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      Vivek Ramaswamy Loves Eminem. And He Doesn’t Care If the Feeling Is Mutual.

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      The Republican presidential candidate loves rap music, even if critics say his politics are at odds with its spirit. “There’s no such thing as one rap community,” he says.Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate and biotech entrepreneur, rapped the song before a largely white crowd at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.Stefani Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor some audiences, Vivek Ramaswamy is a biotech entrepreneur who pushed for pharmaceutical breakthroughs before he tried to break into politics. For others, he is a cultural warrior battling “woke” corporations or a crusader for his definition of “truth,” whether it be the sanctity of two genders or the perpetuation of fossil fuels.The identity that the entrepreneur and Republican candidate for president has kept more or less under wraps since his undergraduate days at Harvard is another thing entirely, Da Vek the Rapper.Yet there it was at the Iowa State Fair this month, the 38-year-old shape-shifting presidential candidate, microphone in hand, spitting Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” before a largely white crowd that appeared somewhere between amused and enthused. Beside him onstage was the Iowa governor, Kim Reynolds, who watched with the look of a mother baffled by her child’s latest science fair project.As breakout moments go, Mr. Ramaswamy’s impromptu performance may not rise to the level of Bill Clinton’s saxophone solo on “The Arsenio Hall Show.” But it did separate him culturally from his generally more awkward and older competitors in the still-early race for the presidency.The lyrics — “He opens his mouth, but the words won’t come out” — did not fit the fast-talking, quick-witted candidate in the slightest. The words “he knows when he goes back to this mobile home” do not exactly leap from a wellspring of personal experience for Mr. Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire entrepreneur with a middle-class upbringing, a $2 million mansion in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, and a largely self-funded presidential bid.But rap and hip-hop are part of the Ramaswamy story, back to Harvard when his alter ego Da Vek rapped libertarian lyrics in all-black outfits down to a Kangol cap. As a freshman, he performed at an open mic before a Busta Rhymes concert, a moment that has since been exaggerated to make him Busta’s opening act.He told The Harvard Crimson back in 2006 that “Lose Yourself” was his life’s theme song.In an interview on Friday, Mr. Ramaswamy seemed a little sheepish about his return to rap. Theme song? “There are parts of what you say in the past that you recoil from,” he admitted.But he did stick by his identification with Eminem, the unlikely white rapper from working-class Detroit who went on to become, by most measures, the best-selling hip-hop artist of all time.“I did not grow up in the circumstances he did,” said Mr. Ramaswamy, the son of a physician mother and engineer father. “But the idea of being an underdog, people having low expectations of you, that part speaks to me.”Eminem was, Mr. Ramaswamy said, “a guy in every sense who was not supposed to be doing what he did.”The candidate said he did not plan to rap at Iowa’s center stage. Responding to a question that Ms. Reynolds had asked every presidential hopeful at her “fair-side chats,” Mr. Ramaswamy said his favorite “walkout” song for the campaign trail would have to be “Lose Yourself,” an unusual answer in this Republican field but hardly counterculture.“Lose Yourself” was the centerpiece of “8 Mile,” the semi-autobiographical film in which Eminem plays an aspiring rapper struggling to prove himself in a largely Black subculture. The track took best original song at the Academy Awards in 2003, and the next year it won two Grammys, including for best rap song.After his chat with Ms. Reynolds ended, Mr. Ramaswamy was signing autographs when an enterprising sound technician put the song over the loud speaker. The candidate raised his fist, lifted the mic to his mouth, and the rest is, well, not quite history but a nice moment.Mr. Ramaswamy’s venture into hip-hop, a culture synonymous with Black struggle and triumphs, carried risks. Rhymefest, a Chicago rapper who defeated Eminem at a freestyle contest in 1997, noted that Mr. Ramaswamy had called Juneteenth a “useless” holiday and told CNN’s Don Lemon that Black Americans achieved equality only because they secured the right to bear arms, never mind that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolence and armed civil rights leaders like Fred Hampton were gunned down by law enforcement.“It’s the rewriting and manipulation of Black history for Republican talking points that gets me,” Rhymefest said, adding: “Everyone has a right to music. Everyone has a right to express themselves through the culture that helped formulate their passions, and hip-hop is a passionate calling.” But, he said, “he doesn’t understand the words or the meaning.”Soren Baker, a historian of rap, said such conflicts were nothing new for Republican politicians, who have tangled with artists since President Ronald Reagan drew the ire of Bruce Springsteen over “Born in the U.S.A.” in 1984.Mr. Springsteen made clear he didn’t think the president was listening closely to his music’s often bleak portraits of Reagan’s America. Eminem has not commented on Mr. Ramaswamy’s performance. A representative did not respond to a request on Friday.But it’s unlikely the rapper is a Ramaswamy fan. In 2017, Eminem famously performed a freestyle jeremiad against then-President Donald J. Trump, calling him “a kamikaze that’ll probably cause a nuclear holocaust.” Mr. Ramaswamy, in contrast, is steadfastly supportive of Mr. Trump, even as he runs against him for the 2024 G.O.P. nomination.“What Vivek is doing is trying to align himself with the struggle of overcoming adversity,” said Mr. Baker, author of “The History of Gangster Rap.” “From what I know of Vivek’s policies, objectives and goals, they’re not in alignment with Eminem at all.”Mr. Ramaswamy did not shy from the critique. “Is there a risk? There’s a risk in everything we do?” he said. But he added, “There’s no such thing as one rap community,” pointing to Ice Cube, the former leader of N.W.A who worked with the Trump campaign in 2020 on a Contract With Black America.Of course, “Lose Yourself” is hardly a political anthem. It has become more like a frat house pregame rallying cry, or, as Rhymefest put it, “the song that gets the team out on the field.”But Mr. Ramaswamy said it wouldn’t be blasting through his AirPods as he prepares to go onstage Wednesday at the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 cycle.“I’m an adult,” he quipped.Ben Sisario More

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      Inside Trump’s Decision to Skip the G.O.P. Debate

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      Fox News leaned on the former president privately and publicly to join the debate. But all the while he was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming.On a cool August night on the crowded patio of his private club in New Jersey, former President Donald J. Trump held up his phone to his dinner companions.The Republican front-runner was having dinner with a Fox News contributor and columnist, Charlie Hurt, when a call came in from another member of the Fox team. The man on the other end of the line, Mr. Trump was delighted to show his guests, was Bret Baier, one of the two moderators of the first Republican debate on Wednesday, according to two people with knowledge of the call.It was Mr. Trump’s second Fox dinner that week. The night before, he had hosted the Fox News president, Jay Wallace, and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, who had gone to Bedminster, N.J., hoping to persuade Mr. Trump to attend the debate. Mr. Baier was calling to get a feel for the former president’s latest thinking.For months, Fox had been working Mr. Trump privately and publicly. He was keeping them guessing, in his patented petulant way. But even as he behaved as if he was listening to entreaties, Mr. Trump was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming to the debate.The former president has told aides that he has made up his mind not to participate in the debate and has decided to post an online interview with Tucker Carlson that night instead, according to people briefed on the matter.Upstaging Fox’s biggest event of the year would be provocation enough. But an interview with Mr. Carlson — who was Fox’s top-rated host and is at war with the network, which is still paying out his contract — amounts to a slap in the network’s face by Mr. Trump. The decision is a potential source of aggravation for the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, who privately urged him to attend, including in her own visit to Bedminster last month.But Mr. Trump’s primary motive in skipping the debate is not personal animosity toward Ms. McDaniel but a crass political calculation: He doesn’t want to risk his giant lead in a Republican race that some close to him believe he must win to stay out of prison.But that’s not the only reason.‘They Purposely Show the Absolutely Worst Pictures of Me’Mr. Trump’s relationship with Fox — a long-running saga that has been both lucrative and, more recently, extremely costly for the network — is the other issue that looms large in his thinking about the debate, according to people familiar with the president’s conversations. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the campaign.His professed hatred of Fox — and the animus he often privately expresses about the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch — is mixed with his recognition of Mr. Murdoch’s power and a grudging acknowledgment that the network can still affect his image with Republican voters.“Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot,” Mr. Trump posted on his website, Truth Social, on Thursday morning, venting about the network’s morning show. He added: “Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not.”Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier are co-hosts of the first Republican primary debate, which will be held Wednesday evening in Milwaukee.Leah Millis/ReutersThe Fox team working on the debate has prepared two sets of plans for Wednesday night: One for if Mr. Trump shows up and another for if he doesn’t. Mr. Baier has spoken to Mr. Trump at least four times over the phone to make his case. Mr. Trump has explained his reluctance, but always left the door open to a late change of plans, according to the people familiar with the calls.Fox executives expect the audience for Wednesday’s debate to be lower than the record 25 million who watched the first Republican debate in August 2015, even if Mr. Trump shows up, though his presence would almost certainly boost interest.“President Trump is ratings gold, and everyone recognizes that,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director.Mr. Trump has tried to use his leverage to get friendlier coverage. During his dinner with the two Fox executives, Mr. Wallace and Ms. Scott, Mr. Trump needled them about the network’s coverage of him. He told them he was skeptical that Mr. Murdoch — whom Mr. Trump has known for decades — was not dictating the daytime political coverage that the former president found egregious.Mr. Trump, who has often complained about what he contends is Fox’s glowing coverage of Gov. Ron DeSantis, dismissed a recent interview Mr. Baier conducted with Mr. DeSantis as “soft.” Mr. Trump also told the Fox executives he couldn’t believe they had fired Mr. Carlson.Mr. Baier, who helped moderate Mr. Trump’s first-ever political debate in August 2015 and has golfed with him, has a complicated relationship with the former president.Mr. Baier, who will co-host Wednesday’s debate with Martha MacCallum, interviewed Mr. Trump in June, an encounter Mr. Trump first called “fair” but then complained was “unfriendly.” That change of heart came after news coverage pointed out the harm Mr. Trump may have caused himself legally with his answers about matters related to one of the federal cases against him.A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, said the network “looks forward to hosting the first debate of the Republican presidential primary season offering viewers an unmatched opportunity to learn more about the candidates’ positions on a variety of issues which is essential to the electoral process.”‘Maybe I Should Just Go’Mr. Trump’s top advisers oppose his participation in the debate to avoid giving his rivals a chance to elevate themselves at his expense and close the wide gap between them in the polls.But until earlier this past week, Mr. Trump was still privately toying with the idea of attending. In one conversation, Mr. Trump had said, “Maybe I should just go,” according to a person with knowledge of the call.The former president has been quizzing confidants lately about whether he should debate. He has fixated on former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is expected to be his harshest critic on the stage. And he has expressed a particularly intense disdain for the low-polling former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, suggesting privately that it would be almost insulting to share a stage with him, according to a person who spoke to Mr. Trump.Senior members of Mr. Trump’s team — Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller and Mr. Cheung — all plan to attend the debate. The Trump campaign has arranged for prominent surrogates, including members of Congress, to visit the “spin room” after the debate to make Mr. Trump’s case.But as of Friday, Mr. Trump appeared to have lost interest in attending the debate, according to people with knowledge of his thinking. And he is now planning to attempt to upstage the event by participating in the interview with Mr. Carlson, though the exact timing and online platform remain unclear.Trump’s Presence, Despite His AbsenceThe Fox News team is considering integrating video of Mr. Trump into their questioning on debate night. Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Baier and Ms. MacCallum plan to make Mr. Trump a major figure in the two-hour program — whether he shows up or not.The Fox team has prepared questions to ask Trump rivals about his most recent criminal indictment, which was handed down by a grand jury in Georgia. They are also considering integrating video of Mr. Trump into their questioning, according to people familiar with the planning.The questions will begin immediately. Candidates will not be allowed to make opening statements. They will, however, be allotted 45-second closing statements. Each answer will be limited to one minute, with a sound like a hotel front desk’s bell alerting candidates that their time has expired. (Fox has retired the doorbell-like chime it used in the last debates after it sent some dogs into barking fits.)Unlike when Mr. Trump skipped a Fox debate in Iowa in January 2016, just before the caucuses there, Fox has had more time to prepare for Mr. Trump’s absence.This year, the Republican National Committee updated its rules to require candidates to sign a pledge no later than 48 hours before the debate, including commitments to support the party’s nominee regardless of who it is and to not participate in any future debates not sanctioned by the R.N.C.Mr. Trump has not signed the pledge. R.N.C. officials have told people that no candidate, including Mr. Trump, will be allowed onstage without signing it. But Mr. Trump is far from principled on the matter. He has already signed a similar pledge vowing to “generally believe in” and “intend to support the nominees and platform” of the G.O.P. in 2024 in order to qualify for the South Carolina primary ballot, according to a party official in the state.In 2016, Fox did not know until the last minute possible that he was not going to show up. And even once the debate started, the hosts and producers were bracing for the possibility that he might arrive in the middle of the broadcast and demand to be allowed on the stage. More

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      What Trump’s Debate Stunt Says to Republican Voters

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      It’s hard to think of a more childishly on-brand stunt than Donald Trump’s effort to sabotage the first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential race.The MAGA king refusing to put on his big-boy pants and share the stage with his opponents is one thing. But counterprogramming some sad sideshow to siphon attention away from the first major candidate forum of the cycle — and with Tucker Carlson, no less? That’s a whole different level of petulant and needy, and it speaks to his staggering disregard for voters and their right to accurately assess the field. The electorate, especially Trump-skeptical Republicans, should demand better.I get why Mr. Trump isn’t eager to climb into this sandbox. Debating is hard, and he is out of practice. He participated in only two debates during the 2020 cycle, the first of which was the stuff of campaign legend — but in a bad way. (Proud boys, stand back and stand by!) At some point during Wednesday’s two-hour event he would need to talk about something other than his grievances. He hates doing that, and has always been kind of lousy at it. Much of the primary field he is now facing is younger, sharper, hungrier and actually cares about policy and governance. And while few people have Mr. Trump’s razzle-dazzle, at least a couple of his opponents have solid media chops. (Ramaswamy, baby!)Mr. Trump may well be correct to assume he has more to lose than gain from these matchups. But it bears remembering that debates aren’t supposed to be primarily for the benefit of the candidates strutting and fretting upon the stage. They are meant to provide voters with a meaty opportunity to judge their options side-by-side, to listen to them field tough questions, to compare their policies and priorities and visions of leadership. The point is to help the electorate make an informed choice.This is the case for every presidential hopeful. It is all the truer for Mr. Trump, who is dominating the Republican herd. Sure, he’s done the job before. But his performance was … well, unsettling enough that he lost re-election — and then handled the loss rather poorly. Some Republican voters, especially all those suburban women he needs to win back, might care to hear why he thinks they should give him another chance, especially now that he is up to his comb-over in legal trouble. His high-handed decision to skip this debate risks underscoring to these voters how unserious he is about winning their support and expanding his base even a whit, versus staying comfortably focused on his MAGA fans.Mr. Trump’s participation would reveal much about the other candidates as well. How would the field handle it when he started spewing his conspiracy nonsense? Who would call him out? (If these debate strategy memos are any indication, not Pudding Fingers DeSantis.) Would anyone be able to wrest the spotlight from him?Even with Mr. Trump missing, there will be much awkward talk of him. (Or so Fox News’s debate moderators promise.) You would think that, if he were in fighting form, he would want to be on hand to keep the pretenders to his throne in line — or, more precisely, to humiliate his critics face-to-face. I mean, lobbing fat jokes at Chris Christie from afar can provide Mr. Trump only so much satisfaction, particularly since Mr. Christie has been calling him a liar, a coward, and a con artist of late.Instead, the former president is taking the cheap and entitled way out, fulfilling at least one of Mr. Christie’s critiques. After weeks of being tiresomely coy about his debate-night plans, he has decided to sit down with the disgraced pundit Tucker Carlson, The Times reported on Friday. The man is notoriously fickle, so who knows when — or even if — this will actually happen. Let’s hope it doesn’t. I’m sorry, but we already watched Mr. Carlson give Mr. Trump a thorough bootlicking back in April, not long before Fox News gave Mr. Carlson the boot, in fact, and it was sad. Worse than watching Don Jr.’s videos-for-hire on Cameo. No one needs to see more of that.The Republican debaters, meanwhile, will be left to struggle with the thorny challenge of how to prevent Mr. Trump from hijacking the event in absentia. His antidemocratic inclinations and parade of indictments will have to be addressed. But then everyone really should move on to other issues, leaving the attention-thirsty former president in the shadows. If a Trumpless debate winds up being all about Mr. Trump anyway, he is the winner.This election cycle is still young, and there will be other debates. The next one, in fact, was announced just last week. (Mark your calendars for Sept. 27!) Republican voters who are feeling even slightly ambivalent about a Trump nomination/coronation should make clear that they expect him to start showing up — and soon, before the field has been whittled way down.Sure, the MAGA faithful don’t care about such niceties as accountability. But they do not constitute the majority of the Republican Party. The non-MAGA masses can take this primary in another direction if they choose. Many of those voters have reservations about Mr. Trump’s fitness for office — or at least about his electability. (The guy has been responsible for an awful lot of losing since 2016.) They deserve to take his measure directly against the field’s alternatives. And they are in a position to punish him if he cannot be bothered to even try.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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      How Many of Trump’s Trials Will Happen Before the Election?

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      Donald J. Trump is the target of four separate criminal indictments, but the prosecutions could drag on for months or even years.Three different prosecutors want to put Donald J. Trump on trial in four different cities next year, all before Memorial Day and in the midst of his presidential campaign.It will be nearly impossible to pull off.A morass of delays, court backlogs and legal skirmishes awaits, interviews with nearly two dozen current and former prosecutors, judges, legal experts and people involved in the Trump cases show. Some experts predicted that only one or two trials will take place next year; one speculated that none of the four Trump cases will start before the election.It would be virtually unheard of for any defendant to play a game of courthouse Twister like this, let alone one who is also the leading contender for the Republican nomination for the presidency. And between the extensive legal arguments that must take place before a trial can begin — not to mention that the trials themselves could last weeks or months — there are simply not enough boxes on the calendar to squeeze in all the former president’s trials.“This is something that is not normal,” said Jeffrey Bellin, a former federal prosecutor in Washington who now teaches criminal procedure at William & Mary Law School and believes that Mr. Trump might only be on trial once next year. “While each of the cases seems at this point to be strong, there’s only so much you can ask a defendant to do at one time.”Any delay would represent a victory for Mr. Trump, who denies all wrongdoing and who could exploit the timeline to undermine the cases against him. Less time sitting in a courtroom equals more time hitting the campaign trail, and his advisers have not tried to hide that Mr. Trump hopes to overcome his legal troubles by winning the presidency.If his lawyers manage to drag out the trials into 2025 or beyond — potentially during a second Trump administration — Mr. Trump could seek to pardon himself or order his Justice Department to shut down the federal cases. And although he could not control the state prosecutions in Georgia or Manhattan, the Justice Department has long held that a sitting president cannot be criminally prosecuted, which very likely applies to state cases as well.Ultimately, the judges overseeing the four cases might have to coordinate so that Mr. Trump’s lawyers can adequately prepare his defense without needlessly delaying the trials. Judges are permitted under ethics rules to confer with one another to efficiently administer the business of their courts, experts said, and they periodically do so.“The four indictments can appear to resemble four cars converging on an intersection that has no lights or stop signs — but that won’t happen,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University School of Law. “Well before the intersection, the judges will figure it out.”For now, Mr. Trump’s court schedule looks to be nearly as crowded as his campaign calendar, with potential trials overlapping with key dates in the Republican primary season. Claiming he is a victim of a weaponized justice system that is seeking to bar him from office, Mr. Trump may end up bringing his campaign to the courthouse steps.A federal special counsel, Jack Smith, has proposed Jan. 2 of next year (two weeks before the Iowa caucuses) as a date for Mr. Trump to stand trial in Washington on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. In a Thursday night court filing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers countered with a proposed date of April 2026.Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney who this week announced racketeering charges against Mr. Trump, accusing him of orchestrating a “criminal enterprise” to reverse Georgia’s election results, wants that trial to begin on March 4 (the day before Super Tuesday).It is possible that the election interference case brought against Mr. Trump by special counsel Jack Smith may be given scheduling priority, the experts said.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Smith’s recent case in Washington, and Ms. Willis’s in Georgia, were filed after Mr. Trump was already scheduled for two additional criminal trials next spring: in New York, on March 25, on state charges related to a hush-money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels; and in Florida, on May 20, on federal charges brought by Mr. Smith accusing Mr. Trump of mishandling classified material after leaving office.Although the New York and Florida indictments were unveiled earlier, affording them first crack at the calendar, some experts now argue that they should take a back seat to the election-related cases, in Georgia and Washington, in which the charges strike at the core of American democracy. Trial scheduling is not always a first-come, first-served operation, and deference could be given to the most serious charges.In a radio interview last month, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said that having been the first to indict did not necessarily mean he would insist on being the first to put the former president on trial. However, he said, the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, ultimately controls the calendar.“We will follow the court’s lead,” Mr. Bragg said.There has not yet been any direct communication among judges or prosecutors about moving the Manhattan case, according to people with knowledge of the matter.Still, Mr. Bragg’s comments suggest that he would not oppose moving the Manhattan case, which carries a lesser potential punishment than the three others, backward in line.“My own belief is Alvin Bragg will be true to his word and remain flexible in the interests of justice,” said Norman Eisen, who worked for the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment and believes that prosecutors might be able to squeeze in three Trump trials next year.And Mr. Eisen, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, argued that voters deserve to know whether Mr. Trump was convicted of subverting the will of the people in the previous election before they vote in the next one.“There could not be a more important question confronting the country than whether a candidate for the office of the presidency is innocent or guilty of previously abusing that office in an attempted coup,” he said.The most likely candidate to take over Mr. Bragg’s March trial date would be Mr. Smith and his election interference case. Recently, nearly a dozen Republican-appointed former judges and high-ranking federal officials submitted a brief to the judge overseeing that case, arguing that the trial should take place in January as Mr. Smith has proposed and citing a “national necessity” for a “fair and expeditious trial.”But this is the case in which Mr. Trump’s lawyers have asked for a 2026 trial date, citing the voluminous amount of material turned over by the government — 11.5 million pages of documents, for example — that the defense must now review. Mr. Trump’s lawyers estimated that to finish by the prosecution’s proposed January trial date would mean reading the equivalent of “Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace,’ cover to cover, 78 times a day, every day, from now until jury selection.”In that case, Mr. Smith brought a narrow set of charges against Mr. Trump in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 election, totaling four felony counts, and with no co-defendants.In contrast, Ms. Willis’s election case is a sweeping 98-page indictment of not only Mr. Trump, who faces 13 criminal counts, but also 18 co-defendants, including Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. Already, Mr. Meadows has petitioned for his case to be moved from state to federal court, and other defendants are likely to follow suit. That process could take months and could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, probably making Ms. Willis’s proposed trial date of March 4 something of a long shot.In contrast to the relatively narrow election interference case brought by Mr. Smith in federal court, Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney, has charged Mr. Trump and his associates with a multitude of felonies related to the 2020 presidential election.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe sheer size of Mr. Trump’s Georgia case, and the fact it was the last of the four cases to be brought, suggests any Georgia trial of Mr. Trump could be delayed even beyond next year.It is exceedingly rare for a criminal defendant to face so many trials in such a concentrated period of time. The once high-flying lawyer Michael Avenatti seemed to be heading for three federal trials after he was charged in Manhattan in 2019 in a scheme to extort the apparel giant Nike; and, separately, with stealing money from Ms. Daniels, a former client; and in California, with embezzling money from other clients. (He was eventually convicted in the New York trials and pleaded guilty in the California case.)E. Danya Perry, a lawyer who represented Mr. Avenatti in the Nike case, the first to go to trial, said the challenge was “sequencing the cases in a way that would be most advantageous” to her client. And because there was some overlap in the evidence, she said, the defense had to be careful not to open the door for prosecutors to introduce evidence against Mr. Avenatti from another of the cases.“You’re not just trying the case in front of that particular judge,” Ms. Perry said. “Evidence from one case could bleed into other cases.”Before any trial, Mr. Trump’s cases are also likely to become bogged down as his lawyers review and potentially argue over large amounts of documents and other case material turned over by the government. Certain judicial rulings could also lead to drawn-out pretrial appeals.In the Florida documents case, disputes over the use of classified information could delay the proceeding as well. And in the federal court in Washington, which is already contending with lengthy backlogs amid prosecutions of hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have suggested they plan to litigate complex constitutional issues, including whether some of Mr. Trump’s false claims about the election were protected by the First Amendment.Even the jury selection process could drag on for weeks or months, as courts summon huge pools of prospective jurors for questioning over whether they harbor bias in favor of or against the polarizing former president.Michael B. Mukasey, a former U.S. attorney general and longtime Manhattan federal judge, said because of the complex issues raised in all four of Mr. Trump’s cases, “I think the odds are slim to none that any of them gets to trial before the election.”And Mr. Trump’s criminal cases are not the only courtroom battles he’s waging.In October, he faces trial in a civil suit filed by Attorney General Letitia James of New York, accusing him, his company and three of his children of a “staggering” fraud in overvaluing his assets by billions of dollars. In January, Mr. Trump faces two civil trials arising from private lawsuits: one a defamation claim by the writer E. Jean Carroll and the other accusing him of enticing people into a sham business opportunity.“We fully expect both cases to go to trial in January 2024,” said Roberta A. Kaplan, the plaintiffs’ lawyer in the two private suits.Although Mr. Trump need not be in court for the civil cases, he almost certainly will have to attend the criminal trials, said Daniel C. Richman, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor and now a professor at Columbia Law School.“If you asked all the prosecutors in each case, they’d firmly and sincerely say that they want these trials to happen in the first half of 2024,” Mr. Richman said. “But wishing does not make it so.”Maggie Haberman More

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      For DeSantis, Release of Debate Strategy Amplifies a Daunting Challenge

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      Newly revealed strategy advice from his super PAC seemed to leave the already struggling Florida governor in a no-win situation just days before the first Republican debate.The first Republican presidential debate next week was already looking like a stern test for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is battling to overcome sagging national poll numbers, a fund-raising crunch and an overhaul of his top campaign staff.Now his tall task appears towering.On Thursday, key details about how he might approach the crucial debate were revealed in a report from The New York Times about a trove of documents posted online by a political consulting firm associated with Never Back Down, the super PAC that has in many ways taken over his campaign.The advice on display, which included potential attack lines and debate tactics, could be somewhat condescending — reminding Mr. DeSantis, for example, that he should be “showing emotion” when discussing his wife and children. Other parts were perhaps too revealing: suggesting that the governor attack the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been gaining on him in the polls but had otherwise not been widely seen as a candidate on Mr. DeSantis’s level.The disclosure of the documents seemed to leave Mr. DeSantis in something of a no-win situation. Follow the advice too closely, and he risks walking into a political buzz saw, with his rivals painting him as overly rehearsed, inauthentic or beholden to political consultants. Ignoring it may be the likelier route — but could also leave Mr. DeSantis open to criticisms that he failed to meet expectations, for instance, by not taking down Mr. Ramaswamy.“I don’t think anybody is going to have a harder job at the debate than Ron DeSantis,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. “He’s fighting a lot of skepticism and a lot of hungry challengers.”As for the documents, Mr. Conant described their exposure as an unforced error: “The less you say about your strategy ahead of a debate, the better off you’re going to be.”Mr. DeSantis’s campaign suggested late Thursday that Never Back Down’s advice had revealed nothing about his debate strategy.“This was not a campaign memo and we were not aware of it prior to the article,” Andrew Romeo, the campaign’s communications director, said in a statement. “We are well accustomed to the attacks from all sides as the media and other candidates realize Ron DeSantis is the strongest candidate best positioned to take down Joe Biden.”Onstage on Wednesday, those attacks, and Mr. DeSantis’s response to them, could be the gravest risk: He has appeared prickly in past debates and had gaffes exploited by his opponents. Current rivals like former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a notoriously pugnacious debater, could pose a threat.So could other challengers seeking to dethrone Mr. DeSantis as the race’s No. 2, including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the smooth-talking Mr. Ramaswamy or even former Vice President Mike Pence, a longtime conservative talk radio host accustomed to verbal sparring.Mr. DeSantis’s allies still hope that the governor will use the debate in Milwaukee to break out from the wide field of contenders who have prevented him from coalescing broader support. The debate, they say, is the first time that many Americans will tune in to the 2024 campaign, allowing Mr. DeSantis to tell his story to the largest audience he has ever faced.Mr. DeSantis has been preparing for the debate with practice sessions at least once a week. He is expected to highlight his policy proposals on immigration, the economy and countering China. He has also been doing a steady round of interviews with mainstream news outlets, where he has faced tougher questions.Much depends on whether former President Donald J. Trump, the spotlight-grabbing showman, shows up. So far, he has not committed one way or the other, although he has said it is unlikely he will attend the event, which is being hosted by Fox News.And taking on Mr. Trump remains a problem.The documents from Never Back Down advise Mr. DeSantis to defend Mr. Trump when Mr. Christie, a Trump critic, attacks him but to tell voters that he is the candidate “who will keep the movement that Donald Trump started going.”Former President Donald J. Trump has suggested that it is unlikely he will attend the first debate. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis has walked a similarly fine line in his criticisms of Mr. Trump this summer, chiding him for not debating and failing to “drain the swamp” as president. But he has also been careful not to offend the former president’s legion of supporters.Without Mr. Trump onstage, Mr. DeSantis will be the de facto front-runner, meaning he could face a barrage of attacks.Wearing the bull’s-eye could prove uncomfortable for Mr. DeSantis, a 44-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer known to bristle under criticism. His opponents will hope to score viral moments highlighting his defensiveness and casting him as awkward and robotic. A meme-able gaffe, no matter how transitory, runs the risk of overshadowing any strength he might project as a policy expert or a decisive young leader.Mr. DeSantis’s most prominent debates — in his contests for governor against Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida turned Democratic member of Congress, and Andrew Gillum, at the time the mayor of Tallahassee — do not necessarily offer hope to his supporters. They are now largely remembered for encounters that left Mr. DeSantis angry or tongue-tied.Last year, as Mr. DeSantis ran for re-election with his sights already set on the presidential race, Mr. Crist asked his rival if he would “look in the eyes of the people of the state of Florida” and pledge to serve a full term.“Yes or no?” Mr. Crist said, turning to Mr. DeSantis, who stood silent and stone-faced, refusing to answer.“Yes or no, Ron?” Mr. Crist asked again, taking advantage of the dead air.(By the debate rules, candidates were not allowed to question each other directly — a prohibition Mr. Crist ignored.)Finally, Mr. DeSantis spoke. “Is it my time?” he asked the moderator.“It’s a fair question,” Mr. Crist continued. Then he turned to the audience. “He won’t tell you.”By the time Mr. DeSantis broke the awkwardness to deliver a seemingly rehearsed counterpunch, calling Mr. Crist a “worn-out old donkey,” the damage had been done.It was exactly the kind of moment the Crist campaign had been gunning for.“DeSantis doesn’t take punches well,” said Joshua Karp, a Democratic strategist who led Mr. Crist’s debate preparations. “And his fundamental problem as a communicator is that he’s either attacking or explaining. He’s never telling a story. He’s never reaching people from the heart.”Mr. DeSantis’s most prominent debates — including one last year against Charlie Crist — are largely remembered for encounters that left Mr. DeSantis angry or tongue-tied.Pool photo by Crystal Vander WeitMr. Karp, who also led Mr. Gillum’s debate preparations four years earlier, said Mr. DeSantis struggled with a challenging aspect of debating: “Listening to what your opponent has to say and then deploying the right amount of warmth and strength and dexterity to counter it.”That weakness was on display against Mr. Gillum in 2018.At the time, Mr. DeSantis was under fire for having said that voters should not “monkey this up” by electing Mr. Gillum, who is Black. His comments were widely criticized as racist.Confronted by the debate moderator, Mr. DeSantis angrily interrupted, his voice rising as he said he had stood up for people of all races as a military lawyer and prosecutor. “I am not going to bow down to the altar of political correctness,” he added. “I am going to not let the media smear me.”Mr. Gillum, known as a gifted public speaker, seized on the opportunity.“My grandmother used to say ‘a hit dog will holler,’ and it hollered through this room,” he said of Mr. DeSantis, before landing a strong blow: “Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.”Mr. DeSantis visibly winced and scoffed.He had prepared for the confrontation, according to tapes of his debate practice sessions that were leaked this year and first reported by ABC News. One of his advisers, Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, a Republican and DeSantis ally who has since endorsed Mr. Trump, had urged him to express regret to those who had been offended. (Mr. Donalds is Black.)But Mr. DeSantis insisted on an aggressive response.“If I show any weakness on that, I think I lose my base, I think that I appear to be less than a leader,” he said. “And so, I just think I’ve got to come at it full throttle and say that’s wrong.”Separately, in an echo of the advice offered by Never Back Down, the tapes show an adviser telling Mr. DeSantis that he should write the word “likable” in capital letters at the top of his notebook as a reminder.Despite the debate stumbles, Mr. DeSantis won both elections, squeaking past Mr. Gillum and then crushing Mr. Crist four years later. And his showing in the 2018 Republican primary debates, when he was able to cast himself as a Trump-backed insurgent, received better reviews.Next week, Mr. Trump’s campaign will be paying close attention to the most minute aspects of Mr. DeSantis’s performance.“There will be an entire war room team that will be watching and highlighting each awkward thing DeSantis does,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign. “He needs to be on his best behavior.” More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Rises in Polls and Draws Attacks From GOP Rivals

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      Surging poll numbers and newly revealed concerns from Ron DeSantis’s super PAC underscore that Vivek Ramaswamy is having a well-timed political moment.For months now, Vivek Ramaswamy has been crisscrossing the early primary states of the 2024 presidential cycle, attracting good crowds with offbeat proposals and a penchant for the media spotlight while gaining little serious attention from his Republican rivals.But after a recent surge in the polls — and a newly revealed debate strategy memo from allies of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida that singles him out — he is having a well-timed moment, before next week’s first Republican primary debate.The staying power of the Ramaswamy Rise will now be tested by rival candidates loath to see a political novice elevated as the alternative to Donald J. Trump, the front-runner whose legal troubles have snowballed.Polling at this stage of a primary campaign can be fickle, but in polling averages, Mr. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and author, has grabbed third place, behind Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump, the former president now facing four criminal indictments.More telling, Mr. Ramaswamy’s national poll numbers are rising while Mr. DeSantis’s slide, putting him just behind the candidate most often seen as the strongest Trump challenger. In a new Fox News poll, support for Mr. Ramaswamy more than doubled since the previous poll, to 11 percent, compared with Mr. DeSantis’s 16 percent and Mr. Trump’s 53 percent. And Mr. Ramaswamy closed the gap between himself and Mr. DeSantis from 17 percentage points to 5.“Those numbers, no matter how you weigh polling, speak for themselves,” said Fred Doucette, a member of the New Hampshire State House and Mr. Ramaswamy’s state party chairman.The DeSantis campaign dismisses those numbers, saying that Mr. DeSantis has weathered more attack advertising than any other candidate, but is still standing in second place. “This primary is a two-man race,” said Bryan Griffin, the DeSantis campaign press secretary, “but only Ron DeSantis can beat Joe Biden.”But documents posted by Axiom Strategies, a company owned by Jeff Roe, the chief strategist of the DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, make clear that Mr. Ramaswamy is viewed as a threat. The memos detail how Mr. Ramaswamy has attacked Mr. DeSantis and outline key vulnerabilities for Mr. Ramaswamy now that he is gaining prominence.Some of those attack lines focus on his past: support in his 2022 book for “very high” inheritance taxes with “real teeth”; a business partnership in 2018 with a Chinese state-owned firm; and economic and social positions no longer in favor with most Republican voters, including free trade and transgender rights. His business ventures, which made him a wealthy man but left others financially smarting, are only now beginning to garner attention.Other vulnerabilities are more current. Mr. Ramaswamy raised eyebrows this week by saying to Hugh Hewitt, the conservative radio host, that under a Ramaswamy presidency, the United States would defend Taiwan militarily against Chinese aggression, but “only as far as 2028” when the United States is less reliant on Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing.It is not unusual for political newcomers to have their moments early in primary campaigns. In the 2012 Republican primary cycle, then-Representative Michele Bachmann traded polling leads with the pizza executive Herman Cain before Republican voters settled on the safest choice, Mitt Romney.Mr. Ramaswamy did not mention the DeSantis memos during a nearly hourlong foreign policy speech at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., on Thursday evening. But he emphasized his age — 38 — and pointed out that he is the youngest Republican to run for president.“What’s going on with the millennials? We are hungry for a cause. We are starved for purpose and meaning and identity,” Mr. Ramaswamy said, adding, “That is our opportunity to step up and to fill that void with a vision of what it means to be an American.”Mr. Ramaswamy’s youth, creativity and enthusiasm are making an impression, especially in the early states. Internal polling by Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC had him at 1 percent in New Hampshire in April — and 11 percent in an early August survey.Debbie O’Leary, a 66-year-old from Des Moines, said at the Iowa State Fair that she had voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 but would “prefer someone more gracious” as the Republican nominee. Mr. Ramaswamy is top of mind.“He’s refreshing, he’s articulate, he’s obviously smart and he’s not tied to any political machine,” she said.But Mr. Ramaswamy has a potential liability that the DeSantis campaign appears ready to exploit with the heavily white, Christian conservative voting base of the G.O.P. — his background. His parents are immigrants from India. He maintains his Hindu faith, and as the DeSantis super PAC memo put it, he “was very much ingrained in India’s caste system” — his family is Brahmin, the highest caste in the Hindu hierarchy.Even voters who like him sometimes find his name a mouthful. At the Iowa State Fair this week, Pete Dallman of Iowa City said he was interested in “that Indian guy,” and paused for a moment, before adding, “I can’t say his name even.”Anjali Huynh More

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      Stuart Delery Stepping Down as White House Counsel

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      Stuart Delery, who has been President Biden’s chief official lawyer since last year, helped develop strategies to distribute Covid-19 vaccines, forgive student loans and revamp immigration rules.Stuart Delery, the White House counsel who has helped usher in some of President Biden’s most important policies while defending him against Republican attacks, announced on Thursday that he plans to step down as the West Wing shapes its staff for the final 15-month sprint to next year’s election.Mr. Delery had indicated to colleagues a few months ago that he would be ready to leave by fall after nearly three years in the White House and the pre-inaugural transition that have been all consuming. Since Republicans took over the House in January, the counsel’s office has been the command post for the White House’s response to a multitude of congressional investigations.No successor was named on Thursday, but a new counsel was expected to be in place by the time Mr. Delery formally leaves next month. Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House chief of staff who took over the president’s team six months ago, has asked cabinet secretaries to decide in the coming weeks whether they plan to depart or will commit to staying through the November 2024 election to avoid distracting confirmations heading into the campaign season.Mr. Biden’s White House team has been steadier than most, especially compared with the one under his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump, who burned through aides at a frenetic pace. Although a number of top officials have left Mr. Biden’s administration, the total turnover of 56 percent remains below the modern average, and his cabinet is the most stable going back at least seven administrations, according to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution.Susan E. Rice, the president’s domestic policy adviser, left in May and was replaced by Neera Tanden, the staff secretary, who in turn was replaced by Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden aide. Julie Chávez Rodríguez stepped down as director of intergovernmental affairs to take over as campaign manager and was succeeded by Tom Perez, a former labor secretary. Louisa Terrell, the director of legislative affairs who helped coordinate debt ceiling negotiations, announced her departure last month and was replaced by Shuwanza Goff, the president’s liaison to the House.But the president’s core inner circle of Mr. Zients and advisers like Steven J. Ricchetti, Anita Dunn, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Bruce Reed is expected to remain intact through the election, as is his top national security team led by Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer. Some colleagues have speculated about whether Michael Donilon, one of Mr. Biden’s closest advisers and the author of many of his major speeches, will move over to the campaign or stay inside the White House.Mr. Delery, 54, served as acting associate attorney general, the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, under President Barack Obama and joined the Biden team as deputy White House counsel before taking over the top legal job in the White House a little over a year ago. He is the first openly gay man to serve as counsel to the president.“Stuart Delery has been a trusted adviser and a constant source of innovative legal thinking since Day 1 of my administration,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. Mr. Delery, a low-key and studious Yale Law School graduate, was among the legal architects of some of Mr. Biden’s most important initiatives, including strategies to distribute Covid-19 vaccines, to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt and to revamp immigration after the expiration of Title 42, a pandemic-era measure.When the Supreme Court overruled the president’s original student loan plan, his team quickly developed new ways to try to accomplish the same goals. When Republicans threatened to not raise the debt ceiling, Mr. Delery developed options for Mr. Biden to do so on his own authority, although it proved unnecessary when a bipartisan deal was struck.Mr. Delery also oversaw a drive to install as many judges as possible. During his tenure, 20 nominees were confirmed to federal appeals courts and 51 to federal district courts. The slate of new judges has been the most diverse in history.“Stuart Delery was a historic counsel for an administration getting historic things done,” Mr. Zients said in a statement. “His work in support of President Biden and Vice President Harris will shape the country for the better for decades to come.” More

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      A Majority of Americans Support Trump Indictments, Polls Show

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      Recent polls conducted before the Georgia indictment showed that most believed that the prosecutions of the former president were warranted.Former President Donald J. Trump’s blistering attacks on prosecutors and the federal government over the cascade of indictments he faces do not appear to be resonating much with voters in the latest polls, yet his grip on Republicans is further tightening.A majority of Americans, in four recent polls, said Mr. Trump’s criminal cases were warranted. Most were surveyed before a grand jury in Georgia indicted him over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election, but after the federal indictment related to Jan. 6.At the same time, Mr. Trump still holds a dominant lead over the crowded field of Republicans who are challenging him for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who continues to slide.The polls — conducted by Quinnipiac University, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, ABC News/Ipsos and Fox News — showed that Americans remain divided along party lines over the dozens of criminal charges facing Mr. Trump.The takeaways aligned with the findings of a New York Times/Siena College poll last month, in which 22 percent of voters who believed that Mr. Trump had committed serious federal crimes said they still planned to support him in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with Mr. DeSantis.Here are key findings from the recent polling:Most say a felony conviction should be disqualifying.In the Quinnipiac poll, 54 percent of registered voters said Mr. Trump should be prosecuted for trying to overturn the 2020 election. And seven out of 10 voters said that anyone convicted of a felony should no longer be eligible to be president.Half of Americans, but only 20 percent of Republicans, said that Mr. Trump should suspend his presidential campaign, according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll. This poll, which surveyed American adults, was the only one of the four surveys conducted entirely after Mr. Trump’s indictment in Georgia.When specifically asked by ABC about the Georgia case, 63 percent said the latest criminal charges against Mr. Trump were “serious.”Republicans, by and large, haven’t wavered.The trends were mixed for Mr. Trump, who is a voracious consumer of polls and often mentions them on social media and during campaign speeches. He has continually argued that the indictments were politically motivated and intended to short-circuit his candidacy.In a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 election, Mr. Trump trailed President Biden by a single percentage point in the latest Quinnipiac poll, 47 to 46 percent. Mr. Biden’s advantage was 5 percentage points in July.At his campaign rallies, Mr. Trump has frequently boasted how the indictments have been a boon for his polling numbers — and that rang true when Republicans were surveyed about the primary race.In those polls that tracked the G.O.P. nominating contest, Mr. Trump widened his lead over his challengers, beating them by nearly 40 points. His nearest competitor, Mr. DeSantis, had fallen below 20 percent in both the Fox and Quinnipiac polls.Mr. DeSantis, who earlier this month replaced his campaign manager as he shifts his strategy, dropped by 6 to 7 percentage points in recent months in both polls.Trump participated in criminal conduct, Americans say.About half of Americans said that Mr. Trump’s interference in the election in Georgia was illegal, according to the AP/NORC poll.A similar share of Americans felt the same way after Mr. Trump’s indictments in the classified documents and the Jan. 6 cases, but the percentage was much lower when he was charged in New York in a case related to a hush-money payment to a porn star.Fewer than one in five Republicans said that Mr. Trump had committed a crime in Georgia or that he broke any laws in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.When asked by Fox News whether Mr. Trump had engaged in illegal activity to overturn the 2020 election, 53 percent of registered voters said yes.But just 13 percent of Republicans shared that view.A plurality of those surveyed by ABC (49 percent) believed that Mr. Trump should be charged with a crime in Georgia.Support for the Justice Department’s charges.Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults said that they approved of the Justice Department’s decision to bring charges against Mr. Trump for his attempts to reverse his electoral defeat in 2020, The A.P. found.At the same time, the public’s confidence in the Justice Department registered at 17 percent in the same poll. More