He is driving the country to financial ruin. And his own party is letting it happen. Source: Elections – nytimes.com More

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, suggested on Wednesday that members of his party recognized that President Biden had been legitimately elected, four months after he and 146 other Republicans voted to overturn the election results.“I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters after meeting with Mr. Biden and congressional leaders at the White House to discuss infrastructure spending. “I think that is all over with. We’re sitting here with the president today. So from that point of view, I don’t think that’s a problem.”In reality, numerous Republican lawmakers continue to question the legitimacy of the presidential election, in lock step with former President Donald J. Trump. Hours before Mr. McCarthy made his comments, he joined other House Republicans in voting to oust Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from her leadership position for repudiating the former president’s election lies and denouncing the lawmakers who encouraged them.Ms. Cheney’s likely replacement, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, recently claimed that election officials had engaged in “unprecedented, unconstitutional overreach” last year and expressed support for a Republican-led audit of the 2020 election results in Arizona, part of a continued effort to cast doubt on Mr. Biden’s victory there.Other congressional Republicans, including Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, have also endorsed the Arizona audit, and the lie that the election was stolen has fueled a barrage of restrictive voting bills across the country.In January, 147 Republican lawmakers voted against certifying Mr. Biden’s victory. When asked point-blank whether they believed Mr. Biden won the election legitimately, they rarely give a straight answer. And the few who have spoken out against efforts to delegitimize the election, or who have publicly criticized Mr. Trump’s actions related to the election — such as Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio — have been rebuked.Addressing her fellow Republicans before they voted to oust her Wednesday morning, Ms. Cheney said that they should not “let the former president drag us backward,” and that if they wanted a leader who would “enable and spread his destructive lies,” they should vote to remove her.They responded with jeers. More

While Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, has lost crucial supporters in his drive to become mayor, other backers have stood by him.From a distance, Scott M. Stringer’s campaign for mayor doesn’t appear to have changed much since last week, when he was accused of sexually assaulting a campaign volunteer 20 years ago.On Monday, a union representing 24,000 school safety agents and public housing employees endorsed him. Later that night, he answered questions about hate crimes and police funding at a forum sponsored by interfaith youth. Since the allegations first surfaced, he’s been to at least four candidates’ forums, three churches, two news conferences, three subway stations and one editorial board interview.The message at each stop is a forceful denial of the allegations from Jean Kim, a lobbyist, that he sexually assaulted her 20 years ago when he was running for public advocate. Each time, Mr. Stringer, 61, makes a statement similar to the one he gave during a television interview Tuesday: “I’m going to be the next mayor and win the Democratic primary.”But up close, Mr. Stringer’s hopes for becoming mayor have suffered a devastating blow. Members of the progressive coalition that assembled behind him began rescinding their endorsements on Friday.And much of the uptick in attention from the news media, like a 15-minute interview on NY1 on Tuesday morning, has focused as much on Ms. Kim’s allegations as it has on Mr. Stringer’s plans if elected mayor.On Wednesday morning Mr. Stringer appeared on “The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC to discuss the city’s economic recovery from the pandemic.Mr. Lehrer said the show was “trying to focus our candidate interviews on policy,” but immediately added that “we can’t ignore the elephant in the room of the sexual abuse and harassment allegation and your significant loss of endorsements.”Mr. Stringer’s campaign points out that the increased media coverage gives him a chance to dispute the allegations and talk about his plans for the city.During the interview on WNYC, Mr. Stringer, who declined to be interviewed for this article, talked about how his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, is a survivor of sexual assault. He mentioned that his mother had died of Covid-19, one of the reasons he said he wants to become mayor and help the city recover. And he said he wanted his two sons to be able to look back on this moment and understand that he strongly denies the allegations against him.None of that has been enough to stanch the flow of progressive groups and leaders abandoning the candidate.Sochie Nnaemeka, head of the New York State Working Families Party, said her group’s decision to drop Mr. Stringer was based in part in concern about “toxic male leadership.” The ideas of the progressive movement are now permeating city and state politics, and progressive groups have to guard their “governing values,” she said.“It cannot be that the candidate is the sole vehicle and the only option to make people’s lives better and to make our city different,” said Ms. Nnaemeka, whose group is now endorsing both Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, and Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.While Mr. Stringer’s progressive coalition has dissolved, members of his labor coalition, including the influential United Federation of Teachers and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, have stood by him.Jean Kim, left, and her attorney, Patricia Pastor, right, have accused Mr. Stringer of sexual assault.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe U.F.T.’s most active political volunteers met on Sunday and decided to reaffirm their support for Mr. Stringer. Heading into the final weeks of the campaign, the union expects to unleash its full capabilities to help him, including phone banking, canvassing and door knocking.The U.F.T. is also considering a donation to an independent expenditure committee that would boost Mr. Stringer’s campaign with advertisements.“It’s a wide-open race at this point,” said Michael Mulgrew, the union’s president.Mr. Stringer, one of the best-funded candidates in the race, continues to attract money, and he expects to have raised at least $10 million before the campaign is over. A fund-raising email said he was just over $41,000 away from receiving the maximum amount of matching public funds.A fund-raiser on Zoom this week went on as planned. And the campaign continued to purchase ads, a long-planned, multimillion-dollar effort seen as part of a final push to fulfill Mr. Stringer’s longtime goal of becoming mayor.Some voters received surveys from a polling firm to examine how concerned they are about the sexual harassment allegations. Mr. Stringer’s campaign declined to comment..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“I actually think Scott still has a path,” said Jonathan Westin, director of New York Communities for Change, a progressive grass-roots organizing group that rescinded its endorsement of Mr. Stringer last week. “One of the main things I’ve heard from my membership is, ‘They did this to Joe Biden, they went after him and he still prevailed’” — a reference to allegations by Tara Reade in 2020 that Mr. Biden had sexually assaulted her.Gregory Floyd, the president of Teamsters Local 237, which announced its support for Mr. Stringer after the allegations were unveiled, said many members of his 24,000-person union may even feel a personal connection with the candidate. Among them are 5,000 school safety agents who say they have been unfairly accused of abusing students.“They, more than anybody, understand what it is to be accused of something they didn’t do, so this resonates with them,” Mr. Floyd said.Mr. Mulgrew said his members were also concerned about due process.“The basic work of why unions form is about workplace rules, and allegations are a major piece of workplace rules,” he said. “Their thing when they see something like this is, what’s the due process?”Ms. Kim has called for Mr. Stringer to resign from his current job as city comptroller and to withdraw from the mayor’s race. On Tuesday, her attorney, Patricia Pastor, filed a complaint with the New York attorney general’s office.“Jean will participate fully” with any investigation, Ms. Pastor said in a statement. The attorney general’s office is reviewing the complaint.Mr. Stringer has also faced criticism for the way in which he has responded to Ms. Kim’s allegations, including his characterization of their relationship as consensual — a point he repeated during the interview Wednesday on WNYC, citing an article from The Intercept that quoted anonymous sources saying that he and Ms. Kim had had a “casual” relationship. He described their relationship as “a friendship with a little more.”Mr. Stringer said that they had remained on good terms and that she had donated to his campaign multiple times, but he said that things soured after Ms. Kim was not offered a job on his 2013 run for comptroller. The campaign accused her of working for the front-runner in the race for mayor, Andrew Yang, which Ms. Kim denies.Ms. Wiley said last week that Mr. Stringer was “running a smear campaign.” She has called on Mr. Stringer to drop out of the mayor’s race.Despite his significant remaining support, it’s still unclear if Mr. Stringer will be able to fully recover, said Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist.“A week ago people presumed that Stringer was finished,” Mr. Gyory said. “A week later he’s back on his feet.”New York City voters, he noted, “like someone who can take a punch and get up.” More

Brian Sicknick, a Capitol police officer injured while confronting rioters during the 6 January insurrection, suffered a stroke and died of natural causes, the Washington DC medical examiner’s office ruled Monday, a finding that lessens the chances that anyone will be charged in his death.Investigators initially believed the officer had been hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, based on statements collected early in the investigation, according to two people familiar with the case. And they later thought the 42-year-old Sicknick might have ingested a chemical substance – possibly bear spray – that could have contributed to his death.But the determination of a natural cause of death means the medical examiner found that a medical condition alone caused his death – it was not brought on by an injury. The determination is likely to significantly inhibit the ability of federal prosecutors to bring homicide charges in Sicknick’s death.US Capitol police said that the agency accepted the medical examiner’s findings but that the ruling didn’t change the fact that Sicknick had died in the line of duty, “courageously defending Congress and the Capitol”.“The attack on our officers, including Brian, was an attack on our democracy,” police officials said in a statement. “The United States Capitol Police will never forget Officer Sicknick’s bravery, nor the bravery of any officer on January 6, who risked their lives to defend our democracy.”Federal prosecutors have charged two men with using bear spray on Sicknick during the riot. The arrests of George Tanios, 39, of Morgantown, West Virginia, and Julian Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania, were the closest federal prosecutors have come to identifying and charging anyone associated with the five deaths that happened during and after the riot.Lawyers for the two men had no immediate comment Monday.Sicknick died after defending the Capitol against the mob that stormed the building as Congress was voting to certify Joe Biden’s electoral win over Donald Trump. It came after Trump urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.Sicknick was standing guard with other officers behind metal bicycle racks as the mob descended on the Capitol.“Give me that bear shit,” Khater said before he reached into Tanios’ backpack, according to court papers. Tanios told Khater “not yet” because it was “still early”, but Khater responded that “they just fucking sprayed me”. Khater was then seen holding a can of chemical spray, prosecutors say.As the rioters began pulling on one of the racks, Khater was seen with his arm in the air and the canister in his hand while standing just 5ft to 8ft from the officers, authorities said.In February, Sicknick became only the fifth person in history to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, a designation for those who are not elected officials, judges or military leaders. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. More

new video loaded: Trudeau at a Loss for Words Over Question on Trump and Protests transcript Back bars 0:00/1:30 –1:30 transcript Trudeau at a Loss for Words Over Question on Trump and Protests After a reporter asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada about President Trump’s handling of the protests, he paused for several seconds […] More