Elections

73 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. He doubled down on all his worst vices, and he was rewarded for it with 10 million more votes than he received in 2016.The majority of people of color rejected his cruelty and vulgarity. But along with others who voted for Joe Biden, we are now being lectured by a chorus of voices including Pete Buttigieg and Ian Bremmer, to “reach out” to Trump voters and “empathize” with their pain.This is the same advice that was given after Trump’s 2016 victory, and for nearly four years, I attempted to take it. Believe me, it’s not worth it.The Quran asks Muslims to respond to disagreements and arguments “in a better way” and to “repel evil with good.” I tried. “You might not like me, and I might not like you, but we share the same real estate. So, here’s me reaching out across the aisle. American to American,” I said in a video message to Trump supporters published the day after the election.I really thought it might work. Growing up, I often talked about my Islamic faith with my non-Muslim friends, and I like to think that might have helped to inoculate them from the Islamophobic propaganda and conspiracy theories that later become popular. So I assumed I could win over some Trump supporters whose frustrations and grievances had been manipulated by those intent on seeing people like me as invaders intent on replacing them.So in late 2016, I told my speaking agency to book me for events in the states where Trump won. I wanted to talk to the people the media calls “real Americans” from the “heartland,” — which is of course America’s synonym for white people, Trump’s most fervent base. Over the next four years I gave more than a dozen talks to universities, companies and a variety of faith-based communities.My standard speech was about how to “build a multicultural coalition of the willing.” My message was that diverse communities, including white Trump supporters, could work together to create a future where all of our children would have an equal shot at the American dream. I assured the audiences that I was not their enemy.I reminded them that those who are now considered white, such as Irish Catholics, Eastern European Jews, Greeks and Italians, were once the boogeyman. I warned them that supporting white nationalism and Trump, in particular, would be self destructive, an act of self-immolation, that will neither help their families or America become great again.And I listened. Those in the audience who supported Trump came up to me and assured me they weren’t racist. They often said they’d enjoyed the talk, if not my politics. Still, not one told me they’d wavered in their support for him. Instead, they repeated conspiracy theories and Fox News talking points about “crooked Hillary.” Others made comments like, “You’re a good, moderate Muslim. How come others aren’t like you?”In Ohio, I spent 90 minutes on a drive to the airport with a retired Trump supporter. We were cordial to each other, we made jokes and we shared stories about our families. But neither of us changed our outlook. “They’ll never take my guns. Ever,” he told me, explaining that his Facebook feed was filled with articles about how Clinton and Democrats would kill the Second Amendment and steal his guns. Although he didn’t like some of Trump’s “tone” and comments, he didn’t believe he was a racist “in his heart.” I’m not a cardiologist, so I wasn’t qualified to challenge that.In 2017, I was invited by the Aspen Institute — which hosts a festival known for attracting the wealthy and powerful — to discuss racism in America. At a private dinner after the event, I was introduced to a donor who I learned was a Trump supporter. As soon as I said “white privilege,” she began shooting me passive aggressive quips about the virtues of meritocracy and hard work. She recommended I read “Hillbilly Elegy” — the best-selling book that has been criticized by those living in Appalachia as glorified poverty porn promoting simplistic stereotypes about a diverse region.I’ve even tried and failed to have productive conversations with Muslims who voted for Trump. Some love him for the tax cuts. Others listen only to Fox News, say “both sides” are the same, or believe he hasn’t bombed Muslim countries. (They’re wrong.) Many believe they are the “good immigrants,” as they chase whiteness and run away from Blackness, all the way to the suburbs. I can’t make people realize they have Black and brown skin and will never be accepted as white.I did my part. What was my reward? Listening to Trump’s base chant, “Send her back!” in reference to Representative Ilhan Omar, a black Muslim woman, who came to America as a refugee. I saw the Republican Party transform the McCloskeys into victims, even though the wealthy St. Louis couple illegally brandished firearms against peaceful BLM protesters. Their bellicosity was rewarded with a prime time slot at the Republican National Convention where they warned about “chaos” in the suburbs being invaded by people of color. Their speech would have fit well in ”The Birth of a Nation.”We cannot help people who refuse to help themselves. Trump is an extension of their id, their culture, their values, their greed. He is their defender and savior. He is their blunt instrument. He is their destructive drug of choice.Don’t waste your time reaching out to Trump voters like I did. Instead, invest your time organizing your community, registering new voters and supporting candidates who reflect progressive values that uplift everyone, not just those who wear MAGA hats, in local and state elections. Work also to protect Americans against lies and conspiracy theories churned out by the right wing media and political ecosystem. One step would be to continue pressuring social media giants like Twitter and Facebook to deplatform hatemongers, such as Steve Bannon, and censor disinformation. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.Or, you can just watch “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix while downing your favorite pint of ice cream and call it a day.Just as in 2016, I don’t need Trump supporters to be humiliated to feel great again. I want them to have health insurance, decent paying jobs and security for their family. I do not want them to suffer, but I also refuse to spend any more time trying to understand and help the architects of my oppression.I will move forward along with the majority who want progress, equality and justice for all Americans. If Trump supporters decide they want the same, they can always reach out to me. They know where to find me. Ahead of them.Wajahat Ali is a playwright, lawyer and contributing Opinion writer.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

Joe Biden’s lead in the presidential election results in Pennsylvania has now surpassed 81,000 votes, far exceeding Donald Trump’s 44,000-vote victory margin there four years ago. Yet the Trump campaign continues to claim in court huge but incalculable levels of fraud, particularly in Philadelphia.As with cases filed elsewhere around the country, Mr. Trump will not succeed. Even a cursory examination of the data refutes any notion of substantial voting fraud.As a threshold matter, it is important to understand how eerily similar the 2020 results in Philadelphia were to 2016. As of Tuesday evening, 743,966 votes for president had been counted in Philadelphia — an increase of 34,348 votes from 2016. This 4.8 percent increase in turnout is less than half of the 11.6 percent increase in turnout seen in the state as a whole.Not only was the increase in the number of ballots cast in Philadelphia from 2016 to 2020 relatively modest, but Mr. Trump won more votes and a greater percentage of the votes there than he did in 2016. He received 18 percent of the two-party vote this year, up from 15.7 percent in 2016, gaining 24,122 votes. In contrast, Mr. Biden received two percentage points less of the two-party vote in the city than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. If any fraud was attempted in Philadelphia, it failed miserably.Mr. Biden also did worse in Philadelphia in comparison with 2016 than in most other counties in the state. Mr. Biden outpaced Mrs. Clinton in 57 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. Though he got one percentage point more of the two-party vote than she did statewide, he underperformed her by 2.3 points in Philadelphia County — the biggest percentage-point decline in any county in the state. Philadelphia stands out as the county where Mr. Biden did particularly poorly, not suspiciously well.Just because Mr. Biden did worse than Mrs. Clinton and underperformed expectations this year does not disprove possible fraud, of course. Central to the “bad things are happening in Philadelphia” claim by Mr. Trump is the notion that a suspicious number of absentee ballots came in for Mr. Biden in Philadelphia. Absentee ballot fraud — either from dead people voting or election officials stuffing ballot boxes — is central to the Trump campaign’s claim of a stolen election. Again, the available evidence suggests nothing irregular.Mr. Biden received a higher percentage of the vote by mail than he did in the Election Day vote throughout the state. Philadelphia, which is much more Democratic than the rest of the state — 76 percent of the county’s voters are registered as Democrats, compared to 47 percent statewide — lies just where we would expect it to be, given the partisanship of the county.Skeptics of this analysis are likely to say that it is irrelevant, because the margins were so close that even a small number of manufactured ballots could make a difference. To this, we offer two rebuttals.The first is that Mr. Biden’s lead in the state, over 81,000 votes, is not close, and continues to grow. Second, for Mr. Biden’s lead to be the result of “stuffed” absentee ballots in Philadelphia would require that over 20 percent of mail ballots there to have been fraudulent. Such a large number of questionable ballots would have tripped off alarm bells for the Democratic and Republican officials who were overseeing the count.Statistical evidence such as this should not be necessary to cast doubt on the fraud claims being made in court by Mr. Trump’s campaign. The arguments simply are implausible on their face, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The allegations suggest a conspiracy or a remarkable coincidence of Republican and Democratic election officials in multiple states looking past or covering up hundreds of thousands of illegal votes.That’s not all that is implausible. The purported fraud appears to have affected only the top of the ballot and not the down-ballot races. Republican congressional candidates were surprisingly successful in those same states where allegations of illegality in the presidential race have been made.All of this may seem like beating a dead horse or trying to kill a fly with a bazooka, given the Trump campaign’s repeated losses in court. (On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected the campaign’s contention that observers in Philadelphia were kept too far away to properly watch the vote counting.) But the president’s dangerous claims of fraud are taking root in the public consciousness, causing significant doubt, especially among Republicans. Sixty-one percent expressed no confidence in a recent survey that the election was held fairly.One does not need to place witnesses on the stand to have them recant their claims or to embarrass the lawyers who cannot support these allegations. The evidence available in the public record demonstrates on its own that the claim of widespread fraud is itself a fraud.The more compelling conclusion is the one reached last week by the election and security experts in the Department of Homeland Security, which declared that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford, and Charles Stewart III, a professor of political science at M.I.T., are founders of the Stanford-M. I. T. Healthy Elections Project.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

He’s a Former Cop. He Wants to Be Mayor of N.Y.C.Emma G. FitzsimmonsReporting from New York CityKatherine Taylor for The New York TimesMr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, was known as a sharp police critic in the ‘90s, as co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. He is also known for being public about his health struggles. He lost 30 pounds after being diagnosed with diabetes. More

Linda Pizzuti Henry on Wednesday became the chief executive officer of Boston Globe Media Partners, the parent company of The Boston Globe, Boston.com and STAT News. Along with her husband, John W. Henry, Ms. Henry is an owner of Boston Globe Media Partners, the Boston Red Sox and the Liverpool Football Club.“I feel really lucky to be able to work every day at a place that I love, doing work that I know is critically important and impactful to a community I care deeply about,” Ms. Henry, the first woman to lead The Globe in its 148-year history, said in a statement.Mr. Henry, 71, bought The Boston Globe from The New York Times Company as part of a $70 million deal for New England Media Group in 2013. Since then, Ms. Henry has been managing director of Boston Globe Media Partners.Ms. Henry, 42, is taking the top job at a time of rising tensions between The Globe’s management and its union, which have been in negotiations over a new contract since the last one expired at the end of 2018.Matt Rocheleau, a Globe investigative reporter and the union’s recording secretary, said the elevation of Ms. Henry did not offer the staff much hope for a swift conclusion.“It really depends on if she is going to take a different approach to what has been taken,” he said in an interview. “We haven’t seen yet any signal that management is going to change, but we hope it does.”The promotion of Ms. Henry was announced on a day when Globe employees criticized ties between the newspaper and the Jones Day law firm, which has represented President Trump and his campaign and has been representing the Republican Party of Pennsylvania in litigation over mail-in votes.In an open letter to the Henrys and other executives on Wednesday, Globe union members said Boston Globe Media Partners’ use of Jones Day raised ethical issues and asked the company to reconsider its relationship with the firm. The Times reported this month that some Jones Day lawyers said they were concerned that the firm’s recent work was undermining the integrity of the electoral system. The Globe has used Jones Day since 2014, a spokeswoman said.“Given the Globe’s wide-ranging coverage of election-related news, we believe readers have a right to be aware of the relationship between The Globe and Jones Day, just as Globe readers have routinely been informed of the business relationship between Globe ownership and the Boston Red Sox,” the letter said.Mr. Rocheleau said the paper’s journalism must be free from any apparent conflicts of interest. “The Globe has run New York Times wire stories about Jones Day, about election-related lawsuits, and there was no disclosure about the relationship to the company with Jones Day,” he said.Ms. Henry spoke to Globe employees during a virtual meeting on Wednesday. “I believe in our purpose, in our mission and in how much the work we do matters,” she said, according to a report in The Globe.Ms. Henry effectively replaces Vinay Mehra, who left Boston Globe Media Partners in June after three years as its president. More

Last week, the Trump campaign published a series of posts on Facebook and Twitter identifying dead Americans whose names, the campaign alleged, were used to cast votes in this month’s election. The seven people were from Georgia and Pennsylvania, two battleground states that were crucial to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.At least three of them, however, either did not actually vote in the election or were alive and well and cast legal votes, according to state and county election officials.The name that spread the most online was Deborah Jean Christiansen of Roswell, Ga. On Facebook, 166 posts mentioning her name as proof of voter fraud collected over 280,000 likes, shares and comments from last Wednesday through Sunday, according to CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned social media analytics tool. The vast majority of that activity came from a video post from the account for “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Fox News show. The post, “Yes, Dead People Did Vote in the Election,” generated 2.5 million views on Facebook.But Ms. Christiansen did not vote, according to election officials.“We don’t have a record of a new voter registration, and we don’t have a record of a ballot being sent to this person,” Jessica Corbitt, a spokeswoman for Fulton County in Georgia, said in an interview. “We have her in the system as deceased.”Some news outlets, like CNN and Agence France-Presse, reported that there was no fraud in Ms. Christiansen’s case. But each of the posts generated far fewer shares and interactions than the posts containing the false information, according to CrowdTangle data.The Trump campaign also argued that James E. Blalock Jr. of Covington, Ga., and Linda Kesler of Nicholson, Ga., had voted fraudulently. But county election officials told The New York Times that the two people had been correctly marked as deceased and did not vote. Mrs. James E. Blalock Jr., the widow of Mr. Blalock, and a Lynda Kesler with a different address, birthday and Social Security number, voted legally, the officials said.The Trump campaign’s original posts about Mr. Blalock and Mrs. Kesler collected 26,600 likes and shares on Facebook, according to CrowdTangle data, while a report from a local news outlet correcting the claim collected just 10,100.The post about Mr. Blalock was eventually deleted on Twitter but remains up on Facebook. On Friday, Mr. Carlson apologized on air for his erroneous reporting in the case of Mr. Blalock.“On Friday, we began to learn some of the specific dead voters reported to us as deceased are in fact alive,” Mr. Carlson said in a statement on Tuesday evening. “We initially corrected this on Friday. We regret not catching it earlier. But the truth remains: Dead people voted in the election.”The other four people the Trump campaign held up are from Trenton, Ga., and Drexel Hill, South Park and Allentown, Pa. Local election officials said they were still investigating those allegations.The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

For a few hours on Tuesday, it looked as though two Republican officials in Wayne County, Mich., might reject the will of hundreds of thousands of voters.President Trump’s campaign cheered them on. But hundreds of Michiganders logged on to a Zoom call to express their fury. And around 9 p.m., the Republicans reversed themselves, certifying the count.Voters in Michigan and beyond were left wondering: What just happened? Could the results of a free election really be blocked that easily, in such a routine part of the electoral process?In this case, the answer was no, but perhaps only because so many people said so.What happened?The election canvassing board in Wayne County — a largely Democratic area that includes Detroit — met to certify the results of the Nov. 3 election and deadlocked along party lines, with the board’s two Democrats voting to certify and its two Republicans voting not to.The Republican members, William Hartmann and Monica Palmer, said they were concerned about small discrepancies between the number of votes cast in some precincts and the number of people precinct officials recorded as having voted.These sorts of inconsistencies can happen if, for instance, a voter checks in but then gets frustrated by a long line and leaves. They were nowhere near significant enough in Wayne County, or anywhere else in Michigan, to change President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory — Mayor Mike Duggan of Detroit said they involved just 357 votes out of about 250,000 cast in the city — and canvassing boards routinely certify election results under similar circumstances.After intense backlash, both from election watchdogs and from voters whom Representatives Debbie Dingell and Rashida Tlaib organized to call in to the canvassing board’s meeting, Mr. Hartmann and Ms. Palmer voted to certify the results after all. While they demanded that Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, conduct an audit of the Wayne County results, that will not delay the certification process.By Wednesday morning, every county in Michigan had certified its results. The Board of State Canvassers will meet on Nov. 23 to certify the statewide totals.Is this sort of dispute normal?In a word, no.Election certification is supposed to be routine: Canvassers at the county or municipal level (depending on the state) review precinct results, make sure every ballot is accounted for and every vote was counted, double-check the totals and send the certified numbers to state officials. It’s the process by which the results reported on election night are confirmed.This is basically an accounting task. If the canvassers find possible errors, it is their job to look into and resolve them, but refusing to certify results based on minor discrepancies is not normal. Michigan’s canvassing boards always have four members split between the two parties, and it is extremely rare for members to decline to certify an election that their party lost.“It is common for some precincts in Michigan and across the country to be out of balance by a small number of votes, especially when turnout is high,” Ms. Benson said in a statement Tuesday evening. “Importantly, this is not an indication that any votes were improperly cast or counted.”It is also highly abnormal to suggest, as Ms. Palmer did, that canvassers certify the results in one place but not another when there is no meaningful difference between the two in terms of the number or severity of discrepancies.Before the deadlock was resolved, Ms. Palmer had proposed certifying the results in “the communities other than the city of Detroit.” As Democrats and election law experts noted, nearly 80 percent of Detroit residents are Black. By contrast, in Livonia — a city west of Detroit that had the second-highest number of discrepancies in the county, but whose results Ms. Palmer was willing to certify — less than 5 percent of the population is Black.“It’s hard to ignore the potentially racially motivated actions of at least one of the canvassers,” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in an interview shortly before the board’s reversal, adding that her group was exploring “all legal avenues” if Republicans continued to disrupt the certification process.Neither Republican board member responded to a request for comment.What would have happened if the board deadlocked?The Board of State Canvassers would have been responsible for certifying Wayne County’s results if the Board of County Canvassers hadn’t. Section 168.822 of Michigan’s election laws says that if a county board fails to certify results, the state board “shall meet immediately and make the necessary determinations and certify the results” within 10 days.What is less clear is what would have happened if the state board’s two Democratic members and two Republican members also deadlocked along party lines.Mark Brewer, an election lawyer and former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said Tuesday evening that if it went to the state board and the state board refused, “the next step would be getting a court order directing them to certify.”The law that the state board “shall” certify the results if the county board doesn’t is unambiguous, Mr. Brewer said, “the kind of language that, in the past, Michigan courts have always enforced.”But this election has shown that what happened in the past is no guarantee. Before the standoff was resolved Tuesday night, Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to the Trump campaign, made it clear that the goal was to get the Republican-led Michigan Legislature to appoint a pro-Trump Electoral College slate — in opposition to the clear preference of Michigan voters, who chose Mr. Biden by a margin of nearly 150,000 votes. (A senior adviser to Mr. Trump, Justin Clark, said the campaign had played no role at the canvassing board.)Could the legislature really name electors on its own?In theory, yes: Under federal law, election experts say, a state legislature could potentially step in and appoint electors in a disputed presidential election. But there would be at least two complications.First, the election is not legitimately disputed. Mr. Biden won multiple battleground states by clear margins. The Trump campaign has filed a slew of legal challenges in Michigan and other states, but the courts have repeatedly rejected its arguments. Election officials across the country have said there was no evidence of widespread fraud anywhere.Second, even if Republican state legislators appointed a pro-Trump slate, a Democratic governor could step in and appoint a pro-Biden slate.“Michigan state law does not envision the state legislature stepping in to directly appoint electors,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School who specializes in election law. “The Democratic governor of Michigan would also surely object.”The Republican leader of the Michigan Senate has said that the Legislature will not name its own electors. But if it did, and the governor named a competing electoral slate, it would be up to Congress to decide which one to accept. Several election lawyers said last week that federal law would favor the slate appointed by the governor, including if Congress deadlocked. Congress could also, in theory, toss out Michigan’s electoral votes altogether.If Congress did that, or if it chose the Republican slate against the will of a state’s voters, the country would be in constitutional crisis territory. But it still wouldn’t change the result of the election, because there is no single swing state that could erase Mr. Biden’s victory. Multiple states would have to flip for that to happen.In the most chaotic possible scenario, “Mom and Dad, meaning Congress, come in and say this is who gets their dessert and this is who goes to bed without dinner,” Professor Levinson said. “The punchline, of course, is that in any event, Joe Biden still becomes the president on Jan. 20.”What does this mean for the American system?Regardless of the outcome, the fact that the Trump campaign and other Republicans have managed to inject so much chaos into what should be formalities shows how much disruption is possible in the systems that undergird the democratic process.What is happening is, in many respects, uncharted territory. Michigan election law states clearly what happens if a county canvassing board fails to certify the results of an election: The state canvassing board takes over. But it doesn’t say what happens if the state canvassing board deadlocks, too.“That’s where the wheels come off,” Professor Levinson said. “It’s not terrifically surprising to me that they don’t say, ‘And if everything collapses,’ because they’re operating under the assumption that people will work in good faith.”In other words: The system wasn’t designed for this.A lesson of the Trump era has been that much of American democracy is built not on laws but on norms, which persist by common consent. The episode in Michigan is an example of what can happen when the consent stops being common.Kathleen Gray contributed reporting. More

WASHINGTON — For all the drama around the presidential race, the biggest surprise of the 2020 election may have been in the House, as Republicans gained seats and cut into the Democratic majority after a campaign in which officials in both parties expected the G.O.P. to lose seats.No Republican leader had more riding on these elections than Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader and the man responsible for recruiting many of the newly elected House Republicans. In a recent interview, Mr. McCarthy discussed the campaign, how the House is the political equivalent of a baseball farm system and what President Trump’s role in the party will be going forward.The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.From a Republican vantage point, what does the election tell you about the parties and the country?We had challenges with women. We had a low number of women in Congress. It’s not just getting women to run; you’ve got to get through primaries. Do we look diverse like I believe our party to be? I don’t think Congress was reflective. So I spent more effort on recruitment, and I tried to do something different where I would engage early in the races. Because it’s harder for women and minorities to win in a primary than it is in a general election.House Republicans fared better in 2020, when Mr. Trump was on the ballot, than in the 2018 elections, when the president was not on the ballot. And yet in 2018, voters didn’t have Trump to vote against. They did this time. Why didn’t that hurt down-ballot races?If somebody has a difference of opinion with the president, they can vote against the president but still believe that the Democrat agenda is too far-off.In hindsight you guys probably could’ve gone on the offensive even more, right?We could’ve gone on the offensive. I would like to play in every single seat, but it’s the money that you have. In the end I had to spend 40 percent of our money on defense. We ran $2 million into Richard Hudson of North Carolina. We ran $2 million into Ann Wagner of Missouri. We ran $1.5 million into French Hill of Arkansas.Would you have done that in hindsight now? I mean, French Hill didn’t need your money.All the polling said he did.Looking back at the election, what gives you the most cause for optimism?The growth in the party. This minor league team is going to be more diverse than it ever has.You keep calling the House the “minor leagues.”I look at Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and I look at Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, right? Ten years ago they were sitting in House seats.What gives you the most cause for concern?Are we able to maintain our strength and grow it? You know, the Senate’s going to go based upon the House. The Senate Republicans didn’t win their majority in 2010. They couldn’t win it until we brought House members over there. The same thing’s going to happen now. And our members are going to be governors in the future. They’re going to be running for president. The party is going to be more diverse. We’re not more diverse today but we are going to be. We’re on the path.What role does Trump play in the next couple of years?I don’t think Trump goes away. If at the end of the day he does not win the presidency, he will still be a player and he’ll still have a base. And if you sit back, if Trump was not on the ticket, would we have won seats this year? He brought turnout.Mr. Trump helped Republicans in Miami, where Mayor Carlos Giménez of Miami-Dade County defeated Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Mr. Giménez did not vote for Mr. Trump in 2016, but he agreed to support him this election, and the two reached an accord on a trip Mr. Trump made to Miami.I literally told Trump, “He didn’t vote for you,” right? And I laid everything out. He goes: “I’ll endorse him. I want to know publicly he’s going to support me.” So Carlos puts a tweet out, right? He lands that day, shakes his hand, he says, “I’m going to endorse you and I’m going to do more for you.” And you know what he did? He got elected.Doesn’t Biden cool the country’s political temperatures, at least at first?It depends how it turns out. If you have 70 percent of Republicans who thought he cheated, he’s still going to have a hard time.He didn’t, of course. But the reason they believe that is because it’s being stoked every day.But remember when he was running. He was appeasing the left. And then he was going back from his old self to his new self, right? So if he’s fortunate enough to win the election he’s probably sitting back, saying, “I’m glad the Republicans won because I don’t have to …”If Biden comes to you and says, “Kevin, we’ve got to do something on infrastructure. We’ve got to create jobs in this country,” what are you going to say?We want to do infrastructure. It’s in our “Commitment to America.” We have a five-year plan.Yeah, so you will?I’ll say, “I’ve already got a plan right here.”So you want to do stuff with the president?I want to do stuff for America. More