Maggie Haberman

Here are some takeaways about what the book shows, and doesn’t.

— The picture it paints of the president and the White House is bleak but not new.

“The White House, quite simply, is broken,” the author says at one point. At another, the author writes that the president often acts on his impulses, even when he’s been talked out of them, whether it’s in relation to policy matters or possibly dismissing a staff member.

“His cyclical urges can’t be suppressed for long,” the author writes.

His lack of interest in other branches of government is a constant theme.

“Don’t worry about Congress,” he is supposed to have told an aide. “Just do what you need to do.”

These ideas don’t tread new ground — the themes were hit on, in more elaborate detail, in books by Michael Wolff and Bob Woodward earlier in the Trump presidency. Both writers painted the Trump presidency as aberrant and potentially dangerous, with detailed scenes describing actions by the president.

Throughout “A Warning,” there are descriptions of Trump repeatedly testing the bounds of the law, or in some cases, ignoring them outright. The author attributes it in part to his lack of familiarity with the executive branch after a lifetime in business.

“In fairness, when Trump suggests doing something unlawful, it’s not necessarily nefarious,” the author writes.

Still, the author describes Trump bluntly as unlearned, intellectually incurious and sometimes consumed with frustration about leaks.

Anonymous recounts few new scenes — other than an account of aides discussing using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump and officials possibly resigning en masse. More often he describes aides asking, “What the hell happened?” in response to what the president had just done.

For instance, the author “vividly” remembers one instance when “an official” called the author the evening after a “top intelligence leader” went to testify on Capitol Hill. “‘The president’s red hot,’ she told me,” the author writes. “‘It sounds like he wants someone fired by morning.’”

“‘What the hell happened?’ I asked. She explained that the agency head offered an assessment about one of America’s foreign adversaries. The conclusion was at odds with what Trump had been saying publicly.”

— “Anonymous” writes authoritatively…

One of the key differences between previous books and this one is that it is described as an insider’s account.

There are moments it is clear that Anonymous has either witnessed Trump in private settings, or talked to a number of people who have.

At one point the author writes that the president announced he wanted to reduce the number of judges — a statement that echoes Trump’s well-documented disinterest in the authority of other branches of government.

Other moments he recounts that seem to indicate a fly on the wall perspective are the descriptions of Trump’s interactions with Kushner.

“Jared, you don’t know what you’re talking about, OK?” the exasperated president is quoted as saying at one point. “I mean seriously. You don’t know.”

At other times, the author writes, Kushner’s drift into a number of policy issues had him defending Saudi officials and trying to empathize with their concerns about Yemen.

The president has frequently snapped at Kushner in settings around other aides, and the account will sound familiar to a number of current and former White House officials.

— … but sometimes strikes a wrong note.

There are key moments where “Anonymous” appears to be masking a lack of direct knowledge by simply repeating public accounts of Trump’s words or behavior.

That includes references to his derogatory remarks about women’s appearances, many of which have been made in public over many years.

It also includes some of the administrations more difficult moments, such as Trump’s comments around a white supremacist rally and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, without providing any actual new insight other than that aides were slack-jawed at his comments.

More specifically, certain incidents are mischaracterized, such as what happened around the departure of Dan Coats, the former director of national intelligence, and his deputy, Sue Gordon. He suggested they left as a result of a simple firing, while the reality was a more complicated dynamic.

Elsewhere in the book, the author states that Trump was actively considering replacing Vice President Mike Pence with Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, but spends just a paragraph on it and doesn’t explain what he or she knows, or how.

And the author asserts that the president had to have been involved in an unnamed ally of the president suggesting on television in June 2017 that Trump might fire the special counsel, Robert Mueller, but the writer did not provide any supporting evidence.

— A few clues suggest who the author could be.

There is a reason for the lack of specific scenes and tendency to write in generalities. The reason, Anonymous writes, is the hope of not being a “distraction” by being identified.

“For now, if asked, I will strenuously deny I am the author of this book, including when the president demands we each disavow it,” the author writes.

Still, there are a few tells about who the person could be, suggesting the author is a Republican who comes from the party’s establishment wing.

The author writes at the beginning of the book that it was possible to overlook any number of Trump controversies. But the final straw for Anonymous was the president’s reaction to the death of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., former prisoner of war, and a nemesis of the president.

“I’d spent enough time watching one pointless indignity after another,” the author writes. “This one, targeting a veteran and former POW, was the last straw. What did it say about our president?”

The author doesn’t explain why it was only Trump’s conduct toward McCain in death, as opposed to his myriad criticisms of the senator in life, that had a chilling effect.

But Anonymous writes with what might be firsthand knowledge about the president’s frustrations at the attention and public embrace McCain received upon his death. The author also appears to have access to the discussions around whether to lower the flag at the White House to honor McCain’s passing.

That leaves the impression that it’s someone on the White House campus, and possibly inside the West Wing.

— The president will hate the book.

Anonymous’s conclusion that the president is running perhaps the most inept and dysfunctional White House in history will vex and bother Trump. But what might bother him the most is the description of his lack of fitness for the role and his lack of interest in adapting to the job, or learning about the government he overseas.

Repeatedly, Anonymous describes Trump as not fully understanding the basic mechanics of governing — asking the attorney general to do jobs outside his portfolio, for instance, or asking Kushner to take over any number of roles. “He tells the secretary of defense to do things that are the responsibility of the secretary of state,” the author writes. “He tells the attorney general to do things that are the job of the director of national intelligence. Sometimes he tells his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to do all of their jobs at once, including re-imagining care for America’s veterans, negotiating Middle East peace, spearheading criminal justice reform, and undertaking delicate conversations with foreign allies.”

Trump, who is sensitive to criticism that he ignores briefing books and might not be up to the task, would bristle at the portrayal of him as a version of Chance, the simple-minded, television-consuming gardener in the book and movie “Being There” who, through a series of misunderstandings, adopts the name Chauncey Gardiner and becomes top adviser to a Washington figure.

But Trump’s aides are cautioning him to ignore the book, because it will only give it more oxygen.

This article originally appeared in

For President Donald Trump, leaks are maddening and anonymity infuriating. So the release of “A Warning,” the new book by “Anonymous,” the unidentified senior official in the Trump administration who first wrote about Trump’s White House in an opinion article in The New York Times, is not a good day for the president.

'A Warning' by 'Anonymous': 5 Takeaways

In late September, Trump changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Florida, according to documents filed with the Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Melania Trump, the first lady, also changed her residence to Palm Beach in an identical document.

Each of the Trumps filed a “declaration of domicile” saying that the Mar-a-Lago Club, Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, will be their permanent residence.

“If I maintain another place or places of abode in some other state or states, I hereby declare that my above-described residence and abode in the state of Florida constitutes my predominant and principal home, and I intend to continue it permanently as such,” reads the document that President Trump filed.

“I formerly resided at 721 Fifth Avenue,” the document says, referring to Trump Tower, which has been his primary residence since he moved into the skyscraper off 57th Street in midtown Manhattan in 1983.

An attachment lists his “other places of abode” as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the address for the White House, and his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he spends warm-weather weekends and a few weeks every summer.

Since becoming president, Trump has spent 99 days at Mar-a-Lago compared with 20 days at Trump Tower, according to NBC News. Although Trump ran his presidential transition from Trump Tower and some aides had expected him to spend many weekends there in his Louis XIV-style triplex on the 58th floor, his presence created traffic headaches for New Yorkers and logistical and security challenges for the Secret Service.

White House officials declined to say why Trump changed his primary residence, but a person close to the president said the reasons were primarily for tax purposes.

The person also said that Trump, who is deeply unpopular in New York, was infuriated by a lawsuit filed by Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, seeking the president’s tax returns, which Trump has not released. Changing his residence to Florida is not expected to have any effect on the lawsuit.

It was unclear how much time he would spend in New York in the future or if he would keep his triplex at the top of Trump Tower. Under New York law, if he spends more than 184 days a year there, he will have to pay state income taxes.

Florida, which does not have a state income tax or inheritance tax, has long been a place for the wealthy to escape the higher taxes of the Northeast.

Changing his primary residence could carry significant tax implications for Trump, although how much is unclear without seeing his returns. But in changing his residence to Florida, he would most likely be avoiding New York state’s top tax rate of nearly 9% and New York City’s top rate of nearly 4%.

Leaving New York could also save money for Trump’s heirs at the time of his death. New York imposes a top estate tax rate of 16% for estates larger than $10.1 million.

In an article in the Florida Bar Journal in January 2019, three lawyers with Proskauer Rose wrote about the recent wave of people moving from New York to Florida in “large part” because of the repeal of the state and local tax deduction that was a byproduct of the tax bill that Trump signed into law in 2017.

“While it may be easy enough for an individual to buy a home in Florida and move, the act of physically moving to Florida is only part of the battle,” the three wrote.

“The real challenge is proving by clear and convincing evidence that the individual is no longer a New York domiciliary and does not qualify as a New York statutory resident for New York state income tax purposes,” they said.

Beyond taxes, Trump has repeatedly signaled the importance of Florida to his 2020 reelection effort and kicked off his campaign with a rally in Orlando. And he has often mentioned Mar-a-Lago when promoting his ties to the state.

In the longer term, the change could speak to Trump’s plans after his presidency ends. It has been an open question whether he would ever return full time to New York City.

In addition, Secret Service protection for Trump after his presidency ends would continue to snarl traffic in midtown Manhattan — as would tourists and potential protests in front of Trump Tower — particularly if Trump chose to live there full time.

David Pratt, a partner at Proskauer Rose and one of the authors of the Florida Bar Journal piece, said Trump had probably changed his primary residence for the same reason other people have left New York.

“What he’s doing is not any different than what a lot of individuals from New York are doing, and they’re becoming Florida residents,” Pratt said.

Trump is due to travel to New York City this weekend for an event at Madison Square Garden, the rare instance of him visiting when he has no fundraiser or official event scheduled. He is due to spend Saturday night at Trump Tower.

Since he became president, Mar-a-Lago remains Trump’s favored retreat. He has a residence on the grounds, enjoys easy access to one of his nearby golf clubs, entertains foreign visitors like Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and also plays host to a regular cast of visitors and members.

Still, Manhattan has been like Oz to him.

“I believed, perhaps to an irrational degree, that Manhattan was always going to be the best place to live — the center of the world,” Trump wrote in his book “The Art of the Deal.”

Trump, Lifelong New Yorker, Declares Himself as Resident of Florida

He came of age in Queens, built Trump Tower, starred in “The Apprentice,” bankrupted his businesses six times, and drew cheering crowds and angry protesters to Fifth Avenue after his election. Through it all, President Donald Trump — rich, bombastic and to many Americans the epitome of a New Yorker — was intertwined with the city he called his lifelong home.

The huge infusion of money confirms that the president is building an enormous war chest heading into the 2020 election while the Democrats are set to spend the next several months arguing over their nominee. Trump’s fundraising effort included several recent emails, tweets and text messages urging supporters to donate to help protect his presidency after House Democrats announced an impeachment inquiry into the president’s dealings with Ukraine and other matters.

Officials said that the various Trump-related committees have raised a combined $308 million this year, and have $156 million in cash on hand.

The numbers were reported by The Associated Press, and a campaign official confirmed their accuracy.

Several Democratic candidates reported far smaller fundraising amounts for the third quarter on Tuesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont reported bringing in $25.3 million; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, announced that he had raised $19.1 million; Sen. Kamala Harris of California said she had an $11.6 million haul; and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey disclosed raising more than $6 million.

In the last several years, the ability of political party committees to raise huge sums has been transformed following a Supreme Court decision on campaign finance limits as well as a lift of the cap on what committees could raise from individuals.

When President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee raised a combined $70 million in the same quarter of 2011, it was in smaller increments, meaning they needed to raise funds from more people.

Still, the war chest that Trump has amassed gives him a significant edge in spending before the general election campaign begins in earnest.

Trump Campaign and RNC Raise $125 Million in Third Quarter

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee raised a combined $125 million in the last three months, Republican Party officials said Tuesday, setting a presidential fundraising record.

The comments by Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, on Saturday were instantly scrutinized for clues as to whether the president’s children, some of whom have been seen by friends and supporters as potential candidates for office, were planning their own political futures.

Parscale made the remarks at a California Republican convention in Indian Wells, in a speech that touched on the party and the presidency. “The Trumps will be a dynasty that lasts for decades,” Parscale said.

Asked to explain what that meant, he told reporters in California that he views the Trump family as people with “amazing capabilities.”

“I think you see that from Don Jr. I think you see that from Ivanka. You see it from Jared. You see it from all,” he said, referring to the president’s eldest son, eldest daughter and son-in-law.

Parscale declined to comment to The New York Times. But a campaign official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and without official authorization to discuss the speech, said that Parscale was referring less to possible candidacies in the future and more to activities such as political speeches and fundraising.

The president and his family have worked aggressively to marginalize or mute whatever anti-Trump sentiment has remained within the national Republican Party. Whether that influence remains once he is out of office — and whether the party reverts to its former shape or adopts a new one — remains an open question.

Longtime supporters of Trump noted that he and some in his family tended to crave flattery, particularly in public settings, and they chalked up the “dynasty” remark from Parscale to puffery.

Privately, some Republicans — who did not want to publicly fight with the president’s campaign manager — dismissed Parscale’s choice of words, noting that the concept of dynastic politics was harmful to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and that it is not a concept historically favored by populists.

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s elder son and the member of the family who is most naturally fluent in the language of the Republican base, has frequently been mentioned as a possible candidate for office.

In an interview with The New York Times last fall, as he barnstormed for Republican candidates in the midterm elections, the younger Trump said of a possible campaign down the road: “Right now, I’m focused on other things, but you never know. I love the intensity of campaigning. I love aspects of the fight. I don’t know how much I would love aspects of the actual job yet.”

A person close to the younger Trump said he “currently has zero interest in running for office” and that his sole political focus is his father’s campaign next year. Still, the person added that while the younger Trump does not expect to be a candidate himself, he anticipates being involved in Republican politics “for many years to come.”

Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, is also seen by West Wing aides and people who have worked with the family as harboring ambitions of her own for elected office. People close to her insist that she has never discussed it, although some of her friends, in private conversations, have been open about the prospect that they see her as a future presidential candidate.

“If she ever wanted to run for president,” Trump told The Atlantic in a recent interview, “I think she’d be very, very hard to beat.”

Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, who is actively involved in his reelection campaign, is also mentioned as a possible candidate by some close to the family.

Such comments make clear that the Trump family hopes to extend its influence into the future. And the remarks touched on two lingering questions about the future of the Trumps: Will any of the president’s children run for office, and will he fade quietly if he loses in 2020, or finishes a second term in 2024?

Even if no other Trump tries to run a campaign, advisers to Trump believe he will remain active — on his Twitter feed, in television interviews and potentially at political events of his own.

Few believe he is going to cede the spotlight easily, or follow previous presidents in laying low after leaving office.

Trump Campaign Manager Sees President's Family as Political 'Dynasty'

President Donald Trump may be the only member of his family to win major elected office, but his campaign manager for the 2020 reelection effort is already envisioning a family political dynasty that will outlast his time in the White House.

That was the case Thursday night, when President Donald Trump fat-shamed a man who he thought was a protester being disruptive in the upper rungs of the stadium in Manchester, New Hampshire, where the president was holding a campaign rally. Instead, the man turned out to be a supporter of the president who was trying to assist in removing the actual protesters.

The episode took place midway through the rally. As Trump’s 90-minute speech was interrupted, he waited for the disruption to end. He looked up to the seats where it was taking place, and said, “That guy’s got a serious weight problem! Go home. Start exercising.”

He went on, acknowledging his own struggles with weight, “Got a bigger problem than I do.” But Trump’s aides quickly realized the man was a supporter, not a protester. The man, Frank Dawson, was interviewed by Fox News shortly after the rally, and he said he was not upset about being mocked by Trump.

“I think he thought I was part of it, but I wasn’t,” Dawson said, later adding: “Everything’s good. I love the guy. He’s the best thing that ever happened to this country.”

Trump’s aides tracked down Dawson’s contact information, and the president called him from Air Force One, shortly before takeoff from New Hampshire. He got Dawson’s voicemail. He did not say the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologize,” an aide to the president said, but said he didn’t mean to refer to Dawson and thanked him for his support.

The president has a long history of calling protesters in his crowds names. But there’s no other known instance of him mocking one of his own supporters by accident.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/us/politics/trump-rally-weight-fat-shame.html" id="8511c171-de44-36f4-adc5-68a211c2de08">The New York Times</a>.

After Trump Body Shames Him, Supporter Says 'I Love the Guy'

Sometimes the self-declared greatest counterpuncher in the world lands a blow on the wrong person.

Trump made the remarks in an interview with New Hampshire radio host Jack Heath, amid reports that Lewandowski is seriously considering a campaign in his home state to become the Republican challenger to the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

Lewandowski is expected to ride in the presidential motorcade Thursday night with Trump from the airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, to a reelection campaign rally that Trump will hold nearby.

For days, questions have swirled about whether Trump will endorse Lewandowski, who has not yet declared his candidacy, at the rally. An announcement from Lewandowski about the Senate race is not yet imminent, according to a person working with him.

Still, Trump appeared eager to elevate Lewandowski. When Heath asked if Lewandowski would have the president’s support if he ran, Trump stopped short of a full endorsement, saying that Lewandowski hadn’t made up his mind about joining the race. But he went on to say, “I have to tell you, I think he’d be fantastic.

“He’s got great energy; he’s terrific on television,” Trump said. “I like everything about him.”

He added, “If he ran, I think he’d be No. 1. I think he’d be hard to beat in New Hampshire.”

Trump fired Lewandowski at the urging of his children in June 2016, but the president has retained a fondness for him and speaks with him often. Before his ouster, Lewandowski helped Trump notch his first primary victory, in New Hampshire, a win that helped vault him to the nomination. Lewandowski would hope to run on the same outsider energy that Trump channeled that year.

Just how formidable Lewandowski would be is a source of disagreement among political professionals, most of whom predict an ugly Republican primary race and general election in New Hampshire.

His opponents would be almost certain to raise questions about his business activities since Trump went into office. Lewandowski wrote two books about Trump with David Bossie, head of conservative group Citizens United.

But he has also been an adviser to companies that have interests with the government, and he would be required to file financial disclosure forms that would reveal the extent of those business arrangements.

Lewandowski has previously said he is not a lobbyist and that he has never called government officials on behalf of a client.

The Republican Senate primary in New Hampshire already has several declared candidates, including retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc and Bill O’Brien, the former state House speaker.

After Bossie released a private poll he had commissioned from a pollster working with Trump’s campaign that showed Lewandowski leading in a theoretical Republican primary, aides to Bolduc released their own internal survey showing Bolduc ahead.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/us/politics/corey-lewandowski-senate-new-hampshire.html" id="790bf539-5c02-3021-a76f-c4c34e16f20d">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Thinks Corey Lewandowski Would Be a 'Fantastic' Senator From New Hampshire

President Donald Trump on Thursday all but endorsed his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, for a potential Senate run from New Hampshire, saying he would be “hard to beat” if he ran and a “great senator” if he won.

But after a day of pushback from conservatives and the Illinois delegation of House Republicans, Trump was having second thoughts, people close to him said. On Thursday night, he said on Twitter that the matter was simply being reviewed.

White House officials had said the move could come as early as this week, but the president began to face mounting blowback given that Blagojevich’s crime has long been seen as the epitome of the kind of pay-to-play that Trump has claimed he wanted to stop when he took office.

Trump disclosed his initial plans aboard Air Force One on Wednesday after a day of highly critical news coverage that focused on the reception toward the president as he traveled to the sites of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that left 31 dead.

Describing the incriminating phone call in which Blagojevich, a Democrat, was taped discussing selling the seat as mostly a minor offense, Trump told reporters that it was something “many” politicians have done.

“I thought he was treated unbelievably unfairly; he was given close to 18 years in prison,” Trump said. “And a lot of people thought it was unfair, like a lot of other things — and it was the same gang, the Comey gang and all these sleazebags that did it. And his name is Rod Blagojevich. And I’m thinking about commuting his sentence.”

The men have crossed paths before. Before reporting to federal prison in 2012, Blagojevich appeared on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” a spinoff of the reality TV show that Trump starred in for 14 seasons.

The president decided this week that he would commute the sentence, according to two people with knowledge of the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser who has internally championed pardons and commutations, had suggested Blagojevich be pardoned, according to one administration official. Another official said that Kushner had merely favored a commutation. While Kushner said it would appeal to Democrats, this official said, he pointed to some high-profile figures like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who wrote a letter to the president supporting a commuted sentence and “a full pardon.”

Other aides told Trump that a pardon would be politically unwise given the nature of Blagojevich’s conviction; instead, commuting the sentence was what had been settled on, despite the lingering reservations of some aides.

In May 2018, Trump suggested that he was considering commuting Blagojevich’s sentence. A month later, official paperwork was filed requesting the commutation.

Speaking on the plane Wednesday, the president noted: “He’s been in jail for seven years over a phone call where nothing happens — over a phone call which he shouldn’t have said what he said, but it was braggadocio you would say. I would think that there have been many politicians — I’m not one of them by the way — that have said a lot worse over the telephone.”

Trump referred to Blagojevich’s wife, Patti Blagojevich, who has personally appealed to the president on Fox News to relieve her husband’s prison term.

“His wife, I think, is fantastic, and I’m thinking about commuting his sentence very strongly. I think it’s enough, seven years,” Trump told reporters.

But Thursday, House Republicans from Illinois said in a statement to the president that commuting the sentence, given the charges involved, “sets a dangerous precedent and goes against the trust voters place in elected officials.”

They wrote, “It’s important that we take a strong stand against pay-to-play politics, especially in Illinois where four of our last eight governors have gone to federal prison for public corruption.”

Shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday, Trump issued remarks that were more muted than those aboard Air Force One: “Many people have asked that I study the possibility of commuting his sentence in that it was a very severe one,” he said. “White House staff is continuing the review of this matter.”

Aides had hoped to keep Trump from announcing such a move for as long as possible, the people briefed on the discussions said. Instead, the president, who often tries to shift the focus of the news media when he does not like its coverage of him, shared the possibility with reporters covering his trip Wednesday, days after two mass shootings over the weekend.

Blagojevich was captured on an FBI recording discussing the seat that Obama was about to vacate for the presidency. “I’ve got this thing, and it’s” golden, Blagojevich said, using an expletive. “I’m not just giving it up for” nothing, he added. He was impeached and removed from office, and ultimately convicted after his first trial ended in a mistrial.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/us/politics/trump-blagojevich.html" id="ab2d871d-284c-3165-a885-331f22b2da57">The New York Times</a>.

After Strongly Suggesting He May Commute Blagojevich's Sentence, Trump Says Matter Is Under Review

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday night that he was “strongly considering” commuting the 14-year prison sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who was convicted of trying to essentially sell President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat for personal gain.

The answer emerged Monday, when it was revealed that a former New York Giants player who was expected to greet Pence at the airport in New Hampshire had pleaded guilty last week to trafficking fentanyl across state lines.

The man, Jeff Hatch, had worked at the Granite Recovery Center, which Pence was to visit July 2. But the vice president’s aides canceled the trip after learning that Hatch was under federal investigation for drug trafficking, people briefed on the events said.

People familiar with what took place said that Hatch’s inclusion in the event was not a vetting failure — the investigation was not something that an advance check of the attendees would have uncovered. Instead, the people said, the vice president’s staff learned of the looming problem through law enforcement channels.

A spokeswoman for Pence declined to comment. The details of the canceled trip were first reported Monday by Politico.

Hatch, who has spoken publicly about his struggles with addiction, entered a guilty plea Friday, according to court papers.

The trip was called off after Pence was already aboard Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews, near Washington, with his staff in tow. He was back at the White House a short time later.

Speculation ran wild on Twitter that something serious had prompted the cancellation, and Pence’s aides did not clear up the confusion. His chief of staff, Marc Short, would say only that the reason would become clear in a few weeks.

Pence’s spokeswoman, Alyssa Farah, posted on Twitter that day: “The @VP never left Washington, DC. There was no ‘emergency callback.’ Something came up that required the VP to stay in DC. We’ll reschedule NH shortly.”

Three days later, Trump further fueled the mystery.

“You’ll know in about two weeks,” Trump said, adding, “There was a very interesting problem that they had in New Hampshire.”

What kind of problem, a reporter asked.

“I can’t tell you about it,” Trump said, adding that “it had nothing to do with White House.”

“There was a problem up there,” he continued, “and I won’t go into what the problem was, but you’ll see in a week or two.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/politics/pence-new-hampshire-drug-trafficker.html" id="7bbd39ff-e028-30df-a08b-50f8e81fddbb">The New York Times</a>.

Pence Canceled New Hampshire Trip to Avoid Meeting a Drug Trafficker

When Vice President Mike Pence abruptly canceled a trip this month to New Hampshire to discuss the opioid epidemic, White House officials steadfastly refused to say why.

A spokeswoman for Pence declined to comment.

During the 2016 campaign, he would not rule out creating a registry of Muslims in the United States. He claimed to have seen “thousands” of Muslims cheering on rooftops in New Jersey after Sept. 11, a statement that was widely debunked. After deadly attacks in Paris and California, Trump called for a moratorium on Muslims traveling to the United States.

“I think Islam hates us,” Trump told Anderson Cooper, the CNN host, in March 2016.

Now, with 19 months until the 2020 election, Trump is seeking to rally his base by sounding that theme once again. And this time, he has a specific target: Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.

Trump and his team are trying to make Omar, one of a group of progressive female Democratic House members who is relatively unknown in national politics, a household name, to be seen as the most prominent voice of the Democratic Party, regardless of her actual position. And they are gambling that there will be limited downside in doing so.

Trump is banking on painting the entire Democratic Party as extreme. And Omar has become a point of contention for some members of her own party, after remarks she made about the Israel lobby were condemned as anti-Semitic by some long-serving Democrats, as well as by Republicans and Trump.

But Trump’s electoral success in 2016 was based partly on culture wars and fears among an older, white voting base that the country it knew was slipping away. Like his hard line on immigration, his plays on fears of Muslims — including inaccurately conflating them with terrorists — proved polarizing among the wider electorate, but helped him keep a tight grip on his most enthusiastic voters. In the South Carolina Republican primary in February 2016, for instance, exit polls showed that 75 percent of voters favored his proposed Muslim ban.

Now, as he looks toward 2020, he is betting that electoral play can deliver for him again. It is a strategy that risks summoning dark forces in American society, a point Omar made in a statement Sunday evening.

“Since the president’s tweet Friday evening, I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my life — many directly referencing or replying to the president’s video,” Omar said. “This is endangering lives. It has to stop.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she had requested a review of Omar’s security, while Trump aides insisted that the president meant no harm.

“Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said on Sunday’s broadcast of ABC News’ “This Week.”

Privately, Trump’s advisers describe Omar as his ideal foil. Her remarks about the power of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, combined with her role in a progressive contingent of freshman House Democrats who have sparked intraparty battles, have been treated as a gift by Republicans.

Trump aides and allies say they are pleased that some of the Democratic hopefuls for the 2020 presidential nomination are defending her against the president’s attacks, claiming they think it will be damaging for them in the general election.

Omar “is the perfect embodiment of the sharp contrast President Trump wants to paint for 2020,” said Sam Nunberg, a 2016 campaign aide to Trump. He added that Trump is tethering Omar to more visible Democrats, like her closest ally in Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, whom Republicans have sought to make a boogeyman.

“This contrast gives the president a chance to expand his support closer to 50 percent,” Nunberg insisted.

But on Sunday, Democrats said Trump was diving into an issue on which he has a shaky standing.

“He has no moral authority to be talking about 9/11 at all,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. Nadler noted that Trump’s real estate company applied for and received grants after the attacks that were intended for small businesses affected by the devastation.

Nadler said he thought Omar’s comments about the Sept. 11 attacks were being taken out of context.

“I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not with that one,” Nadler said.

The controversy arose from Omar’s remarks at an event last month sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy organization, where she focused on attacks against Muslims after Sept. 11. She said she had “lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it.”

“CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties,” she said. (The organization was actually founded in 1994.)

Critics of Omar contended that the words “some people did something” were dismissive of the terrorist attacks, but her defenders said her words were taken out of context.

The attack was not Trump’s first on Omar. Despite repeatedly being denounced for not making forceful condemnations of white nationalists who traffic in anti-Semitism, the president pounced when Omar unleashed a firestorm in February with her comments on Israel, rejecting her subsequent apology and calling for her to resign.

“Congressman Omar is terrible, what she said,” Trump told reporters.

Geoff Garin, a veteran Democratic strategist, said the Democratic presidential candidates who had responded to Trump’s latest attacks on Omar were keeping the focus on his tactics. And he predicted that the use of such graphic images from one of the nation’s darkest days would backfire for the president.

“Voters are turned off by the use of 9/11 for political purposes, and my guess is that moderate voters are going to see Trump’s use of that as both ugly and extreme,” Garin said. “I think his over-the-top exploitation of 9/11 is going to turn more voters off than he wins over by attacking the Democrats on this.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/us/politics/ilhan-omar-trump-muslims-2020.html" id="40efab44-9de2-39d9-a27e-e85aeef6f155">The New York Times</a>.

In Attacking Omar, Trump Revives His Familiar Refrain Against Muslims

As long as President Donald Trump has focused on what he said was the danger lurking at the southwestern border, he has also talked about the supposed threat from one specific group already in the country: Muslims.

Trump and his team are trying to make Omar, one of a group of progressive women Democratic House members who is relatively unknown in national politics, a household name, to be seen as the most prominent voice of the Democratic Party, regardless of her actual position. And they are gambling that there will be limited downside in doing so.

On Monday, Trump will visit Minnesota — a state that some of the president’s aides speak of as a place to expand his electoral map — and will hold an economic round table. The event is outside Omar’s congressional district, but the president’s decision to appear there is a calculated choice.

His Minnesota appearance comes after his tweet of a video interspersed with Omar speaking and the burning World Trade Center towers. Omar’s critics have claimed a portion of the remarks, in which she highlighted Islamophobia faced by Muslims after Sept. 11, were dismissive of the terrorist attacks.

The Twitter post from the president stoked a controversy that has been a focus of conservative news outlets, which have sought to elevate Omar, D-Minn., one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, as a political target as Trump’s re-election campaign begins in earnest.

At issue were remarks that Omar made last month at an event hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. There, she gave a speech in which she addressed lingering fear directed at Muslims, and the rights Muslims have to speak out about being viewed with suspicion.

During the speech, she said that Muslims had “lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it.” She added that the council was created after the Sept. 11 attacks “because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.” (The Council on American-Islamic Relations was actually founded in 1994.)

Conservative news outlets and some Republican officials have focused on the words “some people did something,” arguing that Omar was playing down the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people and led to two wars. The video the president tweeted also focused on those four words from Omar’s speech.

A spokesman for Omar has said the speech was addressing civil rights.

Omar has already been the focus of threats, including one by a Trump supporter who was recently arrested.

Omar’s closest ally in the House, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., used Twitter to defend her colleague.

President Donald Trump on Friday targeted Rep. Ilhan Omar for remarks she made during a speech on civil rights and Muslims in America with a graphic video featuring the burning World Trade Center towers and other images from Sept. 11, 2001, that he tweeted to millions of his followers.

Maggie Haberman

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