President Biden on Tuesday named Julie Chávez Rodríguez as the campaign manager for his re-election effort, elevating a senior adviser and the highest-ranking Latina in the White House to one of the most intense and scrutinized jobs in American politics.Ms. Chávez Rodríguez, 45, a veteran of the Obama administration and of Vice President Kamala Harris’s political orbit, also worked on Mr. Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign before becoming director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. She is the granddaughter of Cesar Chávez, the iconic labor leader.Here are five things to know about the selection of Ms. Chávez Rodríguez:She has navigated Bidenworld …Mr. Biden has a small circle of close aides, some of whom have known him for years. Breaking into that world can be a challenge, and many Democrats expect that key advisers at the White House will oversee the operation.But several Democrats said that Ms. Chávez Rodríguez had impressed Mr. Biden, 80, and his top advisers, adding that she was often seen as a trustworthy team player with strong political relationships.She “didn’t start off as a Biden person, but she’s always been an honest broker,” said Cristóbal Alex, who worked on the 2020 Biden campaign and in the White House. In both places, he said, some came to embrace the slogan “in Julie we trust.”She has not managed a campaign before, a departure from the résumés of some past presidential campaign managers who had run congressional races or were steeped in party committee work.But she was a deputy campaign manager on the 2020 Biden campaign. At the White House, she dealt regularly with governors, mayors and other state and local leaders and led emergency response coordination efforts.“The ability to multitask, the ability to move on a dime, to be able to step back and sort of take in the complexity and then manage through that complexity — I can’t imagine a more challenging job than the one she’s had,” said Gov. Phil Murphy, a New Jersey Democrat and the chair of the National Governors Association. “I’m not making light of what it’s like to run a presidential campaign for a second. It’s a big job. But she’s had a big job.”… and Harris’s orbit.She is also closely connected to Ms. Harris, who may draw particular attention from voters because of Mr. Biden’s age.Ms. Chávez Rodríguez, a Californian, served as Ms. Harris’s state director when she was a California senator, and on her presidential campaign.“Her deep relationships with Biden’s core team and a deep relationship with the vice president’s office, I think, makes for the ideal candidate,” said Juan Rodriguez, a strategist who worked with her (no relation, he said) under Ms. Harris.A woman of color is now the face of Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign.During the last presidential campaign, Mr. Biden at times faced criticism over the whiteness of his inner circle.As he moves now to energize core elements of the multiracial coalition that delivered him the presidency, some Democrats said Ms. Chávez Rodríguez offered vital representation at the highest levels of American politics.“People in the Hispanic community are feeling that,” said Cecilia Muñoz, who directed the Domestic Policy Council during the Obama administration, the first Hispanic person to hold that job.She got an early start in political activism.Ms. Chávez Rodríguez, who was arrested at age 9 during a protest, has seen her family and professional lives overlap.Valerie B. Jarrett, who served as a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, recalled that Ms. Chávez Rodríguez worked at the dedication of a national monument to her grandfather, but was reluctant to join a family photo, citing professional obligations. (Dolores Huerta, who worked closely with Mr. Chávez, insisted she join, Ms. Jarrett said.)The moment demonstrated an “egoless quality, which is, let’s say, unusual oftentimes in high levels,” Ms. Jarrett said.Whether that family legacy is meaningful to voters is another matter, said Matthew J. Garcia, a Dartmouth professor who has written about Mr. Chávez, noting that the United Farm Workers, the union he co-founded, has lost clout.“It may work with baby boomers, but the newer generation have different ideas about the U.F.W., if they have any ideas at all,” he said.Mr. Biden, however, placed a bust of Mr. Chávez in the Oval Office.She is walking into a difficult job.While Mr. Biden, as the incumbent, has many advantages, he also has clear liabilities. And in a deeply polarized country, early surveys show a competitive general election race.Against that backdrop, Ms. Chávez Rodríguez must quickly help build a huge operation and balance Mr. Biden’s governing responsibilities with campaigning, while adjusting to leading a campaign for the first time.“The traditional résumé of a campaign manager for a candidate for president of the United States is usually to be white and to be male,” Ms. Muñoz said. “If you’re a woman of color, you, almost by definition, have to come up through a nontraditional route. But I’ll tell you what — the president knows what she can do.” More

Dan Wang, an expert on China’s technology sector, says Beijing would see a forced sale or ban of the social media platform as a propaganda coup.Dan Wang has been a leading observer of contemporary China for years. As a tech analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm, and through his well-read newsletter, Wang has charted the country’s rise as a fast-growing high-tech economy and, more recently, its slowdown and rising tensions with the United States.Wang is now a visiting scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and writing a book about relations between the United States and China. He spoke with DealBook about how China views the latest U.S. crackdown on TikTok. The interview has been edited and condensed.How does China see the latest TikTok fight?Chinese state media and government spokespeople have made it clear that this is very unwelcome. China feels that ByteDance is a very successful company that is being bullied in America because it is Chinese. The Chinese people are affronted by the U.S. government declaring it a national security threat. And Beijing has passed laws that recommendation algorithms are subject to Chinese export controls, so the sense is that the government will not allow a sale to go through.Is the Chinese government using the case as a propaganda tool?State media is keeping its powder dry because there are still several steps before ByteDance might have to sell TikTok in the U.S. These include Senate passage, the White House’s signature, as well as the legal challenges that ByteDance is sure to bring. Before this looks really imminent, state media is not rallying citizens to object too much.What does it look like when state media mobilizes the public?In 2022, Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and a lot of Western companies made anodyne statements. Chinese state media seized on one company, H&M, which made a fairly typical statement that it did not source from Xinjiang or tolerate forced labor in its supply chains. China’s Communist Youth League account, which is one of the instruments of the Communist Party, reposted a statement on social media saying that you cannot both make money in China as well as criticize China. That incited a vast consumer boycott. H&M products disappeared from pretty much all e-commerce sites, and H&M stores disappeared from online maps. The company was essentially erased from the Chinese internet, and it was really difficult to buy its products or find its physical stores.How could China retaliate against U.S. companies?The more important question is: Does Beijing decide that this act is worthy of retaliation? I spent all four years of President Trump’s trade war living in China, and Beijing was highly forbearing toward U.S. companies for two broad reasons.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Scientists on overseas projects must say whether they work with communist governments and help combat “Christian persecution.”The Trump administration has asked researchers and organizations whose work is conducted overseas to disclose ties to those regarded as hostile, including “entities associated with communist, socialist or totalitarian parties,” according to a questionnaire obtained by The New York Times.The online survey was sent this week to groups working abroad to research diseases like H.I.V., gather surveillance data and strengthen public health systems. Recipients received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Agency for International Development and other federal sources.The questionnaire appears to be very similar to one sent earlier this week to partners of the United States Agency for International Development, which has been all but dismantled by the Trump administration. Both were titled “Foreign Assistance Review.”Recipients were instructed to respond within 48 hours. Some grantees interviewed by The Times feared that impolitic or unsatisfactory answers could lead to cancellation of funding.“Taxpayer dollars must not fund dependency, socialism, corrupt regimes that oppose free enterprise, or intervene in internal matters of another sovereign nation,” the questionnaire said.“A truly prosperous America prioritizes domestic growth, innovation, and economic strength over foreign handouts,” it added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

It was one of four convoys put together by local Palestinian businessmen this week at the behest of Israeli officials, who promised to provide security.The Gaza aid convoy that ended in bloodshed this week was organized by Israel itself as part of a newly hatched partnership with local Palestinian businessmen, according to Israeli officials, Palestinian businessmen and Western diplomats.Israel has been involved in at least four such aid convoys to northern Gaza over the past week. It undertook the effort, Israeli officials told two Western diplomats, to fill a void in assistance to northern Gaza, where famine looms as international aid groups have suspended most operations, citing Israeli refusals to greenlight aid trucks and rising lawlessness. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter. Israeli officials reached out to multiple Gazan businessmen and asked them to help organize private aid convoys to the north, two of the businessmen said, while Israel would provide security.The United Nations has warned that more than 570,000 Gazans — particularly in northern Gaza — are facing “catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation” after nearly five months of war and an almost complete Israeli blockade of the territory following the Oct. 7 attacks led by Hamas.Some residents have resorted to raiding the pantries of neighbors who fled their homes, while others have been grinding up animal feed for flour. U.N. aid convoys carrying essential goods to northern Gaza have been looted — either by civilians fearing starvation or organized gangs — amid the anarchy that has followed Israel’s ground invasion.“My family, friends, and neighbors are dying from hunger,” said Jawdat Khoudary, a Palestinian businessman who helped organize some of the trucks involved in the Israeli relief initiative.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Midterm elections in the United States are often presented as a referendum on the party in power, and that message appears to be resonating this fall. But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too, and what each vote they cast will mean for the future of this country.Eight Republican senators and 139 Republican representatives sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election on the basis of spurious allegations of voter fraud and other irregularities. Many of them are likely to win re-election, and they may be joined by new members who also have expressed baseless doubts about the integrity of the 2020 election. Their presence in Congress poses a danger to democracy, one that should be on the mind of every voter casting a ballot this Election Day.It will also be the first time that the U.S. electoral machinery will be tested in a national election after two years of lawsuits, conspiracy theories, election “audits” and all manner of interference by believers in Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. That test comes alongside the embrace of violent extremism by a small but growing faction of the Republican Party.The greatest danger to election integrity may, in fact, come from the results of state and local races that will determine who actually conducts the election and counts the votes in 2024. In the weeks that followed the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and his supporters saw their efforts to deny the election results and prove rampant voter fraud thwarted by two things: first, their inability to produce credible evidence that such fraud had occurred and, second, an election infrastructure that was defended by honorable public servants who refused to accept specious claims of wrongdoing.Over the past two years, Republicans in dozens of states have tried to dismantle that infrastructure piece by piece, particularly by filling key positions with Trump sympathizers. As this board wrote in September, “Rather than threatening election officials, they will be the election officials — the poll workers and county commissioners and secretaries of state responsible for overseeing the casting, counting and certifying of votes.” Many of those positions are being contested this week.With Mr. Trump said to be readying his bid to return to the White House, this board urges American voters to consider how important each vote cast on Election Day, at every level of government, will be. Even if the member of Congress in your district has refused to accept Mr. Trump’s lies about this election, there are other races on the ballot in many states for offices — including secretary of state, attorney general and governor — that will play crucial roles in overseeing and certifying the 2024 presidential election.Still, with that election two years away, many voters say they are more concerned with the present threats to their livelihoods than with the equally serious but less visible threat to democracy. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that “more than a third of independent voters and a smaller but noteworthy contingent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as they assigned greater urgency to their concerns about the economy than to fears about the fate of the country’s political system.”Indeed, voters have good reason to look at the current moment and wonder whether the Biden administration and congressional Democrats are doing enough to meet it. High inflation is making it harder for Americans to afford what they need and want. Overall crime has risen, causing people to fear for their safety. The federal government is struggling to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s increasingly tense relations with China are undermining global peace and prosperity.Republicans have presented these midterm elections as a referendum on Democratic leadership, and that message appears to be resonating.But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too.Republicans have offered few specific plans for addressing issues like inflation, immigration and crime — and even if they win control of Congress, they are unlikely to win enough seats to shift federal policy significantly over the next two years.A Republican-controlled Senate would, however, be able to block President Biden from filling vacancies on the federal bench and on the Supreme Court. It would become more difficult to obtain confirmations for executive branch officials, as well.Republican candidates have also pledged to devote significant time and energy to investigating the Biden administration. “I don’t think Joe Biden and his handlers are exactly eager to sign Republican legislation into law, so our hearings are going to be the most important thing that we can have,” Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado told a recent rally.In addition to that spectacle, Republicans are threatening to stage another showdown over federal spending.At some point in the next year, the government is expected to hit the limit of its authorized borrowing capacity, or debt ceiling. To meet the commitments Congress already has authorized, it will need to raise that limit. This ought to be a matter of basic housekeeping, because failing to pay the nation’s bills would risk a global financial crisis. But debt ceiling votes have instead become recurring opportunities for extortion.This board has called for Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling, replacing it with a common-sense law that says the government can borrow whatever is necessary to provide for the spending authorized by Congress. There is no public benefit in requiring what amounts to a second vote on spending decisions. But for now, the ceiling endures, and Republicans have made clear that if they win control of Congress, they intend to use it as a bargaining chip with the White House to advance their party’s fiscal goals.One priority on that list is cutting taxes. Republicans already are preparing to move forward with legislation to extend the 2017 tax cuts for individuals, which mostly benefit wealthy households, while eliminating some of the offsetting increases in corporate taxation — a plan that is not easily reconciled with the party’s stated concerns about inflation or the rising federal debt.Republican proposals would also make it more difficult for the Internal Revenue Service to prevent wealthy Americans from cheating on their taxes. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, who is in position to become speaker if Republicans win a majority, has said the “first bill” that would pass under his leadership would reverse an $80 billion funding increase for the I.R.S. Congress approved that funding in August so the I.R.S. can crack down on rampant tax fraud by high-income households.Some senior Republicans have called for repealing another key piece of the August legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act: a measure that limits drug costs for seniors on Medicare, including a $35 monthly cap on payments for insulin.Republicans also have floated plans to roll back more firmly established benefits. The Republican Study Committee, a conservative policy working group whose membership includes more than half of the current crop of House Republicans, published a budget plan in June calling for Congress to gradually increase the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to 70 to check the rising cost of the program. The plan also would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare.Democrats could make it more difficult for Republicans to pursue these goals by raising the debt limit or changing the rules in the weeks between the election and the end of the year.Democrats have largely failed to connect with voters’ concerns about inflation and public safety during this campaign season. They have struggled to communicate their tangible achievements, including a big boost in funding for local law enforcement and bipartisan gun safety legislation, a historic federal investment in developing clean and low-cost sources of energy to confront climate change and the cost of living, and a breakthrough measure to bring down the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients.Undoubtedly, there is more work to be done on these and other issues, including the health of the economy and the broken state of immigration policy. Voters need to decide which party they trust to do that work.But the 2022 elections are also an opportunity for every American to do their part in defending the integrity of American elections. The task of safeguarding our democracy does not end with one election, and it requires all of us to play a role. Our nation’s governance depends on it.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More