Aurelia Butler

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    Why Does America Have Presidential Term Limits?

    Congress passed the 22nd Amendment in 1947, creating a two-term limit for American presidents as a check the power of America’s chief executive. But President Trump has not ruled out seeking a third term in office even though the Constitution does not allow it. Here’s what to know about presidential term limits and why they exist.Here’s what you need to know:Has the U.S. always had term limits?Did any presidents try to break with tradition?Have any presidents won a third term?Do other countries have term limits?Has the U.S. always had term limits?Until Congress passed the 22nd Amendment, presidents had largely recognized the precedent established by the nation’s first president, George Washington. In 1796, he declined to seek a third term in office, citing the importance of peaceful transfers of power and the potential for presidential tyranny. Washington’s decision was seen at the time as a guard against the dangers of autocracy, from which the young republic had recently sought to freed itself by declaring independence from the British Empire in 1776.Did any presidents try to break with tradition?Washington’s two-term precedent didn’t stop some of his successors from trying for a third. After serving two consecutive presidential terms, from 1901 to 1909, Theodore Roosevelt returned to the campaign trail in 1912 as a third-party candidate seeking a third term. He was unsuccessful. Before that, Ulysses S. Grant, the former Civil War general, had sought a third term in 1880, but his party declined to give him the nomination.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

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    Trump’s Tariff Agenda Bets on Americans Giving Up Cheap Goods

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argues that the American dream is about more than cheap televisions, but inflation-weary consumers might disagree.President Trump’s sweeping tariffs are expected to raise the cost of cars, electronics, metals, lumber, pharmaceuticals and other products that American consumers and businesses buy from overseas.But Mr. Trump and his advisers are betting that it can sell an inflation-weary public on a provocative idea: Cheap stuff is not the American dream.“I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars,” Mr. Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press show on Sunday in response to fears of foreign car prices spiking.The notion that there is more to life than low-cost imports is an acknowledgment that tariffs could impose additional costs on Americans. It is also a pitch that the burden will be worth it. Mr. Trump’s ability to convince consumers that it is acceptable to pay more to support domestic manufacturing and adhere to his “America First” agenda could determine whether the president’s second term is a success or a calamity.But it is not an easy sell. The onslaught of tariffs has roiled markets and dampened consumer confidence. Auto tariffs that go into effect on Thursday will add a 25 percent tax on imports of cars and car parts, likely upending pricing in the sector. Mr. Trump has already imposed tariffs of 20 percent on Chinese goods and more are expected later this week, when the president announces his “reciprocal” tariffs on major trading partners, including those in Asia and Europe.In confronting anxiety over the trade uncertainty, Mr. Trump and his top economic aides have resorted to asking Americans to think about the bigger picture. They espouse the view that Mr. Trump’s trade wars are necessary to correct decades of economic injustice and that paying a bit more should be a matter of national pride.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

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    Liz Moore on ‘Long Bright River’ and the Slow Burn of Success

    Suddenly Liz Moore blazed, comet-like, onto small screens and best-seller lists. But her writing career has been a slow burn.No matter how you slice it, Liz Moore has arrived.This month, an adaptation of her blockbuster novel “Long Bright River” started streaming on Peacock. And her next book, “The God of the Woods,” now on the best-seller list for 36 weeks (and counting), will soon hit the million mark in sales — a distinction normally reserved for celebrities and novelists recognizable by last name alone.Moore isn’t one of those authors. But, over the past two decades, she’s proved to be “a writer who can do anything,” as her editor Sarah McGrath put it.Moore taps into an elusive sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction, populating vividly drawn settings with characters who seem to live, breathe and make terrible mistakes along with the rest of us. Her novels can be enjoyed by, say, a teenage girl and her 50-something father, defying genre and categorization to such an extent that, from one to the next, a reader might not register that they’re written by the same person.“I get messages saying, I loved your new book. Do you have any others?” Moore, 41, said during an interview at a cafe in Philadelphia. “Or they’ll call ‘The God of the Woods’ my second book because ‘Long Bright River’ was my first that broke out.”In fact, “The God of the Woods,” a mystery about siblings who disappear 14 years apart, is Moore’s fifth book. She wrote her first, “The Words of Every Song,” while she was a student at Barnard College. Shortly after she graduated in 2005, she signed on with an agent who’d come to campus for a panel on the publishing industry.“I reached out and said, ‘I have this manuscript of interconnected stories about the music industry. Would you be interested in looking at it?’ She said yes,” Moore recalled. “Only in retrospect do I realize what a lucky break that was.”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

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    Stocks Sink as Trump’s Tariff Threats Weigh on Confidence

    Stocks in Japan tumbled nearly 4 percent as investors braced for a week of market turmoil caused by an expected announcement of more tariffs.Stocks in Asia tumbled Monday as investors braced for a week of market tumult caused by an expected announcement of more tariffs by President Trump on America’s biggest trading partners.Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell nearly 4 percent in early trading. Stocks in South Korea and Taiwan were down more than 2 percent.Stocks in Hong Kong and mainland China were mostly unchanged, bolstered by a report signaling that China’s export-led industrial sector continues to expand despite Mr. Trump’s initial tariffs.Futures on the S&P 500, which allow investors to trade the benchmark index before exchanges reopen in New York in the morning, slumped 0.5 percent on Sunday evening. On Friday, the S&P 500 dropped 2 percent on concerns about inflation and weak consumer sentiment.Since taking office a little over two months ago, Mr. Trump has kept investors and companies guessing with his haphazard rollout of what he calls an “America First” trade policy.In some cases, Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs to make imports more expensive in industries like automobiles, arguing that the trade barriers will spur investment and innovation in the United States. He has also used tariffs, and their threat, to try to extract geopolitical concessions from countries. He has further unnerved investors by saying he does not care about the fallout of his actions on markets or American consumers, who will have to pay more for many goods if import prices rise.Over the weekend, Mr. Trump ramped up the pressure, threatening so-called secondary sanctions on Russia if it does not engage in talks to bring about a cessation of fighting in Ukraine. The tactic echoes similar sanctions concerning Venezuela. He said last week that any country buying Venezuelan oil could face another 25 percent tariff on its imports to the United States. The threats over the weekend add to tariffs of 25 percent on imported cars and some car parts set to be implemented this week, barring any last minute reprieve. That’s in addition to previously delayed tariffs on Mexico and Canada, as well as the potential for further retaliatory tariffs on other countries.Adding to investors’ angst is the scheduled release on Friday of the monthly report on the health of the U.S. jobs market. It could provide another reading of how the Trump administration’s policy pursuits are weighing on the economy.Keith Bradsher More

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    Elon Musk Says ‘Destiny of Humanity’ Rests on Wisconsin Judicial Race

    Elon Musk framed Tuesday’s election for Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court in nothing less than apocalyptic terms, telling a crowd on Sunday night in Green Bay that the vote could ultimately swing control of Congress — meaning it could effectively “affect the entire destiny of humanity.”Mr. Musk revels in provocative, inflammatory rhetoric. But his remarks — and the visit itself, 36 hours before polls open for Election Day — reflected his extraordinary push to bolster Judge Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate for the State Supreme Court. The election, he said, is not “some kind of judicial thing that is not that important.”“What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives. That is why it is so significant,” Mr. Musk said, referring to the key role that judges could play in congressional redistricting. “And whichever party controls the House to a significant degree controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization. I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.”The billionaire Mr. Musk, a close adviser to President Trump, dispensed two giant $1 million checks onstage to Wisconsin voters, following through with a well-worn gimmick despite an unsuccessful, last-minute lawsuit from Democrats that tried to put a stop to it.Mr. Musk and allied groups have spent over $20 million to help the conservative candidate, and he said on Sunday that he considered Judge Schimel an underdog. “We’ve got to pull a rabbit out of the hat — next level. We actually have to have a steady stream of rabbits out of the hat, like it’s an arc of rabbits flying through the air, and then landing in a voting booth.”Mr. Musk took the stage wearing his own headgear — a cheesehead hat popular with Packers fans, before signing it and tossing it into the crowd. More

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    ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 7: Lovers and Fighters

    “The White Lotus” tells us only enough about the characters’ pasts to explain some of the choices they make. Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn’t.Season 3, Episode 7: ‘Killer Instincts’One unusual quality of “The White Lotus” is that the show’s creator, Mike White, keeps his characters’ back stories to a minimum. He mainly traffics in types: the swaggering North Carolina money-manager, the vain celebrity, and so on.White tells us only enough about their pasts to explain some of the choices they make. We know a lot about Rick’s past, because his tragic childhood led directly to every move he has made this season. But we know very little about the Ratliff kids beyond the personas they project: the cocky older brother, the rebellious lefty sister and whatever the heck Lochlan is supposed to be. As for what made them this way? We can use our imaginations to shade in the finer details.Most of the time, this approach works well enough. There is a wonderfully wry comic moment in this week’s episode, when Piper gets embarrassed while watching Lochlan struggle awkwardly with his monastery dinner. We know just enough about her to guess what she is thinking. She suddenly seems a lot like her mother, concerned less with her brother’s feelings than with how his clumsiness reflects on her. (See also: Piper’s mildly dismayed expression when Lochlan says he wants to spend the year in Thailand with her.)On the other hand, Saxon’s overall blankness becomes a problem in this episode, leading to one of the season’s clumsiest scenes. The moment occurs at Gary’s party, when Saxon watches his father swill down yet another large glass of whiskey. He asks Tim again if something is wrong back at the office, reminding him that, “My career is totally tied to yours.” Saxon has no interests, no hobbies. “I put my whole life into this basket,” he says. “Into your basket.”Given what we have seen of Saxon this season, I am not sure he is the kind of guy who would give such a self-aware speech, saying things like, “If I’m not a success, I’m nothing, and I can’t handle being nothing.” (I can, however, believe that Tim would answer his son’s very real concerns with a mumbled, “Nothing’s up, kid. We’re all good. It’s a party, get out there.”)It’s a tricky balancing act for White, trying to show more than he tells and letting the audience make assumptions. I thought about this also this week during the Bangkok scenes with Rick and Frank. I figured these two were seasoned old pros, skilled at running cons, and that they would know what they were doing when they met up with Sritala and her ailing husband, Jim (Scott Glenn), at the Hollingers’ house. Instead, Rick and Frank are surprisingly — and ridiculously — unprepared. They try to get by on improvisation; Frank in particular is really bad at it.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

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    Trump Says He ‘Couldn’t Care Less’ if Auto Tariffs Raise Car Prices in the U.S.

    President Trump has said that “tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented.” For someone who once called himself a “tariff man,” tariffs are the solutions to many economic problems.He has argued that imposing tariffs would protect American factories, spur manufacturing, create new jobs and bend uncooperative governments to his will. Since his inauguration, while imposing and then suspending and then imposing tariffs again, Mr. Trump has upended the global trading system.But over that time Mr. Trump has also begun conceding that tariffs could cause financial discomfort for Americans. That possibility came up in stark terms in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” from Saturday, when Mr. Trump said that he “couldn’t care less” about the prospect of higher car prices.The president repeated the sentiment twice when asked about the 25 percent tariffs on imported cars and auto parts that he has promised will go into effect on Thursday. He told the NBC News host Kristen Welker that the tariffs were permanent, and that he would encourage auto companies and their suppliers to move to the United States.In one exchange, Ms. Welker asked Mr. Trump if he was at all concerned with the effect of tariffs on car prices, which experts have said could go up by thousands of dollars. “No, I couldn’t care less,” he said, “because if the prices on foreign cars go up, they’re going to buy American cars.”After the interview, an aide to the president told NBC that Mr. Trump was referring to the increase in foreign car prices.While the White House sought to emphasize foreign-made vehicles, the tariffs will affect American companies like Ford Motor and General Motors, which build many of their vehicles in Canada and Mexico. Nearly half of the vehicles sold in the United States are imported, according to S&P Global Mobility data, and almost 60 percent of auto parts in cars assembled in the country.A study by the Yale Budget Lab, a nonpartisan research center, forecast that tariffs would cause vehicle prices to increase by an average of 13.5 percent — an additional $6,400 to the price of an average new 2024 car.On Sunday, Shawn Fain, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, said that the tariffs were indeed a “motivator” for carmakers to bring jobs back to the United States. But, he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” they were not an “end-all solution” to help American auto workers. If jobs are being brought back to the United States, Mr. Fain said, they need to be “good paying union jobs that set standards.”Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser to Mr. Trump, defended the tariffs and said they would raise about $100 billion, which would translate to tax credits for people who buy American cars. He, too, told Americans not to worry about the effects of the tariffs.Instead, he said on Sunday, they should “trust in Trump.” More

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    Fire at New Mexico Republican Party Headquarters Being Investigated as Arson

    The headquarters of the Republican Party of New Mexico in Albuquerque was damaged early Sunday morning in what the party described as a “deliberate act of arson.”Albuquerque Fire Rescue confirmed that it had been dispatched to the party’s headquarters just before 6 a.m. for a report of a structure fire, which was brought under control within five minutes. No injuries to civilians or firefighters were reported.The fire burned the entryway of the headquarters and left smoke damage throughout the building, Lt. Jason Fejer, a spokesman for the fire department, said on Sunday.He confirmed that the department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives were investigating the fire as an act of arson.A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. confirmed that it was investigating but said she could not provide further details because the investigation was ongoing. The A.T.F. did not immediately respond to requests for information on Sunday.The Albuquerque Police Department confirmed that the federal authorities were investigating but did not provide any further information, including whether arrests had been made.In a statement, the Republican Party of New Mexico said the fire was “not an isolated incident” and was accompanied by the spray-painted letters “ICE=KKK.”In recent months, ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has deployed agents across the country to carry out what the Trump administration has characterized as a new and more aggressive effort to target illegal immigration and deliver on a key campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations.The Democratic Party of New Mexico said on Sunday that it condemned “any vandalism at the Republican Party of New Mexico headquarters as strongly as possible.”The Republican Party of New Mexico said the fire was accompanied by the spray-painted letters “ICE=KKK.”Republican Party of New Mexico“We firmly maintain that this sort of act has absolutely no place in our democracy, and that peaceful discourse and organization are the only ways to approach political differences in our country,” the state Democratic Party added. “We hope whoever is responsible is found and held accountable.”Amy Barela, the chairwoman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, said on Sunday that the alarm system at the party’s headquarters had gone off around 1 a.m., about four hours before the fire started.There had been a separate bomb threat and other acts of vandalism at the headquarters in recent years, she said.A former Republican candidate for the New Mexico House of Representatives this month was found guilty of hiring people to shoot at the homes of Democratic officials in Albuquerque in 2022 and 2023.“We completely condemn violence,” Ms. Barela said. “It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from.”The party was “deeply relieved that no one was harmed in what could have been a tragic and deadly attack,” she said. More