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Donald J. Trump hasnt won a single primary or caucus vote yet, let alone the Republican nomination, but his lead in the polls has left much of the political world viewing his nomination as all but inevitable.

It has also inspired a fair amount of speculation about who might wind up on a 2024 ticket beside him. It will almost surely not be former Vice President Mike Pence, who crossed Trump by certifying the 2020 election results.

While Trump has not begun formal veepstakes talks, he has casually weighed the pros and cons of some contenders with friends and advisers.

His team has discussed possible parameters, like whether a woman on the ticket would help win back suburban women who abandoned him in the last election, or if choosing a person of color would be a smart choice, given the gains he saw in 2020 with Black and Hispanic men.

Either way, Mar-a-Lago courtiers generally agree that any rsum for the No. 2 spot on the ticket must include some Trump-specific requirements that defy demographics: absolute loyalty to the Trump brand, a willingness to filter every decision and public comment through a subservient lens, and the know-it-when-you-see-it central casting look the former president prizes.

Heres a look at some possible contenders.

Household names in national politics, these are some of the figures most often floated as possible running mates.

A senator from South Carolina, Scott ran for president but dropped out in November.

Al Drago/EPA, via Shutterstock

Haley, a former United Nations ambassador under Trump and a former governor of South Carolina, is running for president against him.

Samuel Corum for The New York Times

A staunch and provocative conservative, the Arkansas senator has been seen as one of the Republican Partys rising figures.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

The Florida senator, a rival to Trump in 2016, has hummed along as a reliable Trump ally and leading Republican voice on foreign policy issues.

Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

Pompeo, a former congressman from Kansas, was a fixture in the Trump administration, first as C.I.A. director and then as secretary of state.

Al Drago for The New York Times

For any potential Trump sidekick, a track record of accomplishments is nice to have. A track record of fealty may be even more important.

The best-selling author and former venture capitalist is now a senator from Ohio, thanks largely to a Trump endorsement.

Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Trumps former White House press secretary, she parlayed the exposure that gave her into the Arkansas governors office.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

A popular governor and a former congresswoman, Noem has welcomed speculation that she could be invited to join the ticket.

Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

A former House member from Texas who served as the director of national intelligence in Trumps administration.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Lake, a prominent election denier, narrowly lost the 2022 Arizona governors race.

Rebecca Noble for The New York Times

A wealthy entrepreneur, Ramaswamy has built his campaign around his devotion to Trump, and many Republican voters have responded warmly.

Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Lesser known on the national stage, these politicians could provide the ticket with a fresh face.

A second-term congressman who has made a name for himself in Washington as an avatar for the next generation of pro-Trump Republicans.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Stefanik, a five-term congresswoman, has morphed from a Bush administration staff member into one of the partys most prominent Trump supporters.

Hans Pennink/Associated Press

Dixon, a conservative media personality, lost the 2022 governors race in Michigan to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.

Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

A House member from South Carolina who was the first female military recruit to graduate from the Citadel.

Kenny Holston/The New York Times

A freshman in the House and a retired Army Apache helicopter pilot, he has become one of the partys rising stars.

Suzanne Cordeiro/Agence France-Presse Getty Images

Theyre long shots, yes. But Donald Trump is far from a predictable politician.

The former Fox News anchor is widely viewed as one of the ideological godfathers of Trumpian Republicanism.

Saul Martinez for The New York Times

A senator and former Florida governor, Scott has an untarnished electoral record after three statewide campaigns in one of the nation's biggest political battlegrounds.

Al Drago/The New York Times

A far-right conspiracy theorist, Greene is one of Trumps top surrogates on the campaign trail.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

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Who Would Donald Trump Choose as His Running Mate? - The New York Times

In a Veterans Day speech, Donald Trump didnt limit his comments to honoring those who, unlike his draft-dodging self, served this nation to protect its democracy. Instead he went full-on fascist as he vowed to root out those he assailed as the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.

A week later, after it was announced that Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady, had entered hospice care, Trump took a swipe at President Biden during a rally by mocking former president Jimmy Carters White House tenure.

And Trump kept gobbling on Thanksgiving as he reveled in a pause in his New York civil fraud trial gag order while others reveled in the coziness of family, friends, and food. In a post on his failing social media site, Trump wished a Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, who he called racist, Judge Arthur Engoron, whom he branded as a psycho, and Engorons corrupt law clerk.

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Every breath Trump takes comes with a barrage of insults against his expanding list of perceived enemies, threats against democracy, and continued lies about a presidential election he soundly lost to Biden more than three years ago. Its a greatest hits medley for his most ardent followers, but its also the empty flex of a petrified 77-year-old man in more trouble than he ever could have imagined.

Its the season of Its a Wonderful Life, the beloved film starring Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, a kind but disconsolate man considering suicide on Christmas Eve until Clarence, an angel, intervenes and ushers George through a dark reimagining of what the world would have been like without him. He then discovers how he has enriched the lives of those he touched.

In his increasingly un-wonderful life, Trump has spent his years enriching only himself and has toiled to remake the world in his own misbegotten image. Now hes facing the possibility that he could end up like the original Teflon Don, another ruthlessly ambitious, attention-addicted son of New Yorks outer boroughs mob boss John Gotti. After years of trials and acquittals, Gotti was finally convicted in 1992 on various charges, including murder, and sentenced to life. He died in prison in 2002.

What ultimately got Gotti was his longtime partner in crime, Sammy The Bull Gravano, who ratted him out. And as much as Trump loves to talk about numbers when they favor him, such as polls showing his sizable lead over fellow Republican presidential candidates, the figure on his mind these days is probably four as in the four coconspirators in the Georgia election interference case whove cut plea deals with prosecutors in exchange for testimony during the upcoming trial, including against the former president.

Conspiring with Trump is one thing; risking your freedom by continuing to promulgate his lies is quite another. And notice that he didnt trash them as he is James, Engoron, and Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting Trumps trials for mishandling classified documents and federal election interference. He recognizes that those whove flipped on him can do serious damage to him.

You can see the impossible weight of it all in the hunch of Trumps shoulders as he lumbers to the stage at his rallies. His perpetual scowl, even when he bears his teeth into something approximating a smile, personifies the motherly warning that echoed through many childhoods: If you keep making that face, its gonna stay that way.

When Trumps supporters talk about the 91 felony charges hes facing from four indictments in four jurisdictions as if theyre just water bouncing off a ducks back, its hollow boosterism. They want to portray Trump as a strongman whose might makes him immune to morality, laws, and the Constitution.

What they refuse to see is a man diminished. Trump is being stalked by something he has dodged for decades accountability. Now he has to deal with Tuesdays surprising news that the political network founded by Charles and David Koch, the ultra right-wing and diabolically powerful billionaires, has endorsed Nikki Haley for the Republican presidential nomination. Its a clear attempt to prod the party beyond Trump who, at least to the Kochs, has outlived his usefulness.

With the Iowa caucuses less than two months away, its another unexpected jolt for the former president whose cult of personality might not be as durable as it once was. Despite his public bravado, hes old, miserable, and desperate. But as the world witnessed at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a desperate Trump is also a man unbound and at his most dangerous.

Rene Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her @reneeygraham.

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Donald Trump and his un-wonderful life - The Boston Globe

Donald Trump is a liar, but he has told the truth at least once: Running for president in 2016, he promised to appoint Supreme Court justices who would automatically overturn Roe v. Wade. Trump did just that by putting Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett on the bench. But nowas he campaigns to return to the White House, and as his party continues to pay for the Dobbs decision at the ballot boxhe appears to be trying to rewrite recent history.

Rolling Stone reports the former president has privately discussed plans recently to campaign as a moderate on abortion, seeking to avoid discussing reproductive rights in the hardline terms of GOP primary rivals like Ron DeSantis and instead stake out a position that makes both Republicans and Democrats very happy. The fall of Roe, hes apparently told aides, has eliminated any leverage the anti-abortion conservatives had over him.

The [anti-abortion] activists who thought they could force Donald Trump to commit political suicide were deeply mistaken, a Republican associated with Trumps campaign told the outlet. These were all-or-nothing types who should realize that he doesnt need them. They need him.

Trump's effort to rebrand as an abortion moderate is, by all means, absurd. Not only does it defy his prior statements on the issue, including his suggestion in the 2016 cycle that there should be some form of punishment for women who seek abortions; it attempts to underplay the outsize role Trump played in ending the federal right to an abortion, as he even acknowledged earlier this year. After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v Wade, Trump wrote on his social media page in May.

Of course, that was before voters showed Republicans what they thought of the Dobbs decision and the talk of a national abortion ban in this months off-year elections: In yet another cycle, Democrats outperformed expectations, riding reproductive rights to victories in Virginia and Kentucky. In Ohio, a key swing state, voters approved a ballot measure to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution. And a recent NBC News poll found that abortion and democracy were top concerns for single-issue voters in 2024. His supposed moderate positionwhatever that is supposed to meanis nothing more than a transparent effort to avoid the fate of Republicans who lost on the issue in 2022 and 2023. Lets be clear: Donald Trump is responsible for ending Roe v. Wade, Joe Biden wrote in September. And if you vote for him, hell go even further.

That should be obvious, but Trump has a knack for muddying the waters. I havent seen Trump say something either way on abortion, one Trump voter in bellwether Pennsylvania told the New York Times earlier this month. He doesnt seem to care either way and thats fine with me, she added. I dont think Trump was responsible for the Supreme Courts decision, another swing-state voter, from Michigan, told the outlet. I honestly think that Trump is just for less government and states rights, and Im fine with that.

With a close race expected in 2024, Democrats shouldnt take their advantage with pro-choice voters for granted. They must, as my colleague Molly Jong-Fast argued earlier this month, continue to hammer Republicansand Trump specificallyon abortion.

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Donald Trump's Abortion About-Face Is Cynical as Ever - Vanity Fair

Surrounded by Army cadets, President Donald Trump watches the first half of the 121st Army-Navy Football Game in Michie Stadium at the United States Military Academy, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020, in West Point, N.Y. (AP Photo / Andrew Harnik, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) Campaigning in Iowa this year,Donald Trumpsaid he was prevented during his presidency from using the military to quell violence in primarily Democratic cities and states.

Calling New York City and Chicago crime dens, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination told his audience, The next time, Im not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it and were going to show how bad a job they do, he said. Well, we did that. We dont have to wait any longer.

Trump has not spelled out precisely how he might use the military during a second term, although he and his advisers have suggested they would have wide latitude to call up units. While deploying the military regularly within the country's borders would be a departure from tradition, the former president already has signaledan aggressive agendaif he wins, from mass deportations to travel bans imposed on certain Muslim-majority countries.

A law first crafted in the nations infancy would give Trump as commander in chief almost unfettered power to do so, military and legal experts said in a series of interviews.

The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call on reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by the courts. One of its few guardrails merely requires the president to request that the participants disperse.

The principal constraint on the presidents use of the Insurrection Act is basically political, that presidents dont want to be the guy who sent tanks rolling down Main Street, said Joseph Nunn, a national security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice. Theres not much really in the law to stay the presidents hand.

A spokesman for Trumps campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment about what authority Trump might use to pursue his plans.

Congress passed the act in 1792, just four years after the Constitution was ratified. Nunn said it's an amalgamation of different statutes enacted between then and the 1870s, a time when there was little in the way of local law enforcement.

It is a law that in many ways was created for a country that doesnt exist anymore, he said.

It also is one of the most substantial exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits using the military for law enforcement purposes.

Trump has spoken openly about his plans should he win the presidency, including using the military at the border and in cities struggling with violent crime. His plans also have included using the military against foreign drug cartels, a view echoed by other Republican primary candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor.

The threats have raised questions about the meaning of military oaths, presidential power and who Trump could appoint to support his approach.

Trump already has suggested he mightbring backretired Army Lt. Gen.Michael Flynn, who served briefly as Trumps national security adviser and twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during its Russian influence probe before beingpardonedby Trump. Flynn suggested in the aftermath of the 2020 election that Trump could seize voting machines and order the military in some states to help rerun the election.

Attempts to invoke the Insurrection Act and use the military for domestic policing would likely elicit pushback from the Pentagon, where the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is Gen. Charles Q. Brown. He was one of the eight members of the Joint Chiefs who signed a memo to military personnel in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The memo emphasized the oaths they took and called the events of that day, which were intended to stop certification ofDemocrat Joe Biden's victory over Trump, sedition and insurrection.

Trump and his party nevertheless retain wide support among those who have served in the military. AP VoteCast, an in-depth survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide, showed that 59% of U.S. military veterans voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election. In the 2022 midterms, 57% of military veterans supported Republican candidates.

Presidents have issued a total of 40 proclamations invoking the law, some of those done multiple times for the same crisis, Nunn said. Lyndon Johnson invoked it three times in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington in response to the unrest in cities after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

During the Civil Rights era, Presidents Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower used the law to protect activists and students desegregating schools. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central High School after that states governor activated the National Guard to keep the students out.

George H.W. Bush was the last president to use the Insurrection Act, a response to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the white police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King in an incident that was videotaped.

Repeated attempts to invoke the act in a new Trump presidency could put pressure on military leaders, who could face consequences for their actions even if done at the direction of the president.

Michael OHanlon, director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank, said the question is whether the military is being imaginative enough with the scenarios it has been presenting to future officers. Ambiguity, especially when force is involved, is not something military personnel are comfortable with, he said.

There are a lot of institutional checks and balances in our country that are pretty well-developed legally, and itll make it hard for a president to just do something randomly out of the blue, said OHanlon, who specializes in U.S. defense strategy and the use of military force. But Trump is good at developing a semi-logical train of thought that might lead to a place where theres enough mayhem, theres enough violence and legal murkiness to call in the military.

Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, the first graduate of the U.S. Military Academy to represent the congressional district that includes West Point, said he took the oath three times while he was at the school and additional times during his military career. He said there was extensive classroom focus on an officers responsibilities to the Constitution and the people under his or her command.

They really hammer into us the seriousness of the oath and who it was to, and who it wasnt to, he said.

Ryan said he thought it was universally understood, but Jan. 6 was deeply disturbing and a wakeup call for me. Severalveteransandactive-duty militarypersonnel were charged with crimes in connection with the assault.

While those connections were troubling, he said he thinks those who harbor similar sentiments make up a very small percentage of the military.

William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor and expert in national security law, said a military officer is not forced to follow unlawful orders. That could create a difficult situation for leaders whose units are called on for domestic policing, since they can face charges for taking unlawful actions.

But there is a big thumb on the scale in favor of the presidents interpretation of whether the order is lawful, Banks said. Youd have a really big row to hoe and you would have a big fuss inside the military if you chose not to follow a presidential order.

Nunn, who has suggested steps to restrict the invocation of the law, said military personnel cannot be ordered to break the law.

Members of the military are legally obliged to disobey an unlawful order. At the same time, that is a lot to ask of the military because they are also obliged to obey orders, he said. And the punishment for disobeying an order that turns out to be lawful is your career is over, and you may well be going to jail for a very long time. The stakes for them are extraordinarily high.

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Donald Trump Hints at Expanded Role for the Military Within the US ... - WTTW News

Donald Trumps calendar is filling upand not with campaign events.

The former president is battling conflicting trial dates in a number of courts, and judges are now hopping on the phone to coordinate their schedules. In fact, two judges may have already double-booked him. (In March, Trump has three weeks to wrap up a D.C. federal trial thats potentially six weeks longbefore hes due in New York for a state trial.)

But those private exchanges have caused some drama, particularly as Trumps lawyers keep trying to push back his upcoming New York criminal trial for paying hush money to a porn star.

Over the fall, Justice Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the Stormy Daniels case, appeared willing to consider meeting sometime in September to discuss potentially shifting deadlines, according to information received by The Daily Beast. But he ultimately rejected the idea and ordered both sides to stick to the previous plan: to meet in court just a month before the porn star cover-up trial begins in March.

But he made it a formal order after Trumps lawyers tried to peer into his private conversation with U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, according to court documents we obtained.

No further disclosure is required, Merchan said in a Nov. 9 order that has not been reported until now.

He also made clear that the former presidents legal troubles are so numerous, itd be better to keep a semblance of order than add to the chaos.

Indeed, adjourning this trial prematurely can only serve to further muddy your client's already crowded trial calendar and possibly result in even further delay, Merchan wrote.

The New York state judge made his decision after prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorneys Office claimed in court filings that the quadruple-indicted real estate tycoon is simply delaying trial dates after overbooking his top defense lawyer across the Eastern Seaboard.

DA Alvin Bragg Jr.s team is particularly pointing the finger at New York attorney Todd Blanche, who has quickly risen through the ranks to become Trumps preferred lawyer in his Manhattan hush money case, the federal trial in D.C. over election fraud, and the hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in South Florida.

Blanches rapid ascent has irked and pushed aside some fellow defense attorneys, according to two sources familiar with internal strife in the Trump camp. A third source said Blanche has managed to earn Trumps trust by firmly pushing back on some of the politicians stranger ideas, standing out in a sea of yes-men. But now Blanche is so inundated with cases that hes trying to slow them downand Manhattan prosecutors are crying foul.

The unstated reality is that the anticipated March 25 trial in Manhattan is awfully inconvenient for Trumps attempted revenge return to the White House, forcing him into a dingy courtroom during the 2024 presidential primaries in New York and Wisconsin. And if the trial goes on for a few weeks, he could spend Pennsylvanias primary day in court, too.

But keeping to that trial date is also unrealistic, given that it leaves only three weeks to complete a historic federal trial in the nations capital that starts the day before Super Tuesdayand essentially will be a condensed, criminal version of the House Jan. 6 Committee hearings.

Justice Merchan had previously scheduled a key court hearing in February 2024 to make sure the New York case is still on track, but also late enough to know where the competing D.C. and Florida trials stand as well.

Sometime in August, Blanche and his team of nearly a dozen defense lawyers asked Merchan to push up the scheduled check-in much sooner. After getting shot down, on Oct. 3 they formally asked him to reconsider, arguing that waiting until February might harm Trumps right to adequately assist in his defense, his right to assistance of counsel, and his right to be personally present at the trial proceedings.

The real shocker, though, was what they used to justify this request: pointing to the private telephone call the New York judge had with Judge Chutkan in Washington over the summer, saying they wanted to know what exactly was said during that chat.

Trumps legal team formally requested that Merchan inform the parties about the substance of Your Honors communications with Judge Chutkan, claiming the conversation impacted the former presidents constitutional and statutory rights.

In a Nov. 2 court filing response, prosecutors expressed some degree of surprise that this is coming up now, given that Chutkan brought it up during a D.C. court hearing back in August, when she said she did speak briefly with Judge Merchan to let him know that I was considering a date that might overlap with his trial.

A federal court transcript shows that Trumps lawyers didnt balk when Chutkan first mentioned it, but they seemed to have an issue with it later.

This month, Assistant District Attorney Caroline S. Williamson took MAGA lawyers to task for yet again finding a pretext to claim that next years trial in New York City is too soon.

Williamson castigated Trumps ongoing efforts to adjourn the deadlines in the other criminal cases that he claims will present an unavoidable conflict here, noting the brazen way his defense lawyers are playing all sides.

She noted how Blanche showed up for an afternoon court hearing on Nov. 1 in Fort Pierce, Florida, to ask U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to delay his upcoming federal trial for stockpiling top secret records by pointing to Trumps D.C. casethen, just hours later, the very same lawyer formally requested that Judge Chutkan pause the entire D.C. case while she considers their long-shot request to dismiss the entire legal battle over Trumps supposed absolute presidential immunity.

In a court filing to Merchan in New York, Williamson told the judge it would be a poor use of the courts resources to discuss scheduling before the dust settles on defendants efforts to delay his other criminal cases.

Taken in totality, Williamsons description appeared to portray Trumps legal team as actively engaged in a relay-delay game, playing judges against each other to push back court dates in all of his caseslike a child playing parents against each other.

Manhattan prosecutors also specifically called out the Trump legal teams posturing that it simply cant handle the sudden flood of work, pointing out how Blanche willingly became the former presidents point man on three of his four upcoming criminal trials. After all, its not exactly like hes working alone.

Trump chose all of the eleven attorneys representing him in this casenot merely the attorney who is also engaged on the D.C. and Florida criminal cases, Williamson wrote. The ten other attorneys on the defense team include experienced and capable counsel, many of whom have represented defendant and the Trump Organization for years.

Aside from Blanche, that long list has included Emil Bove, Susan R. Necheles, Gedalia M. Stern, Joe Tacopina, Stephen Weiss, Steven Yurowitz, and others.

Manhattan prosecutors took an additional shot at Blanche, noting that he decided to take on the D.C. and Florida cases after the New York judge had specifically warned everyone in May to clear their calendars for this historic criminal trial that lay ahead.

Merchan advised prosecutors and defense lawyers to not engage or otherwise enter into any commitments, personal, professional, or otherwise, that would prevent you from starting a trial on March 25, 2024, and completing it without interruption.

Judging by whats in the court documents, the only delay Manhattan prosecutors welcome seems to be if the D.C. trial scheduled to start on March 4 runs long. If Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith succeeds in convicting the former president for defrauding the nation in an insidious attempt to stay in power after losing the election, that would mean that Trump is already a felon by the time he shows up in New York to face a jury for faking business records to cover up his Stormy Daniels sexual affair.

At this point, there seems to be little reason for delay in New York other than an overlap with the D.C. election case. According to prosecutors, Trumps team back in May already got the 5,000 pages of testimony, exhibits and witness notes that comprise the core materials in this case.

However, judges are increasingly losing patience for these types of Trumpian delay tactics. For example, in front of Chutkan earlier this year, Trumps lawyers tried to delay the trial by warning that speeding along too quickly threatens to go forward with the haste of the mob. They cited a 1932 Supreme Court decision that disagreed with the way nine young black Black men and teenagers were indicted in Alabama for raping two white women, and all but one were immediately sentenced to death after one-day trials.

That didnt go over well with Chutkan, who noted wryly that this case, for any number of reasons, is profoundly different from Powell.

Mr. Trump is represented by a team of zealous, experienced attorneys and has the resources necessary, she commented. I have seen many cases unduly delayed because a defendant lacks adequate representation or cannot properly review discovery because they are detained. That is not the case here.

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Trump's Backdoor Attempts to Delay His Trials Are Backfiring - The Daily Beast