Elections

Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. A recent CNN poll shows that 20 percent of Democrats favor Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for the party’s nomination, 8 percent want Marianne Williamson and another 8 percent want someone else. That’s 36 percent saying they aren’t thrilled with the presumptive nominee. Do you think this is some kind of polling fluke or an ominous political sign for Joe Biden?Gail Collins: Bret, it’s more than a year until the presidential conventions. All the Democrats know that Joe Biden is going to be their nominee. Some, like me, think he’s been doing a terrific job. Others find him pretty boring.Bret: Or “walking the trail of so-so,” as my youngest likes to say.Gail: I am absolutely sure that a lot of the people raising their hands for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson have no idea who either of them actually is. Obviously, they recognize the Kennedy name, but I’ll bet most don’t know about his new career as an anti-vaxxer.Do you disagree?Bret: I do. Neither of them is an unknown quantity. R.F.K. Jr. has been a public figure for decades, and there are plenty of dark corners of America where his anti-vax views and penchant for conspiracy theories resonate. Williamson touched a nerve — or summoned a spirit — as the “dark psychic force” lady from the last Democratic primary.Gail: By the fall, Democrats may be bored enough to want a conversation about dark psychic forces, but I think we deserve a summer break.Bret: Only 60 percent of Democrats say they support Biden. By contrast, well over 86 percent of Republicans supported Donald Trump in June of 2019, according to an earlier CNN poll. And the RealClearPolitics average of polls gives both Trump and Ron DeSantis an edge over the president, which is bad now when the economy is relatively strong but will be politically catastrophic for him if the economy dips into recession. Democrats are placing a very big bet on a stumbling incumbent; that sound you hear is me paging Roy Cooper, Jared Polis and Gretchen Whitmer.Gail: Sigh. Bret, we both agreed long ago that we hoped Biden wouldn’t run for another term, leaving the door open for all the interesting Democratic prospects to get in the race.But it didn’t happen and it isn’t going to happen. And we’re stuck with a choice between Joe Biden and a bunch of terrible Republicans.Bret: I’m still not convinced that that’s the choice we are — or need to be — stuck with: Lyndon Johnson didn’t drop out of the race until March 1968. Where is Eugene McCarthy when you need him?Gail: Biden’s doing very well — got a bunch of big initiatives passed this term, worked out a budget deal last week.Bret: Gail, who do you think gained — or suffered — the most, politically speaking, from the budget deal, Biden or Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker?Gail: Well. Biden is really having a stellar run. McCarthy was in serious danger of being tossed out of his job by members of his own party. So at least in terms of averting personal disaster, McCarthy had a pretty big win.Bret: True, and he managed to bring most of his caucus along with him. Then again, most of the “savings” McCarthy claims to have achieved with the deal achieved were basically notional.Gail: In terms of overall results, the Democrats did best. Even though I am very, very irritated about the cut in funding to the I.R.S.Bret, doesn’t it bother you that the Republicans just don’t want the tax collectors to have enough money to do their jobs?Bret: The best solution for the I.R.S. would be something like a universal 18 percent income tax for everyone, calculable on a single sheet of paper, with zero deductions or exemptions. Throwing money at the agency will do more to compound its problems than solve them.Gail: Interesting theory that’s not gonna happen. Right now, when you have folks at an agency that’s long been underfunded, trying to ride herd on businesses and wealthy individuals who have ever-more-complicated strategies for thwarting them, I don’t think the answer is to sniff and say, “Try harder.” The only thing we can be sure that the I.R.S. cut will give us is lower federal revenue from people who like avoiding taxes.Bret: Which sorta makes my point for a simplified tax code, not another $80 billion for the agency.In the meantime, Gail, the Trump-DeSantis battle of the put-downs is heating up. And Chris Christie may be getting in the race. Your thoughts on the G.O.P.’s Palio di Siena?Gail: Palio di Siena is an Italian horse race that’s known for being very crowded and very colorful, right?Bret: Also, loud, insane, scary and deadly for horses. Though maybe the better analogy for the way the Republican primary campaign is shaping up is Pamplona’s running of the bulls.Gail: Well, the Republican field is definitely getting … bigger. Colorful may take a little more work. (This week it looks like we will also be welcoming Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota to the field!)Bret: I’m probably going to destroy my credibility right now by confessing that I neither knew of the announcement nor the man until you just mentioned him. Sorry, Bismarck!Gail: I say, the more the merrier. Chris Christie would be a fine addition when it comes to making things more interesting, and I’d really love to hear him in a debate with, say, DeSantis. On the down side, he has about as much chance of winning the nomination as I would of winning that Siena horse race.Bret: Hehe.Gail: You’re in charge of the Republicans here — give me a rundown of where we are.Bret: Well, to your point about “the more the merrier,” my fear is that as more Republicans jump into the race, it just makes it easier for Trump to clear the field.On the other hand, I think that Christie has a very clear idea of what he wants to do in the race: namely, to be a torpedo aimed straight at the S.S. Trump — maybe as a form of penance for his endorsement of Trump seven years ago. Christie helped sink Marco Rubio’s candidacy at the New Hampshire debate in 2016 and he wants to do the same to The Donald in this election cycle. The former New Jersey governor is a gifted speaker, so I can only hope he succeeds.Gail: Blessings to you, Chris Christie. Unless that means pushing DeSantis permanently to the top. I know it’s weird but I’ve admitted to you I’d actually prefer Trump if that awful option is the choice.Bret: We’ve argued about this before. I can only refer you to a point made by Frank Bruni in his terrific column on this point: “I’d be distraught during a DeSantis presidency and depressed during a Pence one. But at least I might recognize the America on the far side of it.”Gail: Frank is of course great. Now about the current field — you’d like Chris Christie as a debater, but how about as an actual nominee. Your favorite of the week?Bret: Christie is everything a Democrat could reasonably want in a Republican: gregarious, pragmatic, competent, highly intelligent, capable of reaching across the aisle and most definitely not a hater. I doubt he has any kind of realistic shot at the nomination, but I also know that he’s too much of a realist to think he has a realistic shot, either. His job is to demolish Trump so that Republicans can finally get past the former president. My guess is he’d like the job of attorney general in a DeSantis administration.Enough about Republicans, Gail. What else is tickling your mind these days?Gail: Don’t suppose you want to talk about basketball playoffs, huh?Bret: Shame about the Celtics.Gail: Sigh. Well, I’ve been interested in watching the evolution of the abortion debate — even DeSantis seems to be a little wary about waving his dreadful six-week ban around.Bret: Too little too late, but yes: Even he seems to realize that the ban doesn’t go over too well with a lot of people who might lean Republican, including otherwise conservative women. The most I can say about it is that it’s very on brand for the Florida governor: abrasive, abusive and arrogant.Gail: Hey, we really can’t get away from the Republicans, can we? And the Democrats keep disappearing. Bret, did anybody besides the immediate Biden family notice that the president gave a speech to the nation on the budget deal?Bret: In 100 years, historians might be calling this the Rodney Dangerfield presidency: “I don’t get no respect!” But, honestly, I find it a little painful to watch Biden speak and I suspect a lot of people feel the same way.Gail: Painful like listening to a favorite uncle put the guests to sleep at Thanksgiving. Which is not like listening to a dreadful first cousin once removed terrify all the other relatives with a rant about family members he hates.Bret: Fair point!Gail: Bret, since we’re closing on the topic of unfortunate speeches, let me cheer you up by mentioning a really fine one. This is the part of our conversation when you usually wrap things up by describing something you’ve just read that you want to recommend. But today I get to do the finale — ha-ha — and my choice is your address to the graduates at the University of Chicago about freedom of expression. It was terrific.And the focus on civilized disagreement reminded me of how lucky I am to get to have a discussion like this with you every week.Bret: I feel just the same way. It was good to have a chance to go back to my alma mater and pay tribute to Robert Zimmer, its former president, who died last month — a role model as a leader, thinker, friend and man.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

The former South Carolina governor, who also served as United Nations ambassador under Donald Trump, emphasized her experience and vision. Will it be enough for her to stand out?Nikki Haley, who was the first prominent Republican to announce a challenge to former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 race, has yet to see her presidential campaign catch fire. On Sunday night, she had a fresh opportunity to make the case for her candidacy during a 90-minute CNN town hall in prime time, in an effort to emerge from the low single digits in polls where she has been mired.Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump, was well versed on policy issues, consistently upbeat and evenly tempered. Although she drew contrasts with Mr. Trump, she dodged opportunities to make him — or even President Biden — into a political punching bag.At the end of the night, an audience member praised her demeanor as “a breath of fresh air,” earning applause from the house full of Iowa Republicans. But that also meant that there were few shoot-out-the-lights moments that could win Ms. Haley headlines and a new look from primary voters, who now face a growing field of Republicans who are in — or soon to enter — the race.On policies both foreign (like Ukraine) and domestic (such as Social Security), Ms. Haley’s positions were a throwback to typical Republican Party stances before its populist takeover by Mr. Trump. Her reasoned manner was also an anomaly in a race where Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida compete with displays of dominance. Both factors have made Ms. Haley, the only woman in the Republican race, an also-ran so far.Here are some takeaways from the event on Sunday night.“I think it’s important to be honest with the American people,” Nikki Haley said on Sunday night.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIt was very different from the Trump town hall.Compared with CNN’s explosive, much-criticized town-hall-style event with Mr. Trump last month, this one was a throwback to earlier, less combative times. There was no audience jeers whipped up from the stage and no forceful interrogation of the candidate. Jake Tapper, the anchor who moderated, asked Ms. Haley follow-up questions and added occasional clarifications to her statements, but he did not veer into fact-checking.Trump and DeSantis continue to be the focus.The two big red elephants in the room, Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, were mostly mentioned indirectly, but those two Republican presidential contenders were present nonetheless. Ms. Haley repeated her position that in order to save Social Security and Medicare, it would be necessary to raise the retirement age for young workers and to limit benefits for the wealthy. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, who once supported similar changes, now say they won’t touch the programs.“I think it’s important to be honest with the American people,” Ms. Haley said. “We are in this situation. Don’t lie to them and say, ‘Oh, we don’t have to deal with entitlement reform.’ Yes, we do.”Ms. Haley also criticized Mr. DeSantis for his attacks on Disney as a “woke” company. She had no beef with the Florida governor’s criticism of Disney’s opposition to what critics call his “Don’t Say Gay” law, and even said she would have gone further than that law to prevent talk of gender and sexuality in schools. But she called Mr. DeSantis “hypocritical” for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions from Disney before turning on the company, and for using taxpayer dollars to sue it. “Pick up the phone deal with it,” she said. “Settle it the way you should, and I just think he’s being hypocritical.”Haley sought to find the sweet spot for Republicans on social issues.On social issues including abortion, gun restrictions and transgender rights, which animate much of the Republican voting base, Ms. Haley toed a conservative line. She defended, for example, leading the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord while at the United Nations. (President Biden rejoined the accord in 2021.) But she displayed less of the punitive rhetoric on the issues that Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have made crucial to their messages.Ms. Haley deflected on whether she supported a federal six-week abortion ban such as the one her home state of South Carolina recently passed. Any national restrictions, she said, would require 60 senators to approve, which she said was so remote that the question barely merited consideration.In the most stirring moment of the night, Ms. Haley described persuading reluctant Republican lawmakers in South Carolina to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol after the massacre by a white supremacist of Black worshipers at the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston in 2015.She agreed with barring transgender girls from school sports and even seemed to suggest that allowing “biological boys” in girls’ locker rooms was connected with the high rate of teenage girls who have considered suicide.At the same time, she acknowledged that “we do need to be humane” about transgender children. In South Carolina schools when she was governor, Ms. Haley said, principals made private bathroom accommodations for them. “They were safe, and the majority of the student body didn’t even have to deal with it,” she said.Haley made a strong contrast with Trump and DeSantis on foreign policy.Ms. Haley also carved out differences with Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis on foreign policy issues, as she has in the past. The former U.N. ambassador disputed Mr. DeSantis, who has called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute” — a characterization he has since walked back — and she dismissed Mr. Trump’s refusal to say whether Ukraine should win the war.She said both positions represented a naïve trust in Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. “If Ukraine pulls out,” Ms. Haley said, “then we’re all looking at a world war.”Asked by Mr. Tapper about Mr. Trump’s congratulating North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, for recently ascending to a leadership role in the World Health Organization, Ms. Haley called Mr. Kim, whose flattering letters Mr. Trump once praised, a “thug.”“There is no reason we should ever congratulate the fact that they are now vice chair of the World Health Organization,” Ms. Haley said. More

Chris Christie, Mike Pence and Doug Burgum are set to announce their presidential campaigns this week, the latest entrants in a rapidly growing Republican primary.The growing field of Republicans running for president is set to expand by three this week, with the entry of former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Vice President Mike Pence and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota. The field continues to expand in part because hopefuls see opportunity in the struggle of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to become the undisputed challenger to former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. DeSantis trails Mr. Trump by about 30 points in national polls of Republican voters. No one else is within hailing distance, but with one in four Republicans still looking for an alternative to the two front-runners, a fierce competition to be that other option is emerging.All three of the latest entrants have to be considered long shots, at least for now.But each will get a momentary burst of attention when declaring his candidacy, with the hope that from small sparks a brush fire will spread.Chris ChristieWhen: Tuesday, June 6Where: A town-hall-style event at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics outside Manchester.The strategy: Mr. Christie, who dropped out of the 2016 primary early and became a supporter of Mr. Trump’s, has cast himself as the former president’s harshest critic in the Republican field. He says Mr. Trump is unfit to serve after inciting the attack on the Capitol. Mr. Christie’s team recently said that he would run a campaign focused on “mixing it up in the news cycle and engaging Trump.”But being an outspoken Trump critic has so far paid little dividends. Among 10 declared or potential 2024 candidates tested in a Monmouth poll last week, Mr. Christie was viewed the most negatively by Republican voters (21 percent viewed him favorably and 47 percent unfavorably). His strategy is to make it onto a debate stage, where his trademark pugilism, he has promised, will be aimed at Mr. Trump.Mr. Christie is likely to campaign heavily in New Hampshire, where a large number of independents are expected to vote in the primary next year, offering Mr. Christie his best opportunity to damage Mr. Trump.Mike PenceWhen: Wednesday, June 7Where: A rally with voters in Des Moines, followed by a CNN town hall at 9 p.m. Eastern.The strategy: The former vice president brought credibility with social conservatives to the 2016 ticket, but his star faded with the party base after he refused to comply with Mr. Trump’s efforts to block President Biden’s victory. As an evangelical Christian and former Indiana governor, Mr. Pence is a natural fit with Iowa conservatives, and he is likely to focus much of his campaigning there in the hope of a strong showing in the first nominating contest next year. His campaign intends to reintroduce him to voters as his own man, not just Mr. Trump’s No. 2.But Mr. Pence, who espouses traditional Regeanesque views on economic and foreign policy — he supports aid to Ukraine — finds himself at odds with the current populist thrust of the party. In the Monmouth poll, he had the second highest unfavorable number (35 percent, versus 46 percent favorable). When Sean Hannity of Fox News mentioned at a town hall with Mr. Trump on Thursday that Mr. Pence would soon join the race, there were boos.Doug BurgumWhen: Wednesday, June 7Where: Fargo, N.D.The strategy: North Dakota’s governor, who is little-known outside his home state, made a large fortune in computer software, and is in a position to self-fund his longer-than-long-shot campaign. He has said he believes that 60 percent of American voters constitute a “silent majority” that feels ignored by intense ideological debates that dominate politics. “There’s definitely a yearning for some alternatives right now,’’ Mr. Burgum told a Fargo news site.Energy policy is central to his message: As governor, Mr. Burgum set a goal of reaching carbon neutrality in North Dakota by 2030. He aimed to do so not by diminishing dependence on fossil fuels, a key part of the state’s economy, but by accelerating technology to capture carbon emissions in the ground.The governor is low-key and notably not aligned with Trump-style populism. That means that, in addition to being little known, he will be paddling against the current in today’s Republican rapids. More

Break out those party pants: Donald Trump wants to throw America a birthday bash for the ages!As Republican presidential hopefuls pile onto the primary field, Mr. Trump is looking for ways to play up and lock in his front-runner status. Last week, in a video posted on Truth Social, he rolled out his latest Big Idea: a yearlong, nationwide celebration marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.In keeping with his more-is-more aesthetic, the former president wants to host a “most spectacular” affair to “give America’s founding in 1776 the incredible anniversary it truly deserves.” The festivities would run from Memorial Day 2025 through July 4, 2026, and include a variety of red-white-and-blue delights, such as bringing together high school athletes from across the nation to compete in the Patriot Games and reviving plans for a statuary park honoring “the greatest Americans of all time.”More ambitious still: Mr. Trump would order up a yearlong Great American State Fair, with pavilions showcasing each of the 50 states — ideally at “the legendary Iowa state fairgrounds,” to which he would invite “millions and millions of visitors from around the world.”“We will build it,” he promised, “and they will come.”Message to voters: Give me four more years, and we will have ourselves some fun and rake in piles of cash from foreigners!Related message to Iowa voters: How’s that for a flagrant suck-up?Kudos to whoever in Trumpworld cooked up this rare gem. I mean, can anyone imagine Ron DeSantis proffering such a wild rumpus? Nikki Haley? Mike Pence? (Is that guy even allowed to go to parties?) Please. These low-energy losers wouldn’t know how to throw a birthday blowout if their poll numbers depended on it.Seriously, though, as campaign gimmicks go, Mr. Trump’s proposed Salute to America 250, as he plans to name the related task force, is exquisitely on brand: an intoxicating blend of nostalgia, spectacle and performative patriotism — with lots of sharp edges, of course. Even as Mr. Trump hawks the project as an opportunity for national uplift, he has woven in themes and language seemingly designed to provoke discord. If it’s less apocalyptic than his “American carnage” spiel, the plan is no less about the vibe politics at the heart of his cultlike appeal — and it tells us plenty about how his campaign is shaping up this time around.It is a sad commentary on our political climate that something as potentially unifying as a national birthday party comes loaded with divisive cultural baggage. But here we are. Yes, 1776 is a big date in American history. But in the Trump era, it also became a culture-war rallying point, a shorthand for one’s commitment to traditional values and hostility to anything conservatives deem woke.Just before the 2020 election, Mr. Trump formed a 1776 Commission to promote “patriotic education.” This move was in part a reaction to The Times’s 1619 Project, which took a hard look at the nation’s past through the lens of slavery and systemic racism. Mr. Trump pitched the commission as a way to combat the “twisted web of lies” being taught to schoolchildren by America-hating radicals — a way to help “patriotic moms and dads” fight back against this “child abuse.”Similarly, under different circumstances, a high-school sporting competition could be a lovely way to recognize a cross-section of America’s youth. But in the current moment, with culture warriors in a dither over traditional manhood and strength — not to mention the right’s freak-out over trans athletes — Mr. Trump’s Hunger/Patriot Games vision seems more than a little fraught. The whole thing has a retro, survival-of-the-fittest, vaguely gladiatorial feel, with the MAGA king sorting boys from girls and winners from losers and generally passing judgment on what constitutes valor and vigor.Then there’s Mr. Trump’s push to resurrect his National Garden of American Heroes. (In 2020 he signed an executive order for such a statuary park — expressly aimed at answering the “dangerous anti-American extremism” seeking to “dismantle our country’s history, institutions and very identity” — only to have it canceled by President Biden.) Such a monument initially sounds harmless, if ridiculously overbroad — until you start thinking about the bloody brawls that would inevitably ensue over which Americans deserved to be included, which excluded and who exactly would make those decisions.With Mr. Trump as the guiding spirit, any 1776 tribute seems destined to descend into a culture-war cage match. Think Thunderdome but less civilized.The particulars aside, this proposal is precisely the kind of bread-and-circuses distractions that Mr. Trump will need to lean on in this race — in part because of his feeble record of concrete accomplishments. During his stunner of a 2016 run, Mr. Trump was an unknown political quantity who tossed around all kinds of bold policy promises. He was going to repeal and replace Obamacare, restore America to manufacturing greatness, drain the swamp, tame the debt, build a wall! There was going to be so much winning, he vowed, that voters would get sick of it.So much for all that.Going forward, MAGA die-hards may not give a fig about all the policy wins Mr. Trump failed to deliver during his presidency, much less all the toxic insanity he overdelivered. But plenty of independents, swing voters and even moderate Republicans do. And Mr. Trump’s primary opponents are out there working to chip away at his support among the noncultists, in part by invoking these flops.Here’s hoping someone somehow succeeds and manages to short-circuit the former president’s grandiose party planning. As is all too clear by now, any time Mr. Trump is involved, no celebration is ever going to be worth the hangover.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

The country’s largest antigovernment gathering in years sought to reclaim the legacy of the Solidarity movement that led the struggle against a Communist system imposed by Moscow.Hundreds of thousands of people marched through Warsaw on Sunday in a huge display of opposition to the governing party before an October general election, summoning memories of Poland’s rejection of Communist Party rule decades before.The event, organized by the government’s political rivals, sought to deprive Poland’s deeply conservative Law and Justice party of its claims to the legacy of Solidarity, the trade union movement that led the struggle against a Communist system imposed by Moscow after World War II.Supporters and members of opposition parties protested against the conservative Law and Justice party in Poland’s largest antigovernment gathering in years.Kacper Pempel/ReutersLarge protests also took place in Krakow, Szczecin and other big cities controlled by the opposition, which is strong in urban areas but struggles in the countryside.Law and Justice, which regularly smears its foes as Communists and Russian agents, recently pushed legislation through Parliament to establish a commission to investigate Russian influence and bar individuals from public office for up to 10 years if they were found to have succumbed to it.The opposition denounced the move as a ploy to tar politicians critical of the governing party with the taint of Russia and disqualify them from running in October. The United States and the European Union voiced concern about the law, widely known as “Lex Tusk” because one of its targets is expected to be Donald Tusk, the main opposition party leader.In a speech to protesters in Warsaw’s Old Town on Sunday, Mr. Tusk, the leader of Civic Platform, accused Law and Justice of rolling back democracy and turning Poland away from Europe, comparing the coming election to the vote on June 4, 1989 — the country’s first free election since 1945 — which gave a victory to Solidarity and sealed the end of Communist rule.“The slogan of Solidarity was ‘we will not be divided or destroyed,’” Mr. Tusk said, adding that “the great hope” of democracy’s foes past and present “was our hopelessness, their strength was our powerlessness.”Referring to the opening line of the Polish national anthem, he added: “It’s over. Today, all of us in Poland, we all see, we all hear ‘Poland has not perished yet,’ we are going to victory.”Warsaw’s mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, second from left, Donald Tusk of Civic Platform, center, and former President Lech Walesa, right, marching in Warsaw on Sunday.Kacper Pempel/ReutersOther speakers included Lech Walesa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and the Solidarity leader who, after the collapse of communism, became Poland’s first freely elected postwar president, only to be denounced later by Law and Justice as an agent of the Communist-era secret police.Warsaw’s City Hall, which is controlled by political foes of the government, put the turnout at half a million. That was almost certainly an exaggeration but, even accounting for inflated numbers, the march on Sunday appeared to be the biggest antigovernment demonstration since street protests in the 1980s in support of Solidarity.TVP Info, a state-controlled news channel, reported that only 100,000 people had taken part at most and focused its minimal coverage of the march on obscenities voiced by some protesters, a tactic often used by pro-government news outlets to portray critics of Law and Justice as foul-mouthed infidels opposed to the Roman Catholic Church.As huge crowds gathered on Sunday afternoon, TVP Info led its news bulletin with a report on the “National Parade of Farmer’s Housewives’ Circles,” a modestly attended event organized by the Ministry of Agriculture.Law and Justice, in power since 2015, has a big advantage going into this year’s election for Parliament because of its tight control of state television and radio, and its backing by a large battery of nominally independent outlets dependent on state funding. Most opinion polls predict it will win more seats than Civic Platform but will fall short of a majority and could have trouble forming a stable government. More

There was the time last winter when President Biden was awakened at 3 a.m. while on a trip to Asia and told that a missile had struck Poland, touching off a panic that Russia might have expanded the war in Ukraine to a NATO ally. Within hours in the middle of the night, Mr. Biden consulted his top advisers, called the president of Poland and the NATO secretary general, and gathered fellow world leaders to deal with the crisis.And then there was the time a few weeks ago when the president was hosting children for Take Your Child to Work Day and became mixed up as he tried to list his grandchildren. “So, let me see. I got one in New York, two in Philadelphia — or is it three? No, three, because I got one granddaughter who is — I don’t know. You’re confusing me.” He also drew a blank when asked the last country he had visited and the name of a favorite movie.The two Joe Bidens coexist in the same octogenarian president: Sharp and wise at critical moments, the product of decades of seasoning, able to rise to the occasion even in the dead of night to confront a dangerous world. Yet a little slower, a little softer, a little harder of hearing, a little more tentative in his walk, a little more prone to occasional lapses of memory in ways that feel familiar to anyone who has reached their ninth decade or has a parent who has.The complicated reality of America’s oldest president was encapsulated on Thursday as Congress approved a bipartisan deal he brokered to avoid a national default. Even Speaker Kevin McCarthy testified that Mr. Biden had been “very professional, very smart, very tough” during their talks. Yet just before the voting got underway, Mr. Biden tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy commencement, plunging to the ground. The video went viral, his supporters cringed and his critics pounced.Anyone can trip at any age, but for an 80-year-old president, it inevitably raises unwelcome questions. If it were anyone else, the signs of age might not be notable. But Mr. Biden is the chief executive of the world’s most powerful nation and has just embarked on a campaign asking voters to keep him in the White House until age 86, drawing more attention to an issue that polls show troubles most Americans and is the source of enormous anxiety among party leaders.“You say I’m ancient?” Mr. Biden said at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April. “I say I’m wise.”Yuri Gripas for The New York TimesThe portrait that emerges from months of interviews with dozens of current and former officials and others who have spent time with him lies somewhere between the partisan cartoon of an addled and easily manipulated fogy promoted by Republicans and the image spread by his staff of a president in aviator shades commanding the world stage and governing with vigor.It is one of a man who has slowed with age in ways that are more pronounced than just the graying hair common to most recent presidents during their time in office. Mr. Biden sometimes mangles his words and looks older than he used to because of his stiff gait and thinning voice.Yet people who deal with him regularly, including some of his adversaries, say he remains sharp and commanding in private meetings. Diplomats share stories of trips to places like Ukraine, Japan, Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia in which he often outlasts younger colleagues. Democratic lawmakers point to a long list of accomplishments as proof that he still gets the job done.His verbal miscues are nothing new, friends note; he has struggled throughout his life with a stutter and was a “gaffe machine,” to use his own term, long before he entered Social Security years. Advisers said his judgment is as good as ever. So many of them use the phrase “sharp as a tack” to describe him that it has become something of a mantra.Mr. Biden says age is a legitimate issue but maintains that his longevity is an asset, not a liability. “You say I’m ancient?” he said at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April. “I say I’m wise.”Still, few people fail to notice the changes in one of the nation’s most public people. As vice president a dozen years ago, Mr. Biden engaged in energetic squirt gun battles each summer with the children of aides and reporters. More than a decade later, he shuffled stiffly across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., to mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday.Polls indicate the president’s age is a top concern of Americans, including Democrats. During a recent New York Times focus group, several voters who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 expressed worry, with one saying: “I’ve just seen the blank stare at times, when he’s either giving a speech or addressing a crowd. It seems like he loses his train of thought.”Unease about Mr. Biden’s age suffuses Democratic circles. One prominent Wall Street Democrat, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending the White House, noted that among party donors it was all anyone was talking about. At a small dinner earlier this year of former Democratic senators and governors, all of them in Mr. Biden’s generation, everyone at the table agreed he was too old to run again. Local leaders often call the White House to inquire about his health.In private, officials acknowledge that they make what they consider reasonable accommodations not to physically tax an aging president. His staff schedules most of his public appearances between noon and 4 p.m. and leave him alone on weekends as much as possible.A study of Mr. Biden’s schedule based on data compiled by Axios and expanded by The New York Times found that Mr. Biden has a similar morning cadence as the president he served, Barack Obama. Neither had many public events before 10 a.m., just 4 percent in Mr. Obama’s last year in office and 5 percent in Mr. Biden’s first two and a half years. But the real difference came in the evening. Mr. Obama was twice as likely to do public events after 6 p.m. compared with Mr. Biden, 17 percent to 9 percent.Aides limit exposing the president to news media interviews when he could make a politically damaging mistake. He has given just a fourth of the interviews Donald J. Trump did in the same time period and a fifth of Mr. Obama’s interviews — and none at all to reporters from a major newspaper. Mr. Biden has not given an interview to the news department of The Times, unlike every president since at least Franklin D. Roosevelt other than Dwight D. Eisenhower. And in the past 100 years, only Ronald Reagan and Richard M. Nixon have subjected themselves to as few news conferences.White House officials have not made Mr. Biden’s doctor available for questioning, as previous presidents have. In February, Kevin C. O’Connor, the White House physician, issued a five-page letter stating that Mr. Biden is “fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.”But he also wrote that the president’s tendency to walk stiffly is “in fact a result of degenerative (‘wear and tear’)” changes in his spine, and partly the result of “tighter hamstrings and calves.” The letter said there were “no findings which would be consistent with” a neurological disorder like stroke, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease. He takes medicine for atrial fibrillation, cholesterol, heartburn, asthma and allergies.Like many his age, Mr. Biden repeats phrases and retells the same hoary, often fact-challenged stories again and again. He can be quirky; when children visit, he may randomly pull a book of William Butler Yeats off his desk and start reading Irish poetry to them.At the same time, he is trim and fit, exercises five days a week and does not drink. He has at times exhibited striking stamina, such as when he flew to Poland then boarded a nine-hour train ride to make a secret visit to Kyiv, spent hours on the ground, then endured another nine-hour train ride and a flight to Warsaw. A study of his schedule by Mr. Biden’s aides shows that he has traveled slightly more in the first few months of his third year in office than Mr. Obama did in his.Mr. Biden’s trip to Kyiv, in which he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, required a nonstop schedule.Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times“Does he ramble? Yes, he does,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat who categorically rejects the idea that Mr. Biden is too old to be president. “Has he always rambled? Yes, he has. Public and private. He’s the same guy. He’s literally — I’m not saying this lightly. I don’t know anyone else in my life who is so much the same guy privately as he is publicly.”Some friends bristle at the attention to his age. “I think the reason this is an issue is primarily because of the media talking about it constantly,” said former Senator Ted Kaufman, a longtime adviser to Mr. Biden from Delaware. “I do not see anything in my dealings with him that age is a problem. He’s done more than any president has been able to do in my lifetime.”Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, noted that Republican hard-liners were grousing that Mr. Biden had gotten the better of Mr. McCarthy in the fiscal deal. “It’s telling that the same extreme MAGA members of Congress who’ve been talking about his age complained this week that he outsmarted them on the budget agreement,” Mr. Bates said.The question of Mr. Biden’s age does not come in isolation, of course. Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican challenger, is just four years younger and was the oldest president in history until Mr. Biden succeeded him. If Mr. Trump were to win next year, he would be 82 at the end of his term, older than Mr. Biden will be at the end of this one.While in office, Mr. Trump generated concerns about his mental acuity and physical condition. He did not exercise, his diet leaned heavily on cheeseburgers and steak and he officially tipped the scales at 244 pounds, a weight formally deemed obese for his height.After complaining that he was overscheduled with morning meetings, Mr. Trump stopped showing up at the Oval Office until 11 or 11:30 a.m. each day, staying in the residence to watch television, make phone calls or send out incendiary tweets. During an appearance at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he had trouble lifting a glass of water and seemed to have trouble making his way down a modest ramp.Most striking was Mr. Trump’s cognitive performance. He was erratic and tended to ramble; experts found that he had grown less articulate and that his vocabulary had shrunk since his younger days. Aides said privately that Mr. Trump had trouble processing information and distinguishing fact from fiction. His second chief of staff, John F. Kelly, bought a book analyzing Mr. Trump’s psychological health to understand him better, and several cabinet secretaries concerned that he might be mentally unfit discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him.Former President Donald J. Trump’s cognitive issues are not as often associated with age in the public mind as are Mr. Biden’s, perhaps because Mr. Trump’s bombastic volume conveys energy.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut perhaps because his bombastic volume conveys energy, Mr. Trump’s issues are not associated with age in the public mind as much as Mr. Biden’s are. In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 73 percent said Mr. Biden is too old to be in office, compared with 51 percent who said the same of Mr. Trump.Mr. Biden manages his day with more discipline than his predecessor. Jill Biden, who teaches at Northern Virginia Community College, gets up around 6 a.m. while the president wakes an hour later, according to accounts he has given. Mr. Biden has told aides that their cat sometimes wakes him in the middle of the night by walking across his face.By 7:20 a.m., the first lady leaves for work. Mr. Biden works out at 8 a.m.; he has a Peloton bicycle in the residence and is known to watch shows like “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. He arrives at the Oval Office by 9 a.m. for a morning usually filled with meetings. For lunch, there is a rotation of salad, soup and sandwiches.Mr. Biden exercises five days a week and does not drink.Al Drago for The New York TimesFollowing afternoon events, the president returns to the residence around 6:45 p.m. For dinner, pasta is a favorite. In fact, one former official said, whenever he travels, aides make sure there is always red sauce on hand for pasta to finish his day — even as he balks at the salmon that his wife urges on him.From 8 p.m., the Bidens often read their briefing books together in the living room of the residence. The first lady typically turns in at 10:30 p.m. and the president follows a half-hour later.Aides say it is clear he actually reads the briefing books because of the questions that follow. “There’s no one who is better at asking questions to get to the bottom of an issue, calling your bluff, asking the tough questions,” said Stefanie Feldman, the White House staff secretary. “He asks just as tough questions today as he did 10 years ago.”Some who accompany him overseas express astonishment at his ability to keep up. When Italy’s new leader pushed for a meeting while the president was in Poland, he readily agreed to add it to the already packed schedule. During a trip to Ireland, people with him said he was energized and wanted to talk at length on Air Force One rather than rest.Still, after fatiguing days on the road, he skipped dinner with world leaders in Indonesia last year and again in Japan in May. Others who have known him for years said privately that they have noticed small changes. When he sits down, one former official said, he usually places a hand on his desk to hold his weight and rarely springs back up with his old energy.Mr. Biden’s staff schedules most of his public appearances between noon and 4 p.m. and leaves him alone on weekends as much as possible.Doug Mills/The New York TimesHe speaks so softly that he can be hard to hear. For speeches, aides give him a hand-held microphone to hold close to his mouth to amplify his voice even when standing at a lectern with mounted microphones.Mr. Biden and Jill Biden, his wife, often follow a similar schedule.Doug Mills/The New York TimesYet aides said that while he can momentarily forget a name or fact, he retains a formidable memory for detail. Preparing to travel to Shanksville, Pa., on the 20th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he became frustrated that officials had given him the wrong plan for his movements. He had been to the memorial before and knew the plan made no sense because he remembered the layout of the grounds.White House officials voice aggravation that concern about age is inflated by pictures on the internet that are sometimes faked or highly distorted. Every week, strategists conduct a word cloud analysis with a panel of voters asking what they had heard about the president, good or bad. After Mr. Biden’s foot got caught in the toe cage of his bicycle and he tumbled over last year, the two words in the bad-word cloud for weeks were “bike fell” — all the more frustrating for aides who noted that Mr. Trump hardly seemed capable of even riding a bike.Mr. Biden lately has turned to self-deprecating humor to defuse the issue, taking a cue from Mr. Reagan, who won re-election in 1984 at age 73 in part with a well-timed debate quip about not exploiting “my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”Some who accompany Mr. Biden overseas express astonishment at his ability to keep up. Still, after fatiguing days on the road, he skipped dinner with world leaders in Indonesia last year and again in Japan in May.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAt the correspondents’ dinner, Mr. Biden assured the audience that he supported the First Amendment, and “not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it.” During the Take Your Child to Work Day event, he looked back on “when I was younger, 120 years ago.”And at the Air Force Academy a few days ago, Mr. Biden joked that “when I was graduating from high school 300 years ago, I applied to the Naval Academy.” After tripping on the sandbag, he sought to laugh that off too. “I got sandbagged,” he said. More

As election activists rally against new voting machines, they are drifting into territory now dominated by conspiracy theorists.For decades, Lulu Friesdat made election integrity her life’s work. Drawing support from activists and academics, she co-founded Smart Elections, a nonpartisan group that is opposed to some voting machines that Ms. Friesdat believes would increase wait times and cost a small fortune to purchase and maintain.But since 2020, things have changed. Former President Donald J. Trump catapulted concerns about voting machines into the Republican mainstream by falsely claiming that the 2020 election was rigged, partly because of electronic voting machines.Election integrity advocates, like Ms. Friesdat, now find themselves in an uncomfortable position, pushing for election security while sometimes amplifying claims made most vocally by conspiracy theorists, including those involved in the so-called Stop the Steal movement.Some election activists warn that election machines could be hacked or compromised, for example, while some conspiracy theorists say, without evidence, that those hacks have already taken place. Election officials say no hacks have taken place.Misinformation watchdogs say that the somewhat overlapping arguments illustrate another consequence of Mr. Trump’s false and exaggerated voter fraud claims, which have led to doubts about election integrity among a wide swath of the American public. Ms. Friesdat and other activists like her fear that their work may become too closely tied to conspiracy theorists and Mr. Trump’s cause, making potential allies, like progressives, wary of joining the fight.“If you read an article that says that these voting machines are coming in, and people’s concerns about these issues are very similar to those of the Stop the Steal movement, then it makes it very hard for Democrats to work on this issue,” Ms. Friesdat said. “And it has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with the Stop the Steal movement.”Misinformation watchdogs say that the two movements could erode trust in American elections even further, intentionally or not, because conspiracy theorists tend to exaggerate legitimate criticisms to rile up supporters and raise questions about the entire electoral system.“You sow a seed of doubt, and that will grow and fester into a conspiracy theory,” said Tim Weninger, a computer science professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies misinformation on social media. “It always starts off with one untruth, and that grows into two untruths, and that grows into more, and before long you have an entire conspiracy theory on your hands.”The debate has played out nationally as multiple states have faced pushback on electronic voting machines. It is now happening in New York, where officials are considering certifying new voting machines made by Election Systems & Software, a manufacturer based in Omaha. The company has been targeted in Mr. Trump’s voting fraud narrative, alongside competitors like Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. Yet, ES&S and its machines have also come under scrutiny by election activists and security experts.The new machines, ExpressVote XL, use an “all-in-one” design: Voters make their selections on a 32-inch touch-screen, which also prints their votes on a narrow summary card. Unlike a traditional ballot, the card records the votes in bar codes at the top of the paper, which the machine reads electronically, followed by a written summary of each pick.How the ExpressVote XL WorksImages shared by the Pennsylvania government show how the ExpressVote XL uses summary cards instead of traditional ballots. More

Eight presidential hopefuls, with Donald Trump absent, spoke at an annual political rally in Des Moines to highlight their conservative bona fides.As the politicians and Republican Party officials tossed out the red meat on Saturday at an event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Wayne Johnson, a 70-year-old farmer and financial consultant from Forest City, Iowa, had some quieter thoughts about the next president he would like to see.The violence in American schools and public places, the tribalism in politics, the negativity of the nation’s elected officials — “If a leader can take us in a positive direction, people will follow,” Mr. Johnson said.His wife, Gloria, jumped in. “I really don’t care about people’s sexual habits and I don’t want to hear about it all the time,” she said with exasperation about her party’s focus on social issues like transgender care and L.G.B.T.Q. rights. “Politicians are taking positions on ‘woke’ that have more to do with sex than promoting our country in a positive way.”The event, called “Roast and Ride” — an annual motorcycle and barbecue-infused political rally sponsored by Iowa’s junior Republican senator, Joni Ernst — laid bare divisions in the party, with some attendees focusing on pocketbook issues and tone and others looking for a candidate who will take on Democrats on a social and cultural front.Saturday’s gathering featured eight presidential hopefuls, prominent and obscure, declared and undeclared. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor; Mike Pence, the former vice president who will formally announce his run on Wednesday; Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina; and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, were there, along with hundreds of Iowa Republicans who will cast the first ballots of the Republican nomination season in February.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina at the event in Des Moines on Saturday.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe politicians had their pitches, waltzing across a stage festooned with flags and stacked with hay bales to rail against “deep state” bureaucrats, “woke” corporations, and liberals indoctrinating and confusing America’s children. Their biggest target, unsurprisingly, was President Biden, for all manner of failings, from Afghanistan and the southern border to transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.For the presidential hopefuls, winning over Iowa Republicans — with their strong religious bent and tradition of political engagement — is the imperative first step toward wresting the G.O.P. from the front-runner for the nomination, Donald J. Trump, the one major candidate who did not make the trip on Saturday.The candidates in attendance tried to differentiate themselves from one another.The next president, Mr. Pence assured, will “hear from heaven, and he’ll heal this land.”Ms. Haley agreed, “We’ve got to leave the baggage and the negativity behind.”Mr. DeSantis chose a culture-war analogy, evoking Winston Churchill, who once vowed to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets. Mr. DeSantis promised on Saturday to fight “woke ideology” in the halls of Congress and in the boardrooms, saying, “We will never surrender.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida at the event on Saturday.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIowa has moved more decisively from swing state to deep red than perhaps any other state, voting for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, only to shift firmly to Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020. Mr. Trump’s eight-percentage-point victory there in 2020 nearly matched Mr. Obama’s nine-point margin 12 years before.But voters in the audience did not all have the same priorities, interests or solutions. A Republican presidential beauty pageant eight months before the Iowa caucuses will attract only the most ardent partisans, and candidates understand they are reaching out to the edges of their party, not the center.Many voters expressed concern about the economy, especially inflation, a subject most of the presidential candidates barely touched. Ron Greiner, a health insurance salesman from Omaha, was incensed that none of the candidates mentioned the Affordable Care Act — once a reliable target of Republican attacks — or health care at all.Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, at the event on Saturday.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAnd while Ms. Johnson might be tired of all the talk of transgender issues, others leaped to their feet when Ms. Haley called transgender women competing in women’s sports “the biggest women’s issue of our day.”Jackson Cox, a 17-year-old who will vote for the first time in 2024, drove from Albert Lea, Minn., to hear the candidates he will choose from. Top of mind for him are the taxpayer dollars he said were being wasted before they reach American troops fighting for freedom in Ukraine — never mind that no U.S. troops are fighting in Ukraine. Contrary to the conservative consensus, he argued that the United States should be doing more, not less, for Ukraine.Diane Bebb, 66, of New London, Iowa, fretted over inflation, gas and food prices, and the “help wanted signs” for jobs that seemingly could not be filled.“We could start producing oil again, to help the economy and get prices down,” she said, though she wasn’t sure how more oil exploration would fill all those job openings.Her twin sister, Dione Cornelius of Bagley, Iowa, jumped in to reject the idea of backfilling the labor force with more immigrants.“They’re taking all the benefits, free health care and all that kind of stuff,” Ms. Cornelius protested.Mike Clark, 74, a semiretired acoustics consultant, worried that “the rule of law is disappearing,” not so much because of crime in the nation’s streets but because of an out-of-control F.B.I. and Justice Department pursuing Mr. Trump.“Big push for the one-world government, that’s what worries me most,” Mr. Clark said, referring to a common subject of conspiracy theories. He recommended the book “The Creature From Jekyll Island,” which pushes conspiracy theories about the founding of the Federal Reserve.Amid that cornucopia of concerns, the one issue that seemed to be most broadly felt was the porous border with Mexico. “What are we going to do with all these people?” asked Karen Clark, 81, of Des Moines.Beyond that, Iowa conservatives seemed torn. They conceded that unemployment was so low that jobs in the state weren’t being filled, but asserted that the economy was a wreck.Bill Dunton, 68, said he had been coming from his home in Toledo, Iowa, to Ms. Ernst’s Roast and Ride on his Harley-Davidson for six years. His credit card debt was just about paid off, he said with relief. He was particularly proud of the Chevy Silverado High Country diesel pickup truck he bought in 2021, which “was made for pulling.”But, he said with conviction, “the economy has gone” to pieces, using an expletive to describe it.Mr. Dunton also spoke of his ordeal with Covid-19, hospitalized for 28 days on huge tanks of supplemental oxygen, which he was still tethered to a month and a half after his discharge. Yet, he added, “I think we way overreacted” to the pandemic.Responding to the multiplicity of maladies on Iowans’ minds will present a challenge for the presidential hopefuls. But after the program, Mr. Johnson said he was impressed with his choices, and he will have time to watch the race unfold.“It’s a long run,” he noted. “Time has a way of revealing truth.” More