Elections

Romney won’t criticise niece for calling Trump lies and Capitol riot ‘legitimate political discourse’Senator says he has texted with ‘terrific’ Ronna McDaniel, RNC chair who oversaw censure of Cheney and Kinzinger Mitt Romney and his niece, Ronna McDaniel, exchanged texts after the Republican National Committee she chairs called Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat and the Capitol riot “legitimate political discourse”.Trump’s incendiary Texas speech may have deepened his legal troubles, experts sayRead moreRomney, the Utah senator, 2012 presidential nominee and only Republican to twice vote to convict Trump at his impeachment trials, told reporters on Monday he “expressed his point of view”.The RNC used the controversial language in censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only Republicans on the House committee investigating January 6.Romney was one of few Republicans to scorn the move, saying: “Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol. Honor attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth even when doing so comes at great personal cost.”But he did not mention his personal connection to McDaniel, who stopped using “Romney” in her name after Trump took over her party – according to the Washington Post, at Trump’s request.Romney also said the censure “could not have been a more inappropriate message … so far from accurate as to shock and to make people wonder what we’re thinking”.On Monday, he told reporters he and his niece had since “exchanged some texts”.“I expressed my point of view,” he said. “I think she’s a wonderful person and doing her very best.”He also said McDaniel was “terrific”.Amid criticism, McDaniel claimed “legitimate political discourse” pursued by Trump supporters in service of his lie that his defeat was the result of electoral fraud “had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol” – language not in the formal censure.She also said she had “repeatedly condemned violence on both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, this committee has gone well beyond the scope of the events of that day.”That day, 6 January 2021, Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol – after Trump told them to “fight like hell” – did so in an attempt to stop the vice-president, Mike Pence, certifying electoral college results.Seven people died, more than 100 police officers were hurt and more than 700 people face charges. Eleven members of a far-right militia are charged with seditious conspiracy.Trump has promised pardons for rioters if he is elected again and admitted his aim was to overturn the election.On Friday, Pence reflected prevailing opinion among constitutional scholars when he said Trump was “wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.”Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who led Trump’s impeachment for inciting the insurrection and who sits on the 6 January committee, said: “It’s official. Lincoln’s party of ‘liberty and union’ is now Trump’s party of violence and disunion.“His cultists just called sedition, beating up cops and a coup ‘legitimate political discourse’. They censured Cheney and Kinzinger for not bowing to the orange autocrat. Disgrace.”TopicsMitt RomneyRepublicansUS politicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

Missteps by various officials put a Tennessee woman on a collision course with the law. Supporters say the sentence underscores racial disparities in voter fraud cases.A Black woman who was sentenced last week to six years and one day in prison for trying to register to vote in 2019 despite having a felony conviction says she was the victim of complicated voting laws in Tennessee that appeared to confuse even election officials.Prosecutors in Memphis said that accidentally or not, the woman, Pamela Moses, 44, broke the law. But Ms. Moses, a Black Lives Matter activist, and her lawyer say election officials gave her advice that they later corrected while she was seeking to have her voting rights restored.Voting rights activists say Ms. Moses’ lengthy sentence underscores racial disparities in the criminal justice system when it comes to voting fraud cases — especially since white men who have been charged in more straightforward instances of voting fraud have received probation or just days of imprisonment.Ms. Moses’ collision course with the justice system began when she decided she wanted to run for mayor of Memphis in the summer of 2019.Local election officials told Ms. Moses then that she could not be on the ballot because of prior felony convictions, including a 2015 conviction for tampering with evidence. That felony conviction meant Ms. Moses would never be allowed to vote again, but officials did not tell her that at the time and advised her only to check her probation status, said Bede Anyanwu, her lawyer.Ms. Moses was confused because she thought her probation was over, Mr. Anyanwu said. She still wanted to run for mayor, or at the very least vote in the upcoming election, so she went to find answers.In September 2019, a judge told Ms. Moses that she was indeed still on probation. She remained skeptical and went to the probation office, where a probation officer told her she was actually done with her felony probation, records show. The probation officer signed off on her voting rights restoration form. Ms. Moses submitted the form to election officials.Problems came one day later. The probation officer had made a mistake, and the Department of Correction sent a letter to the Shelby County Election Commission informing it that Ms. Moses was “still under an active felony sentence” and could not vote, records show.Ms. Moses was then charged with perjury on a registration form and consenting to a false entry on official election documents. The former charge was dropped, because there was no false statement from Ms. Moses on the voting form, but she was convicted of the second charge in November and sentenced Jan. 31 to six years and one day in prison.“This is a vendetta-type prosecution,” Mr. Anyanwu said on Monday. He added that Judge W. Mark Ward of Criminal Court had “acted like a bully and slammed her” with a lengthy sentence.Video of the hearing shows Ms. Moses telling Judge Ward, “All I did was try to get my rights to vote back the way the people at the election commission told me.”Judge Ward responded, “You tricked the probation department into giving you a document saying that you were off probation.”Judge Ward said in an email that he could not comment because the case was pending.Ms. Moses is currently in jail and could not be reached for comment, but she told WREG, a Memphis TV news station, in December that she “relied on the election commission because those are the people who were supposed to know what you know you’re supposed to do.”“And I found out that they didn’t know,” she said.Judge Ward said in his sentencing order that Ms. Moses seemed “to have nothing but contempt for the law and acts as though she believes herself above the law.”“Perhaps some time in custody will serve as a period of reflection that will give the defendant the insight she needs in order to be fully rehabilitated,” Judge Ward wrote. He added that he would consider placing her on probation after nine months.Amy Weirich, the Shelby County district attorney, did not respond to several calls and emails seeking an interview, but she said in a news release that Ms. Moses had 16 prior criminal convictions, including misdemeanor counts from 2015 of perjury, stalking and theft under $500.In the hearing, Ms. Moses said that she did not commit those crimes and pleaded guilty only to avoid jail time, according to the judge’s sentencing order. Mr. Anyanwu said she was also struggling financially at the time and could not afford to pay for a lawyer.Ms. Moses voted in at least six elections between 2015 and 2018, after she had been convicted of a felony, according to the sentencing orderBecause Ms. Moses was registered to vote before being convicted of a felony in 2015, a court clerk was supposed to notify election officials, who would remove her from voting rolls after the convictions.But that did not happen, according to a letter sent by the Shelby County Election Commission to Ms. Weirich, the district attorney, on Aug. 8, 2020. The letter shows that election officials acknowledged the error, writing that the conviction notice for Ms. Moses “was not sent to the election commission by the court.”Under Tennessee law, people convicted of certain felonies, including tampering with evidence, lose their voting rights forever, a measure that has drawn criticism from voting rights activists.“Instead of welcoming people in, we are perpetually shutting them out, making it harder to vote, and in this instance, criminalizing their efforts to become active and civically engaged members of our society,” Janai Nelson, the associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said on Monday.Blair Bowie, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center who has been assisting Ms. Moses and Mr. Anyanwu with the case since October, said on Monday that Tennessee’s complex voting laws had a “disparate impact on Black people.” The NAACP Legal Defense Fund echoed that sentiment, saying on Twitter that “there are two criminal justice systems in America.”In October, Donald Kirk Hartle, a white Republican voter, was charged with two counts of voter fraud in Las Vegas after he forged his dead wife’s signature to vote with her ballot. He was sentenced in November to one year of probation, The Reno Gazette Journal reported.Edward Snodgrass, a white Republican official in Ohio, forged his dead father’s signature on an absentee ballot in 2020 and was charged with illegal voting, NBC News reported. As part of a plea agreement, he served three days in jail last year, The Delaware Gazette reported.Ms. Nelson compared Ms. Moses’ case to the cases of Hervis Rogers of Houston, a 62-year-old Black man who was charged with voting illegally while he was still on parole and faced up to 40 years in prison, and Crystal Mason, a Black woman in Tarrant County, Texas, who was sentenced to five years in prison for illegal voting, despite insisting that she did not know she was ineligible to vote as a felon on probation.Mr. Anyanwu said Ms. Moses planned to appeal the judge’s sentencing.Judge Ward said in his order that Ms. Moses should have listened to the first judge who told her in 2019 that she was indeed still on probation.Mr. Anyanwu disagreed.“It was the probation department that gave the letter that she had expired her sentence, so she’ll be prosecuted for a mistake that was made by the state,” he said. More

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to fix the Electoral Count Act, the obscure law used to justify the Jan. 6 riot. Is it even possible?The Electoral Count Act is both a legal monstrosity and a fascinating puzzle.Intended to settle disputes about how America chooses its presidents, the 135-year-old law has arguably done the opposite. Last year, its poorly written and ambiguous text tempted Donald Trump into trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, using a fringe legal theory that his own vice president rejected.Scholars say the law remains a ticking time bomb. And with Trump on their minds, members of Congress in both parties now agree that fixing it before the 2024 election is a matter of national urgency.“If people don’t trust elections as a fair way to transition power, then what are you left with?” said Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine who has been leading the reform efforts. “I would argue that Jan. 6 is a harbinger.”‘Unsavory’ originsThe Electoral Count Act’s origins are, as King put it, “unsavory.”More than a decade elapsed between the disputed election that inspired it and its passage in 1887. Under the bargain that ended that dispute, the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, agreed to withdraw federal troops from the occupied South — effectively ending Reconstruction and launching the Jim Crow era.The law itself is a morass of archaic and confusing language. One especially baffling sentence in Section 15 — which lays out what is meant to happen when Congress counts the votes on Jan. 6 — is 275 words long and contains 21 commas and two semicolons.Amy Lynn Hess, the author of a grammatical textbook on diagraming sentences, told us that mapping out that one sentence alone would take about six hours and require a large piece of paper.“It’s one of the most confusing pieces of legislation I’ve ever read,” King told us. “It’s impossible to figure out exactly what they intended.”King has been working through how to fix the Electoral Count Act since the spring, when he first started sounding the alarm about its deficiencies. His office has become a hub of expertise on the subject.“It just so happens I have a political science Ph.D. on my staff,” King said. “And when I assigned him to start working on this, it was like heaven for him.”Last week, King and two Democratic colleagues, Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Dick Durbin of Illinois, introduced a draft discussion bill aimed at addressing the act’s main weaknesses.King said he hopes it will serve as “a head start” for more than a dozen senators in both parties who have been meeting to hash out legislation of their own.One leader of that effort, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a Democrat, vowed on Sunday that a reform bill “absolutely” will pass. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, said the lawmakers were taking “the Goldilocks approach” — as in, “we’re going to try to find what’s just right.”But finding a compromise that will satisfy both progressive Democrats and the 10 Republican senators required for passage in the Senate won’t be easy. Already, differences have emerged over what role the federal courts should play in adjudicating election disputes within states, according to people close to the talks.Mr. Worst-Case ScenarioFew have studied the Electoral Count Act more obsessively than Matthew Seligman, a fellow at Yale Law School.In an exhaustive 100-page paper, he walked through nearly every combination of scenarios for how the law could be abused by partisans bent on stretching its boundaries to the max. And what he discovered shocked him.“Its underexplored weaknesses are so profound that they could result in an even more explosive conflict in 2024 and beyond, fueled by increasingly vitriolic political polarization and constitutional hardball,” Seligman warns.He found, for instance, that in nine of the 34 presidential elections since 1887, “the losing party could have reversed the results of the presidential election and the party that won legitimately would have been powerless to stop it.”Seligman refrained from publishing his paper for more than five years, out of fear that it could be used for malicious ends. He worries especially about what he calls the “governor’s tiebreaker,” a loophole in the existing law that, if abused, could cause a constitutional crisis.Suppose that on Jan. 6, 2025 — the next time the Electoral Count Act will come into play — Republicans control the House of Representatives and the governorship of Georgia.Seligman conjures a hypothetical yet plausible scenario: The secretary of state declares that President Biden won the popular vote in the state. But Gov. David Perdue, who has said he believes the 2020 election was stolen, declares there was “fraud” and submits a slate of Trump electors to Congress instead. Then the House, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, certifies Trump as the winner.Even if Democrats controlled the Senate and rejected Perdue’s electoral slate, it wouldn’t matter, Seligman said. Because of the quirks of the Electoral Count Act, Georgia’s 16 Electoral College votes would go for Trump.“When you’re in this era of pervasive distrust, you start running through all these rabbit holes,” said Richard H. Pildes, a professor at New York University’s School of Law. “We haven’t had to chase down so many rabbit holes before.”Now, for the hard partThe easiest part in fixing the Electoral Count Act, according to half a dozen experts who have studied the issue, would be figuring out how Congress would accept the results from the states.There’s wide agreement on three points to do that:Extending the safe harbor deadline, the date by which all challenges to a state’s election results must be completed.Clarifying that the role of the vice president on Jan. 6 is purely “ministerial,” meaning the vice president merely opens the envelopes and has no power to reject electors.Raising the number of members of Congress needed to object to a state’s electors; currently, one lawmaker from each chamber is enough to do so.The harder part is figuring out how to clarify the process for how states choose their electors in the first place. And that’s where things get tricky.The states that decide presidential elections are often closely divided. Maybe one party controls the legislature while another holds the governor’s mansion or the secretary of state’s office. And while each state has its own rules for working through any election disputes, it’s not always clear what is supposed to happen.In Michigan, for instance, a canvassing board made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats certifies the state’s election results. What if they can’t reach a decision? That nearly happened in 2020, until one Republican member broke with his party and declared Biden the winner.Progressive Democrats will want more aggressive provisions to prevent attempts in Republican-led states to subvert the results. Republicans will fear a slippery slope and try to keep the bill as narrow as possible.King’s solution was to clarify the process for the federal courts to referee disputes between, say, a governor and a secretary of state, and to require states to hash out their internal disagreements by the federal “safe harbor date,” which he would push back to Dec. 20 instead of its current date of Dec. 8.The political obstacles are formidable, too. Still reeling from their failure to pass federal voting rights legislation, many Democrats are suspicious of Republicans’ motives. It’s entirely possible that Democrats will decide that it’s better to do nothing, because passing a bipartisan bill to fix the Electoral Count Act would allow Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, to portray himself as the savior of American democracy.Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who heads the Committee on House Administration, has been working with Representative Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican, on a bipartisan House bill. But she stressed that their ambitions are fairly limited.“We’ve made clear this is no substitute for the voting rights bill,” Lofgren told us. “The fact that the Senate failed on that shouldn’t be an excuse for not doing something modest.”What to read tonightJill Biden, the first lady, told community college leaders that her effort to provide two years of free community college isn’t in Democrats’ social spending bill, Katie Rogers reports.Republican campaigns have intensified their attacks on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a trend that Sheryl Gay Stolberg described as representative of “the deep schism in the country, mistrust in government and a brewing populist resentment of the elites, all made worse by the pandemic.”Peter Thiel is stepping down from the board of Meta, according to its parent company, Facebook. Ryan Mac and Mike Isaac hear that Thiel, who has become one of the Republican Party’s largest donors, wants to focus his energy on the midterms instead.Chief Justice John G. Roberts joined the three liberal members’ dissent to a Supreme Court order reinstating an Alabama congressional map. A lower court had ruled that the map violated the Voting Rights Act, Adam Liptak reports.STATESIDEBallots being tabulated at the Maricopa County Recorder’s office in Phoenix on Nov. 5, 2020.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesVoting rights push goes localArizona, as we’ve noted, has become a hotly contested battleground, and the two parties have clashed continuously over the rules that govern how elections can and should be held. Just last week, the Republican speaker of the State House spiked a bill that would have allowed the Legislature to reject election results it didn’t like.A new ballot initiative led by Arizonans for Fair Elections, a nonprofit advocacy group, would do the opposite: expand voter registration, extend in-person early voting and guard against partisan purges of the voter rolls, along with a host of other changes that groups on the left have long wanted.It would essentially overturn an existing law that was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court last year, resulting in a 6-3 decision favoring the Republican attorney general. Arizonans for Fair Elections expects to announce its plans on Tuesday.The move comes at a time of frustration for voting rights advocates, whose push for legislation to enact similar changes at the federal level ran into a wall of Republican opposition.Will the local approach fare any better? A citizens’ initiative that passed in 2000 established Arizona’s independent redistricting commission, so there’s a precedent. To get on the ballot this year, the group needs to obtain 237,645 valid signatures by July 7.“Our Legislature for many years has been trying to chip away at the right to vote,” said Joel Edman, a spokesman for the initiative. “We’re at a big moment for our democracy.”Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. More

The tech billionaire, who has been on the board of the company formerly known as Facebook since 2005, is backing numerous politicians in the midterm elections.Peter Thiel, one of the longest-serving board members of Meta, the parent of Facebook, plans to step down, the company said on Monday.Mr. Thiel, 54, wants to focus on influencing November’s midterm elections, said a person with knowledge of Mr. Thiel’s thinking who declined to be identified. Mr. Thiel sees the midterms as crucial to changing the direction of the country, this person said, and he is backing candidates who support the agenda of former President Donald J. Trump.Over the last year, Mr. Thiel, who has a net worth estimated at $2.6 billion by Forbes, has become one of the Republican’s Party’s largest donors. He gave $10 million each last year to the campaigns of two protégés, Blake Masters, who is running for a Senate seat in Arizona, and J.D. Vance, who is running for Senate in Ohio.Mr. Thiel has been on Meta’s board since 2005, when Facebook was a tiny start-up and he was one of its first institutional investors. But scrutiny of Mr. Thiel’s position on the board has steadily increased as the company was embroiled in political controversies, including barring Mr. Trump from the platform, and as the venture capitalist has become more politically active.The departure means Meta loses its board’s most prominent conservative voice. The 10-member board has undergone significant changes in recent years, as many of its members have left and been replaced, often with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Drew Houston, the chief executive of Dropbox, joined Facebook’s board in 2020, and Tony Xu, the founder of DoorDash, joined it last month. Meta didn’t address whether it intends to replace Mr. Thiel.The company, which recently marked its 18th birthday, is undertaking a shift toward the so-called metaverse, which its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, believes is the next generation of the internet. Last week, Meta reported spending more than $10 billion on the effort in 2021, along with mixed financial results. That wiped more than $230 billion off the company’s market value.“Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he’s done for our company,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a statement. “Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Campaign Financing: With both parties awash in political money, billionaires and big checks are shaping the midterm elections.Key Issues: Democrats and Republicans are preparing for abortion and voting rights to be defining topics.In a statement on Monday, Mr. Thiel said: “It has been a privilege to work with one of the great entrepreneurs of our time. Mark Zuckerberg’s intelligence, energy and conscientiousness are tremendous. His talents will serve Meta well as he leads the company into a new era.”Mr. Thiel first met Mr. Zuckerberg 18 years ago when he provided the entrepreneur with $500,000 in capital for Facebook, valuing the company at $4.9 million. That gave Mr. Thiel, who with his venture firm Founders Fund controlled a 10 percent stake in the social network, a seat on its board of directors.Since then, Mr. Thiel has become a confidant of Mr. Zuckerberg. He counseled the company through its early years of rapid user growth, and through its difficulties shifting its business to mobile phones around the time of its 2012 initial public offering.He has also been seen as the contrarian who has Mr. Zuckerberg’s ear, championing unfettered speech across digital platforms when it suited him. His conservative views also gave Facebook’s board what Mr. Zuckerberg saw as ideological diversity.In 2019 and 2020, as Facebook grappled with how to deal with political speech and claims made in political advertising, Mr. Thiel urged Mr. Zuckerberg to withstand the public pressure to take down those ads, even as other executives and board members thought the company should change its position. Mr. Zuckerberg sided with Mr. Thiel.But Mr. Thiel’s views on speech were at times contradictory. He funded a secret war against the media website Gawker, eventually resulting in the site’s bankruptcy.Mr. Thiel’s political influence and ties to key Republicans and conservatives have also offered a crucial gateway into Washington for Mr. Zuckerberg, especially during the Trump administration. In October 2019, Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Thiel had a private dinner with President Trump.Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg have long taken heat for Mr. Thiel’s presence on the board. In 2016, Mr. Thiel was one of the few tech titans in largely liberal Silicon Valley to publicly support Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.In 2020, when Mr. Trump’s incendiary Facebook posts were put under the microscope, critics cited Mr. Thiel’s board seat as a reason for Mr. Zuckerberg’s continued insistence that Mr. Trump’s posts be left standing.Facebook banned Mr. Trump’s account last year after the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, saying his messages incited violence. The episode became a key rallying point for conservatives who say mainstream social platforms have censored them.Mr. Vance, who used to work at one of Mr. Thiel’s venture funds, and Mr. Masters, the chief operating officer of Mr. Thiel’s family office, have railed against Facebook. In October, the two Senate candidates argued in an opinion piece in The New York Post that Mr. Zuckerberg’s $400 million in donations to local election offices in 2020 amounted to “election meddling” that should be investigated.Recently, Mr. Thiel has publicly voiced his disagreement with content moderation decisions at Facebook and other major social media platforms. In October at a Miami event organized by a conservative technology association, he said he would “take QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories any day over a Ministry of Truth.”Mr. Thiel’s investing has also clashed with his membership on Meta’s board. He invested in the company that became Clearview AI, a facial recognition start-up that scraped billions of photos from Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms in violation of their terms of service. Founders Fund also invested in Boldend, a cyberweapons company that claimed it had found a way to hack WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging platform.Meta declined to comment on Mr. Thiel’s investments.In the past year, Mr. Thiel, who also is chairman of the software company Palantir, has increased his political giving to Republican candidates. Ahead of the midterms, he is backing four Senate candidates and 12 House candidates. Among those House candidates are three people running primary challenges to Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching Mr. Trump for the events of Jan. 6. More

G.O.P. candidates, tapping into voters’ frustrations with a seemingly endless pandemic, are stepping up their attacks on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci.COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Jane Timken kicked off an eight-week advertising campaign on the Fox News Channel in her bid for the Republican nomination for Senate, she did not focus on immigration, health care or the economy. Her first ad was titled “Fire Fauci.”Her target — Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus — is also under attack in Pennsylvania, where Mehmet Oz, a television doctor who has entered the Republican Senate primary there, calls him a “petty tyrant.” Dr. Oz recently ran a Twitter ad calling for a debate — not between candidates, but between him and Dr. Fauci.In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis released an advertisement last month telling Dr. Fauci to “pound sand” via the beach sandals the governor’s re-election campaign is now selling: “Freedom Over Fauci Flip-Flops.” In Wisconsin, Kevin Nicholson, a onetime Democrat running for governor as a conservative outsider, says Dr. Fauci “should be fired and referred to prosecutors.”Republican attacks on Dr. Fauci are not new; former President Donald J. Trump, irked that the doctor publicly corrected his falsehoods about the virus, called him “a disaster” and repeatedly threatened to fire him. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, has grilled Dr. Fauci in nationally televised hearings, and Dr. Fauci — true to his fighter-from-Brooklyn roots — has punched back.But as the 2022 midterm elections approach, the attacks have spread across the nation, intensifying as Dr. Fauci draws outsize attention in some of the most important state and local races on the ballot in November.The Republican war on Dr. Fauci is partly a sign of Mr. Trump’s strong grip on the party. But Dr. Fauci, both his friends and detractors agree, has also become a symbol of something deeper — the deep schism in the country, mistrust in government and a brewing populist resentment of the elites, all made worse by the pandemic.And Dr. Fauci, whose perpetual television appearances have made him the face of the Covid-19 response — and who is viewed by his critics as a high-and-mighty know-it-all who enjoys his celebrity — seems an obvious person to blame.Dr. Anthony S. Fauci has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and has advised eight presidents. He has never revealed a party affiliation. Tom Brenner for The New York Times“Populism is essentially anti: anti-establishment, anti-expertise, anti-intellectual and anti-media,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist, adding that Dr. Fauci “is an establishment expert intellectual who is in the media.”For the 81-year-old immunologist, a venerated figure in the world of science, it is a jarring last chapter of a government career that has spanned half a century. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a post he has held since 1984, he has helped lead the response to various public health crises, including AIDS and Ebola, and advised eight presidents. He has never revealed a party affiliation. President George H.W. Bush once cited him as a hero..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Now, though, some voters are parroting right-wing commentators who compare Dr. Fauci to the brutal Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Candidates in hotly contested Republican primaries like Ohio’s are trying to out-Trump one another by supplanting Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Dr. Fauci as a political boogeyman. Mr. DeSantis has coined a new term: “Faucism.” In Washington, lawmakers are taking aim at Dr. Fauci’s salary, finances and influence.“I didn’t make myself a polarizing figure,” Dr. Fauci declared in an interview. “I’ve been demonized by people who are running away from the truth.”The anti-Fauci fervor has taken its toll on his personal life; he has received death threats, his family has been harassed and his home in Washington is guarded by a security detail. His standing with the public has also suffered. In a recent NBC News Poll, just 40 percent of respondents said they trusted Dr. Fauci, down from 60 percent in April 2020.Still, Mr. Ayres said, Dr. Fauci remains for many Americans “one of the most trusted voices regarding the pandemic.” In a Gallup poll at the end of 2021, his job approval rating was 52 percent. On a list of 10 officials, including Mr. Biden and congressional leaders, only two scored higher: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Jerome H. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.Republican strategists are split on whether attacking Dr. Fauci is a smart strategy. Mr. Ayres said it could help rev up the base in a primary but backfire in a general election, especially in a swing state like Ohio. But John Feehery, another strategist, said many pandemic-weary Americans viewed Dr. Fauci as “Mr. Lockdown,” and it made sense for Republicans “to run against both Fauci and lockdowns.”Here in Ohio, Ms. Timken, a Harvard graduate and former chairwoman of the Ohio Republican Party who promises to “advance the Trump agenda without fear or hesitation,” is doing just that. Her ad shows a parent struggling to put a mask on a screaming toddler, which she brands “child abuse.”Ms. Timken is one of at least three Republican candidates for Ohio’s Senate seat who are going after Dr. Fauci.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe spot, she said in an interview, was prompted by what she hears from voters who are resentful of vaccine mandates, confused by shifting public health advice and tired of being told what to do.“It taps into the real frustration they feel,” Ms. Timken said, “that Fauci claims to be the bastion of science, but I think he’s playing God.”She is one of three candidates with elite academic credentials who are going after Dr. Fauci in a crowded primary for the seat that Senator Rob Portman, a Republican, is giving up. The others are J.D. Vance, a lawyer with a Yale degree and the author of the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” and Josh Mandel, the former Ohio state treasurer, whose law degree is from Case Western Reserve University.Mr. Vance called Dr. Fauci “a ridiculous tyrant” during a rally with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican banned from Twitter for spreading Covid misinformation. Mr. Mandel has railed against Dr. Fauci for months on Facebook and Twitter, calling him a liar and “one of the biggest frauds in American history.”Ohio Republicans are split between the Trump wing and centrists in the mold of John Kasich, the former governor. Those tensions were on display last week at Tommy’s Diner, a Columbus institution, and at a meeting of the Franklin County Republican Committee, which convened to vote on endorsements. Sentiments seemed to track with vaccination status.Mike Matthews, center, and George Wolf, right, are both vaccinated and didn’t find fault with Dr. Fauci. Andy Watkinson, at the table behind them, is unvaccinated and thinks Dr. Fauci “needs to retire.”Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesAt the diner, Republicans like Mike Matthews, a retired state worker, and George Wolf, a retired firefighter, both of whom voted for Mr. Trump, found no fault with Dr. Fauci. Both are vaccinated. “I’ve never heard of anyone that I would trust more,” Mr. Wolf said.But at the next table, Andy Watkinson, a remodeling contractor who is unvaccinated, said he was a fan of Joe Rogan, the podcaster, provocateur and Fauci critic. “I think he’s done the same thing for 50 years and he’s in bed with all the pharma companies,” Mr. Watkinson said of Dr. Fauci, though there is no evidence of that. “He needs to retire.”At the committee meeting, views about Dr. Fauci were more strident.“He needs to be brought up on charges,” declared Lisadiana Bates, a former business owner who is home-schooling her children. Echoing Dr. Robert Malone, who has become a conservative celebrity by arguing that Covid vaccine mandates are unethical experiments, she asserted that Dr. Fauci had “violated the Nuremberg Code,” the set of research ethics developed after the Holocaust.“This whole thing is nothing but an experiment!” Ms. Bates exclaimed.Lisadiana Bates, a former business owner who is home-schooling her children, asserted that Dr. Fauci had “violated the Nuremberg code,” the set of research ethics developed after the Holocaust.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe roots of anti-Fauci campaign rhetoric can be traced to Washington, where Dr. Fauci has clashed repeatedly with two Republican senators who are also doctors: Mr. Paul, an ophthalmologist, and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, an obstetrician.Mr. Paul has fueled speculation that Covid-19 was the result of a lab leak produced by federally funded “gain-of-function” research — high-risk studies aimed at making viruses more infectious — in Wuhan, China. Dr. Fauci and other National Institutes of Health officials have said that the Wuhan research did not meet the criteria for gain-of-function studies, and that it is genetically impossible for viruses studied there to have produced the pandemic.The nuances of that dispute, however, have gotten lost in the increasingly hostile exchanges between the two men. In July, after Mr. Paul accused him of lying to Congress, Dr. Fauci shot back, “If anybody is lying here, senator, it is you.” Last month, Dr. Fauci arrived at a Senate hearing brandishing a fund-raising webpage for Mr. Paul that included a “Fire Dr. Fauci” graphic, and accused Mr. Paul of exploiting the pandemic for political gain.Later in that same hearing, Dr. Fauci muttered under his breath that Mr. Marshall was “a moron” — a comment caught on an open microphone — after the senator posted Dr. Fauci’s salary on a placard and demanded his financial disclosure forms, suggesting he might be engaged in financial “shenanigans” with the pharmaceutical industry.(Dr. Fauci’s financial disclosure forms, which Mr. Marshall has since posted on the internet, show investments in bonds and mutual funds, not drug companies. He is paid an annual salary of $434,312 under a provision that allows government doctors and scientists to be highly compensated, akin to what they could earn in the private sector.)Dr. Fauci said he did not regret the “moron” remark, or the pushback against Mr. Paul. But Ms. Timken said calling Mr. Marshall a moron was “beyond the pale.”Even some Fauci fans in academia and government say he might have been better off keeping his cool to avoid amplifying his Republican critics and alienating voters who need to hear his public health message. Some suggest he lower his profile; he says the White House asks him to go on TV.“He’s been pushing back in a way that is not common for us to see for American scientists, and I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.If Democrats lose seats in the midterm elections, as many expect, Dr. Fauci may have a Republican-controlled Congress to contend with. Another Republican from Ohio, Representative Jim Jordan, who claims that Dr. Fauci knew the coronavirus “came from a lab,” has vowed that Republicans will investigate him if they win control of the House.Some of Dr. Fauci’s friends are urging him to avoid that possibility by retiring. He has been working on a memoir, but cannot look for a publisher while he is still a federal employee. Dr. Fauci says Republicans will not dictate the terms of his retirement, and he has no plans at the moment to step down. And, he said, he is not worried about any investigation.“I can’t think of what they would want to investigate except this whole pile of lies that they’re throwing around,” he said. More

Neil Young and Joni Mitchell did more than go after Spotify for spreading Covid disinformation last week. They also, inadvertently, signaled what could turn out to be an extraordinarily important revival: of an older generation fully rejoining the fight for a working future.You could call it (with a wink!) codger power.We’ve seen this close up: over the last few months we’ve worked with others of our generation to start the group Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for progressive change. That’s no easy task. The baby boomers and the Silent Generation before them make up a huge share of the population — more nearly 75 million people, a larger population than France. And conventional wisdom (and a certain amount of data) holds that people become more conservative as they age, perhaps because they have more to protect.But as those musicians reminded us, these are no “normal” generations. We’re both in our 60s; in the 1960s and ’70s, our generation either bore witness to or participated in truly profound cultural, social and political transformations. Think of Neil Young singing “four dead in O-hi-o” in the weeks after Kent State, or Joni Mitchell singing “they paved paradise” after the first Earth Day. Perhaps we thought we’d won those fights. But now we emerge into older age with skills, resources, grandchildren — and a growing fear that we’re about to leave the world a worse place than we found it. So some of us are more than ready to turn things around.It’s not that there aren’t plenty of older Americans involved in the business of politics: We’ve perhaps never had more aged people in positions of power, with most of the highest offices in the nation occupied by septuagenarians and up, yet even with all their skills they can’t get anything done because of the country’s political divisions.But the daily business of politics — the inside game — is very different from the sort of political movements that helped change the world in the ’60s. Those we traditionally leave to the young, and indeed at the moment it’s young people who are making most of the difference, from the new civil rights movement exemplified by Black Lives Matter to the teenage ranks of the climate strikers. But we can’t assign tasks this large to high school students as extra homework; that’s neither fair nor practical.Instead, we need older people returning to the movement politics they helped invent. It’s true that the effort to embarrass Spotify over its contributions to the stupidification of our body politic hasn’t managed yet to make it change its policies yet. But the users of that streaming service skew young: slightly more than half are below the age of 35, and just under a fifth are 55 or older.Other important pressure points may play out differently. One of Third Act’s first campaigns, for instance, aims to take on the biggest banks in America for their continued funding of the fossil fuel industry even as the global temperature keeps climbing. Chase, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo might want to take note, because (fairly or not) 70 percent of the country’s financial assets are in the hands of boomers and the Silent Generation, compared with just about 5 percent for millennials. More

Senators working to overhaul the law said recent revelations about former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election made their work even more crucial.WASHINGTON — Two senators working on an overhaul of the little-known law that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election pledged on Sunday that their legislation would pass the Senate, saying that recent revelations about the plot made their work even more important.In a joint interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said their efforts to rewrite the Electoral Count Act of 1887 were gaining broader support in the Senate, with as many as 20 senators taking part in the discussions.“Absolutely, it will pass,” Mr. Manchin said of an overhaul of the law, which dictates how Congress formalizes elections.He said efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to exploit “ambiguity” in the law were “what caused the insurrection” — the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. That misreading of the statute led to a plan by Mr. Trump and his allies to amass a crowd outside the Capitol to try to pressure Congress and Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over Congress’s official count of electoral votes, to overturn the results of the election.Ms. Murkowski said the rewrite could be expanded to include other protections for democracy, such as a crackdown on threats and harassment against election workers.“We want to make sure that if you are going to be an election worker,” Ms. Murkowski said, “you don’t feel intimidated or threatened or harassed.”A bipartisan group of at least 15 senators — which includes Mr. Manchin and Ms. Murkowski and is led by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine — recently began discussions with another group that features top Democrats who have studied the issue for months. That group includes Senator Angus King, independent of Maine; Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota; and Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.Mr. King’s group last week released draft legislative text for a rewrite of the Electoral Count Act that would address deficiencies exposed by Mr. Trump’s plan. The bill would clarify that the vice president has no power to reject a state’s electors and ensure that state legislatures cannot appoint electors after Election Day in an effort to overturn their state’s election results.It would also give states additional time to complete legitimate recounts and litigation; provide limited judicial review to ensure that the electors appointed by a state reflect the popular vote results in the state; enumerate specific and narrow grounds for objections to electors or electoral votes; raise the thresholds for Congress to consider objections; and make it harder to sustain objections without broad support by both chambers of Congress.In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. King called his group’s draft “very nonpartisan” and said it included the input of conservative and liberal legal scholars.“Hopefully we can join forces and get a good bill,” Mr. King said of Ms. Collins’s group.The latest push to clarify the law follows a series of revelations about a campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to try to overturn the 2020 election, including the surfacing of memos that show the roots of the attempts to use so-called alternate electors to keep Mr. Trump in power and the former president’s exploration of proposals to seize voting machines.On Friday, Mr. Pence offered his most forceful rebuke of Mr. Trump’s plan, saying the former president was “wrong” to insist that Mr. Pence had the legal authority to overturn the results of the election. Those comments came on the same day the Republican National Committee voted to censure two members of the party, Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, in a resolution that described the events of Jan. 6 as “legitimate political discourse.”Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger are the only Republican members of the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, which left more than 150 police officers injured and resulted in several deaths.The resolution drew criticism from some congressional Republicans on Sunday.Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, said on ABC’s “This Week” that he did “not agree with that statement — if it’s applying to those who committed criminal offenses and violence to overtake our shrine of democracy.”In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s former chief of staff, said that “from my front-row seat, I did not see a lot of legitimate political discourse.”Mr. Short blamed Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the election on “many bad advisers who were basically snake-oil salesmen, giving him really random and novel ideas as to what the vice president could do.”He described being taken to a secure room in the Capitol with Mr. Pence on Jan. 6 as rioters stormed the building, some chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” He said Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence did not talk that day.Mr. Short and another top Pence aide, Greg Jacob, recently testified before the committee, a step Mr. Pence’s advisers have hoped would stop the committee from issuing a subpoena for Mr. Pence. Representatives of Mr. Pence have been negotiating with the committee’s lawyers for months.“That would be a pretty unprecedented step for the committee to take,” Mr. Short said of a subpoena for the former vice president, adding that it would be “very difficult for me to see that scenario unfolding.”Emily Cochrane More

With tensions rising, many see Monday as a deadline for the government to step down.A powerful Haitian opposition group is demanding the United States withdraw its support for the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in Haiti, saying the administration’s legitimacy is tarnished by delayed elections and Mr. Henry’s potential connection to the assassination of the country’s president.The opposition group, called the Montana Accord, has called for the United States to act by Monday — the date on which President Jovenel Moïse had vowed to step down, before he was gunned down in his home last year. The government will be rendered unconstitutional by Monday, according to the Montana Accord and independent experts.The showdown has left the Biden administration in an increasingly uncomfortable position. Afraid that Haiti may slip further into chaos, the United States for now is supporting the status quo: a ruling party that has governed for about a decade and seen the power of gangs explode across the country and corruption run rampant.“When we look at the history of Haiti, it is replete with the international community reaching into Haitian politics and picking winners and losers,” Brian Nichols, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in January. “Our goal in terms of the U.S. government is to avoid that.”As doubts mount that the Henry administration can hold elections this year, anti-government demonstrations have erupted throughout Port-au-Prince, the capital, and local gangs have used the moment of rising uncertainty to expand their territory.Adding to the instability, gangs stormed the airport road on Friday, shutting down businesses and putting Haiti’s police force on high alert in anticipation of more violence on Monday.The Montana Accord has called for the formation of a transitional government, with its leader, Fritz Alphonse Jean, at the helm to restore security before ultimately holding elections. By continuing to support the current government, the group says, the United States is essentially choosing a side.“Insecurity is rampant, fear of kidnapping and rape are the everyday situation of the average Haitian,” Mr. Jean said in an interview on Friday. “This is a state of disarray and the Henry government is just sitting there unable to address those challenges.”A roadblock a day before the funeral of Jovenel Moise in Cap-Haitien last July.Federico Rios for The New York TimesAnalysts acknowledge that a transitional government led by the Montana Accord would also be unconstitutional. But they say it would have more legitimacy than the Henry government because the group — made up of civil society organizations and powerful political figures — represents a wider array of the population than the current government, which was voted in with an abysmally low turnout.“What’s the most constitutional government you can have at the moment? The short answer is zero,” said Alexandra Filippova, a senior staff attorney at the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, a think tank focused on improving the justice system.“So the next best question is, what moves you closer to a legitimate constitutional government? We see that the Montana group is a flawed process but is the best way forward to creating a path for a legitimate government.”Senior American officials have urged the Montana Accord to work with Mr. Henry’s government to chart a path forward, and acknowledge that the group is an important partner in achieving a broadly representative political system to help steer the country toward elections.Mr. Henry has said the next government must be formed through elections, not a transitional government.The Montana Accord contends, however, that Mr. Henry has not created a feasible blueprint to improve security and to hold free and fair elections safely amid widespread gang violence, surging corruption and a disillusioned Haitian population.Adding to the distrust, Mr. Henry may also be implicated in Mr. Moïse’s killing, opposition members say.In September, Haiti’s top prosecutor claimed the prime minister was in touch with the chief suspect in Mr. Moïse’s death in the days before and hours after the assassination. The prosecutor asked the justice minister to charge Mr. Henry formally in the assassination. Mr. Henry swiftly fired both officials.Phone records obtained by The New York Times and an exclusive interview with another suspect in the assassination also bolster those accusations. Mr. Henry has denied the allegations.“The whole system is not trustworthy,” Monique Clesca, a member of the Montana Accord, said. “There is no way you can go to elections with Ariel Henry; nobody trusts him after this assassination.”Electing a new transitional president for the Montana Accord in Port-au-Prince last month.Ralph Tedy Erol/ReutersSo far, American officials have dismissed the accusations against the prime minister while urging the government and the Montana Accord to achieve a consensus. Mr. Henry, a senior American official said in an interview this month, is viewed as a caretaker and does not have the United States’ unconditional support.Average Haitians are skeptical that either the government or the opposition can improve their lives.“There’s nothing to expect from the decision makers, they always look out for themselves,” said Vanessa Jacques, 29, an unemployed mother.Ms. Jacques described a feeling of insecurity so deep that it has paralyzed her life, preventing her from attending university or running errands.“Living in Haiti, you have to look out for yourself, or no one else will,” she said.Recent presidential elections in Haiti have been plagued with problems and unrepresentative of the population. Mr. Moïse was elected in 2016 with only 600,000 votes, of a population of nearly six million eligible voters. His predecessor, Michel Martelly, was elected in a controversial election in which the United States was accused of intervening on his behalf.Still, many Haitian leaders see elections as the only path forward.“Elections are a must,” said Edmond Bocchit, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States. “Now it’s a matter of when and how are we going to get together to get it done.”While some business leaders in Haiti say Mr. Henry has questions to answer regarding Mr. Moïse’s assassination, they add that he has been able to keep the situation from unraveling and also achieved an important goal: raising fuel prices. Fuel subsidies have nearly bankrupted the state, and the previous government was unable to remove them without setting off riots.A road intersection near a street market in Pétionville last September amid insecurity and gas shortages.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“The country has to keep moving,” said Wilhelm Lemke, the president of the​​ Haitian Manufacturers Association. “And they’ve kept it from unraveling,” he said, but Mr. Henry needs to reach out to the opposition to form a more representative government. He stressed that Mr. Henry had to sit down with the opposition to reach a broader political accord.But “the prime minister should address the inferences that he may be part of the assassination and all that. By not addressing it, you’re bringing water to your detractors,” he said. “And you’re diluting your moral authority.”Chris Cameron More