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      For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment

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      When the history of the 2024 election is written, one of the iconic images illustrating it will surely be the mug shot taken of Donald J. Trump after one of his four indictments, staring into the camera with his signature glare. It is an image not of shame but of defiance, the image of a man who would be a convicted felon before Election Day and yet possibly president of the United States again afterward.Sometimes lost amid all the shouting of a high-octane campaign heading into its final couple of weeks is that simple if mind-bending fact. America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office and entrust him with the nuclear codes. What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to “retribution.”In all the different ways that Mr. Trump has upended the traditional rules of American politics, that may be one of the most striking. He has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president, in the life of the republic. Not only survived but thrived. He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.His persecution defense, the notion that he gets in so much trouble only because everyone is out to get him, resonates at his rallies where he says “they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I’m just standing in the way.” But that of course belies a record of scandal stretching across his 78 years starting long before politics. Whether in his personal life or his public life, he has been accused of so many acts of wrongdoing, investigated by so many prosecutors and agencies, sued by so many plaintiffs and claimants that it requires a scorecard just to remember them all.Mr. Trump at a rally in Arizona earlier this month.Anna Watts for The New York TimesHis businesses went bankrupt repeatedly and multiple others failed. He was taken to court for stiffing his vendors, stiffing his bankers and even stiffing his own family. He avoided the draft during the Vietnam War and avoided paying any income taxes for years. He was forced to shell out tens of millions of dollars to students who accused him of scamming them, found liable for wide-scale business fraud and had his real estate firm convicted in criminal court of tax crimes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Four of Trump’s Most Meandering Remarks This Week

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      One of the truisms of Trump World is that being viewed as boring is a sin more deadly than being wrong.On the campaign trail, former President Donald J. Trump often takes that to mean he must go off-script and veer off message. His critics say such detours are a troubling sign of his incoherence and raise questions about his age and cognitive health. Many of his supporters and allies see his circular way of speaking, which he calls “the weave,” as entertaining and not alarming. The partisan debate over the implications of Mr. Trump’s meandering speech has only intensified in the final stage of the race.Here are four examples of Mr. Trump’s rambling from just this past week.Schoolchildren asked him about boyhood heroes. He ended up at the border wall.It was a softball question, from a 10-year-old. Mr. Trump’s response was more of a knuckleball.A group of children asked Mr. Trump questions on Friday on “Fox & Friends.” Asked to name his favorite president when he was a child, Mr. Trump at first cited one who was elected when he was 34 (Ronald Reagan). Then he ventured onto surprising terrain, including every child’s favorite subject, the revised NAFTA trade deal known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.DANIEL: President Trump, I’m Daniel. And I’m 10. And I’m from Tennessee. What was your favorite president when you were little?DONALD TRUMP: So I liked Ronald Reagan. I thought he was, um, look — I did not love his trade policy. I’m a very good trade — I have made some great trade deals for us — the U.S.M.C.A. That wasn’t his strength, but he had a great dignity about him, Ronald Reagan. You could say, “There’s our president,” more than any of the others. Really, any of the others. Uh, great presidents — well, Lincoln was probably a great president. Although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled? You know? I’m a guy that — it doesn’t make sense we had a civil war.BRIAN KILMEADE, “Fox & Friends” co-host: Well, half the country left before he got there.TRUMP: Yeah, yeah. But you’d almost say, like, why wasn’t that — as an example, Ukraine would have never happened and Russia if I were president. Israel would have never happened. Oct. 7 would have never happened. As you know, Iran was broke, they wanted to make a deal. I told, “Anybody buys any oil from Iran, it’s, you’re, you’re finished, you know, you can’t deal with the United States.” Nobody was buying oil from Iran. They came, they wanted to make a deal — now they have $300 billion in cash. Biden has been — and her, she’s, I don’t know if she was involved in it, but she’s, she’s terrible. Hey, look, remember this, she was the border czar, she never went there.She was border czar and the Border Patrol, the one thing you have to remember, the Border Patrol gave strongest endorsement that anybody has ever seen: He’s the best there is, there has never been — he’s the greatest president, the greatest at the border, and she’s terrible. That was their policy. And these guys are great, by the way. These are great — you know them well from the show. We got the best endorsement and that really says it all. And I think the border is the bigger thing than inflation and the economy.You know, I watch your polling where it says the economy and inflation are No. 1, 2. And then it says — always says, like, the three — I think the border is bigger. I got elected in 2016 on the border. I did a great job. I couldn’t even mention it after that because nobody cared because I did — it was fixed. We had a great border. Then they blew it, and I have to do it again. The difference is, it’s much worse this time. Because they are allowing millions of people into the country that shouldn’t be here.LAWRENCE JONES, “Fox & Friends” co-host: Mr. President, we’ve got a fun one —TRUMP: But we’ll fix it.JONES: We’ve got a 6-year-old from Massachusetts and he wants to know about your favorite animal.Asked about inflation, he roamed to his annoyance with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s college experience.On Tuesday, John Micklethwait, the editor in chief of Bloomberg News, asked Mr. Trump about the dollar and whether his policies would drive up inflation. Mr. Trump produced a verbal novel, the first chapter of which touched more on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s undergraduate studies than on macroeconomics.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For Executives, ‘Defending Democracy’ Can Seem Risky

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      Even seemingly anodyne sentiments supporting fair elections have become politically charged.Republicans have spent months laying the groundwork to challenge a defeat of Donald Trump in the presidential election. During a fund-raising call organized by corporate lawyers in September, Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, asked for help if those efforts veer outside legal grounds.According to two people on the call, Emhoff asked the lawyers to reiterate to their corporate clients the risks posed by efforts to undermine the integrity of the election.The request underlines the pressure some executives are feeling to repeat public calls they made four year ago, urging politicians to respect the results of the 2020 presidential election. But making those kinds of public statements may have gotten more complicated. Executives, who were outspoken during the pandemic, have resumed their efforts to stay out of politics. And seemingly anodyne sentiments are now politically charged: Only one of two candidates has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. That candidate has support of roughly half the country. And he has made it clear that if he takes power, he’s willing to go after his enemies.Democracy, as a term, “has become kind of loaded” for executives, Charles Elson, the founding director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, told DealBook.“I think that’s why you haven’t heard anything from them. But you got two weeks to go.”The landscape has changed. The Blackstone C.E.O. Stephen Schwarzman and the hedge fund boss Nelson Peltz, two billionaires who condemned Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, have since offered him their support. And one of his most high-profile supporters, Tesla C.E.O. Elon Musk, has questioned the accuracy of elections themselves: “When you have mail-in ballots and no proof of citizenship, it’s almost impossible to prove cheating,” Musk said at a rally in Pennsylvania this week.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Charity Toward None

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      The cardinal should go to confession.Timothy Dolan let a white-tie charity dinner in New York showcase that most uncharitable of men, Donald Trump.At the annual Al Smith dinner, Dolan suffused the impious Trump in the pious glow of Catholic charities. Dolan looked on with a doting expression as Trump made his usual degrading, scatological comments about his foils, this time cloaked as humor.“We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child,” Trump told the New York fat cats. “It’s a person who has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”Trump also offered this beauty: “I used to think the Democrats were crazy for saying that men have periods. But then I met Tim Walz.” When Trump joked about keeping Doug Emhoff away from nannies, even he admitted it was “too tough.”As he did in 2016 when he crudely attacked Hillary Clinton as she sat on the dais, Trump added a rancid cloud to what used to be a good-tempered bipartisan roast.Dolan could have stood up and told Trump “Enough!” We have been longing for that voice of authority who could deliver the Joseph Welch line — “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” — to our modern Joe McCarthy. It is the church’s job, after all, to teach right from wrong.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New York Man Who Brought Knife to Jan. 6 Riot Pleads Guilty to a Felony

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      Christopher D. Finney was charged after federal investigators found images of him during a search of a “militia” group chat, prosecutors said.A New York man pleaded guilty on Friday to a felony charge of civil disorder for storming the U.S. Capitol while armed with a knife on Jan. 6, 2021, as supporters of former President Donald J. Trump sought to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.The man, Christopher D. Finney, 32, of Hopewell Junction, entered his plea before Judge Trevor N. McFadden of federal court in the District of Columbia, according to court documents.Mr. Finney’s sentencing is scheduled for January. His lawyer, Christopher Macchiaroli, said Mr. Finney “accepted full responsibility for his presence inside the U.S. Capitol” and looked forward to the “closure” he believed sentencing would bring.Mr. Finney is among more than 1,500 people to be criminally charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, in which supporters of Mr. Trump, including members of far-right groups, violently tried to stop Congress from certifying President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.Like many of those charged, Mr. Finney had traveled to Washington to attend a rally, according to court documents. A video Mr. Finney recorded before the rally showed him wearing plastic goggles and a protective plate-carrier vest, with a knife holstered to his hip and plastic flex cuffs in the vest’s pouches, prosecutors said.“We’re going to storm the Capitol,” Mr. Finney recorded himself saying, according to prosecutors. “We’re going to make sure that this is done correct and that Donald Trump is still our president.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats’ Report Calls Trump Hotel Business Unethical and Unconstitutional

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      Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the former president overcharged the Secret Service and accepted money from officials and people who were seeking pardons and appointments.House Democrats on Friday accused former President Donald J. Trump of accepting “hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments” through the Trump International Hotel in 2017 and 2018, moving weeks before the election to remind voters of the ethical issues raised by his refusal to divest from his businesses while in office.The 58-page report from Democrats on the Oversight Committee includes their final findings in a yearslong investigation digging into the Trump Organization’s management of the hotel. It accuses Mr. Trump of ripping off the Secret Service by charging the agency exorbitant rates and of inappropriately accepting payments from clients who worked for state governments or were seeking appointments and pardons from him.“Mr. Trump has made clear that he will not only refuse to divest from his businesses in a possible future presidency, but he will seek to multiply opportunities to commodify the Oval Office for his personal enrichment by turning thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions — all with the attendant payoff possibilities from supplicant job-seekers and the prospective blessing of his handpicked Supreme Court justices,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee.House Republicans dismissed the report as old news and accused Democrats of hypocrisy for investigating Mr. Trump but not members of President Biden’s family, including his son Hunter.“Unlike the Bidens, the Trumps actually have businesses and made money from the services they provided,” said Jessica Collins, a spokeswoman for the Republican-led House Oversight Committee. “Today’s report is more recycled garbage from the Democrats’ fruitless and close to a decadelong investigation of President Trump.”The committee has already documented how officials from other countries spent lavishly at Mr. Trump’s hotel in Washington while he was president and how the Secret Service was charged hefty prices for rooms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tesla Self-Driving System Will Be Investigated by Safety Agency

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      The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said it was looking into what Elon Musk’s electric car company called the full self-driving system.Tesla’s plan to build fleets of self-driving cars suffered a setback on Friday when the main federal auto safety regulator said it was investigating whether the technology was to blame for four collisions, including one that killed a pedestrian.The regulator, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, said it was examining whether the software, which Tesla calls supervised full self-driving, had safeguards in place to require drivers to retake control of their cars in situations the autonomous technology could not handle on its own.As sales of Tesla’s electric cars have slowed, Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, has staked the company’s future on software that allows cars to navigate, steer and brake without human supervision. Last week, the company held an event at the Warner Bros. studios near Los Angeles to unveil what it called a cybercab, which Mr. Musk promised would be able to ferry passengers without a human driver.But such software has faced persistent criticism from regulators and safety experts who say it does not do enough to make sure drivers remain alert and ready to take over if the system makes a mistake. Tesla faces numerous lawsuits from people who blame the software for injuries or deaths of loved ones.Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.The crashes highlighted by the safety agency on Friday took place when road visibility may have been limited by glare from the sun, fog or dust, the federal safety agency said. Tesla’s self-driving software depends on cameras to operate, unlike other manufacturers who also use radar or laser technology that are often better at detecting objects and people when the view is obscured by poor weather or bright sunshine.The agency said it would “examine the system’s potential failure to detect and disengage in specific situations where it cannot adequately operate.”In one of the collisions, a pedestrian died. In another, a person was injured, the agency said.The investigation covers 2.4 million Tesla vehicles, including cars manufactured as far back as 2016. All of Tesla’s passenger models are involved, the agency said, including the Model 3 and Model S sedans, the Model X and Model Y sport utility vehicles, and the Cybertruck.Federal officials have also been investigating a less capable Tesla system known as Autopilot for several years. These investigations may not survive if former President Donald J. Trump is elected next month. Mr. Trump has said he will appoint Mr. Musk, one of his most prominent supporters in the business world, to lead a “government efficiency commission.” More

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      Judge Orders DeSantis Administration to Stop Threats Over Abortion-Rights Ad

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      The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida must stop threatening television stations with criminal prosecution for airing a political ad in favor of enshrining abortion rights in the state’s Constitution, a federal judge ordered on Thursday.Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee ruled in a temporary restraining order that the threats by the Florida Department of Health to stations across the state likely amounted to “unconstitutional coercion” and “viewpoint discrimination.”“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false,’” Judge Walker, who has frequently ruled against the administration, wrote in his 17-page order. “To keep it simple for the state of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”The order followed an emergency hearing on Thursday after Floridians Protecting Freedom, the organization behind a campaign for an abortion-rights ballot measure known as Amendment 4, sued on Wednesday.This month, the state’s health department sent several television stations a cease-and-desist letter urging them to stop airing an ad, titled “Caroline,” that is part of the “Yes on 4” campaign. It features a woman named Caroline Williams discussing how she had been diagnosed with stage four brain cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant.“Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine,” Ms. Williams says in the ad.The state called the ad “false.” At least one station stopped airing the ad after receiving the department’s letter, the suit said.“This critical initial victory is a triumph for every Floridian who believes in democracy and the sanctity of the First Amendment,” Lauren Brenzel, the director of the “Yes on 4” campaign, said in a statement on Thursday. “The court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: The government cannot silence the truth about Florida’s extreme abortion ban.”Mr. DeSantis has vowed to defeat Amendment 4 and has leveraged the power of the state to oppose the measure, leading to several legal challenges. The courts had declined to intervene in prior cases.Julia Friedland, Mr. DeSantis’s deputy press secretary, said in a statement that Judge Walker had “issued another order that excites the press.”“The ads are unequivocally false and put the lives and health of pregnant women at risk,” she said. “Florida’s heartbeat protection law always protects the life of a mother and includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and human trafficking.”The campaign is seeking a preliminary injunction against the state. Judge Walker scheduled a hearing for Oct. 29.A separate lawsuit, filed by opponents of Amendment 4 and seeking to toss the measure from the ballot, is pending in state court. More