The former president’s trial has become a staging ground for aspiring allies to prove their fealty, the latest litmus test in a party increasingly defined by loyalty to Donald Trump.
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Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio traveled to New York to make a show of solidarity with Donald Trump on Monday at the former president’s trial in Manhattan.
Follow our live coverage of Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan.
The Republican Party has changed a lot since Donald J. Trump last spent this much time at Trump Tower.
Stuck in New York City four days a week during his criminal trial, Mr. Trump is now back in the same 66th-floor penthouse suite where he weathered so many scandals during his 2016 presidential run.
Back then, Mr. Trump was the Republican nominee, but still very much a party outsider. After the “Access Hollywood” video broke in October 2016 and he was heard bragging about grabbing women’s genitals, he spent the weekend in Trump Tower watching defections. Second-guessing of his candidacy came from across the G.O.P. spectrum, including a canceled event and a public rebuke from the man he had chosen to be his vice president.
What a difference seven and a half years makes.
On Monday, a contender to be Mr. Trump’s next vice president, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, traveled to New York to make a show of solidarity with his party’s presumptive nominee. Mr. Vance began his day at Trump Tower and then went inside the courthouse on the same day that some of the “Access Hollywood” episode was recounted and a secret recording played in which Mr. Trump discussed payoffs to bury harmful stories.
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Mr. Vance was joined by Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, along with Alabama’s attorney general, Iowa’s attorney general and a Republican congresswoman from Staten Island.
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Source: nytimes.com
