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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) The competition between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis is intensifying as the former president is scheduling a return trip to Iowa on the same day that the Florida governor was already going to be in the state that will kick off the Republican contest for the White House.

A Trump campaign official said Saturday that the former president plans to be in Iowa on May 13 to headline an organizing rally at a sprawling park in downtown Des Moines. That's when DeSantis was already slated to headline Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra's annual summer fundraiser in northwest Iowa and speak at a party fundraiser later that evening in Cedar Rapids.

The Trump campaign official, who requested anonymity to discuss the trip before it was announced, said the Des Moines organizing rally has been in the planning stage for weeks and is aimed at identifying caucus supporters and volunteers.

The move is a sign of the escalating competition between the two men who, at least for now, are leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump and his allies have become increasingly emboldened in their efforts to attack and marginalize DeSantis, who is expected to announce his White House bid sometime after the Florida Legislature wraps up its work in the coming week.

But Trump's trip is also notable for its emphasis on the type of ground-level organizing that is vital in Iowa politics and was often missing during his 2016 campaign, when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz overtook him and won the state's GOP caucuses.

Trump has been almost singularly focused on swinging at DeSantis, whom he has attacked for policy positions on entitlement reform, his loyalty to conservative causes, even his character. While DeSantis has largely ignored Trumps jabs, a pro-DeSantis super political action committee, Never Back Down, began to respond in paid ads this month.

Meanwhile, the super PAC promoting DeSantis is hiring Iowa staff to begin organizing support for the governor before he enters the race.

The stakes for both men are particularly high in Iowa, where the caucuses in February offer opportunities for them to cement their status atop the GOP. A poor performance, however, would give an opening for other Republicans to mount an upstart campaign.

Trump's 2016 Iowa campaign was a seat-of-the-pants operation disparately managed by campaign newcomers who, including the candidate, had little idea what the caucuses are. The roughly 1,700 precinct-level Republican political meetings, vestiges of prairie civic life, include a presidential preference question but require in-person participation on a typically frigid winter evening.

Eight years ago, Trump's Iowa team had left contact information for roughly 10,000 Iowans interested in supporting him unprocessed before the caucuses, where Trump had led in lead-up polls, but fell short against Cruz's more organized campaign.

Armed with not just refined 2016 caucus data but information collected during two national campaigns, Trump's advisers says they are building a data and digital engagement strategy they say would put him in position to win the caucuses. It's an expectation Iowa GOP strategists say is an absolute must for the former president, who carried Iowa comfortably in the 2016 and 2020 general elections.

Meantime Never Back Down, run by DeSantis' 2022 Florida re-election campaign senior strategist, Phil Cox, has named Iowa Republican operatives to its roster as it seeks to tap into interested GOP activists as the Iowa 2024 campaign gets underway. Among them are Ryan Koopmans, the former chief of staff to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The group has been airing TV advertisements in Iowa and other early-voting states, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, for weeks, and plans to launch a new one Monday.

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Donald Trump ups competition with Ron DeSantis in planning trip to Iowa - The Gazette

Buried in President Trumps failed effort to obtain a mistrial in E. Jean Carrolls civil suit against him for libel and battery which maintains that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in a year she cant remember is an accusation of bias on the basis of literary snobbery.

A mistrial occurs when a jury cannot reach a verdict or in the presence of a procedural error or misconduct of such seriousness that it would result in an unfair trial. In such circumstances, a new trial can be ordered. While such an outcome eludes Mr. Trumps grasp for now, his lawyers raised an unusual argument to obtain one,an objectionrooted not in law but in literature.

The indignation expressed by one of Mr. Trumps attorneys, Joseph Tacopina, for Judge Lewis Kaplans comprehension of a literary reference is the latest chapter in the fraught relationship between literature and the law it was William Shakespeare who wrote, The first thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers and the saga of Mr. Trumps tangled legal plot.

The reference was to the Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift, who served as dean of St. Patricks Cathedral, Dublin. He was a peripheral player in Englands Glorious Revolution of 1688, mostly as a secretary to the higher-born. He is most famous for his satires: A Tale of a Tub, A Modest Proposal, and Gullivers Travels.

The third section of Mr. Tacopinas request for a mistrial is titled, The Jonathan Swift Reference, and zeroes in an exchange where Mr. Trumps attorney cites a passage of a book by Ms. Carroll who is herself a journalist and author titled, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.

In Swifts original, both the English and the affluent solve the problem of Irish poverty by selling their children as food to the rich. As Swift puts it with straight-faced irony, A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee.

Mr. Trumps counsel notes how Ms. Carroll adopted this rhetorical device to suggest that all the men in America be sent to Montana for retraining. He pressed her on this point on the stand, asking of all the men here in this courtroom, in this country, all get shuffled off to Montana and retrained?

Ms. Carroll concedes that she proffered the Treasure State plan, but adds, You understand that was said in satire, to which Mr. Trumps lawyer responds, Ah. Okay. It is Judge Kaplan who steps in to inform that it comes from Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal 700 years ago. It was actually written 293 years ago.

In moving for a mistrial, Mr. Tacopina characterizes this exchange as one where the Court interjected in a manner that corroborated Ms. Carrolls testimony. The motion adds that if Ms. Carroll wished to elicit testimony about a 300 year old book that did not address the subject matter of her own book, she could have done so without Judge Kaplans assistance.

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Jonathan Swift and Donald Trump Collide in Federal Court - The New York Sun

What does Donald Trump's indictment mean? Here's what we know.

Will Donald Trump still run for president despite his indictment? Here's how the New York case impacts Trump's 2024 campaign.

Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

MANCHESTER, N.H. Nearly a month after being indicted anda day after a woman in a courtroom accused him of rape, Donald Trump met a more-than-receptive crowd in Manchester, New Hampshire in his first public event in the Granite State since leaving office.

But in remarks that lasted longer than an hour, Trump zeroed in on attacking President Joe Biden and his potential 2024 opponents. The former president did not mention his myriad legal troubles at all and the crowd did not seem to care.

At the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, hundreds of Trump's most avid supporters were eager to met him in a packed room along with hundreds of others outside in overflow.The welcome was so warm, attendees booed and jeered at New Hampshire Republican state legislators when the event kicked off, chanting "We want Trump!"

"Next year we're going to make history together. We're going to win the New Hampshire primary for the third straight time," Trump said to raucous applause from the crowd.

Stay in the conversation on politics: Sign up for the OnPolitics newslette

Trump also visited New Hampshire two days after Bidenformally declared his bid for re-election next year. His stump largely centered on attacking the current commander-in-chief.

In mocking both the announcement and the Biden presidency, Trump said "we are going to crush Joe Biden at the ballot box, and we are going to settle our unfinished business."

"The choice in this election is now between strengthor weakness, between successor failure, between safetyor anarchy, between peaceor conflict, and prosperityor catastrophe," Trump said.

Biden has repeatedly criticized Trump as a threat to democracy given his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and repeated false claims of election fraud. Before his strongest supporters, Trump argued it was Biden instead who was the threat, making unsubstantiated accusations against the president.

Related: President Biden wants to repeat his 2020 formula in 2024 reelection bid. It won't be easy.

"It's Biden who poses the threat to democracy because he is grossly incompetent, has no idea what's he's doing and basically he doesn't have a clue." Trump said.

Trump also claimed he left Biden with a "booming economy" that he promptly "blew to shreds" after he took office, taking credit for low gas prices and championing the Trump administration's various trade wars.

In response to Donald Trumps attempts to rewrite his economic record in New Hampshire, Democratic National Committeespokesperson Ammar Moussa released the following statement:

Trumps lies wont change the fact he holds the worst jobs record of any president since the Great Depression and rigged the economy for the ultra-wealthy and biggest corporations. Trumps stewardship of the economy was an abject disaster, in stark contrast to the over 12 million jobs the Biden-Harris administration has helped deliver for America in just two years.

Will Biden win?: 3 clues to track and his approval rating isn't one of them

Trump traveled to New Hampshire just days after he suggested he might boycott Republican debates, claiming he is too far ahead to participate.

When youre way up, you dont do debates,"he told New York-based WABC radio.

Trump reiterated his skepticism of the debates in Manchester and questioned why he would debate with his potential opponents who are polling behind him, including "DeSanctus" and "Sloppy Chris Christie," referring to the former New Jersey governor currently mulling a bid.

Trump spoke as DeSantis prepared to wrap up a four-day foreign trip designed in part to burnish foreign policy plans.

Trump spoke at the Doubletree by Hilton hotel in Manchester, a common venue choice for presidential aspirants. But the setting was notable for a candidate that was in the same room not much earlier: DeSantis.

DeSantis made his first stop in the Granite State in April, headlining the state GOPs biggest annual fundraising gala filled with New Hampshire-based political donors and insiders a stark contrast to Trumps event that packed the hotel with his most diehard supporters from all around the New England area.

The former president did not take aim at DeSantis, but touted his lead in the polls compared to multiple of his competitors.

Trump also went after GOP New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, one of the most popular governors in the country and a potential opponent in the 2024 race, calling him "a nasty guy" to boos and jeers from the crowd.

Sununu has been one of Trump's most vocal critics within the Republican party and he has on multiple times argued Trump could not win a general election.

"He should stop being a nasty guy and telling people that I won't win in the general election, which I will," Trump said.

Who is Chris Sununu?: New Hampshire GOP governor considers run for president in 2024

Some of the New Hampshire Republicans who attended the rally said they are sticking with Trump because they find the allegations to be politically motivated.

Jackie Bellanti, 80, who said she is dead-set on voting for Trump in the 2024 primary elections, said Trump is not completely innocent," but she added that "I dont think hes a crooked man.

Bellanti also said there is no other option for her.Who else? Who else is out that we can really trust? Bellanti said, adding that she admires what she calls Trumps honesty and confrontational style.

Roger Heon, 54, from Belmont, New Hampshire, said he could envision voting for DeSantis, but he has already decided on voting for Trump.

He doesnt hold back, Heon said.

Related: New poll shows many Democrats prefer someone else over Biden

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Donald Trump in New Hampshire focuses on Joe Biden, ignores ... - USA TODAY

Political polarization inhibits cooperativeness with others, according to new research that examined the behavioral consequences of feelings of hate and love for Donald J. Trump. The findings have been published in Management Science.

Given the ongoing political polarization in the United States, I wanted to explore the factors that influence the way people think and behave when it comes to political identities, explained Eugen Dimant, the author of the study and an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

I was particularly interested in understanding how social norms, or the unwritten rules that guide our behavior, can contribute to or help reduce polarization. By studying this topic, I hope to provide valuable insights that can help bring people together and create a more unified society.

The study investigated the extent to which political polarization affects social interactions and explored possible solutions from a behavioral science perspective. The study involved a total of 15 preregistered experiments with 8,647 participants conducted between the summer of 2020 and early 2021.

The study used two economic decision-making games the Dictator Game and Public Goods Game to study altruism, cooperativeness, and norm perceptions.

The Dictator Game involves two people: the person who is in charge (called the dictator) and the person who receives something from the dictator (called the recipient). In the usual game, the dictator gets some money or other resources, and has to decide how much to give to the recipient, if any at all. The recipient doesnt get to make any decisions.

But in the version used in this study, both the dictator and the recipient start with some money. The dictator still has the option to give some or all of their money to the recipient, but they also have an extra option: they can take some or all of the recipients money away. This allowed the researcher to assess both when people choose to share their resources (prosocial behavior), and when people choose to take away someone elses resources (antisocial behavior).

In the Public Goods Game, each player starts with $10 and can choose to keep the money for themselves or contribute some or all of it to a shared public good. The amount contributed by each player is multiplied by 1.5 and then split equally between the two players, regardless of their individual contributions. In the game, players benefits the most when they both fully contribute to the public good. However, a player can get more for themselves by not contributing anything and letting the other player contribute.

The study employed various experimental conditions, including Trump Prime, Minimal Group Prime, Biden Prime, Sports Prime, Default Nudge and Information Nudge, to examine how political polarization impacted peoples behavior in these two games.

In the Trump Prime, participants were asked about their feelings towards Donald Trump. They were paired with another participant who either loved or hated Trump, and were asked to choose how close they felt to that person using a standard tool in social psychology called the Inclusion of Other in the Self scale.

In the Minimal Group Prime, participants were asked to rate their opinion of Trump. They were asked to indicate their preference for different paintings and were paired with another participant based on their painting preferences.

The Biden Prime and Sports Prime reflected the Trump Prime and the Minimal Group Prime, with Biden replacing Trump and sports preferences replacing art preferences, respectively.

In the Default Nudge, when participants had to decide how much money to give to their partner, the option to give $2.5 was already selected for them. This was important because it was the only option that resulted in an equal split between the giver and receiver. In the Information Nudge, participants were informed that many others had been generous in previous games and had achieved an equal split by giving $2.5, even if their partner had a different opinion of Trump.

The study provided evidence that political polarization causes people to see others as either part of their group (ingroup) or not part of their group (outgroup). This differentiation was only observed in the Trump Prime condition and not in the Minimal Group Paradigm condition. In the Trump Prime condition, participants felt closer to those who shared their views of Trump and were more likely to be cooperative with them.

The paper demonstrates that political polarization affects social preferences and can lead to outgroup-hate, which means disliking people from opposing political groups, Dimant told PsyPost. Differentiating between the types of existing polarization, such as ingroup-love and outgroup-hate, is crucial for designing more targeted and effective interventions.

The participants were less cooperative with people in the outgroup. The researchers found that this was not because the participants were unwilling to cooperate with others from different groups, but rather because they expected those people to be unwilling to cooperate with them. The findings were not limited to attitudes towards Trump, but also applied to opinions on Biden and sports fandom.

Social norms play a significant role in influencing peoples behavior, and understanding the impact of these norms can help design interventions to reduce polarization, Dimant said.

The two nudges tested in the study improved participants willingness to cooperate, but did not reduce the polarization gap between groups, suggesting that nudges have a limited impact in highly polarized contexts.

Norm nudges, or interventions that use social norms to encourage behavior change, can be effective in addressing political polarization, but their success depends on the clarity of the norm message. The study highlights the need for combining light-touch behavioral interventions with more forceful strategies, like education and inter-group contact, to effectively reduce political polarization, Dimant said.

The study provides insights into the negative effects of political polarization on social interactions and suggests possible solutions from a behavioral science perspective. The findings may be useful for policymakers and individuals seeking to promote cooperation and reduce polarization. As with any study, however, the research includes some limitations.

In terms of caveats, this study focused on two stylized (though potent) decision-environments at the time of Trumps failed re-election, Dimant told PsyPost. To really understand the multifacetedness of polarization, one has to test across various contexts and different points in time. In terms of next steps, the effectiveness of interventions that combine light-touch behavioral interventions with more forceful strategies in reducing polarization is an empirical question that future research can hopefully address.

Tackling political polarization requires using many different approaches that combine small changes in behavior with larger, more powerful actions, the researcher added. This can include education, creating opportunities for people from different political groups to interact, and making sure there are safe places for people to share their opinions. By understanding the many factors that contribute to political polarization, we can produce better ways to address this challenging issue.

The study, Hate Trumps Love: The Impact of Political Polarization on Social Preferences, was published February 24, 2023.

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New research shows how feelings of hate and love for Donald ... - PsyPost

Ever since she was helping out her father during the presidency, Ivanka Trump repeatedly expressed her wish to have a political career that could give her a certain level of success. But as soon as the problems started coming, we could all see how she slowly started distancing herself from former president Donald Trump. Currently, Donald, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka Trump are facing an upcoming civil lawsuit. All four of them and the Trump Organization were named in a major $250 million fraud civil lawsuit. New York Attorney General Letitia James is actively looking to permanently bar all four Trumps from officiating or directing any businesses in the state of New York. The family-s real estate company and many of their top executives have been accused of inflating property value in order to secure cheaper loans.

Ivanka Trump is very aware that if she wants to have a fruitful political career, she can-t have bad publicity like this by associating herself with her father and two brothers. As a result of this, Ivanka made the decision to switch legal representation and bring her own team to defend her name during the trial. Needless to say, all four members of the Trump family are denying these allegations. But Ivanka's latest move proves she no longer truts her own family and wants to move away from all the problems they have to worry about. The lawsuit was presented in September, which prompted the Trump brothers to hire Clifford Robert and Michael Farina to represent them during this legal procecure.

But Ivanka decided to bring two of her own lawyers from Washington DC, who are Reid Figel and Michael Kellogg. Both of them recently withdrew from the case and Ivanka acted quickly. She brought Bennet Moskowitz as her only legal counsel. To those who aren't aware, Moskowitz is the lawyer who represented Jeffrey Epstein during his trial. Even though other families have opted to get different representation, the timing of Ivanka's decision does seem specifically odd. This could also mean Ivanka Trump doesn't have high hopes for what the other two lawyers can do for the Trump family in this case.

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Ivanka Trump shows her true colors: Ditches Donald Trump and both of her brothers - Marca English