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AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney GeneralTrying to find another avenue to push his baseless election claims, Donald Trump considered installing a loyalist, and had the men make their cases to him.Jeffrey Clark, who led the Justice Department’s civil division, had been working with President Donald J. Trump to devise ways to cast doubt on the election results.Credit…Susan Walsh/Associated PressJan. 22, 2021Updated 8:50 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers, they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?The answer was unanimous. They would resign.Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis.The previously unknown chapter was the culmination of the president’s long-running effort to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda. He also pressed Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels, including one who would look into Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election equipment that Mr. Trump’s allies had falsely said was working with Venezuela to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.This account of the department’s final days under Mr. Trump’s leadership is based on interviews with four former Trump administration officials who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.Mr. Clark said that this account contained inaccuracies but did not specify, adding that he could not discuss any conversations with Mr. Trump or Justice Department lawyers. “Senior Justice Department lawyers, not uncommonly, provide legal advice to the White House as part of our duties,” he said. “All my official communications were consistent with law.”Mr. Clark also noted that he was the lead signatory on a Justice Department request last month asking a federal judge to reject a lawsuit that sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the election.Mr. Trump declined to comment. An adviser said that Mr. Trump has consistently argued that the justice system should investigate “rampant election fraud that has plagued our system for years.”The adviser added that “any assertion to the contrary is false and being driven by those who wish to keep the system broken.”A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, as did Mr. Rosen. When Mr. Trump said on Dec. 14 that Attorney General William P. Barr was leaving the department, some officials thought that he might allow Mr. Rosen a short reprieve before pressing him about voter fraud. After all, Mr. Barr would be around for another week.Instead, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Rosen to the Oval Office the next day. He wanted the Justice Department to file legal briefs supporting his allies’ lawsuits seeking to overturn his election loss. And he urged Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels to investigate not only unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud, but also Dominion, the voting machines firm.(Dominion has sued the pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who inserted those accusations into four federal lawsuits about voter irregularities that were all dismissed.)Mr. Rosen refused. He maintained that he would make decisions based on the facts and the law, and he reiterated what Mr. Barr had privately told Mr. Trump: The department had investigated voting irregularities and found no evidence of widespread fraud.But Mr. Trump continued to press Mr. Rosen after the meeting — in phone calls and in person. He repeatedly said that he did not understand why the Justice Department had not found evidence that supported conspiracy theories about the election that some of his personal lawyers had espoused. He declared that the department was not fighting hard enough for him.As Mr. Rosen and the deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, pushed back, they were unaware that Mr. Clark had been introduced to Mr. Trump by a Pennsylvania politician and had told the president that he agreed that fraud had affected the election results.Election workers performing a recount in Atlanta in November. Mr. Trump focused on Georgia’s election outcome after he lost the state.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Trump quickly embraced Mr. Clark, who had been appointed the acting head of the civil division in September and was also the head of the department’s environmental and natural resources division.As December wore on, Mr. Clark mentioned to Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue that he spent a lot of time reading on the internet — a comment that alarmed them because they inferred that he believed the unfounded conspiracy theory that Mr. Trump had won the election. Mr. Clark also told them that he wanted the department to hold a news conference announcing that it was investigating serious accusations of election fraud. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue rejected the proposal.As Mr. Trump focused increasingly on Georgia, a state he lost narrowly to Mr. Biden, he complained to Justice Department leaders that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, was not trying to find evidence for false election claims pushed by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and others. Mr. Donoghue warned Mr. Pak that the president was now fixated on his office, and that it might not be tenable for him to continue to lead it, according to two people familiar with the conversation.That conversation and Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him votes compelled Mr. Pak to abruptly resign this month.Mr. Clark was also focused on Georgia. He drafted a letter that he wanted Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators that wrongly said that the Justice Department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in their state, and that they should move to void Mr. Biden’s win there.Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue again rejected Mr. Clark’s proposal.On New Year’s Eve, the trio met to discuss Mr. Clark’s refusal to hew to the department’s conclusion that the election results were valid. Mr. Donoghue flatly told Mr. Clark that what he was doing was wrong. The next day, Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen — who had mentored him while they worked together at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis — that he was going to discuss his strategy with the president early the next week, just before Congress was set to certify Mr. Biden’s electoral victory.Unbeknown to the acting attorney general, Mr. Clark’s timeline moved up. He met with Mr. Trump over the weekend, then informed Mr. Rosen midday on Sunday that the president intended to replace him with Mr. Clark, who could then try to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. He said that Mr. Rosen could stay on as his deputy attorney general, leaving Mr. Rosen speechless.Unwilling to step down without a fight, Mr. Rosen said that he needed to hear straight from Mr. Trump and worked with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, to convene a meeting for early that evening.Mr. Clark asked Mr. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting attorney general.Credit…Ting Shen for The New York TimesEven as Mr. Clark’s pronouncement was sinking in, stunning news broke out of Georgia: State officials had recorded an hourlong call, published by The Washington Post, during which Mr. Trump pressured them to manufacture enough votes to declare him the victor. As the fallout from the recording ricocheted through Washington, the president’s desperate bid to change the outcome in Georgia came into sharp focus.Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue pressed ahead, informing Steven Engel, the head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, about Mr. Clark’s latest maneuver. Mr. Donoghue convened a late-afternoon call with the department’s remaining senior leaders, laying out Mr. Clark’s efforts to replace Mr. Rosen.Mr. Rosen planned to soon head to the White House to discuss his fate, Mr. Donoghue told the group. Should Mr. Rosen be fired, they all agreed to resign en masse. For some, the plan brought to mind the so-called Saturday Night Massacre of the Nixon era, where Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than carry out the president’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him.The Clark plan, the officials concluded, would seriously harm the department, the government and the rule of law. For hours, they anxiously messaged and called one another as they awaited Mr. Rosen’s fate.Around 6 p.m., Mr. Rosen, Mr. Donoghue and Mr. Clark met at the White House with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cipollone, his deputy Patrick Philbin and other lawyers. Mr. Trump had Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark present their arguments to him.Mr. Cipollone advised the president not to fire Mr. Rosen and he reiterated, as he had for days, that he did not recommend sending the letter to Georgia lawmakers. Mr. Engel advised Mr. Trump that he and the department’s remaining top officials would resign if he fired Mr. Rosen, leaving Mr. Clark alone at the department.Mr. Trump seemed somewhat swayed by the idea that firing Mr. Rosen would trigger not only chaos at the Justice Department, but also congressional investigations and possibly recriminations from other Republicans and distract attention from his efforts to overturn the election results.After nearly three hours, Mr. Trump ultimately decided that Mr. Clark’s plan would fail, and he allowed Mr. Rosen to stay.Mr. Rosen and his deputies concluded they had weathered the turmoil. Once Congress certified Mr. Biden’s victory, there would be little for them to do until they left along with Mr. Trump in two weeks.They began to exhale days later as the Electoral College certification at the Capitol got underway. And then they received word: The building had been breached.Maggie Haberman More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyask vanessaDoes a Red Tie Immediately Scream ‘Donald Trump’ Now?Vanessa Friedman, fashion director of The New York Times, takes reader questions.Jan. 22, 2021, 5:00 p.m. ETWhen it’s time to head back to the office, and on the few days when I wear a suit and tie, I should retire my red ties, right, unless I want everyone to assume I am a Trump supporter? Is it possible for any man to wear a red tie now and not immediately call to mind the former president? — Ken, Newton, Mass.Though the death of the tie is declared regularly — especially given the pressures of both the long-term office-casual movement and our current working-from-home reality — Guy Trebay, our men’s wear critic, maintains that you should not count the accessory out quite yet. As he said, “even if we’re not wearing them much during lockdown, you don’t want to give up on an element of the wardrobe that’s been around for 400 years.”Ties can, after all, be used to signal “your club, your interests, whether you are a jokester, a brainiac or even a clown.” Not to mention, as you say, “political affiliation.”The question is whether the party dividing line between red and blue that has swept even the necktie into its maw will remain uppermost in everyone’s minds now that unity is the word of the moment (and purple the color). Given how central red ties were to President Trump’s uniform, it is natural to think that we may now have a Pavlovian response to the color. But the fact is, red ties were a wardrobe staple long before Mr. Trump got hold of them.Indeed, from the time presidential debates began being regularly televised in color in 1976 until 1988, both candidates wore red ties 14 out of 18 times; they were, essentially, considered less partisan than eye-catching and powerful. George W. Bush loved a red tie, but so, too, did Barack Obama. Though President Biden seems partial to blue, he wore red ties during the primary debates, and I am sure he will again. Unless, of course, he hews to the Mark Zuckerberg-Steve Jobs theory of dressing and settles on a specific uniform to wear every day.According to Richard Ford, a professor at Stanford Law School and the author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History” (out in February), the real signature of Mr. Trump’s ties is not the color, which is too generic for any single person to truly monopolize. “A red necktie paired with a white shirt and blue suit has always had an overly literal symbolism,” Mr. Ford said. “Red, white and blue, see? I’m patriotic!” Rather, the Trump ties are generally “tied to be way too long,” so they dangle a few inches below his belt.It’s the combination of shade and style that makes the statement of allegiance, not simply one or the other. That’s what you should keep in mind when getting dressed. Then go ahead: Tie one on.Your Style Questions, AnsweredEvery week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyA President Can Govern in PoetryTo succeed, Biden will need hope and history to rhyme.Contributing Opinion WriterJan. 22, 2021The youth poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, at President Biden’s inauguration. He is fond of quoting verse, especially from Irish poets.Credit…Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesOne line you didn’t hear in Joe Biden’s big-hearted Inaugural Address was one of his favorite bits of Irish verse — a yearning for the rarest of convergences, when “hope and history rhyme,” by the Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.Throughout the monumental tragedies of his life — the loss of a wife and baby daughter in an auto accident, the death of a son to brain cancer, and his time in the cellar of political despair after two unsuccessful presidential campaigns — Biden has returned to the healing power of Irish poetry.On Tuesday, as he gave a tearful goodbye to Delaware by quoting James Joyce, Biden said his colleagues in the Senate used to kid him for always citing Irish poets. “They thought I did it because I’m Irish,” he said. “I did it because they’re the best poets in the world.”He may have to revise that assessment after listening to the uncommonly wise Amanda Gorman, who followed in the footsteps of Robert Frost and Maya Angelou at the inaugural podium. Her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” was medicine for a sick nation.But Biden should not put on the posterity shelf the young poet’s stirring lines — “For there is always light/ if only we’re brave enough to see it/ if only we’re brave enough to be it” — or Heaney’s call for the near impossible. Why not reverse the political aphorism, and govern in poetry after campaigning in prose?Ms. Gorman being applauded by President Biden after her poetry reading.Credit…Jonathan Ernst/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAs he took the oath in front of a Capitol that only days before was under the siege of a mob of the misinformed, in a country deadened by a pandemic, the oldest man ever elected president should remember that in the home of his ancestors, poetry is the language of politics.Biden is known for his empathy, his lingering at the rope line to hear one last story of a life taken too early, his tendency to tear up when recalling a loved one who’s died. But he also has something that leaders from Nelson Mandela to Abraham Lincoln had — a belief in the power of why not? That’s the province of poets, not policy wonks.Heaney was thinking of Mandela, newly released from prison as apartheid crumbled in South Africa, and the centuries-old hatreds clinging to Northern Ireland, when he wrote “The Cure at Troy,” and the stanza oft-quoted by Biden:History says, don’t hopeOn this side of the grave.But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed-for tidal waveOf justice can rise up,And hope and history rhyme.Biden is aiming big, with a $1.9 trillion rescue package. He plans $1,400 checks for most Americans, subsidies for child care and aid for renters facing eviction. He has submitted a plan to offer 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States a path to citizenship.The new president wants to raise taxes on corporations, strengthen labor unions, expand Obamacare with a public option, stall the existential threat of climate change and spend $2 trillion on energy and infrastructure. On Day 1, he rejoined the community of nations who’ve agreed to the Paris climate accord.He envisions a Rooseveltian campaign to get 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of Americans in his first 100 days. There will be ramped-up testing, contact tracing and mobilization of at least 100,000 people to conquer the virus.It’s a full plate, with long odds. For starters, how does a president who sees the essential goodness in everyone deal with a party whose base doesn’t even believe in the legitimacy of his presidency? How does he bring the conspiracy theorists back to planet Earth, and cool the tribal passions that fueled the insurrection on Jan. 6?If Biden and Congress succeed at the big ideas, and not just the reversal of wrongful executive orders or unpopular legislation, he will be fondly remembered, even if he serves only one term. What’s more, he may even able to bring enough fresh air into our toxic political atmosphere to realign things.If he fails, well, I’m sorry to remind you that most Irish poetry is rooted in despair, in a country whose currency for centuries was misery. Still, in Ireland, poets have moved the masses to uprisings and greatness — most notably, the Easter 1916 rebellion that eventually helped lead to a free Ireland.Thus, on Wednesday, the first message from the Irish president Michael D. Higgins to Biden contained a quotation from the poet John O’Donohue — “Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning.”In his struggle to overcome his stutter, Biden famously recited the poems of William Butler Yeats in front of a mirror. He has used Heaney’s aspirational lines again and again — in a viral campaign video, and his acceptance speech last summer at the Democratic National Convention, and at a 2013 meeting on the U.S.-Korea relationship in Seoul.There were flashes of words that could stand as poetry in Biden’s Inaugural Address. He lamented the “lies told for power and for profit,” and said, “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire.” The most memorable line was a simple one, that “we must end this uncivil war” that pits Americans against one another.If he’s lucky, a commodity oversubscribed to the Irish, Biden will catch a “longed-for tidal wave” that could usher in an age when poetry is not without power.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.Timothy Egan (@nytegan) is a contributing opinion writer who covers the environment, the American West and politics. He is a winner of the National Book Award and the author, most recently, of “A Pilgrimage to Eternity.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

The US Senate on Friday confirmed Joe Biden’s nominee, Lloyd Austin, to serve as the secretary of defense, making the retired four-star army officer the first African American to lead the Pentagon.The final vote was 93 to 2, with only two Senate Republicans – Mike Lee of Utah and Josh Hawley of Missouri – opposing Austin’s nomination.Austin said in a tweet that it was “an honor and a privilege” to serve as the defense secretary, adding that he was “especially proud” to be the first African American to hold the position.“Let’s get to work,” he wrote.Austin, 67, will oversee the 1.3 million active duty men and women who make up the nation’s military. The Senate vote gave Biden his second cabinet official, and another crucial member of his national security team, after Avril Haines was confirmed on Wednesday as the first woman to serve as the director of national intelligence. She was sworn in on Thursday by the vice-president, Kamala Harris.[embedded content]Austin’s confirmation required a special dispensation from both chambers of Congress, waiving a legal prohibition on military officials serving as secretary of defense within seven years of their retirement from active-duty service. The House and Senate easily approved the waiver on Thursday, despite concerns among some lawmakers about granting an exception from a law intended to maintain civil control of the military.It was only the third time Congress had granted the exception, including in 2017 for the retired marine general Jim Mattis to become Donald Trump’s first defense secretary in 2017.Austin sought to allay concerns over his recent service during his confirmation hearing, saying he was a “general and a soldier” who was prepared “to serve now – as a civilian – fully acknowledging the importance of this distinction.”Austin, raised in a rural town in Georgia, graduated from West Point and steadily rose through the nearly all-white ranks of the military, breaking racial barriers nearly every step of the way during his decorated 41-year career. In a video posted on Twitter, he reflected on the historic nature of his nomination and vowed that he “won’t be the last” African American to lead the military.I am enormously grateful for the service and the sacrifices of those who broke barriers before me—and although I may be the first African American Secretary of Defense, it’s my hope that I won’t be the last. pic.twitter.com/cT3fU6whmE— Lloyd Austin (@LloydAustin) January 12, 2021
Appearing before the Senate armed services committee this week, Austin was asked how he planned to address rightwing extremism and white nationalism within the military, particularly as officials investigate the involvement of current and former service members in the violent attack on the US Capitol.Austin said he was committed to rooting out domestic extremism, telling lawmakers: “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.”Biden nominated Austin to restore stability atop the Pentagon and to rebuild America’s relationship with allies, frayed by the Trump administration, and orient the defense department to confront threats ranging from potential future pandemics to the climate emergency to refugee crises.“In my judgment, there is no question that he is the right person for this job at the right moment, leading the Department of Defense at this moment in our nation’s history,” Biden said as he announced his nomination of Austin for the role last month. He called Austin the “definition of duty, honor and country” and a leader “feared by our adversaries, known and respected by our allies”.Shortly after he was sworn in on Friday, Austin made his first official phone call to the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, to reiterate the country’s “steadfast commitment” to the defense alliance that had been a target of Trump’s wrath for nearly four years. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said he would be sworn in “more ceremoniously” by Harris on Monday.The Senate finance committee also unanimously supported the nomination of Janet Yellen for treasury secretary on Friday morning, setting up a final confirmation vote. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said the full chamber would vote on her confirmation on Monday.• This article was amended on 22 January 2020. An earlier version referred to Lloyd Austin as a retired marine officer; he is a retired army general. More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storylettersProud Boys No Longer Standing By TrumpA reader says they were thrown under the bus in typical Trump fashion. Also: Truth and the election; a teaching moment from “Gatsby.”Jan. 22, 2021, 2:01 p.m. ETMore from our inbox:Truth Won, Trump LostThe ‘Gatsby’ Stereotype of WealthMembers of the Proud Boys, who have engaged in political violence, at a rally in Portland, Ore., in September.Credit…Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “They Called Trump ‘Emperor.’ Now, He’s ‘Weak’” (news article, Jan. 21):It appears that the love affair between the Proud Boys and Donald Trump is done. They’re over him. Mr. Trump betrayed the Proud Boys by denouncing their violent attack on the Capitol after he had encouraged them. And he failed to issue any pardons to them for their attempted insurrection.The Proud Boys should have known better. Mr. Trump has a long history of tossing loyalists under the Trump bus once they’re no longer useful to him. At least the Proud Boys finally see him for what he is and has always been — in their own words, an “extraordinarily weak” man.Perhaps there’s hope that they’ll also see that their own agenda to effect change by sowing chaos in this country is wrongheaded and ultimately against their own best interests.Doug WilliamsMinneapolisTo the Editor:Pass this on to the Proud Boys: Donald Trump was never a tough guy. He just plays one on TV.Patrick FlynnRidge, N.Y.Truth Won, Trump Lost   Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Donald Trump left the White House a defeated man. He left unable to admit to, let alone face, the reality of his destructive actions.On Wednesday the country celebrated the victory of its system of democracy, a democracy that suffered damage but withstood Mr. Trump’s self-serving attacks, proving that its greatness was not in need of remaking. Indeed, from the courts to the people’s vote, the integrity of our system of government held strong when it counted.What Mr. Trump did not count on was this thing called truth, and this other thing called consequences. For perhaps the first time in his life, he could not bully, lie and cheat his way to evading responsibility. And that is the greatness of a flawed but real democracy. Truth prevails.Philip KenneyPortland, Ore.The ‘Gatsby’ Stereotype of WealthNew versions of “The Great Gatsby” published by, clockwise from left, Everyman’s Library, Candlewick Press, Modern Library, Vintage Classics, Penguin Classics and Black Dog & Leventhal.Credit…  To the Editor:Re “The Great Glut of ‘Gatsby’” (Arts pages, Jan. 15):“The Great Gatsby” is a great American novel, but it has also solidified a stereotype of money and class that contributes to today’s “us versus them” mind-set.When Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby are the only affluent folks we know, our view of wealth is dangerously narrow. Instead of further solidifying clichés, we need to move money out of the taboo category and have honest conversations at a personal level.Let’s read “Gatsby” as a novel rather than viewing its characters as more real than reality.Jennifer RisherSan FranciscoThe writer is the author of “We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceA Look at the RaceAndrew Yang’s Candidacy5 TakeawaysWho’s Running?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Kamala Harris Is a Star of the New York City Mayor’s RaceThe candidates are competing over who can best capture Washington’s attention and assistance as New York navigates its recovery from the pandemic.Several mayoral candidates have boasted of ties to Vice President Kamala Harris, including Andrew Yang, seen greeting her at a presidential debate in 2019.Credit…Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesJan. 22, 2021, 11:28 a.m. ETIn many tight political races, candidates battle over not just what they know, but whom they know. In the New York City mayor’s race, the most popular person to know isn’t even a New Yorker.“I’ve literally got the vice president’s number,” Andrew Yang told the news channel NY1.“We introduced the vice president-elect to New York City,” Raymond J. McGuire said on a podcast last month.Maya D. Wiley, another mayoral candidate, has a picture featuring that vice president — Kamala Harris of California — splashed across the top of her Twitter page.As a new administration takes over in Washington, there are signs of fresh battle lines in New York’s mayoral race, centered on connections to federal power.Political candidates often claim ties to major party figures in an effort to energize their bases, and that may be especially true with regard to Ms. Harris, the first woman and woman of color to serve as the country’s vice president.Yet this year, in a contest that may be defined by promises to stabilize an economically imperiled city, several prominent candidates are also competing over who is best equipped to capture Washington’s attention — and its assistance.“Having the bragging rights to relationships with these folks is appealing to voters,” said Jay Jacobs, the chairman of New York State’s Democratic Party. “It probably allows them to suggest that maybe they’ll be able to get additional help for the city if they become mayor.”New York already has vigorous champions for federal aid, starting with the new Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who is known to be attentive to his home state’s needs. And for mayors, the most urgent and fraught relationship to manage is often the one with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has vast control over city operations and has his own dealings with Washington.But after New York’s rough relationship with the Trump administration, many mayoral candidates agree that the city needs as many strong ties as possible to the new Washington to help navigate issues like housing, transportation and pandemic relief.Yet there are sharp distinctions in the ways the candidates approach discussing Washington.Some of the leading contenders — like Scott M. Stringer, the city’s comptroller, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president — are vocal about the need for more federal relief, and they appear to be betting that the next mayor of New York will get through to Washington regardless of previous relationships.“It’s a powerful argument to remind people in power time and time again in Washington that New York City continues to be the epicenter of the national economy,” said Mr. Stringer, who as comptroller laid out New York’s “most urgent” economic needs in a recent letter to President Biden, Mr. Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. “The quicker we bring back New York City, the better it will be for everybody.”For candidates with fewer established ties to city politics, national name-dropping can be part of a broader effort to explain the less conventional ways they would fight for New York, or simply a tactic aimed at standing out through association.It is an approach that may attract attention from donors and endorsement gatekeepers, though many New York political experts are skeptical that such appeals move votes.The city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, right, has working relationships with leaders in Washington, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, left.Credit…Richard Drew/Associated PressEmbracing the new administration may not be viewed as a particular asset in the most liberal corners of New York, where the White House is sure to be seen as too moderate. And strategists warn that the impact that Washington has on New York can be an abstract concept for voters grappling with more tangible challenges.“If you’re an insider, it obviously plays a larger factor,” the Queens borough president, Donovan Richards Jr., said. “For the person on the food line who’s disconnected from government, they don’t necessarily care about your relationship to Washington, D.C. They care about you being able to put some food on their plate.”Mr. Yang is trying to address the latter concern with a broad suite of policies as he seeks to emerge as the anti-poverty candidate. But Mr. Yang, a former presidential contender and political surrogate, is also emphasizing national relationships — even as he faces scrutiny over his connections to the city in which he has never voted for mayor.“My ties are strong with our partners in the White House and the Capitol; I have a lot of their phone numbers,” he said last week, adding that Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia had recently called him (though newly elected officials often make many phone calls to thank supporters).Calling Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary nominee, “friends of mine,” Mr. Yang added, “These relationships will pay dividends for our city when we want to get things done.”He also posted pictures of himself with Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris and Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Cory Booker of New Jersey. (Mr. Booker, declining to name the mayoral candidates he knew best, said he did not expect to endorse in the race because “I have so many friends that are running.”)The candidate with the deepest federal management experience is Shaun Donovan, who was a housing secretary under former President Barack Obama, and Mr. Donovan makes no secret of it. The biography on his campaign website opens with the promise to work with Mr. Biden, “ensuring that New York City’s voice is heard in the White House.”His campaign also issued a news release that highlighted “Obama-Biden alumni” donors, including Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Mr. Biden’s choice to lead the Homeland Security Department, and Tom Vilsack, his choice for agriculture secretary.Mr. Donovan said in an interview that his Washington relationships positioned him to see fresh opportunities for collaboration.“The question is, how deep are those relationships, how much trust do you have in the ability not just to call them on the phone, but to actually have worked side by side with them in moments of crisis?” he said. “No one has the depth and breadth of relationships that I do.”Shaun Donovan, center, a former housing secretary, has the deepest federal management experience among the mayoral candidates. Credit…Larry Downing/ReutersDespite those high-profile contacts, Mr. Donovan failed to meet the thresholds to qualify for the city’s matching-funds program, according to numbers released last week.Then there is Mr. McGuire, a longtime Wall Street executive, who has been a major Democratic donor himself and was a supporter of Ms. Harris before she ran for president.Mr. McGuire does not mention her at every turn, but he does have ties to her 2020 presidential primary infrastructure: The national finance chairman of her campaign, Jonathan Henes, is now a finance co-chair of his campaign, and there is additional overlap among prominent donors and on the finance team.Mr. McGuire and his wife, Crystal McCrary McGuire, also have personal relationships with Ms. Harris, according to a person who has worked for both Mr. McGuire and Ms. Harris. The person recalled, for instance, that after Ms. Harris gave a book talk at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan several years ago, she and her husband dined on cartons of Chinese takeout at the McGuires’ home.That doesn’t mean a Harris endorsement is imminent for Mr. McGuire or anyone else. A Harris aide said her team had been focused on the inauguration and on managing the coronavirus crisis. Others who have worked with her are skeptical that she would wade into a crowded mayoral primary.But the relationship is part of Mr. McGuire’s pitch that he would activate his sprawling network on behalf of the city. Mr. McGuire has publicly cited his ties with Ms. Harris and his connections with Washington decision makers.“Given that this is arguably the most important city in the country, it is important to have a relationship with one of the two most important leaders of the country,” he said last week, asked why that relationship was relevant.Ms. Wiley’s embrace of Ms. Harris is literal: The photo on her Twitter page shows her cheek touching Ms. Harris’s temple.In an interview, she detailed her own experiences navigating Washington, including testifying before Congress and meeting key officials across federal agencies, and described opportunities for the next mayor to work with an increasingly powerful New York delegation. And Ms. Wiley, who is Black and hopes to be the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor, also noted the historic nature of Ms. Harris’s ascension to the vice presidency.Female voters, she said, are “very energized by this White House, and by what it represents, not just symbolically but practically.”“The national and local are deeply connected for folks because we do need help from Washington,” said Ms. Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst who has worked with Ms. Harris’s sister, who added that she had traded the occasional text with Ms. Harris.Then there are the veteran New York politicians like Mr. Stringer and Mr. Adams who lack much of a national platform but do have deep local relationships.Given New York’s stature, some officials say, that should be enough — a stance adopted by Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner who is also running for mayor.“You are still the mayor of the premier city of the United States,” she said. “They’re going to take your call.”The former Representative Charles Rangel, the onetime dean of the New York House delegation, suggested that the mayoral candidates should keep fully focused on their own city.“I refuse to say anything that could be misinterpreted as not being positive about the power of the vice president of the United States,” he said. “But I’ll be goddamned if I can ever remember going to the vice president for any help for my city.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWe Have to Make the Republican Party Less DangerousThe crisis Trump set in motion is far from over.Opinion ColumnistJan. 22, 2021Credit…Damon Winter/The New York TimesIn his Inaugural Address on Wednesday, Joe Biden said that after four years of Trumpian chaos — including two months of thrashing against the results of the election, culminating in an attack on the Capitol itself — “democracy” had “prevailed.” But it might have been better, if inappropriate to the moment, for the new president to have said that democracy had “survived.”In so many ways, Donald Trump was a stress test for our democracy. And as we begin to assess the damage from his time in office, it’s clear we did not do especially well.Forces we thought would constrain Trump out of simple self-preservation — public opinion and the demands of the election cycle — were of no concern to a president with ironclad loyalty from his base and a multipronged propaganda network at his side.Institutions we thought would curb his worst behavior — the courts, the federal bureaucracy — had a mixed record, enabling his desires as often as they stymied his most destructive impulses.And Congress, designed to check and challenge a lawless president, struggled to do its job on account of partisanship and party loyalty. With just 34 senators on his side, a president can act with virtual impunity, secure in the knowledge that he won’t be removed from office, even if the House votes to impeach him and a majority of senators wants to see him go.Yes, we held an election, and yes, Trump actually left the White House — the Secret Service did not have to drag him out. But the difference between our reality and one where Trump overturned a narrow result in Biden’s favor is just a few tens of thousands of votes across a handful of states. If it were Pennsylvania or Arizona alone that meant the difference between victory and defeat, are we so sure that Republican election officials would have resisted the overwhelming pressure of the president and his allies? Are we absolutely confident the Supreme Court would not have intervened? Do we think the Republican Party wouldn’t have done everything it could to keep Trump in the White House?We don’t have to speculate too much. At points before the election, key actors signaled some willingness to stand with Trump should the results come close enough to seriously contest. And recent reporting from Axios shows that the plan, from the start, was to try to use any ambiguity in the results to claim victory, even if Trump lacked the votes.We were saved, in short, by the point spread. This does not reflect well on American democracy. But it does make clear the source of our dysfunction: the Republican Party.This is not a new insight, but it’s worth repeating all the same, especially in light of President Biden’s inaugural call for unity, decency and the common good. The Republican Party in 2021 is a party in near total thrall to its most radical elements, a party that in the main — as we just witnessed a few weeks ago — does not accept that it can lose elections and seeks to overturn or delegitimize the result when it does. It disseminates false accusations of voter fraud and then uses those accusations to justify voter suppression and disenfranchisement. It feeds lies to its supporters and uses those lies, as Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley did, to challenge the fundamental processes of our democracy.When in power in Washington, the Republican Party can barely govern, and when out of power, it does almost everything it can to stymie the government’s ability to act. And it was the party’s nearly unbreakable loyalty to Trump that neutered the impeachment power and enabled his fight to overturn constitutional government, which ended on Jan. 6 with a deadly mob wilding through the Capitol.To even begin to fix American democracy, we have to make the Republican Party less dangerous than it is. The optimal solution would be to build our two-party system into a multiparty one that splits the radical from the moderate Right and gives the latter a chance to win power without appeal to the former. But this requires fundamental change to the American system of elections, which is to say, it’s not going to happen anytime soon (and may never).The only other alternative — the only thing that might force the Republican Party to shift gears — is for the Democratic Party to establish national political dominance of the kind not seen since the heyday of the New Deal coalition. Parties tend to change when they can’t win power. It’s part of the problem of our time that the Republican Party can win a large share of national power — up to and including unified control of Washington — without winning a majority of votes, because of its advantage in the counter-majoritarian elements of our system. Without that advantage, there’s immediate incentive to do something different.This, too, is unlikely. Even if President Biden has a successful four (or eight) years in office, it is difficult to imagine anything that could prompt the kind of national realignment that would give the Democratic Party a durable advantage in the House, the Senate and the states. In a system that awards political power on the basis of land and boundaries as much as it does votes, Democrats would have to reverse the convergence of geography and partisan identity — where rural and exurban voters mostly vote for Republicans while their urban and suburban counterparts mostly vote for Democrats — in order to win the kind of victory that would force the Republican Party off its current path and into the wilderness. And even then, as the example of the California Republican Party and Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader of the House, demonstrates, there’s no guarantee that the party will change its tune.The Trump stress test, in other words, has revealed a nearly fatal vulnerability in our democracy — a militant, increasingly anti-democratic Republican Party — for which we may not have a viable solution.With that said, I don’t think we’re doomed to minoritarian rule by reactionaries. Political life is unpredictable, and there’s no way to know what may change. Lofty dreams can enter reality and obvious certainties can vanish into thin air.But one thing is certain. The crisis of our democracy is far from over. The most we’ve won, with Trump’s departure, is a respite from chaos and a chance to make whatever repairs we can manage.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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