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  • Fox News’ Debate Could Put Trump’s GOP Opponents in a “Minefield,” Moderator Martha MacCallum Says

    Fox News’ Debate Could Put Trump’s GOP Opponents in a “Minefield,” Moderator Martha MacCallum Says

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    On August 23, candidates for the Republican presidential nomination will gather for the first time together on the debate stage in Milwaukee. One thing they have in common: They’re all being crushed in the polls by Donald Trump, the front-runner who may not even show up. Regardless, the former president will loom large over the Fox News–hosted event—particularly when it comes to the multiple criminal indictments he is facing. “It will absolutely be incumbent upon them to address [Trump’s criminal charges],” Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, who is co-moderating the debate along with Bret Baier, says of the other Republican candidates. “Voters need to hear how they see it, and the option that they’re trying to provide. It’s very tricky territory for these candidates. They know that well,” MacCallum says. “It’s kind of a minefield.”

    Eight candidates have thus far met the Republican National Committee’s qualifications for a spot on the debate stage—Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie, Doug Burgum, and Mike Pence—but none besides Trump have really gained traction. It’s particularly challenging to do at a time when the former president is dominating not only the polls, but, with his myriad charges, the news. “He’s sort of sucking all the oxygen out of the room,” says MacCallum, who sees the debate as an “important starting point” for those in the rest of the field to distinguish themselves. “This is a very high-stakes moment for them, and not everybody will really survive the process deeper than perhaps Iowa,” says MacCallum.

    Debates have often been an opportunity for candidates to demonstrate their differences on policy, but at this point in the GOP primary, cultural issues such as LGBTQ+ rights and school curricula have commanded the conversation. MacCallum says she thinks such cultural issues “will certainly come up on the debate stage,” but “when you look at what people care about, it’s not high on the list,” compared to foreign policy and the economy. Candidates’ answers on abortion are another detail that she thinks voters will be paying close attention to.

    Undeniably though, how candidates handle questions about Trump—who many have been unwilling or reluctant to criticize—will be top of mind for many viewers. “The goal at this moment is for them to get through Trump,” says MacCallum. “They have to define themselves in a way that makes them stand out with voters and also contrast themselves to the alternative, which is the former president. So it’s very tricky—he has a lot of support out there, we see that in the numbers.” What’s less clear is “what the impact will be of these court dates that he has that are just stacked up like planes waiting to take off at JFK.”

    Speaking of planes, it’s easy to picture a scenario where the public is watching Trump’s on the tarmac on the afternoon of the debate, waiting to see whether he’ll show up or not. While his calculus could be evolving due to his worsened legal exposure, he’s been vocal about considering skipping the event, questioning the point of debating when he’s so far ahead of everyone else in the polls and publicly attacking Fox News for not giving him enough coverage and promoting DeSantis. Executives from Fox are said to be scrambling to convince him to participate, including Fox News president Jay Wallace and CEO Suzanne Scott, who reportedly appealed to him during a recent private dinner at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Network personalities, meanwhile, have been making their own appeals on air.

    “Certainly we would like for him to be there,” says MacCallum, “and I think that the American people deserve an opportunity to watch the former president against the people who are his contenders. Yes, at this moment, most of them are far behind him in the polls. But that’s just a moment in time, and that can change if he is not there.”

    (Complicating all of this: The RNC has reportedly told Trumpworld that he needs to make a final decision at least 48 hours in advance for security and logistics reasons. Further, Trump last week said he won’t sign the RNC’s loyalty pledge to support the eventual GOP presidential nominee, which is required of all candidates.)

    I asked MacCallum whether she thinks candidates’ views on the 2020 election will be a focal point in 2024 races; just last week, DeSantis made news by merely stating the obvious fact that Joe Biden is the president and Trump lost the election. “I think there’s a lot of desire to look forward. That being said, these trials and issues push that question into this forum, and it has to be dealt with and addressed,” said MacCallum. “I think relitigating the outcome is not really where most people are focused at this point.” I noted that Trump has spent the past three years relitigating the outcome, an effort at the heart of his latest indictment. “Absolutely,” said MacCallum. “They all know that they’re gonna have to be clear on where they stand on it.”

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    Charlotte Klein

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  • Could Jared and Ivanka Return to the Trump Campaign Fold?

    Could Jared and Ivanka Return to the Trump Campaign Fold?

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    On the evening of July 19, Donald Trump hosted a private screening of the child-trafficking movie Sound of Freedom at his Bedminister golf club. The guest list included the film’s QAnon-promoting star, Jim Caviezel, and other MAGA elites, such as former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and newscaster turned election denier Kari Lake. Trump, standing in a blue suit and red tie, called Caviezel a “great star” and lauded the movie’s $100 million-plus box office haul as “really something.” But the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner is what has gotten Trumpworld buzzing.

    According to Trump advisers, Ivanka and Kushner have been more visible lately, stoking speculation that the pair could take an active role in Trump’s 2024 campaign. They have been living at their cottage on the grounds of Bedminster, sources said. And last month Ivanka attended her father’s birthday dinner, a source added. “They’ve been spotted more frequently this summer,” a top campaign strategist told me. “They’ve made it clear they’re supportive. They pop into meetings to say hi.” Trump advisers cautioned that, at least for now, Kushner and Ivanka are only engaging as members of the Trump family and are not participating in an official advisory capacity.

    But with Trump dominating the 2024 Republican primary, some sources suggested Kushner and Ivanka might hop on the Trump train. “Now that the president is 40 points ahead, of course Jared is pretending he’s involved. If he’s president again, Jared needs to protect his turf, especially in the Middle East,” a former Trump administration official said.

    Kusher declined to comment. A source familiar with his thinking said: “Jared thinks the team running the campaign is doing a terrific job and has zero intention to get involved. He is laser-focused on his family and on growing his business.”

    Last fall, the couple made it clear they were done with politics. “I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family,” Ivanka said in a statement released on November 15, the day Trump launched his presidential campaign at Mar-a-Lago. Kushner, meanwhile, was focused on his private-equity firm. Months after leaving the White House, Kushner received a controversial $2 billion investment from the fund led by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

    Kushner and Ivanka’s decision to back away from Trump seemed like a smart career move at the time. Trump’s political fortunes were dwindling. Many of the midterm candidates he endorsed––such as Lake, Doug Mastriano, and Herschel Walker–– lost winnable races. A Politico–Morning Consult poll found that 65% of voters said Trump should “probably or definitely not run again.” Florida governor Ron DeSantis looked formidable after his crushing 19-point reelection victory. A poll commissioned by the Texas Republican Party found that Texas Republicans preferred DeSantis over Trump by more than 10 points. Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was all in on DeSantis, famously running a New York Post cover with the headline “DeFUTURE.”

    As Trump slumped, Kushner and Ivanka spent little time at Mar-a-Lago, a source said. That echoed their White House habit of disappearing during scandals but claiming credit for victories. But they’ve been closer to Trump this summer, with the ex-president having reasserted his grip on the Republican electorate. DeSantis, Trump’s closest rival, trails by double digits. Former vice president Mike Pence is scrambling to even qualify for the first GOP debate on Fox News.

    One red flag for Kushner and Ivanka surely is the onslaught of legal threats facing Trump, who has already been criminally indicted twice this year, in connection to the hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels and his alleged mishandling of classified materials. (Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases.) And the former president could be indicted imminently in both federal and Georgia cases related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Kushner and Ivanka are highly protective of their brands and likely would not want to be publicly associated with Trump if he were to be convicted on federal or state charges.

    But if Trump returns to the White House, Kushner and Ivanka’s calculus might change. “Everyone loves a winner!” a former Trump 2020 campaign adviser said.

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    Gabriel Sherman

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  • Can Elise Stefanik Become MAGA’s Messenger in Chief?

    Can Elise Stefanik Become MAGA’s Messenger in Chief?

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    Stefanik endorsed Trump’s 2024 bid in November of 2022, before the former president had even formally announced his intention of running again. She voted against certifying Biden’s election win, amplified conspiracies about Dominion Voting Systems, and doesn’t appear to have acknowledged that Biden won legitimately. Stefanik called the New York District Attorney’s case against Trump an all-caps “WITCH HUNT” on Twitter, directing people to donate to the ex-president’s campaign. A little over a month later, when another of Trump’s many legal woes—the defamation and rape case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll— saw its resolution in court, Stefanik declined to comment. When communications unveiled through the Dominion lawsuit against Fox revealed Trump confidants’ acknowledgments that their stolen-election claims were toothless, Stefanik was mum. With news of the second indictment against Trump in the classified documents case, she posted a photo of herself with the president: “STAND WITH TRUMP!” she wrote. If she talks, she’s always on message. If she doesn’t, I get the sense it’s because she’s realized silence is most expedient.

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    When I ask her about the vice presidency, she answers. “I would be honored to serve in a Trump administration,” she says. “But I am very conscious there’s a long time between now and then, and there’s a lot of work that House Republicans have to do.” After all, she’s still in office. He—despite the best election-subversion efforts of his team and allies (Stefanik included)—was voted out. She has hitched her wagon to his train, but, at least in this moment in time, her political future could be much brighter than his. 

    Stefanik was 14 years old when she was excused from class—at the Albany Academy for Girls, a private institution in upstate New York—to attend a 1998 campaign event for former US senator Alfonse D’Amato, who was facing off against now Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer. “I support the Republican view, especially his,” a braces-donning Stefanik told the Times Union’s James M. Odato. She added of D’Amato: “He supports all of New York State, not just downstate.” The résumé Stefanik built up in the following decades suggests running for office was likely always part of the plan, even though she says it wasn’t. She went to Harvard, worked on the Domestic Policy Council in the George W. Bush White House, and then went to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, where she helped craft platforms and prepped Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, for his vice presidential debate against Biden. 

    After Romney lost, then RNC chair Reince Priebus appointed Stefanik to the task force developing the infamous 2012 “autopsy.” Tim Miller, a Republican political operative who worked on the report alongside her, says Stefanik was like “the point person on a group project in college.” The autopsy concluded that the Republican Party needed to be inclusive of communities of color, women, and young voters. When Stefanik ran for New York’s 21st district to replace incumbent Democrat Bill Owens, who did not seek reelection, she largely embraced the findings of the report she had helped craft. “I don’t remember any point in which [Stefanik] pushed back on the substance of the content,” Miller, who served as Jeb Bush’s communications director in 2016, reflects. Stefanik, after all, was the “human embodiment of the autopsy.” 

    At 30 years old, she became the youngest woman elected to Congress; a Glamour profile heralded her as “the youngest woman to ever break into the old boys’ club of Congress.” She was seen as something of a Ryan protégé; he had been a prominent supporter of her campaign. Then, Trump arrived on the scene. 

    In 2016, Stefanik voted for former Ohio governor John Kasich in the Republican presidential primary. (“Going into 2016, that was my first reelection and the first presidential [election] while I was a sitting member of Congress,” she tells me. “I was very comfortable, leading up, saying, ‘I’m going to support the Republican nominee, and voters will decide who the primary winner is.’ I was proud to vote for President Trump in 2016.”) 

    These days, her public and social media presence is almost indistinguishable from those of the Gaetzes, Marjorie Taylor Greenes, or Lauren Boeberts of the House. Her campaign repeated “great replacement theory” rhetoric, posting that “radical Democrats” were planning a “PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION” by granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants; she proudly voted to ban trans athletes from women’s or girls sports at federally supported schools, part of what she called a fight against “Democrats’ radical and Far Left attempt to erase women”; and she has fearmongered over “critical race theory.” But still, there is a Washington, DC, polish to Stefanik, like she’s spent her life being shaped by the political establishment. 

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    Abigail Tracy

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  • The Trump Arraignment Media Circus Is Underway

    The Trump Arraignment Media Circus Is Underway

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    On a brisk but sunny Monday morning, Lower Manhattan was swarmed with satellite trucks and news crews. In front of the New York State Supreme Court, two TV reporters were doing news hits, with one noting “a very tight security apparatus” and “huge media contingent” anticipating Donald Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday. But the real media circus was situated some 300 feet away, where, across from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office, a mass of white tarps lined the street. The names of various outlets—AP, ABC, NY1, Bloomberg, Fox Business, USA Today, Getty—were scrawled on pieces of duct tape adhered to the concrete in front of their respective canopies. I overheard one cameraman explaining to an evidently confused tourist what they were all doing there as he sipped his coffee, and spotted about a dozen cameras inside Collect Pond Park, where a reporter was standing on a bench doing a TV hit. On the other side of the square was a line of parked satellite trucks. “They said 2:15 tomorrow,” I heard an NYPD officer tell his colleague outside 80 Centre Street. “We’re gonna be removing a lot of vehicles too,” she replied. 

    The city is bracing for the historic arraignment of the former president, whom a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict last week for his role in the 2016 hush-money payout to porn star Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels). TV networks were glued to Trump’s motorcade ride to a Palm Beach airport Monday, en route to New York, and Tuesday’s courtroom appearance is sure to dominate cable news. For the reporters who cover the criminal courts, and are accustomed to high-profile proceedings—such as Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape trial or the 2011 sexual assault case against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, which was later dismissed—the circus surrounding Trump is reaching a whole other level. “I think this is going to dwarf those cases,” said Laura Italiano, who worked at all three New York City tabloids before landing at Insider, where she’s been focusing on Trump’s legal exposure in New York state court. “I’ve been at this for 30 years, and it’s the biggest case in my career.”

    The media frenzy had been building for weeks but the indictment came somewhat out of left field, because, as reporters were told a day earlier, the grand jury was set to break for a previously scheduled hiatus, which would push any indictment of Trump until at least the end of April. “Everything was quiet. Some reporters were planning vacations,” said Patricia Hurtado, who’s been covering courts for Bloomberg for 18 years. “As a veteran court reporter—and I’ve covered federal and state courts for decades—this has been the strangest thing, because it’s been a whiplash,” she told me of the inquiry. “It’s been maddening.” Right before the indictment news broke, Italiano told me she’d just filed a story with a headline along the lines of “This Trump Indictment Long Break Is Not a Sure Thing.” 

    Molly Crane-Newman, who covers the Manhattan federal and state courts for the New York Daily News, was at her desk, located inside the courthouse, when she heard Trump had been indicted. “I shrieked,” she recalled. “I cover all manner of cases in the courts—the high-profile ones, but also the hyper-local ones,” she said, noting that reporting on indictments being filed is “routine” for her. “The process is going to be the same as it would be for any defendant, but obviously most of the defendants aren’t accompanied by Secret Service when they surrender.” 

    When I caught up with the three reporters after the indictment news broke, they were all focused on making sure they’d be able to do their jobs with the rest of the press corps parachuting in. There are a limited number of seats in the courtroom, and Italiano said Insider’s lawyers were “ready preemptively, in case there’s any kind of objectionable limitation on access,” like a pool situation where there’s one camera and one print reporter—“the kind of nightmare that keeps me awake,” as she put it. Crane-Newman pointed to past high-profile trials like Weinstein’s, or El Chapo’s in federal court in Brooklyn. “In those instances, reporters who don’t have in-house credentials have been required to start lining up outside the courthouse the night before,” she said, noting that she was among them for El Chapo, arriving at 11 p.m. the night before. Even that wasn’t enough, she noted: “I was the first reporter in overflow.” 

    For Weinstein’s trial, Hurtado said she got up at 4:30 a.m.—by which time the line was already around the block—to make sure she was there in time. In preparation for Tuesday, Hurtado joked about asking a lawyer she knows, who lives in an apartment building next door to the courthouse, whether she could crash on their floor in a sleeping bag. “It’s a big slog,” she said. Press access to documents may also be a challenge, as it has been with previous high-profile state court cases, said Hurtado, because while the federal court system is electronic, the state court still operates largely on paper. During Weinstein’s trial, reporters were taking photos of the filing with their phones, Hurtado said. “The courthouse system is kind of trapped in 1923,” she said. 

    The chaos might not be limited to the press swarm, as a threat of potential unrest has officers on high alert. Last month, when Trump predicted he would be “arrested on Tuesday,” the former president called on supporters to “protest” and “take our nation back.” At least one of his sycophants in Congress has heeded the call, as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that she’s coming to New York on Tuesday to “protest this unprecedented abuse of our justice system and election interference,” and will be headlining a rally planned by the New York Young Republican Club at a nearby park. 

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    Charlotte Klein

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