Elections

Two quit Fox News over Tucker Carlson’s Capitol attack seriesCommentators Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg cite Fox Nation documentary Patriot Purge in stinging open letter Two Fox News contributors have quit the network over Tucker Carlson’s Patriot Purge, a documentary about the deadly Capitol attack.Kayleigh McEnany’s book claims don’t stand up to assurances that she didn’t lieRead moreIn an open letter, Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg said: “Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis. But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible.“A case in point: Patriot Purge, a three-part series hosted by Tucker Carlson.”As Hayes and Goldberg noted on the Dispatch, an outlet they founded in 2019, Patriot Purge showed on the Fox Nation streaming service but was promoted on Fox News.The three-part series recycles conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack, in which supporters of Donald Trump attacked Congress on 6 January in an attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden.Hayes and Goldberg, formerly writers with the Weekly Standard and the National Review, said the series was “presented in the style of an exposé, a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. In reality, it is a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery and damning omissions.”Goldberg told the New York Times he and Hayes had stayed on at Fox News in the hope it would recover independence from Trump.But as goes the Republican party, so goes Fox News. In their resignation letter, Hayes and Goldberg wrote: “Over the past five years, some of Fox’s top opinion hosts amplified the false claims and bizarre narratives of Donald Trump or offered up their own in his service. In this sense, the release of Patriot Purge wasn’t an isolated incident, it was merely the most egregious example of a longstanding trend.”Goldberg told the Times the Carlson documentary was “a sign that people have made peace with this direction of things, and there is no plan, at least, that anyone made me aware of for a course correction.“Now, righting the ship is an academic question. The Patriot Purge thing meant: OK, we hit the iceberg now, and I can’t do the rationalisations any more.”Fox News did not comment. The Times said a spokeswoman “sent data showing that [political] independents” watch the network.NPR cited five sources “with direct knowledge” as saying Hayes and Goldberg’s resignations “reflect larger tumult within Fox News over Carlson’s series … and his increasingly strident stances”. The same report named Bret Baier and Chris Wallace as senior anchors whose objections “rose to Lachlan Murdoch”, the chairman and chief executive of Fox Corporation.Murdoch did not comment. Last week his father, Rupert Murdoch, said it was “crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in … debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past. The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.”Outcry after Kyle Rittenhouse sits down with Tucker Carlson for Fox News interviewRead moreBut Carlson dominates primetime. He told the Times the resignations of Hayes and Goldberg were “great news” and said: “Our viewers will be grateful.”Carlson is due on Monday to broadcast an interview with Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who was found not guilty on all counts on Friday, in his trial for shooting dead two men and wounding another during protests for racial justice in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.Carlson has also made a documentary with Rittenhouse, an enterprise Rittenhouse’s lawyer has said he opposed.Hayes told the Times he had been disturbed when a man at a recent event staged by Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump group, asked: “When do we get to use the guns?”“That’s a scary moment,” Hayes said. “And I think we’d do well to have people who at the very least are not putting stuff out that would encourage that kind of thing.”TopicsFox NewsUS television industryUS politicsRepublicansUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

Gail Collins: Happy Thanksgiving week, Bret. Anything you’re thankful for in particular — besides your lovely family of course.Bret Stephens: The E.M.T.s, cardiac surgeons and nurses who saved my mother’s life earlier this year will be the first people we’ll toast this Thursday, Gail.Gail: To the lifesavers!Bret: And I think we’ll also raise a glass to our regular readers, who seem drawn to a style of conversation that isn’t about compulsive loathing, bottomless contempt, frenzied recrimination, petty score-keeping, histrionic eye-rolling, suppurating disdain and Tucker Carlson-style smirking just because we sometimes have different political views.How about you?Gail: Well, gee, not gonna argue against toasting the readers. In a time when trashing folks on the web is so in, they’re so … out in a very, very fine way.Bret: Our readers: Gluttons for emollient.Gail: If I get to add one, I’d add teachers, especially the early childhood education community. They not only do essential work, they do it for very little applause — or money.Bret: Absolutely. But maybe I’m detecting a subtle hint that you really want to switch the subject to the House of Representatives passing the Build Back Bigger bill?Gail: Bret, I am now giving thanks that you remember at least part of the name of the Build Back Better bill. Which I will always think of as Not the Infrastructure Bill Even Though It Sounds Like It.Anyhow, we are talking about the social-safety-net-stop-climate-change bill. Known to many conservatives as That Two Trillion Dollar Thing.Bret: I gather you’re delighted with it.Gail: I’m happy. Never bought into the idea that President Biden was elected just to not be Donald Trump. He promised during his campaign to expand government help for non-wealthy families, battle the cost of prescription drugs, increase the scope of Medicare and achieve universal prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds.Got elected, now it’s happening. Good news.Bret: Sorry to be the perpetual Grinch, Gail, but I’ll bet you my considerable store of Zabar’s leftovers that it isn’t happening. Certainly not in anything like the size of the House bill and very possibly not at all. And I have two numbers to support my argument: 60 and 32. The first is Joe Manchin’s approval rating in West Virginia. The second is Joe Biden’s approval rating in West Virginia. If Manchin votes for the bill, about which he’s already expressed big doubts, it’s going to mean the likely end of his political career when he’s up for re-election in 2024.Gail: This gives me another chance to point out that West Virginia gets around twice as much in federal aid as its residents pay in federal taxes.Gee, do you think Manchin’s magical ability to hang onto that seat is connected to the federal largess he brings home?Bret: The other pair of numbers I’m looking at is minus 12.1 and minus 11.6 percentage points. The first is the spread between Biden’s approval and disapproval ratings, the second is Kamala Harris’s. Why do you think it makes sense for the administration to double down on its policies instead of a nice Clintonian U-turn?Gail: The negativity is mainly all about Biden’s inability to get things done. Which won’t look better if he fails to get this bill passed.Bret: Despite what you said earlier, I don’t think Biden was elected to be a transformative president the way Reagan or Obama were, both of whom had clear electoral mandates to change America. He was elected to be a steadying presence. Biden’s failed totally so far, partly for reasons that were not under his control, like the persistence of the pandemic, and partly for reasons that were, like the bungled exit from Afghanistan.Either way, he is misreading his mandate, and the new legislation won’t help. It’s deeply unwise to try to change the entire shape of government based on a tiebreaking vote in the Senate. It’s even more unwise to do so when prices for groceries and gas seem to be rising by the minute.Biden is overseeing a combustible mixture of sweeping progressive social change and working-class economic distress — a formula that gave us Trump in 2016 and may give us Trump again in 2024. And all this is on top of the already hyperpolarized culture we have in this country.Gail: Well, let’s move onto something even more depressing. I sorta hate to bring this up on a holiday week, Bret. But I have to ask you about the Rittenhouse verdict. Your thoughts?Bret: David French had a lovely line on the case in a recent essay in The Atlantic: “The law allows even a foolish man to defend himself, even if his own foolishness put him in harm’s way.” Obviously Kyle Rittenhouse should not have been out that night, much less waltzing around with a rifle. But it also seems clear from the trial that much of what the world thought it knew about him — that he was some kind of out-of-town white supremacist who had crossed state lines with a gun and was looking for trouble — was false.What’s your view?Gail: I can understand the way it went, given the absolute mess that Wisconsin’s gun laws seem to be. But I wish I believed it would be a call to state legislatures — and Congress — to fix the system so that toting guns around in public is flat-out illegal. For anybody.Bret: Something like 43 states allow people to carry around guns in most places. And depending on how it goes with a case being decided this term by the Supreme Court, that number may soon be 50. Personally, I’d argue that if you’re too young to buy a beer you’re surely too young to parade around with a gun, unless you’re in the military or the National Guard.Gail: The two things that totally depress me are realizing that our politicians aren’t going to stop fawning over the gun-rights lobby and knowing that Rittenhouse is going to become even more of a right-wing hero who’ll probably be given a medal at the next Republican convention.Bret: He’s no hero. But I also think this case is a good reminder of why America needs responsible and effective policing, particularly during violent urban protests or riots: When law enforcement fails to protect lives and property, vigilantes spring up.Gail: Back for a minute to the House vote on Biden’s non-infrastructure bill: I presume that you listened to every word of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s more than eight-hour speech against it, right? What were your takeaways?Bret: Yeah, sure, right after I performed a root canal on myself while watching “Ishtar” dubbed in Finnish.OK, I didn’t actually see the speech, but I did read The Times’s priceless account of it. My favorite detail: “Representative Madison Cawthorn, a hard-line Republican from North Carolina, sat behind him, stuffing his lip with chewing tobacco and spitting in a cup. Mr. McCarthy, for his part, sustained himself with peppermint candies, unwrapped one by one by aides.”Gail: Do you think that was in their original job descriptions?Bret: How much do you look forward to having him as Speaker, Gail?Gail: Aaauuughh. I’m not the most pessimistic Democrat when it comes to future expectations, but I have to admit the chances of the party hanging onto the House and Senate are not … super.My greatest source of optimism is what seems like a flood of terrible Republican candidates, many of them already endorsed by Trump despite minor defects like allegations of spousal assault.I know you have some extremely responsible, forward-looking Republican contenders you can point to, but it seems like there are only about six of them. Do you disagree?Bret: Unfortunately, you’re pretty much right. John Stuart Mill once described the Tories of his day as “the stupider party,” and the er in “stupider” seems to describe today’s G.O.P. pretty nicely. It isn’t out of the question that Republicans could trip themselves up on the way to a Congressional majority because all of the most Trumpy candidates win the primaries and then lose in the general election.On the other hand, Republicans will benefit mightily from the latest round of gerrymanders. Also, Glenn Youngkin in Virginia showed how a Republican candidate can distance himself just enough from Trump to win back more moderate voters, while not so much as to alienate the Trump die-hards. Which is another way of saying that I think you’ll be dealing with Speaker McCarthy and Leader McConnell in the next Congress.Gail: And both of them are the opposite of bipartisan, unless there’s a chunk of money for back-home roadbuilding up for grabs.OK, gonna block all this out until after the holidays.Bret: So, remind me again, what else will you be giving thanks for this Thanksgiving?Gail: Don’t know if I ever told you, but we have a tradition of having a group of old friends over every year for the holiday dinner. This is something we started in college — one of this year’s guests, who is 32, was born into it. So it’s partly an annual reunion and a chance to be grateful for longtime pals.As well, of course, for the relative newcomers. So when it comes to thanks, I’ll be including another year of conversing with you, Bret. And looking forward to carrying on into 2022 and beyond.Bret: As am I. And here’s to you.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

Los principales contendientes para liderar a Chile y sacar al país de un momento turbulento son un exactivista estudiantil de izquierda de 35 años y un exdiputado de la extrema derecha de 55 años.SANTIAGO, Chile — El domingo, los chilenos le dieron la ventaja a un político de extrema derecha en la primera vuelta de los comicios presidenciales, un giro sorprendente en una nación que ha sido sacudida por protestas políticas y sociales por la desigualdad y el aumento del costo de vida.Con más del 88 por ciento de los votos contados, José Antonio Kast, un abogado conservador y exdiputado que prometió restaurar la seguridad y el orden y reducir drásticamente el tamaño del Estado, había alcanzado una ventaja de tres puntos sobre su rival de izquierda, Gabriel Boric. Los dos se enfrentarán el 19 de diciembre en la segunda vuelta.“Hoy dimos el primer paso para que la esperanza se haga realidad”, dijo Kast a sus partidarios el domingo por la noche frente a la sede de su campaña, en un exclusivo barrio de Santiago. “Chile merece paz, merece libertad”.La campaña se llevó a cabo en un periodo inusualmente turbulento en el país sudamericano, que ha sido gobernado durante décadas por partidos centristas y que, hasta hace poco, había sido considerada como una de las democracias más estables y prósperas de la región.El presidente saliente de Chile apenas logró eludir un proceso de destitución este mes. Un mes antes, el ejército fue enviado al sur para enfrentar a un movimiento cada vez más violento de militantes indígenas. Y desde julio, un grupo de delegados en la capital ha estado escribiendo una nueva Constitución, un proyecto que derivó de las protestas generalizadas en 2019, en las que se reclamaba la desigualdad y el aumento del costo de vida.Este momento turbulento, que la pandemia de coronavirus ha complicado aún más, preparó el escenario para la primera vuelta de una elección presidencial inusualmente polarizada el domingo. Las coaliciones centristas que se han alternado el poder en las últimas décadas no son las favoritas en una campaña liderada por candidatos más radicales que ofrecen visiones del futuro completamente opuestas a los chilenos.La elección de Chile es una de varias en América Latina en las que los gobernantes y los partidos en el poder están a la defensiva, en parte debido a la agitación social y el malestar económico que ha infligido la pandemia. Otras de las contiendas más importantes son las presidenciales del próximo año en Brasil y Colombia, dos países en los que el virus ha dejado como saldos la muerte de cientos de miles de personas y paralizado grandes sectores de sus economías.“La covid expuso la desigualdad, la exacerbó y facilitó su politización de una manera que, creemos, será muy difícil para los mandatarios en el poder”, dijo Jennifer Pribble, profesora de ciencias políticas en la Universidad de Richmond, especializada en América Latina. “Ha generado un malestar y descontento que la ciudadanía tiene descargar contra alguien”.Los candidatos principales que contienden para sustituir al actual presidente, Sebastián Piñera —quien no puede reelegirse— están en lados opuestos del espectro político: Boric, un diputado de izquierda que promete ampliar considerablemente la red de seguridad pública, y Kast, un exdiputado de extrema derecha que propone un Estado drásticamente más pequeño, en el que las fuerzas de seguridad tendrían una autoridad más extensa para sofocar la violencia y el desorden.Gabriel Boric, a la izquierda, diputado izquierdista, y José Antonio Kast, segundo desde la izquierda, exdiputado de extrema derecha, son los favoritos en las elecciones presidenciales de Chile.Foto de consorcio de Esteban FelixLas encuestas más recientes en Chile, que no han sido muy confiables en elecciones recientes, habían registrado el creciente atractivo en los votantes que Kast había tomado en la recta final de la campaña. Las encuestas también sugerían que Boric probablemente logrará llegar a la segunda vuelta en diciembre.Kast, quien obtuvo el 8 por ciento de los votos cuando se postuló para la presidencia en 2017, y Boric sorprendieron a los analistas políticos al consolidarse como los punteros de la contienda presidencial a medida que los políticos más moderados no generaban tracción.Ambos aprovecharon el descontento con los partidos tradicionales, que han dominado la política en Chile desde el regreso de la democracia en la década de 1990.Grisel Riquelme, una costurera de 39 años de Santiago, la capital, que administra una pequeña empresa familiar, dijo que se había sentido tan frustrada con la política que podría anular su voto a manera de protesta.“Todos los candidatos vienen con el mismo discurso, que van a ayudar al pueblo, que van a solucionar los problemas, que la economía se va a arreglar, que va a haber trabajo y la calidad de vida será mejor”, dijo. “Pero seguimos estando igual, y tal vez peor. Y después se olvidan de lo que prometieron. Cambiamos de caras pero sigue todo igual”.La insatisfacción con el statu quo condujo a un inesperado estallido social en octubre de 2019, cuando un aumento en las tarifas del metro de Santiago desató una ola de manifestaciones que se prolongó por un mes. El vandalismo, incluido el incendio de estaciones de metro y otros edificios gubernamentales, derivó en una dura respuesta de las fuerzas de seguridad, que dispararon balines de goma contra los manifestantes, lo que cegó a cientos de ellos.Un centro de votación el viernes. La elección de Chile se encuentra entre varias en América Latina en las que los gobernantes y los partidos en el poder están a la defensiva.Ivan Alvarado/ReutersDespués de no poder apaciguar las calles durante semanas, Piñera, un multimillonario que distaba de ser el líder ideal para enfrentar un descontento originado por la desigualdad, acordó apoyar una iniciativa para convocar una Convención Constitucional a fines de diciembre de 2019.Ese proceso inició en mayo de este año con la elección de delegados, que representan a segmentos de la sociedad chilena que habían sido marginados históricamente. El organismo constituyente que redacta la nueva carta magna tiene paridad de género y está liderado por Elisa Loncón, una académica de la comunidad indígena mapuche.El acuerdo para crear la nueva Constitución fue un logro importante, dijo Pia Mundaca, directora ejecutiva de Espacio Público —un grupo de investigación en Chile que estudia el sistema político—, debido a lo violentas e inestables que se volvieron las calles de Chile en 2019 y a la cantidad de personas en la región que han perdido la confianza en la democracia.“Es muy poderoso, dada nuestra historia en América Latina con la democracia y momentos antidemocráticos, que una crisis política tan profunda como la que enfrentó Chile a fines de 2019 haya encontrado una salida democrática e institucional”, dijo.Los integrantes de la Convención Constitucional están debatiendo cómo garantizar derechos económicos y sociales a gran escala, lo que podría trastocar temas como el sistema de pensiones, los derechos reproductivos y los reclamos de las comunidades indígenas sobre sus tierras ancestrales.Boric, un político de 35 años que tiene tatuajes, evita las corbatas y quien, en caso de ser elegido, se convertiría en el líder más joven de la historia de Chile, ha sido un firme partidario del nuevo proceso constitucional, que ve como una vía para reformar la economía y el sistema político de Chile favorables al mercado de manera drástica.Boric, un diputado de izquierda, retratado antes de votar el domingo, promete expandir la red de seguridad pública.Andres Poblete/Associated Press“Si Chile fue la cuna del neoliberalismo, también será su tumba”, dice su plataforma de campaña.Boric, de Punta Arenas, una ciudad en el extremo sur del país, ha propuesto una reforma total del sistema de seguridad social, plantea reducir la semana laboral de 44 a 40 horas y propone absolver la deuda estudiantil. El aumento significativo en el gasto público que prevé se compensaría con nuevos impuestos a los ultrarricos y un sistema más eficaz para combatir la corrupción, dice su plataforma de campaña.Apoya la legalización del aborto —prohibido en Chile, salvo un puñado de excepciones— y el matrimonio igualitario.Kast, un abogado de 55 años que fue diputado de 2002 a 2018, se opone de manera rotunda al matrimonio igualitario y a la legalización del aborto. Ha propuesto planes draconianos para restaurar la seguridad en el país, entre los que destaca una propuesta para construir una zanja a lo largo de la frontera con Bolivia, una vía de acceso a la inmigración indocumentada.Dice que la burocracia chilena debería reducirse tajantemente y propone pasar de 24 a 12 ministerios, pero favorece una expansión considerable del sistema penitenciario. Su enfoque de mano dura se llevaría al levantamiento armado de facciones indígenas mapuche en la región de la Araucanía, donde algunas personas buscan recuperar sus tierras ancestrales, ahora controladas por empresas madereras, con métodos como ocupación territorial y quema de camiones, casas e iglesias.Kast, un exdiputado de extrema derecha, después de votar en SantiagoEsteban Felix/Associated PressPiñera, quien el mes pasado decretó un estado de emergencia en la Araucanía, donde desplegó al ejército, está por terminar su segundo mandato no consecutivo en la presidencia en un momento complejo. Este mes, los legisladores estuvieron a punto de acusarlo por una transacción en 2010 que involucró a un negocio minero que es parcialmente propiedad de su familia.Dejará el cargo con casi el 79 por ciento de desaprobación por su desempeño, y muchos tienen una opinión poco halagüeña del manejo de la clase política de los desafíos de los últimos años.“Gobernar nunca ha sido fácil, y a nosotros nos ha tocado especialmente difícil”, dijo en un discurso el miércoles. “Lamentablemente, en esta oportunidad siento que en el mundo de la política nos ha faltado grandeza, unidad, colaboración, diálogo y acuerdos para enfrentar estos enormes y exigentes desafíos”.Vivian Asun, una estudiante de derecho de 21 años en Santiago, mencionó que albergaba pocas esperanzas en que el sucesor de Piñera fuera más efectivo. No pudo votar el domingo porque está lejos de la ciudad donde está registrada. Pero no es un problema, advirtió.“No tengo la menor idea por quién votaría”, dijo. “Por supuesto que no me da lo mismo quién gane, pero no hay ningún candidato que pueda responder a las necesidades que estamos enfrentando como país”.Pascale Bonnefoy More

The top contenders to lead Chile out of a turbulent era are a leftist 35-year-old former student activist and a 55-year-old far-right former congressman, offering voters a stark choice.SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile’s departing president narrowly dodged impeachment this month. A month earlier, the army was deployed to the south to confront an increasingly violent uprising by Indigenous militants. And since July, delegates in the capital have been drafting a new Constitution, prompted by sweeping protests in 2019 over inequality and the rising cost of living.This tumultuous period, which the coronavirus pandemic has further scrambled, set the stage for the first round of an unusually polarized presidential election on Sunday. The centrist coalitions that have traded power in recent decades are underdogs in a race led by more radical candidates who offer Chileans starkly opposed visions for the future.Chile’s election is among several in Latin America in which incumbents and governing parties are on the defensive, partly because of the upheaval and economic pain the pandemic has inflicted. Foremost are next year’s presidential contests in Brazil and Colombia, where the virus has killed hundreds of thousands of people and crippled large segments of their economies.“Covid exposed inequalities, it exacerbated inequalities and made it easy to politicize those inequalities in a way that we expect will be very hard on incumbents,” said Jennifer Pribble, a political science professor at the University of Richmond who specializes in Latin America. “It has generated malaise and discontent that citizens have to put on someone.”The leading candidates vying to replace President Sebastián Piñera — who is not eligible for re-election — are Gabriel Boric, a leftist lawmaker who promises to vastly expand the safety net, and José Antonio Kast, a far-right former congressman who proposes a drastically leaner state in which the security forces are given broader authority to quell violence and disorder.Gabriel Boric, left, a leftist lawmaker, and José Antonio Kast, second from left, a far-right former congressman, have emerged as the front-runners in Chile’s presidential election.Pool photo by Esteban FelixThe latest public opinion polls in Chile — which have been unreliable in recent elections — suggest Mr. Kast shot to the lead in the final stretch. But the polls also show that Mr. Boric would probably prevail in a runoff in December if, as expected, no candidate wins in the first round.Mr. Kast — who won 8 percent of the vote when he ran for president in 2017 — and Mr. Boric surprised political observers by rising to the top of the presidential contest as more moderate politicians gained little traction.Both tapped into the simmering discontent with the establishment parties that have dominated politics in Chile since the return of democracy in the 1990s.Grisel Riquelme, a 39-year-old seamstress in Santiago, the capital, who runs a small family business, said she had become so frustrated with politics that she may spoil her ballot in protest.“All the candidates come with the same message, that they’re going to help people, that they’re going to fix problems, that the economy will recover, that there will be jobs and that quality of life will improve,” she said. “But then they forget about all the promises; the faces change but everything remains the same.”Dissatisfaction with the status quo burst out unexpectedly in October 2019, when an increase in Santiago subway fares set off a monthslong wave of demonstrations. Vandalism, including arson of subway stations and other government buildings, elicited a tough response by security forces, which fired rubber bullets into crowds of demonstrators, blinding hundreds.A polling station on Friday. Chile’s election is among several in Latin America in which incumbents and governing parties are on the defensive.Ivan Alvarado/ReutersAfter failing to calm the streets for weeks, Mr. Piñera, a billionaire who was far from the ideal leader to tackle an uprising over inequality, agreed to support an initiative to convene a constitutional convention in late December 2019.That process began in May with the election of delegates representing broad segments of Chilean society that had historically been marginalized. The body drafting the new Constitution has gender parity and is led by Elisa Loncón, a scholar from the Mapuche Indigenous community.Given how unstable and violent Chile’s streets became in 2019, and how many Latin Americans have lost faith in democracy, the deal to create a new Constitution was a major achievement, argued Pia Mundaca, the executive director of Espacio Público, a research group in Chile that studies the political system.“It’s very powerful, given our history in Latin America with democracy and undemocratic moments, that a political crisis as profound as the one Chile faced in late 2019 found a democratic and institutional exit,” she said.The constitutional convention delegates are debating large-scale economic and social rights, which could upend matters like the pension system, reproductive rights and Indigenous claims over their ancestral lands.Mr. Boric, 35, a tattooed politician who eschews neckties and would become Chile’s youngest leader ever, has been a vocal supporter of the new constitution process, which he sees as a vehicle to drastically overhaul Chile’s market-friendly economy and political system.Gabriel Boric, a leftist lawmaker who promises to expand the safety net greatly, on Sunday.Andres Poblete/Associated Press“If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave,” his campaign platform says.Mr. Boric, who is from Punta Arenas, a city in the far south, has proposed a wholesale overhaul of the social security system, shortening the workweek to 40 hours from 44 and forgiving student debt. The significant increase in public spending he envisions would be offset by new taxes on the ultrarich and a more effective system to fight corruption, his campaign platform says.He supports legalizing abortion — which is outlawed in Chile with a handful of exceptions — and same-sex marriage.Mr. Kast, 55, a lawyer who served in Congress from 2002 to 2018, adamantly opposes same-sex marriage and legalized abortion. He has proposed hard-line tactics to restore security in the country, highlighted by a proposal to build a ditch along the border with Bolivia, a gateway for undocumented immigrants.He says the Chilean bureaucracy ought to be radically downsized, calling for consolidating 24 ministries into 12, but favoring a significant expansion of the prison system. His strong-armed approach would extend to an armed uprising by Mapuche Indigenous factions in the Aracaunía region, where some seek to restore ancestral lands controlled by lumber companies by occupying the lands and burning trucks, homes and churches.José Antonio Kast, a far-right former congressman, after casting his vote in Santiago.Esteban Felix/Associated PressMr. Piñera, who last month invoked a state of emergency in Aracaunía, where he deployed the Army, is completing his second, nonconsecutive term in office on a dour note. Lawmakers came close to impeaching him this month over a transaction in 2010 involving a mining company partly owned by his family.He leaves office with nearly 79 percent of the electorate disapproving of his performance, and with many taking a dim view of how the political class rose to the challenges of the past few years.“Governing has never been easy, and we faced especially hard times,” he said in an address on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, this time around, I feel that in the world of politics we have lacked greatness, unity, collaboration, dialogue and agreements to face the enormous and pressing challenges.”Vivian Asun, a 21-year-old law student in Santiago, said she had little faith that Mr. Piñera’s successor would prove more effective. She was unable to vote on Sunday because she is far from the city where she is registered. But it is just as well, she said.“I have no idea who I would vote for,” she said. “It’s not that I’m indifferent about who wins, but there’s no candidate who can address the needs we’re facing as a nation.”Pascale Bonnefoy More

The House progressive spoke about “demoralizing” congressional negotiations, how she was told to stay away from Virginia’s elections, and what it means to excite the Democratic base.Last year, after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the Democratic presidential nomination, a group of progressive lawmakers rallied around him to project party unity at a critical time.More than a year later, as the president seeks to pass a robust spending package of social policies that represent the bulk of his domestic agenda, many of the same leaders are looking for a return on their political investment.In an interview with The New York Times, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the country’s most prominent progressives, questioned whether Democratic leaders and the White House understood the scope of the demands coming from the party’s base. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.Why do you feel this social policy bill has to pass as soon as possible, at the biggest scale possible?I think the stakes are really, really high.The entire reason that the Progressive Caucus gave their votes [for the infrastructure bill] was based on direct promises from the president, as well as direct promises from more conservative Democratic holdouts. And from House leadership as well. So if those promises don’t follow through, it’s going to be very, very difficult for them to get votes on anything moving forward, because the trust that was already so delicate will have been broken.Do you think these extended negotiations and the stuff that was cut will have an electoral effect? Obviously the Senate will have its say, but if the spending bill largely looks like what the House passed this week, will Democrats say it fulfills the promise of Election Day?I think that if we pass the Build Back Better Act as the House passed it, that we have a shot to go back to our communities and say we delivered. But that’s not to say that this process has not been demoralizing for a lot of folks, because there were enormous promises made. Not just at the beginning, and not just during the election, but that continued to be made.And this is where I have sounded the alarm, because what really dampens turnout is when Democrats make promises that they don’t keep.With the bipartisan infrastructure plan, there’s all of these headlines going around. And I understand the political importance of making a victory lap. But I think that the worst and most vulnerable position we could be in is to over-promise and under-deliver.So let’s not go around and say, “We’re going to replace every lead pipe in this country,” because according to the bipartisan infrastructure plan, that is not going to happen. That has not been funded. And if the Build Back Better Act gets cut even further, then that’s definitely not going to happen. You and other progressives backed Biden during the general election. Do you feel that this White House has continued to be open to the left? And that created trust, because trust requires vulnerability from all parties.There was some good faith with the American Rescue Plan [Democrats’ $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package, signed in March]. But after that, which was quite early, it’s been a bit of a slog.I actually don’t direct this critique directly at the White House. I think, in general, the party doesn’t quite fully grasp what is happening in deep-blue communities.What is it that you say they’re missing?The talking points are not enough.Yes, is child care great? Absolutely. Universal pre-K, this is something I’m deeply, deeply supportive of. But we also have too much of a top-down strategy when it comes to our base. We’re always giving them the medicine and telling them what they need to accept, as opposed to really monitoring where the energy is, and being responsive to it. And allowing that to shape our strategy.And even with the infrastructure plan, this kind of investment is deeply needed in underserved communities like the Bronx. However, if we as a party are asking every single person in this party to take a victory lap, and do a news conference in front of a bridge or pothole, and we aren’t funding and actually fixing that pothole, I’m very concerned about how people are going to interpret that a year from now.But doesn’t the White House agree — didn’t it propose a more robust package? The obvious response here is that the administration faces the reality of a 50-50 Senate.There is an enormous amount of executive action that they’re sitting on that I think is underutilized. On student loans. We’ve got executive action on the table with respect to climate. There are certainly things that we can do with immigration.So why are we taking this as a legislative compromise, when the opportunity is so much greater, or when Biden could do this stuff with a stroke of a pen, and is just reminding us that he’s choosing not to?We always try to tell people why they need to settle for less, instead of being able to harness the energy of our grass roots and take political risks in service of them, the same way that we take political risks in service of swing voters. We can do both. The Infrastructure Bill at a GlanceCard 1 of 5The bill receives final approval. More

The former president, tightening his grip on the party as a haphazard kingmaker, threatens Republican incumbents and endorses questionable candidates.PHOENIX — As the country’s Republican governors met this week, there was an unmistakable air of celebration in the conference rooms and cocktail parties marking their annual postelection conference. Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin of Virginia was swarmed with well wishers and favor seekers who believed his victory in a liberal-leaning state offered the party a road map for next year’s midterm elections.Out of earshot of the reporters and donors congregating amid the palm trees and cactuses of the Arizona Biltmore resort, however, a more sober, less triumphant and all-too-familiar conversation was taking place among the governors: What could be done about Donald J. Trump?In a private meeting of the Republican Governors Association’s executive committee, Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland brought up Mr. Trump’s campaign of retribution against incumbent Republicans he dislikes — an effort that appears to be escalating, as the former president pushes former Senator David Perdue of Georgia to challenge Gov. Brian Kemp.“It’s outrageous, unacceptable and bad for the party,” Mr. Hogan said in an interview about the former president’s intervention, which he termed “Trump cancel culture.” And it’s happening, he added, “with House members, governors and senators.”Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, chairman of the association, assured his fellow governors that the R.G.A. would support Republican incumbents, according to several governors in the room.One year after his defeat, Mr. Trump is not only still looming over the G.O.P., but also — along with his imitators — posing the biggest threat to what is shaping up to be a fruitful year for Republican candidates. With President Biden’s approval ratings mired below 50 percent — in some surveys, below 40 percent — and voters in a sour mood, Republicans are well positioned to make gains in Congress and statehouses across the country.But there is Mr. Trump, threatening primary challenges to some House Republicans in key swing districts, endorsing Senate candidates who make party leaders uneasy and recruiting loyalists to take out Republican governors from Idaho to Georgia.Mr. Youngkin’s success in a campaign in which his Democratic opponent relentlessly linked him to Mr. Trump has emboldened the former president to further tighten his grip on the party, one whose base remains deeply loyal to him.Moving beyond the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him this year, Mr. Trump is now threatening to unseat lawmakers who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. He taunts Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell as an “old crow” on a near-daily basis, while demanding that Mr. McConnell be removed from his leadership post. And, most alarming to the clubby cadre of Republican governors, Mr. Trump has already endorsed two challengers against incumbent governors and is threatening to unseat others.“Saving America starts by saving the G.O.P. from RINOs, sellouts and known losers!” Mr. Trump said last week, using the acronym for “Republicans in name only.”As Mr. Trump weighs a 2024 comeback, he is plainly determined to ensure that the party he could return to remains every bit as loyal to him as it was when he held office.“It’s very foreign to the conduct that we’re used to,” said Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor, who has worked with every Republican president and former president since Richard M. Nixon. Mr. Trump’s post-presidential predecessors, he said, “were scrupulous about not getting involved in primaries.”Representative Tom Emmer, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, accused the news media and Democrats of focusing too much on Mr. Trump. Yet it was House Republicans, led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who invited the former president to headline the committee’s signature fall fund-raiser this month.Of the Republican incumbents Mr. Trump is targeting, Mr. Emmer said, “You’re talking about people that have run tough races and been very successful.”Governor Ducey assured the R.G.A. that he would support their incumbents and that he was not running for Senate.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesBeyond targeting lawmakers he feels have not proved sufficiently faithful, Mr. Trump has also normalized aberrant behavior in Republican ranks and fostered a culture of fear among party officials who want to move on from his presidency or at least police their own members. After just two House Republicans voted to censure Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona for posting an animated video that depicted him killing a Democratic lawmaker, for example, Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Gosar’s re-election, affirming his status as a Republican in good standing.It is the former president’s insistence on playing a haphazard kingmaker, however, that is most troubling to Republican officials and strategists. In Pennsylvania, where the party is perhaps most at risk of losing a Senate seat, Mr. Trump endorsed Sean Parnell, a military veteran who has been accused by his ex-wife of spousal and child abuse.More broadly, Mr. Trump is complicating Mr. McConnell’s recruitment campaign by making clear his contempt for the sort of center-right Republicans who refuse to echo his lies about last year’s election. Two New England governors, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Phil Scott of Vermont, indicated this month that they would not run for the Senate, Mr. Hogan appears more intent on pursuing a long-shot presidential campaign, and Mr. Ducey continues to insist that he will not challenge first-term Senator Mark Kelly.“I’m not running for the United States Senate, and I’m 100 percent focused on this final year as Arizona’s governor,” Mr. Ducey said in Phoenix, while voicing his respect for Mr. McConnell, who is wooing him with the ardor and attentiveness of a college football coach pursuing a five-star high school quarterback.Mr. Ducey, who is one of Mr. Trump’s most frequent targets for his refusal to overturn Arizona’s vote for Mr. Biden, betrayed it-is-what-it-is fatigue with the former president. The governors would “control the controllable,” he said. Attempting to consider Mr. Trump’s role, he added, was like “trying to predict what can’t be predicted.”Most other Republican governors in Phoenix were just as uninterested in discussing Mr. Trump, displaying the sort of evasiveness many adopted while he was in office.Hustling to a panel session, Mr. Kemp dismissed a question about a challenge from Mr. Perdue by noting that he had already “made statements on that.” Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, who faces a challenge from former Representative Jim Renacci, said, “I don’t think the president is going to do that,” when asked about whether Mr. Trump would side with Mr. Renacci. Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama, whom Mr. Trump blames for not being allowed to hold a July 4 rally on the U.S.S. Alabama in Mobile, said she was “going to be fine” in her primary and then jumped in a waiting vehicle.And on the question of Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, perhaps the former president’s top Senate Republican target, the state’s governor, Mike Dunleavy, twice said only, “I’ll let people know,” when asked if he would support her.Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said he did not think Mr. Trump would side with DeWine’s challenger, former Representative Jim Renacci.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesThe Republicans most willing to speak frankly about Mr. Trump were those open to 2024 presidential runs.Mr. Sununu, the New Hampshire governor and political scion, who this month infuriated Senate Republicans by ridiculing the Senate and declining to challenge Senator Maggie Hassan, said, “I think Brian Kemp is doing a phenomenal job.”In an earlier political era, that would have been unremarkable praise for a fellow Republican governor. But in a news conference at the meeting here, not one of four Republicans on the dais was willing to offer such a vote of confidence in the Georgia governor.Mr. Perdue has inched closer to challenging Mr. Kemp, saying in a radio interview this week that a lot of Georgians believe that “people in power haven’t fought for them, and caved in to a lot of things back in 2020,” and that he was “concerned about the state of our state.”As significant for the G.O.P.’s future, Mr. Sununu said, “Yeah, sure,” when asked if he was open to a presidential bid, and made clear he would not defer to Mr. Trump. “That’s a decision that I’m going to make based on what I can deliver, not based on what anyone else is thinking,” he said.The only other Republicans who appear at least willing to break with Mr. Trump on a case-by-case basis are Mr. McConnell and his top lieutenants. While they have rallied to the former football star Herschel Walker, whom Mr. Trump pushed to run for the Senate in Georgia, Mr. McConnell’s allies have made clear their support for Mr. Ducey and have stayed out of Senate races in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where Mr. Trump has intervened.“At the end of the day, in most of these races, we’re going to have credible, competitive candidates,” said Steven Law, who runs a McConnell-aligned Republican super PAC. “There may be a few places where we need to be engaged to make sure we put our best foot forward.”Some Republican Senate strategists are having painful flashbacks to the last big G.O.P. wave, in 2010, when Republicans swept more than 60 seats in the House but several weak Republican candidates lost key Senate contests.“Republicans running bad candidates doesn’t guarantee Democrats will win,” said J.B. Poersch, president of the Senate Majority PAC, the leading Senate super PAC for Democrats. “But it sure does help.”For now, public surveys and internal party polling show that support for Democrats is eroding — the kind of political climate where even less-than-stellar Republican recruits might win.Perhaps what is giving Democrats the most solace is the calendar.“The silver lining is it’s November 2021 and not November 2022,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who worked on Mr. Biden’s campaign last year. He added, “We’re probably at the worst point.”But Jeff Roe, who was the chief strategist for Mr. Youngkin’s campaign, said past presumptions that Republican primary voters would give little consideration to electability may not be accurate after the party fell entirely out of power in 2020.“Electability used to be fool’s gold in Republican politics,” said Mr. Roe, who was Senator Ted Cruz’s campaign manager in his 2016 bid for president. “Now it’s not. Now it’s a factor. Ideology is not the only measure anymore.”He added, “The Republican electorate is allowing for imperfect nominees just to make sure we win.” More

I’ve always believed that part of education — especially higher education — is learning to ask better questions about complex topics, knowing you might not have the right answers. In my graduate seminars, one of my favorite ways of prompting students to pursue deeper lines of inquiry is by asking this question: If we take off the table that something is racist, sexist or classist, what else can we say about it?Society is embedded with power imbalances and inequalities. Of course there are gender disparities and discrimination, of course there is a racial hierarchy and a racial order. But if we set that aside, what more can we say about a text, about a person, about a moment?I was thinking about this when reading a “rare interview” with Politico this week, in which Kyrsten Sinema weighed in on writing about her clothes, including our three-part discussion of her sartorial presentation as a form of political speech:“It’s very inappropriate. I wear what I want because I like it. It’s not a news story, and it’s no one’s business,” Sinema said. “It’s not helpful to have [coverage] be positive or negative. It also implies that somehow women are dressing for someone else.”The idea that women dress only for themselves is a truism in modern feminism, one that we could dispute or qualify. But let’s set that aside, for now, and stipulate that she’s right, generally speaking.It still remains that she is a politician. And part of the job of politicians is to court attention and manage their image. As I have argued, since presentation and style are part of the politician’s tool kit, the question for us is whether we are willing to allow this kind of political communication to go unexamined and without critique.Here, it’s important to consider the context when setting the bounds of appropriate discourse. The details of the Democrats’ social spending bill, Build Back Better, are in flux. But it has funds for Pell Grant increases, affordable child care, paid family leave and expanded health care coverage. It contains policy to slow climate change and mitigate its effects. It is not an exaggeration to say that lives hang in the balance with the fate of the bill.And Sinema has placed herself at the center of this political drama. So it matters how she marshals her power. It also matters how she manages attention.Sinema largely allows her performance to speak for her. She avoids interviews, and has been quite guarded about what she wants out of these negotiations. As Politico writes, “On policy, the first-term senator has remained almost completely quiet during breakneck negotiations to finish Biden’s agenda.”That silence puts a curtain between a powerful political actor and the public, who have a lot on the line. It also means it is more than fair to discuss and critique the political rhetoric coded in her performance, and that includes what she is wearing. Politicians should not be allowed to have a one-way dialogue with the American public. One-way political communication is a very slippery slope to a closed political process — one that trades real accountability for a process that appears transparent only because we can see the moving images on our screens.We get to talk back. And we should.Speaking of talking back, many of you wrote in and said we should be keeping our eye on what matters. A pair of reports, both from this month, got my attention. I think they point to an important trend.First, Politico reported that Sinema has received donations from the multilevel marketing industry:The political action committee associated with Alticor, the parent entity of the health, home and beauty company Amway, gave $2,500 to the Arizona Democrat in late June, as did the PAC for Isagenix, an Arizona-based business that sells nutrition, wellness and personal care products. Nu Skin Enterprises, another personal care and beauty company, gave $2,500 that month, as did USANA Health Sciences, which sells similar products. In April, Richard Raymond Rogers, the executive chair of Mary Kay, a Texas-based cosmetics company, gave $2,500 to Sinema. Herbalife, which also sells nutritional supplements, gave $2,500 in July. All are affiliated with the Direct Selling Association, a trade group that promotes multilevel marketing.These are not enormous sums of money, but it is notable for a few reasons. As Politico notes, it’s relatively uncommon for some of these companies to get involved in national politics at all. And Sinema has had a friendly relationship with the Direct Sellers Association, which represents 130 multilevel marketing companies, including Amway and Herbalife.This alliance is unusual for a Democratic senator given her party’s longtime alliance with unions and labor more generally. In multilevel marketing structures, the independent contractors who sell the product are paid commissions from their own sales of the product, but they also can receive income based on the sales or purchases of the sellers they have recruited. Sinema is the one of only three Democratic senators who do not co-sponsor the PRO Act, which would allow the “independent contractors” to unionize, as well as making it harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors at all.Second, Dr. Mehmet Oz is reported to be considering running for Senate in Pennsylvania, to fill the seat being vacated by Pat Toomey. Through a very convoluted process of media culture that is possible only in the celebrity-obsessed American culture, Dr. Oz has become one of the most visible and wealthy endorsers of a host of scientifically questionable vitamins, herbal remedies and miracle cures.These news items brought to mind the way these kinds of businesses — on the border of illegality and not quite respectable — have gone mainstream in America. Donald Trump is perhaps the best example of this phenomenon. Among other things, he happened to be the founder and namesake of one of the most blatantly fraudulent for-profit school apparatuses that I have ever seen: Trump University, which National Review called a “de jure” scam.Donald Trump’s election seems to have opened the door to us not even pretending anymore that these kinds of scams aren’t legitimate parts of our political and economic system, and even pathways to power.Whenever I talk about multilevel marketing, people often make two suggestions of things to check out. One is a podcast called “The Dream” by Jane Marie. The other is a recent documentary about LuLaRoe, which sells leggings. Both of these tell stories about the mechanisms of multilevel marketers, how they work and why they work.With the holiday coming up, I’m going to spend some time on your behalf listening to the “The Dream” as I travel around by car. And I’m going to watch the LuLaRoe documentary. I have questions about why scamming has become mainstreamed as a legitimate part of national politics, and what it says about culture. We’ll be talking about that soon. I’ll be off next week to celebrate Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you the week after that.Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, the author of “Thick: And Other Essays” and a 2020 MacArthur fellow. More

Gerald Migdol is accused of concealing contributions to a New York City comptroller candidate to get more public-matching funds.A Manhattan real estate developer was charged on Friday with scheming to conceal contributions to a candidate in this year’s New York City comptroller’s race in a bid to get as much public financing for the candidate as possible.The developer, Gerald Migdol, arranged for dozens of donations to be made to the campaign in the names of people who had not authorized the payments, according to an indictment unsealed on Friday by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.One contribution that prosecutors said Mr. Migdol arranged, a $250 money order, was made in the name of a relative who is a minor, prosecutors said.The indictment does not name the candidate Mr. Migdol sought to help. But the details of the case and publicly available information suggest it is Brian A. Benjamin, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for comptroller and is now New York’s lieutenant governor.The indictment does not indicate that the candidate knew of the scheme.Mr. Migdol, 71, was arrested early Friday on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, officials said. He pleaded not guilty in an arraignment on Friday in Federal District Court in Manhattan and was released on bond. The wire fraud charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.“Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and campaign finance regulations are one way communities seek to ensure everyone plays by the same rules,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.Reached by phone after Mr. Migdol’s arraignment, Joel Cohen, his lawyer, said his client had pleaded not guilty “and that’s appropriate.”“That says what we need to say,” Mr. Cohen added.A man who answered the phone at Mr. Migdol’s family-run real estate company, the Migdol Organization, declined to comment. The company, which is based in Harlem, owns and operates residential properties across New York City.In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Benjamin’s comptroller campaign said that “neither Lieutenant Governor Benjamin nor his campaign are being accused of any wrongdoing and they are prepared to fully cooperate with authorities.”The spokesman added that “as soon as the campaign discovered that these contributions were improperly sourced, they donated them to the campaign finance board.”The office of Gov. Kathy Hochul referred all questions to Mr. Benjamin’s campaign. Ms. Hochul chose Mr. Benjamin as her lieutenant governor in August after she succeeded Andrew M. Cuomo.Mr. Migdol’s family has long supported Democratic candidates, according to the Migdol Organization website, which includes photos of family members with Mr. Benjamin and other politicians.Several Migdol family members, including Gerald Migdol, contributed to Mr. Benjamin’s campaign under their own names, campaign finance records show.The contributions at issue in the case against Mr. Migdol, the indictment says, were meant to allow the candidate’s campaign to qualify for public-matching funds through the city’s campaign finance system, potentially unlocking tens of thousands of dollars in additional money. The scheme ran from November 2019 to January 2021, the indictment says.A few of the contributions mentioned in the indictment were given to the campaign by a person at Mr. Migdol’s direction, prosecutors said. The indictment does not name the person, who is identified only as CC-1. The indictment also cites other unnamed “co-conspirators.”Mr. Migdol, prosecutors said, explained the scheme in a message to the unnamed people in July 2020, describing how the city’s public-financing system could multiply their contributions eightfold.“We get 8xl for money orders of $100,” the message said, according to the indictment. “For Money orders of $250=8×1 for first $100 and the other $150 is not matched. So a MO for $250 is worth $950 for [Candidate-1]. Hopefully our next City Comptroller.”A biography of Mr. Migdol on his company’s website says he has been involved in the real estate business in New York City for more than 40 years, primarily in Harlem and the Bronx.Mr. Migdol told The New York Post in 2006 that he started buying brownstones in Harlem in the early 2000s when they were selling for several hundred thousand dollars, far less than the prices such buildings can fetch today.In October 2019, Mr. Migdol received a community leadership award in Harlem that described him as “a true Harlem legend.” He said in his acceptance speech that Mr. Benjamin had nominated him for the award.“I am grateful to my new friend — our great State Senator Brian Benjamin,” Mr. Migdol said in the speech, which his company posted on its website. “At first glance my nomination would not normally be a popular choice. He then said but for the fact that what you guys do here is worthy of being honored.”Mr. Benjamin, a former state senator from Harlem, placed fourth in the Democratic primary for comptroller, well behind the winner, Brad Lander, a City Council member from Brooklyn.Many of the details in the indictment were first reported in January by the news website The City, including that several people whose names were listed on donations to Mr. Benjamin’s campaign said they had not made the payments.One donation reported by The City was a $250 contribution made in the name of Mr. Migdol’s 2-year-old grandson.Jefferson Siegel contributed reporting. More