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In a reversal, President Trump appears to have backed off joining a European push for new sanctions on Russia, seemingly eager to move on to doing business deals with it. For months, President Trump has been threatening to simply walk away from the frustrating negotiations for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine. After a phone call on Monday between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, that appears to be exactly what the American president is doing. The deeper question now is whether he is also abandoning America’s three-year-long project to support Ukraine, a nascent democracy that he...

In a reversal, President Trump appears to have backed off joining a European push for new sanctions on Russia, seemingly eager to move on to doing business deals with it.For months, President Trump has been threatening to simply walk away from the frustrating negotiations for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine.After a phone call on Monday between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, that appears to be exactly what the American president is doing. The deeper question now is whether he is also abandoning America’s three-year-long project to support Ukraine, a nascent democracy that he has frequently...

At home, President Trump is ordering up investigations into his political opponents and finding creative ways to use his executive power to ruin the lives of even some of his milder critics.Abroad, Mr. Trump has sent a different message: Let bygones be bygones. Even if those bygones involved trying to assassinate him or working with Al Qaeda.In a series of speeches and off-the-cuff remarks during the first major foreign trip of his second term, Mr. Trump has told audiences in the Middle East that he is willing to set the past aside in the interests of peace and profit.“I have...

The line fell silent. In a phone call from the Oval Office, President Trump had just delivered unwelcome news to three of America’s most powerful auto executives: Mary Barra of General Motors, John Elkann of Stellantis and Jim Farley of Ford. Everyone needs to buckle up, Mr. Trump said on the call, which took place in early March. Tariffs are going into effect on April 2. It’s time for everyone to get on board. The auto chiefs, like the leaders of other industries, had been arguing that Mr. Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on cars coming from Canada and Mexico would...

Simmering anger at the billionaire’s unchecked power spilled out in a remarkable Cabinet Room meeting. The president quickly moved to rein in Mr. Musk. Cabinet officials generally like the concept of what Elon Musk set out to do — reducing waste, fraud and abuse in government — but have been frustrated by the hacksaw approach to upending the government and the lack of consistent coordination. Marco Rubio was incensed. Here he was in the Cabinet Room of the White House, the secretary of state, seated beside the president and listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in...

The president made good on promises to seek revenge against enemies during his first week back in power, signaling in the process that anyone who crosses him in the future could also suffer.In his first week in office, President Trump made clear that his promises to exact revenge on his perceived enemies were not empty campaign pledges — and that his retribution is intended not just to impose punishment for the past but also to intimidate anyone who might cross him in the future.By removing security protections from former officials facing credible death threats, he signaled that he was willing...

When Stephen Miller met with Mark Zuckerberg at Mar-a-Lago late last year, the 39-year-old Trump adviser was in a position of power that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Back then, Mr. Miller was a mere Senate staffer railing about the evils of immigration. Now he was holding forth on U.S. policy with the billionaire chief executive of Meta, a man he had vilified for years as a globalist bent on destroying the nation. The scale had flipped. Mr. Miller told Mr. Zuckerberg that he had an opportunity to help reform America, but it would be on President-elect Donald...

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition operation announced on Tuesday that it had belatedly signed an agreement with the Justice Department that will allow the F.B.I. to conduct background checks on people Mr. Trump intends to appoint as senior officials in his new administration.F.B.I. background checks have long been a routine part of transitions. Law-enforcement vetting of a president-elect’s senior team is normally part of decisions about whether they can be entrusted with access to national security secrets, and senators traditionally want to see such dossiers during the confirmation process.But Mr. Trump, who is hostile to the F.B.I. because of its...

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s support for Pete Hegseth, who he announced as his nominee for defense secretary shortly after Election Day, is wobbling after a crush of controversy over a rape allegation and a 2018 email from Mr. Hegseth’s mother accusing him of a pattern of abuse toward women. How Mr. Hegseth fares through a series of tests on Wednesday will be critical for his chances. He is set to continue his meetings with key senators, including Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran who has spoken about being sexually assaulted herself, and his mother is expected to sit for...

A memo circulating among at least half a dozen advisers to former President Donald J. Trump recommends that if he is elected, he bypass traditional background checks by law enforcement officials and immediately grant security clearances to a large number of his appointees after being sworn in, according to three people briefed on the matter.The proposal is being promoted by a small group including Boris Epshteyn, a top legal adviser to Mr. Trump who was influential in its development, according to the three people.It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to...

On a Friday in late September, Donald J. Trump took time off the campaign trail for a closed-door meeting at Mar-a-Lago with officials representing the vaping industry. The vaping emissaries talked about loosening regulations and told the former president he had “saved” the industry in the past. The group — including Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, and another 2016 campaign aide, Michael Rubino — showed him mock-ups of mailers they were sending out through Election Day. Mr. Trump asked for input on what he could say on social media about a complicated regulatory issue. Within hours, Mr. Trump...

Donald J. Trump turned his back to the crowd and stared up at the screen. Ominous music rang out. For the next minute and a half, the former president and his audience in Atlanta stood and silently watched clips of news reports of undocumented immigrants committing horrific crimes. When the montage ended, Mr. Trump said out loud what he has been telling his advisers in private for weeks: that, in his view, immigration is the “No. 1” issue in the 2024 election. “That beats out the economy. That beats it all out to me, it’s not even close,” Mr. Trump...

Donald J. Trump took his seat at the dining table in his triplex penthouse apartment atop Trump Tower on the last Sunday in September, alongside some of the most sought-after and wealthiest figures in the Republican Party.There was Paul Singer, the billionaire hedge fund manager who finances Republican campaigns and pro-Israel causes, and Warren Stephens, the billionaire investment banker. Joining them were Betsy DeVos, the billionaire former education secretary under Mr. Trump, and her husband, Dick, as well as the billionaire Joe Ricketts and his son Todd.Some politicians might have taken the moment to be charming and ingratiating with the...

In Valdosta, Ga., Donald Trump made a false claim about President Biden’s responsiveness and demonstrated his long-held instinct to view disaster response through the prism of his personal politics

Vice President Kamala Harris is holed up for five days in a Pittsburgh hotel, doing highly choreographed debate practice sessions ahead of Tuesday night’s clash. There’s a stage and replica TV lighting and an adviser in full Lee Strasberg method-acting mode, not just playing Donald J. Trump but inhabiting him, wearing a boxy suit and a long tie.The former president’s preparations are more improv. They are pointedly called not “debate prep” but “policy time,” meant to refresh him on his record. Nobody is playing Ms. Harris; sometimes his aides sit at a long table opposite him and bat questions back...

How to attack former President Donald Trump? It’s a question that has tormented Democratic Party strategists for nearly a decade. Hillary Clinton called him “Dangerous Donald” and a racist. President Biden uses grave and lofty terms to describe him imperiling American democracy. Vice President Kamala Harris is trying something different: deflating him. The first two nights of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago have brought into sharper focus the lens through which Ms. Harris and her allies intend to frame Mr. Trump from now until Election Day. In slickly produced videos shown to delegates and in speech after speech, a...

During the turbulent summer of 2020, President Donald J. Trump raged at his military and legal advisers, calling them “losers” for objecting to his idea of using federal troops to suppress outbreaks of violence during the nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd. It wasn’t the only time Mr. Trump was talked out of using the military for domestic law enforcement — a practice that would carry profound implications for civil liberties and for the traditional constraints on federal power. He repeatedly raised the idea of using troops to secure border states, and even proposed shooting both violent...

People around the former and would-be president see a candidate knocked off his bearings, disoriented by his new contest with Kamala Harris and unsure of how to take her on. The Aug. 2 dinner at the Bridgehampton, N.Y., home of Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive, was a high-powered affair. Among the roughly 130 people who dined under an air-conditioned tent were some of Donald Trump’s wealthiest supporters, including the billionaire hedge-fund financier Bill Ackman, who sat next to the former president, and Omeed Malik, the president of another fund, 1789 Capital. Some guests hoped Mr. Trump would signal...

Donald J. Trump didn’t wait for the opening bell before blaming Monday’s market sell-off on Vice President Kamala Harris. “Stock markets are crashing, jobs numbers are terrible, we are heading to World War III, and we have two of the most incompetent ‘leaders’ in history,” the former president and Republican presidential nominee wrote in a post on Truth Social at 8:12 a.m. Eastern time. “This is not good.” Mr. Trump did not mention that markets had suffered far greater single-day losses when he was president, or that economists blamed a variety of factors — including a disappointing July jobs report,...

For the first time since Donald Trump was indicted in the spring of 2023, he has lost his grip on the news cycle and — temporarily at least — his message. Instead of commanding morning-to-night media attention, the former president and his allies suddenly find themselves reacting to their opponents. It’s an unfamiliar experience for Trump, who has monopolized America’s televisions, newspapers and smartphones for more than 12 months through indictments, primary victories, 34 felony convictions, an assassination attempt and a Republican National Convention at which he was celebrated as a quasi-religious figure. In the three days since President Joe...