated him in the 2016 primary race. Soon afterward, Mr. Christie shocked the political establishment by endorsing Mr. Trump, becoming the first significant former candidate to back him as his march to the nomination picked up pace.“For all the people who have been in this race, who have put their own personal ambition ahead of what’s right, they will ultimately have to answer the same questions that I had to answer after my decision in 2016,” he said. “Those questions don’t ever leave. In fact, they’re really stubborn. They stay.”Despite Mr. Christie’s withering criticisms of his rivals, his decision could turn the primary election in New Hampshire on Jan. 23 into a two-person race between Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley. Her positions on foreign policy, national security and the rule of law broadly overlap with Mr. Christie’s, and she will hope to consolidate never-Trump Republicans and independents behind her.After Mr. Christie’s speech, Ms. Haley praised him as “a friend for many years,” commending him in a statement “on a hard-fought campaign” but making no reference to the hot-mic comments. “I will fight to earn every vote,” she said.On Wednesday, Mr. DeSantis had called Mr. Christie to express his appreciation for his role in the contest, according to two people with knowledge of the call. During their conversation, Mr. Christie mocked Ms. Haley and said she was not up to the task, the people said.Mr. DeSantis wrote on social media on Wednesday, “I agree with Christie that Nikki Haley is ‘going to get smoked.’”Recent polls have shown Ms. Haley narrowing the gap against Mr. Trump in New Hampshire, and her backing combined with Mr. Christie’s support has sometimes equaled or bettered the former president’s. A CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released Tuesday found Mr. Trump with 39 percent support, Ms. Haley with 32 percent and Mr. Christie with 12 percent.Mr. Christie, a former United States attorney, built his candidacy around a prosecutorial argument about his domineering rival’s unsuitability for office. He steadfastly refused to water down his denunciations of Mr. Trump, a onetime ally turned bitter antagonist, even as most of his rivals labored to find a middle ground of praise and subtle contrasts.Mr. Christie and wife Mary Pat Christie hugged supporters after his announcement on Wednesday.Sophie Park for The New York TimesThat bold stance, and Republican voters’ lack of tolerance for it, left Mr. Christie trailing far behind in polls and fund-raising, managing to grab a foothold only in independent-minded New Hampshire. Yet the former governor regularly found himself in the shadow of Ms. Haley in the Granite State during the closing months of the campaign, with Gov. Chris Sununu endorsing Ms. Haley in December and later calling on Mr. Christie to withdraw from the race.For weeks, Mr. Christie rebuffed any suggestion that he should drop out, stressing the argument that his role as Mr. Trump’s chief critic in a dwindling Republican field was vital.As recently as Tuesday, he spoke at length about his reasons for forging ahead.“Let’s say I dropped out of the race right now, and I supported Nikki Haley,” he said. “And then three months from now, four months from now, we get ready to go to the convention. She comes out and is his vice president. What would it look like? What will all the people who supported her at my behest look like when she’s up on a stage in Milwaukee with her hands up like this with Donald Trump?”Mr. Christie’s familiarity with the former president gave him endless ammunition for attacks. He mocked Mr. Trump’s taste for well-done hamburgers and his love of cable news. He called attention to Mr. Trump’s criminal indictments, even as other Republican candidates sought to support the former president through his legal woes.But despite this barrage, Mr. Christie’s condemnation of Mr. Trump never took hold. He made a cringeworthy attempt to nickname his rival “Donald Duck” over Mr. Trump’s ducking of the primary debates. He was drowned out with resounding boos during the first debate when he tried to criticize Mr. Trump.In an attempt to show both expertise in foreign policy and a fearlessness to lead, Mr. Christie embarked on trips to conflict zones in Ukraine and Israel. He vividly recounted atrocities he had learned about in each place to buttress his aggressive support of those countries, though neither overseas venture broke through with voters.As he campaigned, Mr. Christie became more moderate than he had been in the past, either admitting to mistakes like endorsing Mr. Trump or evolving on issues such as same-sex marriage. “I was wrong,” Mr. Christie said of his opposition to such marriages at an event in New Hampshire last month. He peppered his stump speeches with references to former President George W. Bush, hardly a popular figure with today’s Republican base.Betting his entire campaign on New Hampshire, Mr. Christie argued in an interview with The New York Times in September that “once Donald Trump loses in one place, that entire rotted building will crumble.” He held dozens of town halls and other events across the small state, building modest traction and rising in polls, though he never came within striking distance of Mr. Trump. Mr. Christie’s allied super PAC dumped all of its advertising budget — $5.1 million as of Wednesday, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm — into the state.Some of Mr. Christie’s supporters expressed disappointment after his event on Wednesday. Toni Pappas, a Hillsborough County commissioner from Manchester, N.H., was one of them, but said, “I think he did something very noble and patriotic.”Tom Barton, a self-described libertarian from Washington, N.H., who planned to vote for Mr. Christie, said he could not see himself supporting another Republican. “They don’t have the courage to tell the truth about Trump,” he said.Still, most Republican voters had remained firmly opposed to Mr. Christie, who trudged on without changing his approach. If anything, his resolve to attack the former president increased.“The future of this country is going to be determined here,” Mr. Christie told a crowd at a New Hampshire brewery in September, clutching an I.P.A. It was a warning he would issue at nearly every campaign stop. “If Donald Trump wins here, he will be our nominee. Everything that happens after that is going to be on our party and on our country. It’s up to you.”Shane Goldmacher More

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      Appeals Court Finds DeSantis Violated Prosecutor’s First Amendment Rights

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      Dealing a blow to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a federal court of appeals on Wednesday ruled that he had violated First Amendment protections when he suspended a progressive state prosecutor for political gain.The ruling, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, undercut Mr. DeSantis on an episode he has made a key credential in his presidential campaign. Mr. DeSantis forced Andrew Warren, a Democratic state attorney representing the Tampa area, out of office in August 2022 after he had spoken out against Republican policies on abortion and transgender rights.On the campaign trail, Mr. DeSantis has used the suspension of Mr. Warren, who had been elected to his post twice, to illustrate his strong-arm approach to progressive public officials who push what he calls a “woke” agenda.The court on Wednesday vacated a decision from a federal judge in Tallahassee in January 2023 not to reinstate Mr. Warren, who has fought the suspension in court, arguing that it violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Now, that judge must reconsider his ruling.Testimony and records released as part of a late 2022 trial in the case revealed the extent to which the removal of Mr. Warren was motivated by a desire to bolster Mr. DeSantis’s political standing. The district court judge, Robert L. Hinkle, ruled that Mr. DeSantis did not violate Mr. Warren’s First Amendment rights when he suspended him for his own political benefit.But in its 59-page decision, a three-judge appeals court panel unanimously ruled that Mr. DeSantis did violate Mr. Warren’s First Amendment rights. The panel said Mr. DeSantis needed to prove that Mr. Warren’s performance and policies were the reason he was suspended, and not his personal views on matters such as abortion.In a statement calling the decision “an egregious encroachment on state sovereignty,” Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said the governor’s office was looking over the decision to determine next steps, which could include appealing to the larger 11th Circuit court or the U.S. Supreme Court.Mr. Warren, who has said he will not run for office again this year, said he looked forward to seeking his reinstatement in court.“This is what we’ve been fighting for from the beginning — the protection of democracy,” he said in a statement.Nicholas Nehamas More

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      A History of Vote Counting on Iowa Caucus Night

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      The closely-watched contest has been a hot mess for more than a decade. The most-watched early presidential contest in America has been a hot mess for more than a decade. My first Iowa caucus night was in 2012. The Republican Party of Iowa declared Mitt Romney the winner by a mere eight votes over Rick Santorum, giving Romney a boost of momentum that eventually carried him to the nomination.By the next morning, Santorum’s underdog campaign was hearing from county chairmen about miscounts. The state party ultimately retracted its call — Santorum had actually won by 34 votes — but not for more than two weeks.“I pulled off a miracle, but they said Romney was the winner,” Santorum said when I called him this week. “It wasn’t, ‘Santorum came from nowhere.’ It was ‘Romney won, the race is over.’ What do you think the result would have been if they said I had won?”The 2012 debacle was the first of three consecutive botched Iowa caucus nights. On Monday, the state’s Republican caucuses will once again be run by party volunteers at 1,657 caucus sites.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      How Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats Have Reacted to Getting Pushed Back

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      In Iowa, Democrats politely accepted President Biden’s decision to push them back on the presidential nominating calendar. In New Hampshire, they’re fighting it with live-free-or-die stubbornness.A caucus location at Drake Fieldhouse in Des Moines in February 2020.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesVoters casting their ballots in a primary election in Hancock, N.H., in February 2020.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesWhen President Biden shook up his party’s presidential nominating calendar, Democrats in the two states that were bounced from the front of the line reacted in far different ways.New Hampshire Democrats are going down kicking and screaming, insisting on holding a primary as if they hadn’t just lost their opening spot.Iowa Democrats, ashamed by a 2020 fiasco that included a dayslong wait for results that were nonetheless riddled with errors, have meekly accepted their fate as primary season also-rans.In what is perhaps a case study in Iowa nice versus live-free-or-die New Hampshire stubbornness, one state is showing that it views its quadrennial parade of visiting presidential candidates as a political birthright, while the other appears to see that spectacle more as a lost perk.“The Iowa Democrats have made a mistake,” said David Scanlan, the New Hampshire secretary of state, a position that has long been the ex officio guardian of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary status. “They’ve lost it for this year, and now the chain is broken.”Mr. Scanlan’s flinty resistance to changing New Hampshire’s primary date to suit party bosses in Washington has bipartisan appeal in the Granite State. Anyone involved in politics there can cite the 1975 state law requiring the state to hold the nation’s first presidential primary contest, codifying what is now a century-old tradition.New Hampshire and the Democratic National Committee are still quarreling over the state’s refusal to move its primary back. On Friday, the national party wrote to New Hampshire Democrats saying that the state’s “meaningless” primary could “disenfranchise and confuse voters.” The New Hampshire attorney general replied on Monday with a cease-and-desist letter saying the D.N.C.’s “meaningless” categorization violated the state’s voter suppression laws.Iowa has a much shorter history of going first, starting in the 1970s: The first president to owe his victory to the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976.Mr. Biden has little political loyalty to either state. In 2020, he placed fourth in Iowa’s caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary. It was a victory in South Carolina, which he has now moved to the front of the Democratic calendar, that propelled him to the party’s nomination and ultimately to the White House.This year, New Hampshire is holding an early primary anyway, with 21 Democrats on its presidential ballot on Jan. 23 — but not Mr. Biden, who skipped the state. Rule-following Iowa Democrats, by contrast, will hold a mail-in primary and have until March to return their ballots.“As soon as Biden became the nominee, the writing was on the wall,” said Pete D’Alessandro, who was a senior Iowa aide for Senator Bernie Sanders’s two presidential campaigns. “The grieving process had a little longer to go through, so we’re probably at a later stage than New Hampshire.”Pete D’Alessandro, who was a senior Iowa aide for Senator Bernie Sanders’s two presidential campaigns, said he had long expected President Biden to push back the state in the primary calendar.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIowa Democrats have long suspected that their time as a presidential proving ground was up. Even before the 2020 caucus-night meltdown, there were grumblings from inside and outside Iowa about how a nearly all-white state had such influence over how a racially diverse party picked its presidential nominees.While some old-timers cling to a hope that Iowa can regain the first spot in the 2028 cycle, a belief is growing among younger Democrats that the caucuses are a distraction from local organizing work, and that the party’s 2020 presidential candidates presented a left-wing vision of Democrats that helped lead to wipeout Republican victories in the state that year and again in 2022.“Iowa Democrats are really disappointed,” said Tom Miller, a former Iowa attorney general who was one of the first elected officials in the state to endorse Barack Obama in 2008, and then backed Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana in the 2020 caucuses. “The future is certainly not good.”New Hampshire’s opposition has paid off with a series of visits from ambitious Democrats. Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Representative Ro Khanna of California, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York and others have trekked to New Hampshire in recent months to address voters — just in case it might be useful down the road.The path to Iowa has been less traveled, with Gov. Tim Walz of neighboring Minnesota making a couple of trips, including for last summer’s Iowa State Fair.New Hampshire Democrats argue that it is obvious to future presidential candidates that the road to the White House still runs through the state’s town halls and diners. Mr. Scanlan on Monday pronounced himself unimpressed with South Carolina’s anointed spot at the front of the Democratic primary calendar.“I did a Google search for what kind of activity is occurring in South Carolina, and there really isn’t a lot of news there,” he said in an interview on Monday that took place at the exact moment Mr. Biden was delivering a campaign speech in South Carolina. “The only real action is in New Hampshire.”David Scanlan, left, New Hampshire’s secretary of state, with Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, as the congressman presented his candidacy form for the Democratic presidential primary race in Concord, N.H., in October. Mr. Phillips, unlike Mr. Biden, will be on the state’s primary ballot.Gaelen Morse/Getty ImagesDemocrats in both Iowa and New Hampshire harbor dreams — most likely to be unrequited with Mr. Biden in the White House — that when the rules for the next presidential primary process are set, they will regain their spots.Ray Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, predicted that the state’s fight for its place on the 2028 calendar would be much more intense than it was for 2024, with Mr. Biden’s renomination viewed by most of the party as an academic exercise.New Hampshire’s plan to win over D.N.C. members in the next cycle, Mr. Buckley said, would involve rallying the party’s progressive members, who remember that Senator Sanders won the state’s primary twice — even though he did not go on to win the nomination either time.“It’s not a secret that the establishment was very angry with New Hampshire for Bernie Sanders winning in 2016 and 2020,” Mr. Buckley said. “I think you’ll see a response from the progressive community across the country.”Iowa’s comeback plan is, as one might expect, a bit more polite.The Iowa Democratic chairwoman, Rita Hart, said she believed there would be “a level playing field” when it came to bidding for the early primaries in 2028. She said she did not expect Mr. Biden to put his thumb on the scale for South Carolina at Iowa’s expense.“We’ve had some really tough conversations with the D.N.C.,” she said. “We would not be where we are right now if we had not gotten reassurance that in 2028 we’ll have every opportunity to get back into the first tier.”Scott Brennan, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman who was involved in the party’s losing bid to retain its early slot in 2024, said that unlike New Hampshire Democrats, if Iowa Democrats did not get their first-in-the-nation slot back, they would accept that decision.“I think we’ve earned the right to be there,” Mr. Brennan said. “If for nothing else, because the process gave us Barack Obama as president twice.” More

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      Split Screen in Iowa: Haley-DeSantis Debate vs. Trump Town Hall

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      The 2024 campaigns took a snow day on Tuesday in Iowa, with time ticking down on the chance to make a final impression with voters before the Republicans’ caucuses on Monday night.With most events called off for snowstorms, attention turned to former President Donald J. Trump, who appeared in court in Washington to argue that he had total immunity from criminal prosecution for actions he took as president. Three judges at a federal appeals court expressed deep skepticism toward that argument.As Iowans dig out from the snow on Wednesday, the campaigns will head back out on the trail.Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, after appearing at town-hall events on separate days earlier in the week, will face off directly on Wednesday night in a debate to be broadcast by CNN. The front-runner, Mr. Trump, has declined to participate, as he has for debates throughout the nomination contest.But Mr. Trump is hoping to derail his rivals’ appearance — a tactic he has also repeatedly employed. He will appear at a Fox News town-hall event that will play out simultaneously with the CNN debate — seeking to disrupt one of the last opportunities Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley have to win over voters with just five days until Caucus Day.Mr. Trump’s absences from the campaign trail — he is also scheduled to return to court on Thursday, this time for a civil fraud trial in New York — could give his rivals a window to chip away at his huge polling lead in Iowa.Little has worked so far, and he is 30 points ahead of the competition in polls in Iowa, with Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley virtually tied for a distant second place. The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who did not qualify for the CNN debate, has been campaigning furiously but remains stuck in a distant fourth place. In New Hampshire, where the campaign will move after Monday, new polls show a narrowing race, with Ms. Haley gaining support.In other newsMr. Ramaswamy has recently tried to position himself as more electable than Mr. Trump while still impassionately defending the former president in the face of his criminal prosecutions.Mr. Trump said in an interview on Monday that he believed that the economy would crash soon, adding that he hoped it would happen in the next year so President Biden would be blamed for it.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is not campaigning in Iowa and instead is staking his candidacy on New Hampshire, said at a town-hall event in the state that he would not endorse Ms. Haley unless she removed herself from potential consideration as Mr. Trump’s running mate. Mr. Christie is facing pressure to drop out of the race to shore up support for Ms. Haley as a stronger anti-Trump candidate.Reporting was contributed by More

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      Setting the Stage for Iowa: ‘Trump Will Probably be Over 50 Percent’

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      Patrick Healy and The Republican caucuses in Iowa are just five days away, marking the official start of the 2024 presidential election season. To kick-start Opinion Audio’s coverage, Patrick Healy, the deputy editor of Times Opinion, and the Opinion editor Katherine Miller get together to discuss their expectations for Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, where they think the G.O.P. is headed and Donald Trump’s continued dominance. Stay tuned for more on-the-ground analysis from “The Opinions” in the coming weeks.Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesThe 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, X (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram.This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Vishakha Darbha. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek and Annie-Rose Strasser. Engineering by Issac Jones with mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. More

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      A Compromise on Immigration Could Help Rebuild Biden’s Democratic Coalition

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      The negotiations on Ukraine funding and stricter border protections have exposed a growing rift between President Biden and his own party. Republican hard-liners have demanded a bill that mirrors policies advanced during the Trump administration, especially ones related to asylum seekers, increased border security and the mandate that companies institute the E-Verify employment eligibility system.Democrats such as Representative Pramila Jayapal called the proposals “cruel, inhumane and unworkable,” but Republicans believe they have found solid ground with voters. Recent polling suggests the Republicans are right. A CBS News/YouGov poll released on Sunday found that 68 percent of Americans disapprove of Mr. Biden’s handling of border security.There are many, both inside and outside his party, who believe that by agreeing to the Republican deal, Mr. Biden would be surrendering too much moral high ground and any future policy leverage. But in fact this is a chance for him to make meaningful border-security policy changes and redefine his party as the home of an aspirational multiethnic, working-class coalition.Securing the borders of a sovereign state isn’t racism — it’s among the first responsibilities of government. And many voters, including Democrats, are demanding that the Biden administration do a better job with that responsibility. A recent Fox News poll showed that fully 22 percent of Democrats favor Republican candidates on border security.More than any other group, Latinos have political views that correlate with — indeed, are racially and ethnically defined by — the immigrant experience. Yet even these voters are conveying growing concerns about border security. According to an April 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center, about 44 percent of Hispanics and 48 percent of respondents overall think illegal immigration is a major problem, an increase of more than 15 percentage points since June 2020.The supposition among much of the Democratic establishment and progressive activists is that Latino voters prioritize more relaxed immigration policies over border security. To win re-election, President Biden must redefine the narrative that has become orthodoxy and lead his party toward supporting significantly enhanced border security measures.While this would be a prudent political move, such a shift would most likely lead to an internal Democratic civil war. While Biden’s election efforts in 2020 hinged on just enough White Republican suburban women leaving the G.O.P., the defection of traditional minority Democrats, notably Latino, Black and Asian voters narrowed his margin of victory. Younger voters and voters of color — a key coalition — has shown the largest drop in support. But brokering a deal with the Republicans could help him shore up the nontraditional alliance that got him elected four years ago.Latinos have flummoxed Democrats in recent elections by shifting right in three of the last four national elections. This shift is about far more than immigration reform, but it is undeniable that it has been pronounced in border communities, especially in Texas and New Mexico, where the crisis is most acute. The failure of Democrats to propose meaningful border security measures has led to them being vulnerable to Republican attacks of supporting “open borders.”Mr. Biden, whose campaign has only recently and reluctantly begun to acknowledge the slide in support by Latino (in fact, all nonwhite) voters for the Democratic Party, is facing growing pressure from advocacy groups to take a more progressive position on immigration than the party in past decades — even though polling and electoral data suggest Latino voters are moving in the opposite direction.The president will have to challenge the Democrats’ established doctrine on the border and party’s view of how Latinos view border policy — a move that will reposition the Democratic coalition to better benefit from the demographic changes among Latino voters in the short, medium and long term. The rightward shift among Latino voters has exposed an uncomfortable cleavage between the Latino immigrant-advocacy groups that rose to prominence in the 1990s and the views of their first- and second-generation children, who dominate the Latino voting population.President Biden’s re-election strategy is clearly not working — but it is fixable. Immigration, the undocumented and related issues have been overemphasized by institutional Democratic Latino voices, including consultants and organizations vested in an outdated narrative. Latino voters, meanwhile, are far more focused on basic economic concerns and public safety, issues where Republicans tend to poll better among working-class voters.The immigration measures that progressive and establishment Latino Democrats favor, while desperately needed and a moral imperative, are a nonstarter for House Republicans and not terribly important to Latino voters. Mr. Biden would be smart to agree to beef up border security, restrict asylum and move on to its economic messaging, precisely the issue Latino voters are telling pollsters they want to hear more of.The president finds himself and his re-election prospects at a crossroads. He can double down on a strategy of outwardly opposing increased border protection, or he can reframe the debate and begin to rebuild the ethnic and racial coalitions that brought him and Barack Obama to power. To do that, he must assert that a Latino agenda, as it exists, has grown far bigger than one predominantly focused on ethnic ties to immigration.Mike Madrid is a Republican political consultant and a co-founder of the Lincoln Project.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, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      As Political Theater, Trump’s Court Appearance Wasn’t a Showstopper

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      The former president plans to continue showing up at various legal proceedings against him, but in this case the spotlight stayed largely on the judges and their skepticism about his immunity claims.If Donald J. Trump’s goal on Tuesday was to turn a weighty legal proceeding in Washington into a de facto campaign appearance that galvanized media attention, he fell short.Six days before the Iowa caucuses, the former president used the arguments before a federal appeals court over whether he is immune from prosecution to hone a strategy he has deployed repeatedly over the past year and intends to use more as the political season heats up and his legal problems come to a head: standing in or near a courthouse, portraying himself as a victim.But in this case, the federal courthouse was a relatively inhospitable setting. The security protocols and the ban on cameras in federal courthouses did not lend themselves easily to the kind of displays Mr. Trump has made at the four arraignments for the indictments he is facing, where he has commanded intensive coverage and the chance to cast the prosecutions as political persecution.The headlines went instead to the sharp questioning by the three judges. They did not overtly acknowledge Mr. Trump’s presence in the courtroom but expressed great skepticism about his legal team’s argument that even a president who ordered the killing of a political rival could not be prosecuted unless he or she was first convicted in an impeachment proceeding.Instead, Mr. Trump was left to hold a short appearance at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue — what had been the Trump International Hotel before he sold it after leaving office.“I feel that as president you have to have immunity, very simple,” said Mr. Trump, standing with a handful of lawyers who had gone with him to the hearing. Saying he had done nothing wrong, Mr. Trump said there would be “bedlam” in the country if the courts did not uphold the concept of presidential immunity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More