Elections

Rupert Murdoch testified that Fox News hosts ‘endorsed’ stolen election narrativeNetwork owner also admitted in $1.6bn defamation lawsuit deposition that Trump’s claims were ‘damaging to everybody’Newly released court documents reveal that Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire owner of Fox News, acknowledged under oath that several Fox News hosts endorsed Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.The mogul made the admission during a deposition in the $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought against the network by the voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, which has accused Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, of maligning its reputation. In his deposition, Murdoch said that the hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro “endorsed” the false narrative promoted by Trump.Will a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit finally stop Fox News from spreading lies? | Margaret SullivanRead more“I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” Murdoch said in the deposition, the New York Times reported on Monday.In previous court filings, attorneys for Dominion have argued that Fox News hosts ridiculed Trump’s false claims of a “stolen election” while promoting those lies on television. While Sean Hannity pushed that narrative on his prime-time show, he allegedly wrote that Trump was “acting like an insane person”.Even Murdoch himself dismissed Trump’s claims, describing the former president’s obsession with proving the election was stolen as “terrible stuff damaging everybody”.Murdoch acknowledged in his deposition that he could have ordered the network not to platform Trump lawyers such as Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani on its programs: “I could have. But I didn’t,” he said.Dominion’s defamation case is being described as a “landmark”. A Harvard law professor recently told the Guardian he had “never seen a defamation case with such overwhelming proof that the defendant admitted in writing that it was making up fake information in order to increase its viewership and its revenues”.How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying’Read moreThe Fox hosts were also privately critical of members of Trump’s team, including Sidney Powell, an attorney who claimed that Dominion’s machines had changed votes cast for Trump to Joe Biden. In a deposition, Hannity said: “That whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second”.Still, the network continued to give coverage to proponents of the election fraud narrative as it feared upsetting its viewers. In a conversation about the network’s coverage of the issue on 5 January 2020 – a day before rioters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to stop the election from being certified – Suzanne Scott, the Fox News media chief executive, and Murdoch debated whether Fox hosts should acknowledge Trump’s defeat and admit that Biden won. “We need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers,” Scott told Murdoch.Dominion sued Fox News and parent company Fox Corporation in March 2021 and November 2021 in Delaware superior court, alleging the cable TV network amplified false claims that Dominion voting machines were used to rig the 2020 election against Trump, a Republican who lost to Democratic rival Biden. Dominion’s motion for summary judgment was replete with emails and statements in which Murdoch and other top Fox executives say the claims made about Dominion on air were false – part of the voting machine company’s effort to prove the network either knew the statements it aired were false or recklessly disregarded their accuracy.In its own filing made public on Monday, Fox argued that its coverage of statements by Trump and his lawyers were inherently newsworthy and that Dominion’s “extreme” interpretation of defamation law would “stop the media in its tracks”.Reuters reported that a Fox spokesperson said that Dominion’s view of defamation law “would prevent journalists from basic reporting”.A trial is scheduled to begin in mid-April.Reuters contributed reportingTopicsRupert MurdochFox NewsUS elections 2020Donald TrumpUS politicsTV newsTelevision industrynewsReuse this content More

Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul, spoke under oath last month in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems.Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump, and that he could have stopped them but didn’t, court documents released on Monday showed.“They endorsed,” Mr. Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, according to a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” he added, while also disclosing that he was always dubious of Mr. Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.Asked whether he doubted Mr. Trump, Mr. Murdoch responded: “Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up.” At the same time, he rejected the accusation that Fox News as a whole had endorsed the stolen election narrative. “Not Fox,” he said. “No. Not Fox.”Mr. Murdoch’s remarks, which he made last month as part of Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, added to the evidence that Dominion has accumulated as it tries to prove its central allegation: The people running the country’s most popular news network knew Mr. Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election were false but broadcast them anyway in a reckless pursuit of ratings and profit.Proof to that effect would help Dominion clear the high legal bar set by the Supreme Court for defamation cases. To prevail, Dominion must show not only that Fox broadcast false information, but that it did so knowingly. A judge in Delaware state court has scheduled a monthlong trial beginning in April.The new documents and a similar batch released this month provide a dramatic account from inside the network, depicting a frantic scramble as Fox tried to woo back its large conservative audience after ratings collapsed in the wake of Mr. Trump’s loss. Fox had been the first network to call Arizona for Joseph R. Biden on election night — essentially declaring him the next president. When Mr. Trump refused to concede and started attacking Fox as disloyal and dishonest, viewers began to change the channel.The filings also revealed that top executives and on-air hosts had reacted with incredulity bordering on contempt to various fictitious allegations about Dominion. These included unsubstantiated rumors — repeatedly uttered by guests and hosts of Fox programs — that its voting machines could run a secret algorithm that switched votes from one candidate to another, and that the company was founded in Venezuela to help that country’s longtime leader, Hugo Chávez, fix elections.Read What Murdoch Said in His Deposition in the Fox-Dominion CaseRupert Murdoch made his remarks last month as part of the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems.Read DocumentDespite those misgivings, little changed about the content on shows like Mr. Dobbs’s and Ms. Bartiromo’s. For weeks after the election, viewers of Fox News and Fox Business heard a far different story from the one that Fox executives privately conceded was real.Lawyers for Fox News, which filed a response to Dominion in court on Monday, argued that its commentary and reporting after the election did not amount to defamation because its hosts had not endorsed the falsehoods about Dominion, even if Mr. Murdoch stated otherwise in his deposition. As such, the network’s lawyers argued, Fox’s coverage was protected under the First Amendment.Fox News v. Dominion Voter SystemsA $1.6 Billion Suit: A defamation lawsuit by the voting machine maker Dominion seeks to hold Fox News responsible for false claims after the 2020 election. Here’s what to know about the case so far.Rupert Murdoch’s Deposition: The conservative media mogul acknowledged under oath that several Fox hosts promoted the false narrative that the election was stolen. Read his deposition.Privately Expressing Disbelief: Dozens of text messages released in the lawsuit show how Fox hosts went from privately criticizing election fraud claims to giving them significant airtime.“Far from reporting the allegations as true, hosts informed their audiences at every turn that the allegations were just allegations that would need to be proven in court in short order if they were going to impact the outcome of the election,” Fox lawyers said in their filing. “And to the extent some hosts commented on the allegations, that commentary is independently protected opinion.”A Fox News spokeswoman said on Monday in response to the filing that Dominion’s case “has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal scrutiny.” She added that the company had taken “an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting.”In certain instances, Fox hosts did present the allegations as unproven and offered their opinions. And Fox lawyers have pointed to exchanges on the air when hosts challenged these claims and pressed Mr. Trump’s lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani to present evidence that never materialized.But the case is also likely to revolve around questions about what people with the power to shape Fox’s on-air content knew about the validity of the fraud allegations as they gave pro-Trump election deniers a platform — often in front of hosts who mustered no pushback.“There appears to be a pretty good argument that Fox endorsed the accuracy of what was being said,” said Lee Levine, a veteran First Amendment lawyer who has defended major media organizations in defamation cases. He added that Fox’s arguments were stronger against some of Dominion’s claims than others. But based on what he has seen of the case so far, Mr. Levine said, “I’d much rather be in Dominion’s shoes than Fox’s right now.”Dominion’s filing casts Mr. Murdoch as a chairman who was both deeply engaged with his senior leadership about coverage of the election and operating at somewhat of a remove, unwilling to interfere. Asked by Dominion’s lawyer, Justin Nelson, whether he could have ordered Fox News to keep Trump lawyers like Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani off the air, Mr. Murdoch responded: “I could have. But I didn’t.”The document also described how Paul D. Ryan, a former Republican speaker of the House and current member of the Fox Corporation board of directors, said in his deposition that he had implored Mr. Murdoch and his son Lachlan, the chief executive officer, “that Fox News should not be spreading conspiracy theories.” Mr. Ryan suggested instead that the network pivot and “move on from Donald Trump and stop spouting election lies.”There was some discussion at the highest levels of the company about how to make that pivot, Dominion said.On Jan. 5, 2021, the day before the attack at the Capitol, Mr. Murdoch and Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media, talked about whether Mr. Hannity and his fellow prime-time hosts, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, should make it clear to viewers that Mr. Biden had won the election. Mr. Murdoch said in his deposition that he had hoped such a statement “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election was stolen.”According to the filing, Ms. Scott said of the hosts, “Privately they are all there,” but “we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers.” No statement of that kind was made on the air.Dominion details the close relationship that Fox hosts and executives enjoyed with senior Republican Party officials and members of the Trump inner circle, revealing how at times Fox was shaping the very story it was covering. It describes how Mr. Murdoch placed a call to the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, immediately after the election. In his deposition, Mr. Murdoch testified that during that call he likely urged Mr. McConnell to “ask other senior Republicans to refuse to endorse Mr. Trump’s conspiracy theories and baseless claims of fraud.”Dominion also describes how Mr. Murdoch provided Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, with confidential information about ads that the Biden campaign would be running on Fox.At one point, Dominion’s lawyers accuse Ms. Pirro, who hosted a Saturday evening talk show, of “laundering her own conspiracy theories through Powell.” The filing goes on to say Ms. Pirro bragged to her friends “that she was the source for Powell’s claims.” Dominion notes that this was “something she never shared with her audience.”The filing on Monday included a deposition by Viet Dinh, Fox Corporation’s chief legal officer, who was one of the many senior executive cautioning about the content of Fox’s coverage. After Mr. Hannity told his audience on Nov. 5, 2020, that it would be “impossible to ever know the true, fair, accurate election results,” Mr. Dinh told a group of senior executives including Lachlan Murdoch and Ms. Scott: “Hannity is getting awfully close to the line with his commentary and guests tonight.”When asked in his deposition if Fox executives had an obligation to stop hosts of shows from broadcasting lies, Mr. Dinh said: “Yes, to prevent and correct known falsehoods.”In their filing on Monday, Fox’s lawyers accused Dominion of cherry-picking evidence that some at Fox News knew the allegations against Dominion were not true and, therefore, acted out of actual malice, the legal standard required to prove defamation. “The vast majority of Dominion’s evidence comes from individuals who had zero responsibility for the statements Dominion challenges,” the lawyers said. More

Ms. Slotkin, a former C.I.A. analyst who represents a divided district, is expected to focus heavily on economic matters.Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat and former C.I.A. analyst who has notched several high-profile victories in a challenging district, said Monday that she would run for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat.Ms. Slotkin is the first Democrat running in what could be a hotly contested primary followed by a marquee fight in the general election, held during a presidential year in a major battleground state.“We need a new generation of leaders that thinks differently, works harder and never forgets that we are public servants,” Ms. Slotkin said in an announcement video released Monday morning.In Michigan, an industrial Midwestern state that helped propel Donald J. Trump to the White House in 2016 before narrowly flipping back to the Democrats in 2020, Ms. Slotkin is planning a pitch heavily focused on jobs and economic matters. An adviser, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said to expect a campaign message that emphasized American manufacturing, “jobs with dignity” and labor protections.“We seem to be living crisis to crisis,” Ms. Slotkin said in the video. “But there are certain things that should be really simple, like living a middle-class life in the state that invented the middle class.”She also stressed the importance of “preserving our rights and our democracy so that our kids can live their version of the American dream.”There have been two school shootings in Ms. Slotkin’s district over the last 15 months, including one at Michigan State University this month. She is expected to focus on issues of safety, especially combating gun violence, the adviser said.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.In New York: The state almost single-handedly cost Democrats their House majority in the midterms. Now, a leading Democratic group is hoping New York can deliver the party back to power.Blue-Collar Struggles: A new report from Democratic strategists found that the economy was a bigger problem than cultural issues for the party in the industrial Midwest. It also found hopeful signs for Democrats.Black Mayors: The Black mayors of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston have banded together as they confront violent crime, homelessness and other similar challenges.Wisconsin Supreme Court: Democratic turnout was high in the primary for the swing seat on the court, ahead of a general election that will decide the future of abortion rights and gerrymandered maps in the state.Ms. Slotkin, an experienced fund-raiser who represents a Lansing-area district that includes plenty of Republican voters, has impressed state and national Democrats with her electoral track record. She flipped a Republican-held district in 2018, held it in 2020 and was widely seen as endangered last fall, but ultimately won by five percentage points.And in a nod to her focus on bipartisanship, she featured images of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in her biography-heavy announcement video as she noted that she had worked “in the White House under two presidents, one Republican and one Democrat.”Her relatively moderate politics, a boon in her House district, may be viewed skeptically by more progressive voters and activists across the state who could mobilize in a primary. There is already public and private clamoring in some quarters for a more robust and diverse primary field, even as a number of the state’s most high-profile Democrats have passed on runs themselves.Ms. Slotkin, for her part, emphasized in a tweet on Monday that “I’ve never taken corporate PAC money, and I’m not starting now.”Ms. Slotkin will also need to introduce herself to Black communities in a number of the state’s bigger cities. She is planning to visit cities including Detroit, Grand Rapids and Flint soon, the adviser said on Friday.The state primary is not expected to be until August of next year, and it is not yet clear what the final field may look like, or how competitive it may ultimately be.A number of the state’s most prominent politicians — including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Mayor Mike Duggan of Detroit and Representative Haley Stevens — have indicated they do not intend to run. Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary whose official residence is now in Michigan, has said the same.On Friday, State Senator Mallory McMorrow, a prominent lawmaker who went viral last year defending L.G.B.T.Q. rights, also said she would not run.Many elected officials and other power players in the state had been waiting to see whether Garlin Gilchrist II, the state’s first Black lieutenant governor, would jump into the race, and some had wanted to support him. But on Sunday, he wrote on Twitter: “Serving our state in Washington, D.C. would be a great opportunity, but instead I will keep standing tall for Michigan, right here at home, as Lieutenant Governor. The Governor & I have more work to do. I look forward to working with our next US Senator to get it done.”Some Michigan Democrats have emphasized the importance of Black representation in the primary.“Michigan has this rich pool of qualified African American candidates, and we have so few that represent us in the Senate,” former Representative Brenda L. Lawrence, Democrat of Michigan, said in an interview on Friday. “We have an opportunity to send a qualified public servant to the Senate, so I just really think it’s important. And I think Michigan has the opportunity to fulfill that.”She pointed at the time to Mr. Gilchrist and Hill Harper, an actor in the TV series “The Good Doctor,” as potentially strong candidates. She also said she had not “shut the door yet” on her own potential bid.And there is renewed attention to the intentions of Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson. She has not ruled out a bid, but previously signaled she was more focused on her current job.Representative Debbie Dingell has not categorically ruled out a run, either.Republicans haven’t yet landed their own high-profile candidate. Nikki Snyder, a Republican member of the state board of education, was the first to jump in. But Representative John James, Michigan’s first Black Republican member of Congress, indicated on Friday that he would not seek the seat.Former Representative Peter Meijer, who lost his primary after voting to impeach Mr. Trump, is perhaps the most prominent potential Republican contender, although he would have clear difficulties navigating another primary.Others who either have indicated interest in running or are often mentioned in Republican circles include Representative Lisa McClain; State Senator Ruth Johnson; Kevin Rinke, who lost a largely self-funded Republican primary campaign for governor last year; and former Representative Mike Rogers.The National Republican Senatorial Committee has previously pledged to “aggressively target this seat.” In a statement on Monday, Maggie Abboud, a committee spokeswoman, called Ms. Slotkin a “liberal politician.”Democrats are betting that, as the Michigan Republican Party moves further to the right — it is now helmed by an election-denying Trump acolyte — the strongest potential general election contenders, like Mr. Meijer, would struggle to make it through a primary, paving the way for a far-right nominee who would face significant challenges in a general election.But many have warned that the strong Democratic showing in the midterms in Michigan — against a number of right-wing Republicans — should not be mistaken for a tidal shift in the state’s highly competitive politics.“I don’t know that the state itself has swung more Democratic,” Mr. Duggan said. “I think it has more to do with the caliber of leaders that we’ve had in recent years.”“This state,” he added, “is very closely divided.” More

Gail Collins: Bret, Democratic strategists are worried about hanging on to support in the working class. The good news, from my perspective, is that it looks like the big problem is economic concerns, not cultural ones.Saying that’s good news because the Biden administration can respond to those worries by pointing to a ton of effort to create jobs and fight inflation.Guessing you may, um, disagree?Bret Stephens: In the immortal words of the “Airplane” sequel: “Just a tad.”The big problem for Democrats is that their economic message — that happy times are here again — isn’t landing in the places where they need to win, particularly factory towns where elections in states like Wisconsin or Ohio are sometimes decided. Inflation is still too high and probably means the Fed will continue to raise interest rates. Unemployment is low in part because so many people have dropped out of the labor force. Years of lax border control creates a perception that cheap immigrant labor will further undercut working-class wages. And a lot of the projects that President Biden’s spending bills are supposed to fund will take years to get off the ground because there’s rarely such a thing as a “shovel-ready” project.Gail: Yeah, gearing up for a big construction effort does take time. But people who’ve suffered with terrible transportation problems for years do know the shovels are coming. Like the bridge project over the Ohio River that Democrats in Cincinnati have joined hands with Mitch McConnell to celebrate.Bret: The other problem for Democrats is that if they aren’t winning the messaging battle when it comes to the economy, they are losing it badly when it comes to cultural issues. You and I often rue the collapse of the moderate wing of the G.O.P. that was occasionally willing to break with right-wing orthodoxies, but Democrats could also do more to embrace candidates who depart from progressive orthodoxies on issues like guns, immigration, school choice, trans issues and so on.Gail: “Depart from progressive orthodoxies” is a nice way of saying “embrace the bad.” I appreciate that it would be strategic for some purple-state Democrats to take moderate positions on guns, immigration, etc. But I’m not gonna be applauding somebody who, for instance, votes against an assault weapon ban.Bret: You’re reminding me of the story, probably apocryphal, of the supporter who told Adlai Stevenson, during one of his presidential runs in the 1950s, that “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.”“I’m afraid that won’t do,” he supposedly replied. “I need a majority.”Gail: Let’s go back to infrastructure for a minute. Big story about that train wreck in Ohio. Do you agree with me that the whole thing is the fault of Republicans caving in to pressure from the rail industry to loosen regulations?Bret: Er, no. I read recently that there were more than 1,000 train derailments last year, which averages out to more than two a day, and that there’s been a 60 percent decline in railroad safety incidents since 1990. Accidents happen. When they do, they shouldn’t become a partisan issue.Gail: When major accidents happen in an industry that’s both necessarily regulated and greatly lobbied over, it should be a call for investigation.And while we’re on this subject, please let’s talk about our transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg ….Bret: So, to illustrate my point, I’m not going to raise an accusing finger at him. Not even remotely his fault, even if Republicans are trying hard to pin him with the blame. Although, for someone with presidential aspirations, he didn’t exactly help himself by showing up a day after Donald Trump did.Gail: Sort of embarrassed that while I was trying to ponder rail regulation, my thoughts kept drifting off to Buttigieg the possible presidential candidate.He’s one of the guys we always mention when we talk about who might be nominated if Biden doesn’t go for a second term. But Buttigieg’s performance in Ohio was definitely not the work of a guy who knows how to run for that job.Steve McCurry/Magnum PhotosBret: Switching subjects again, we should talk about the legacy of President Jimmy Carter. I was a 7-year-old child living in Mexico City when he left office, so your recollections of him are much more valuable and interesting than mine.Gail: I distinctly remember bemoaning the energy shortage that left drivers waiting in long lines at the gas stations, but that’s hardly an insider’s story.Bret: Those lines put last year’s spike in gas prices in perspective.Gail: And every Democrat worried about Carter’s minimal talent for communication. He made a big TV appearance to promote energy conservation, wearing a sweater and sitting next to a fire, looking more silly than inspiring.Now, when I recall some of the stuff he did — environmental protection, promoting diversity, negotiating a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt — I appreciate him a lot more.Bret: Airline deregulation, too. Made air travel affordable to middle-class America for the first time. And he had the guts to nominate Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve in 1979 to jack up interest rates and finally tame inflation, even though it would help cost him his presidency the next year.Gail: But the biggest thing he’s leaving us, Bret, is the story of his post-presidency. Campaigning endlessly for human rights, fair voting around the world and housing for the poor. Rather than holding press conferences to make his point, he’d swing a hammer with the crew at low-income housing construction sites.If high-ranking politicians see retirement from their top jobs as just a path to giving big-money speeches and writing the occasional memoir, they set a bad example for every older American. Carter showed how the later stages of life can actually be the richest and most rewarding.Bret: There’s a lot about Carter’s policy views that didn’t square with my own, and his persona sometimes struck me as … immodestly modest. But he was a unique figure in American political life, and he single-handedly disproved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s contention about there being no second acts in American lives.Gail: Not to mention third acts!Bret: He also showed how much more valuable a purpose- and values-driven life can be than one consumed by the culture of celebrity, wealth and pleasure — something that seriously tarnished the post-presidential legacy of a certain Southern Democrat who succeeded him, to say nothing of an even more saturnalian Republican president.Totally different topic, Gail, but I want to recommend our colleague Michelle Goldberg’s terrific column on the terrible mental-health effects of social media, particularly for teenagers. She mentions a proposal by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri to totally ban social media for kids under 16. It’s one to which, as a father of three teenagers, I’m pretty sympathetic. Your thoughts?Gail: I read Michelle’s great piece and remembered how paranoid I was as a teenager when I thought two of my friends might be talking about me on the phone after school. Can’t imagine how I’d have felt if they had the capacity to do it as a group, while they were supposed to be studying after dinner. With a transcript available to the entire class later in the evening.Bret: Not only frequently abusive but also addictive. Someone once said that there are only two industries that speak of their customers as “users” — drug dealers and social-media companies.Gail: Just saying that kids can’t use social media sounds very attractive. But somehow I have my doubts it’ll work. Wonder if the more likely outcome might be a system the more sophisticated kids could use while the poorer, or less technologically cool ones, got sidelined.Am I being overly paranoid?Bret: No ban works perfectly. But if we were able to more or less end teenage cigarette smoking over the last 20 years, it shouldn’t be out of the question to try to do the same with social-media use. I can’t imagine that it’s beyond the technological reach of a company like Apple to write some code that stops social-media apps from being downloaded to phones whose primary users they know are under the age of 16.Gail: Well, happy to insist they do that. Even if they don’t know how, it’d increase pressure for them to find a way.Bret: I would welcome it, and I suspect most teenagers would, too. It’s hard enough being 14 or 15 without needing to panic about some embarrassing Instagram pic or discovering too late that something stupid or awful you wrote on Facebook or Twitter at 16 comes back to haunt you at 20.Gail: Hey, it’s traumatic enough being haunted by what I said last month.Bret: Or last week.As columnists, we volunteered to have a paper trail for our critics to pick through. We owe it to the kids to shield them from creating public records of their own indiscretions and idiocies. Life will come roaring at them soon enough. I say no social media till they’re old enough to vote, smoke and maybe even buy a drink. Full-frontal stupidity should be left to the grown-ups — like us!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

To judge by several early polls, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has a decent shot of beating former President Donald Trump in the race to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Some liberals have pronounced this terrible news — because, they say, a DeSantis presidency would be just as awful as, and perhaps even worse than, a second Trump term.This is wrong. A DeSantis presidency would be bad in many ways, and my fellow liberals should fight with all they have to prevent it. But Mr. DeSantis almost certainly would not be worse than Mr. Trump.Exaggerating the threat posed by the Florida governor could inadvertently increase Mr. Trump’s prospects in the Republican primaries. And if Mr. DeSantis does get the nomination, progressive overreaction toward him in the primary contest could ultimately undermine the case against him in the general election.The case against Mr. DeSantis is rooted in his policy commitments. During his time as Florida’s chief executive, he has governed from the hard right, taking aggressive aim at voting rights, pursuing politicized prosecutions, restricting what can be taught in public schools and universities, strong-arming private businesses, using refugees as human props to score political points and engaging in flagrant demagogy about vaccines. Before that, as a congressman, he supported cuts to Social Security and Medicare and voted for a bill that would have severely weakened Obamacare. All of that provides ample reason to rally against him should he end up as the Republican nominee in 2024.But none of it makes Mr. DeSantis worse than Mr. Trump, who also did and sought to do bad things in office: the Muslim travel ban, forcibly separating migrants from their children, and much else.Could the Trump era have been worse? Absolutely, and here liberals have a point when they suggest Mr. Trump’s ability to wreak havoc was limited by his ineptness. Based on what we’ve seen of Mr. DeSantis’s performance as governor of Florida, a DeSantis administration would likely display much greater discipline and competence than what the country endured under Mr. Trump.Yet it’s also the case that people in the Trump orbit recognize this problem and plan to ensure things work out differently next time. That includes ideas for bolder action on policy and much tighter and more focused management of the president, with an eye toward running an administration capable of acting much more shrewdly and ruthlessly than the last time.So let’s stipulate that Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis would both try to do bad things in office. Mr. Trump still brings something distinctive and much more dangerous to the contest — or rather, several things. He’s flagrantly corrupt. He lies constantly. He’s impulsive and capricious. And he displays a lust for power combined with complete indifference to democratic laws and norms that constrain presidential power.The way to summarize these various personal defects is to say that Mr. Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president. That was obvious to many of us before his surprise victory in 2016. It was confirmed on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis throughout his presidency. And it became indisputable when he refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and helped spur efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.That makes Mr. Trump categorically more dangerous than anyone else running or likely to run for president in 2024 — including Mr. DeSantis.Those who suggest Mr. DeSantis would be worse than Mr. Trump often make the additional point that Mr. Trump was quite unpopular and outrightly repulsive to many, whereas Mr. DeSantis has proved himself capable of winning over mainstream voters in his home state. That makes Mr. DeSantis potentially a more popular candidate and president than Mr. Trump was or is likely to be. And that could empower Mr. DeSantis to enact more sweeping policy changes were he elected.There are other things to worry about. Mr. Trump’s lack of popularity added to his dangerousness because it made his administration appear illegitimate. He was a president with an anti-mandate — he lost to Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes in 2016 and suffered persistently low approval ratings — who nonetheless pressed on with enacting extreme shifts in policy. That made the Trump years uniquely polarizing and unstable.Policies can be reversed. A shredded civic fabric is much more difficult to mend.Liberals have a long history of hyping fears of Republican presidential candidates, from Lyndon Johnson’s “daisy” ad (about Barry Goldwater and a potential threat of nuclear war) to sometimes hysterical warnings about various dire threats posed by John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.We heard similarly terrible things about Donald Trump in 2016 — but this time they were true. As with the story of the boy who cried wolf, a real wolf had finally arrived.It’s crucially important that liberals make what should be a cogent case against Mr. DeSantis without resorting to exaggeration that will undermine their own credibility, particularly with persuadable voters. The most effective approach will be to build a case tailored to the distinctive defects of whichever candidate makes it to the general election. Stick to the facts: Mr. DeSantis is a bully who’s ready and willing to trample freedom of speech and expression, voting rights and common decency to win the applause of the Republican base so he can win office and advance the G.O.P. dream of gutting the social safety net in return for tax cuts that benefit wealthy right-wing donors.To make the unconvincing claim that a DeSantis presidency would be even worse than another four years of Mr. Trump isn’t necessary and could even undercut the liberal argument.Calling Mr. DeSantis bad should be good enough.Damon Linker, a former columnist at The Week, writes the newsletter “Eyes on the Right” and is a senior fellow in the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center.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

Rikki Novetsky and Stella Tan and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicAfter the 2020 election, wild theories ran rampant on the right of an election stolen from Donald Trump through a coordinated conspiracy. The news channel Fox News became one of the loudest voices amplifying these false claims into millions of U.S. households.Now, a defamation lawsuit by Dominion, a voting machine maker that was cast as a villain in these conspiracy theories, seeks to hold the media company responsible for the false claims made by its hosts and guests, presenting evidence that Fox knew what it was doing was wrong.On today’s episodeJeremy W. Peters, a correspondent for The New York Times who covers the media and its intersection with politics, culture and law.Advertisements on Sixth Avenue featuring Fox News personalities including Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesBackground readingHere’s what Fox News hosts said privately and publicly about voter fraud.The comments, by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and others, were released as part of a defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voter Systems.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Jeremy W. Peters More

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is seeking a second term, but she faces a wide field of challengers who have attacked her record on crime, policing and education.CHICAGO — As residents of Chicago prepare to elect a mayor, they are staring at a highly uncertain picture: a race so wide open that even the incumbent, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who won every ward in the city in the final balloting four years ago, is not assured a spot in an expected runoff election.Chicagoans will pick on Tuesday among nine candidates at a pivotal time to lead the city, which has wrestled since the pandemic with a spike in homicides and an emptier downtown. At least four of the candidates are seen as serious contenders to make it to an April 4 runoff, and Ms. Lightfoot finds herself in between candidates casting themselves to her political left, and also to her right.In the final days of the race, Ms. Lightfoot has attempted to embrace her spot in the middle, arguing that the city needs to stay the course with her. Before a crowd at a union hall over the weekend, she accused one opponent of being an undercover Republican. Another, she said, would raise taxes and cut policing.In addition to Ms. Lightfoot, the top tier of candidates includes Jesús G. García, a progressive congressman; Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner endorsed by the local teachers’ union; and Paul Vallas, a former public school executive with a far more conservative platform on policing and education.Those candidates all describe themselves as Democrats, an unofficial prerequisite for winning citywide office, but have vastly different visions for Chicago. Here is what is shaping the race to lead the country’s third-largest city:The incumbent is on shaky ground.Ms. Lightfoot leveraged outsider status and a promise for sweeping reforms to win her seat in 2019, becoming the first Black woman and first openly gay person to serve as Chicago’s mayor.But she will enter this Election Day with uncertain prospects, dogged by diminished popularity, homicide rates that soared to generational highs and frequent feuds with labor unions and City Council members. Her campaign’s own polling in the weeks before the election showed her in the lead, but with only 24 percent of the vote. Ms. Lightfoot has spoken about a need to attract more people to Chicago. But while the city’s population grew slightly between 2010 and 2020, census estimates show that the number of residents has declined since then.Mayor Lori Lightfoot answered questions and defended her policies on education, crime and other issues at a gathering on the city’s North Side.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesSupporters of the mayor at a campaign rally. Ms. Lightfoot won all 50 city wards in the 2019 runoff election, but she enters this Election Day with uncertain prospects.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesFacing a crowded field, Ms. Lightfoot has portrayed herself this time not as a political outsider but rather as a serious, experienced leader who stabilized Chicago after being dealt a lousy hand. She has emphasized her investments in long-overlooked neighborhoods, defended her handling of the virus and noted that homicides have declined from their pandemic peak.Paul Vallas wants to talk about crime.When Mr. Vallas, a former chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, ran for mayor four years ago, he received just over 30,000 votes and finished in a distant ninth place.But this time, he has emerged as perhaps Ms. Lightfoot’s biggest electoral threat by portraying Chicago as a city in crisis and promising to crack down on lawbreakers. His campaign website describes the city in almost dystopian terms, saying it appears Chicago “has been surrendered to a criminal element that acts with seeming impunity in treating unsuspecting, innocent people as prey.”Mr. Vallas has called for increasing the number of police officers, replacing the police superintendent and improving arrest rates for serious offenses. But as he has made electoral inroads, emphasizing some of the issues that Mayor Eric Adams of New York City campaigned on in 2021, some have questioned whether he is out of step with Chicago’s overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.In a city with a powerful teachers’ union and a long-troubled Police Department, Mr. Vallas’s calls to invest in charter schools and prosecute more misdemeanor crimes have unnerved left-leaning residents and led Ms. Lightfoot to suggest his true loyalties are with the Republican Party. Then, in the final run-up to the election, The Chicago Tribune reported that Mr. Vallas’s Twitter account had liked an array of tweets about the mayor that used offensive language or described Ms. Lightfoot as a man. Mr. Vallas, who calls himself a lifelong Democrat, said he did not like those posts and suggested that his Twitter account was breached.The Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas received the endorsement of the police union, which could be crucial in consolidating conservative support but could also be a liability to some voters. Scott Olson/Getty ImagesRepresentative Jesús G. García greeting commuters in the Pilsen neighborhood. Eight years ago, he qualified for the runoff by uniting Hispanic voters with political progressives of all backgrounds.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesKey union endorsements could cut both ways.Two powerful labor unions that Ms. Lightfoot clashed with repeatedly — the conservative local branch of the Fraternal Order of Police and the liberal Chicago Teachers Union — have steered their supporters to two of her opponents. How much those endorsements will help or hurt remains an open question.Mr. Vallas received the police union endorsement, which could be crucial in consolidating support among right-leaning voters and supporters of the police. But that endorsement has been used as an attack line by Ms. Lightfoot, and it may be a liability among Chicagoans who do not trust the Police Department or who disapprove of the union’s frequently brash rhetoric and coziness with Republican politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.The Chicago Teachers Union, basically the political opposite of the police union, gave its endorsement to Mr. Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and teacher running on an unabashedly progressive platform.The teachers’ union has emerged over the last decade as a powerful player in Chicago politics, engaging in repeated work stoppages, fighting with the last two mayors and putting forth a liberal vision for the city that extends beyond education issues. Its endorsement is now a coveted seal of approval on the progressive left. But after a bruising fight between that union and Ms. Lightfoot over Covid-19 school reopenings and precautions, and in a city where many residents name crime and public safety as their top concern, it is not yet clear what impact the teachers’ endorsement might have.Race has long been a factor in Chicago politics.Chicago, which has a long history of racial and ethnic groups voting as blocs, has roughly equal numbers of white, Black and Hispanic residents. This year’s mayoral field has seven Black contenders (including Ms. Lightfoot and Mr. Johnson), one white candidate (Mr. Vallas) and one Hispanic candidate (Mr. García).Beyond the four candidates leading in the latest polls, others retain significant support and hopes of squeezing into the runoff. Willie Wilson, a businessman who is locally famous for giving away gasoline and $100 bills, finished in fourth place in the 2019 mayoral election and is running again this year on a promise to clamp down on crime. Though Mr. Wilson, who is Black, has a strong base of working-class Black supporters, he has struggled in past campaigns to win votes outside of the South and West Sides.Some Black leaders have expressed concern that the makeup of the field could dilute the voting power of Black residents and lessen the chances of electing a Black mayor. In parts of the city with more Black and Hispanic residents, voter turnout is sometimes lower than in North Side wards where many white people live.Other Black candidates in the race include Kam Buckner, a state legislator; Ja’Mal Green, a civil rights activist; and Sophia King and Roderick Sawyer, both members of the City Council.But while race plays a role in Chicago politics, that role is not necessarily decisive.Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, is running on an unabashedly progressive platform.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesA sign for the candidate Willie Wilson on a corner in the Chinatown neighborhood. Mr. Wilson, a businessman, finished fourth in the 2019 election.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesFour years ago, two Black women, Ms. Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle, built multiracial coalitions and emerged from a large, racially diverse slate of candidates to make the runoff. And eight years ago, Mr. García, who would be Chicago’s first Hispanic mayor, qualified for the runoff by uniting Hispanic voters with political progressives of all backgrounds.Electoral suspense has been a rarity in the past.Chicago voters of a certain age came to expect, for better or worse, a level of continuity at City Hall. Richard J. Daley led the city for more than 20 years, from the 1950s into the ’70s, as did his son Richard M. Daley, who served as mayor from 1989 until 2011. Elections still came around every four years, but they became more of a formality than a referendum.Even when the younger Mr. Daley left office 12 years ago, there was little uncertainty about who would take over. Rahm Emanuel, fresh off a stint as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, returned to Chicago and won a majority of the vote, clinching the job without a runoff. (If no single candidate gets a majority of votes in the first election, the top two finishers advance to a runoff.)Since then, mayoral elections have become far less predictable. Mr. Emanuel won a second term in 2015 but was forced into a runoff in a surprisingly close race with Mr. García. That runoff was the first since Chicago began holding officially nonpartisan elections in 1999. Four years ago, after Mr. Emanuel decided not to run again, Ms. Lightfoot emerged in somewhat surprising fashion from a broad group of candidates that included several more established figures, including William M. Daley, a former White House chief of staff, and Susana Mendoza, the Illinois comptroller. Whoever wins will face a changed City Council.To enact their agenda, every Chicago mayor must navigate the city’s 50-member City Council, a body known for its clubbiness, its members’ frequent criminal indictments and the immense control it can exert over development.As mayor, Ms. Lightfoot, who eliminated some of the sweeping privileges that Council members were historically given to govern their wards, has engaged in highly public disputes with some members even as she worked with them to raise the minimum wage and approve construction of a casino.But the Council is in the midst of a transformation. Several long-serving members have resigned or decided not to seek another term, leaving voters across much of the city to choose new representation. With all 50 seats up for election, and redrawn ward maps being used for the first time, voters will decide whether to empower more moderate or conservative candidates who have focused their campaigns on public safety issues, or elect progressives and Democratic Socialists calling for structural change. The outcomes of those races could determine what policies Ms. Lightfoot or her successor can pursue in the next four years. More

Donald Trump’s support in the city’s wealthy political circles is waning, as 2024 rivals and potential candidates, including Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, make the rounds.New York City’s heavy-hitting Republican-leaning donors in recent years were frozen in place at the presidential level by a fellow New Yorker, Donald J. Trump. But that was before Mr. Trump’s decampment to Florida, his plethora of legal entanglements, and his fall from grace after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.Now, as the 2024 presidential field takes shape, uncommitted donors and prospective political supporters in one of the country’s wealthiest areas are again opening their doors to Republicans seen as prospective candidates — and the candidates are pouring in.Last week, Mike Pence, the former vice president who’s considering a presidential campaign, arrived to meet with a Jewish group and held meetings with donors. On Tuesday, Nikki Haley, who became the second Republican to declare a presidential candidacy, will hold a fund-raiser with financial industry executives. Wednesday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia is scheduled to meet with donors and other influential figures in the city.“Most of these people are coming in only because they are looking to raise money,” said Alfonse D’Amato, New York’s longtime Republican senator turned lobbyist. “Where is the money? The money is in New York.”Former Vice President Mike Pence held private meetings this month with New York’s top Republican donors.Winnie Au for The New York TimesMr. Pence held private meetings in New York City with an undisclosed number of potential donors, part of his efforts as he considers running for president. He has been in New York a number of times, making media appearances but also forging connections with Republican donors who liked aspects of the Trump-era policies but did not care for Mr. Trump’s behavior.This week, Mr. Youngkin will sit with a string of people. Among them will be John Catsimatidis, a grocery store magnate who has historically been a politically ambidextrous donor, but who had a long history with Mr. Trump.Who’s Running for President in 2024?Card 1 of 6The race begins. More