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      Biden Team Isn’t Waiting for Impeachment to Go on the Offensive

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      The White House has enlisted two dozen attorneys, legislative liaisons and others to craft strategies in the face of Republican threats to charge the president with high crimes and misdemeanors.Just before 8 p.m. on Thursday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video of herself at a town hall in her Georgia district declaring that she “will not vote to fund the government” unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.It took just 68 minutes for the White House to fire back with a blistering statement that such a vote would mean that House Republicans had “caved to the hard-core fringe of their party in prioritizing a baseless impeachment stunt over high-stakes needs Americans care about deeply” like drug enforcement and disaster relief.The White House, as it turns out, is not waiting for a formal inquiry to wage war against impeachment. With a team of two dozen attorneys, legislative liaisons, communications specialists and others, the president has begun moving to counter any effort to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors with a best-defense-is-a-good-offense campaign aimed at dividing Republicans and taking his case to the public.The president’s team has been mapping out messaging, legal and parliamentary strategies for different scenarios. Officials have been reading books about past impeachments, studying law journal articles and pulling up old court decisions. They have even dug out correspondence between previous presidential advisers and congressional investigators to determine what standards and precedents have been established.At the same time, recognizing that any impeachment fight would be a political showdown heading into an election season, outside allies have been going after Republicans like Ms. Greene and Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A group called the Congressional Integrity Project has been collecting polling data, blitzing out statements, fact sheets and memos and producing ads targeting 18 House Republicans representing districts that voted for Mr. Biden in 2020.“As the Republicans ramp up their impeachment efforts, they’re certainly making this a political exercise and we’re responding in kind,” said Kyle Herrig, the executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project. “This is a moment of offense for Democrats. They have no basis for impeachment. They have no evidence. They have nothing.”The White House preparations do not indicate that Mr. Biden’s advisers believe an impeachment inquiry is inevitable. But advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal thinking said that it was important to take on the prospect aggressively and expressed hope that the situation could be turned to their advantage.Republican congressional investigations have turned up evidence that Hunter Biden traded on his family name to generate multimillion-dollar deals and a former partner, Devon Archer, testified that Mr. Biden would put his father on speakerphone with potential business clients to impress them.Republican congressional investigations have turned up evidence that Hunter Biden traded on his family name to generate multimillion-dollar deals.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut Mr. Archer testified that the elder Biden only engaged in idle chitchat during such calls, not business, and no evidence has emerged that the president directly profited from his son’s deals or used his power inappropriately while vice president to benefit his son’s financial interests.Republicans have not identified any specific impeachable offenses and some have privately made clear they do not see any at the moment. The momentum toward an impeachment inquiry appears driven in large part by opposition to Mr. Biden’s policies and is fueled by former President Donald J. Trump, who is eager to tarnish his potential rival in next year’s election and openly frames the issue as a matter of revenge. “Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION,” he demanded of Republicans on his social media site this past week. “THEY DID IT TO US!”That stands in sharp contrast to other modern impeachment efforts. When impeachment inquiries were initiated against Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Bill Clinton and Mr. Trump, there were clear allegations of specific misconduct, whether or not they necessarily warranted removal from office. In Mr. Biden’s case, it is not clear what actions he has taken that would be defined as a high crime or misdemeanor.Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican, cited “a culture of corruption” within the Biden family in explaining on Fox News last weekend why he might push ahead with an impeachment inquiry. “If you look at all the information we’ve been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,” he said.Even if Republican investigators turned up evidence that Mr. Biden had done something as vice president to help his son’s business, it would be the first time a president was targeted for impeachment for actions taken before he became president, raising novel constitutional issues.For now, though, it is hardly certain that Republicans would authorize an inquiry. Mr. McCarthy told Breitbart News on Friday that if they pursued such an inquiry, “it would occur through a vote on the floor,” not through a decree by him, and veteran strategists in both parties doubt he could muster the 218 votes needed to proceed.The speaker’s flirtation with holding such a vote may be simply a way of catering to Ms. Greene and others on his right flank. He has used the thirst to investigate Mr. Biden as an argument against a government shutdown, suggesting that a budgetary impasse would stall House inquiries.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has vowed to oppose funding the government unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut some Republicans have warned that a formal impeachment drive could be a mistake. Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, has said that “impeachment theater” was a distraction from spending issues and that it was not “responsible for us to talk about impeachment.” Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said impeachment could “unleash an internal Republican civil war” and if unsuccessful lead to “the worst, biggest backfire for Republicans.”The White House has been building its team to defend against Republican congressional investigations for more than a year, a team now bracing for a possible impeachment inquiry. Richard Sauber, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed special counsel in the spring of last year, and Ian Sams, a longtime Democratic communications specialist, was brought on as spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office. Russell Anello, the top Democratic staff member for the House Oversight Committee, joined last year as well.After Republicans won control of the House in the November midterm elections, more people were added to handle the multitude of congressional investigations. Stuart Delery, the White House counsel who is stepping down this month, will be replaced by Ed Siskel, who handled Republican investigations into issues like the Benghazi terror attack for President Barack Obama’s White House.A critical adviser for Mr. Biden will be his personal attorney, Bob Bauer, one of the most veteran figures in Washington’s legal-political wars. As a private lawyer, he advised the House Democratic leader during Mr. Clinton’s impeachment and then the Senate Democratic leader during the subsequent trial, helping to shape strategies that kept Democrats largely unified behind their president.Mr. Biden himself has seen four impeachment efforts up close during his long career in Washington. He was a first-term senator when Mr. Nixon resigned rather than face a seemingly certain Senate trial in 1974 and a fifth-term senator when he voted to acquit Mr. Clinton in 1999. It was Mr. Biden that Mr. Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating, leading to the former president’s first impeachment in 2019. And it was Mr. Biden’s victory in 2020 that Mr. Trump tried to overturn with the help of a mob that attacked Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, leading to a second impeachment.The Clinton impeachment battle has provided some lessons for the Biden team, although the circumstances are significantly different and the political environment has shifted dramatically in the 25 years since then. Much as the Clinton White House did, the Biden White House has tried to separate its defense against Republican investigators from the day-to-day operations of the building, assigning Mr. Sams to respond mostly off camera to issues arising from the investigations rather than Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, during her televised briefings.As in the late 1990s, the strategy now is to paint Republicans as rabid partisans only interested in attacking the president of the other party out of political or ideological motives in contrast to a commander in chief focused on issues of importance to everyday voters, like health care and the economy.The approach worked for Mr. Clinton, whose approval ratings shot up to their highest levels of his two terms, surpassing 70 percent, when he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Mr. Biden’s approval ratings remain mired in the low 40s, but advisers think a serious impeachment threat would rally disaffected supporters.Mr. Herrig’s Congressional Integrity Project, founded after last year’s midterm elections, hopes to turn the Republican impeachment drive against them. His group’s board chairman, Jeff Peck, is a longtime Biden ally, and it recently hired Kate Berner, the former White House deputy communications director.The group has teams in New York and California and plans to expand to other battleground districts. “This is a political loser for vulnerable Republicans,” Mr. Herrig said. “McCarthy’s doing the bidding of Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and putting his majority at risk.” More

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      In Florida, a Hurricane Can’t Bring DeSantis and Biden Together

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      President Biden said he would meet with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida during a visit to tour the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia. An aide to the governor said he had no such plans.In normal times, the politics of disaster dictate that a president and a governor from opposite parties come together to show the victims of a natural disaster — and potential voters across the country — that they care.These are not normal times.On Friday, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican seeking his party’s nomination for president, said the governor doesn’t “have any plans” to meet President Biden on Saturday when he visits a Florida community ravaged by Hurricane Idalia.At a news conference, Mr. DeSantis said he had told Mr. Biden that it “would be very disruptive to have the whole kind of security apparatus” that comes along with a presidential visit. He said he told the president that “we want to make sure that the power restoration continues, that the relief efforts continue.”The governor’s statement came just hours after Mr. Biden confirmed to reporters that he would meet with the governor during his visit to the state. White House officials responded by saying the president had told Mr. DeSantis he planned to visit before announcing it publicly — and that the governor had not expressed any concerns at that time.“President Biden and the first lady look forward to meeting members of the community impacted by Hurricane Idalia and surveying impacts of the storm,” said Emilie Simons, a deputy press secretary at the White House. “Their visit to Florida has been planned in close coordination with FEMA as well as state and local leaders to ensure there is no impact on response operations.”The discrepancy underscored the tensions between the two politicians, whose campaigns have been lashing out at each other for months. A recent Biden for President email called Mr. DeSantis a politician who oversees an “inflation hot spot” and supports an “extreme MAGA blueprint to undermine democracy.” At the Republican debate last month, Mr. DeSantis said the country is in decline under Mr. Biden and accused Mr. Biden of staying “on the beach” while the people of Maui suffered through devastating fires.The stakes are high for both men. Mr. Biden has struggled with mediocre approval ratings and arrives in Florida following criticism that his initial response to reporters on the Maui wildfires was a lackluster “no comment.” Mr. DeSantis has seen his polling numbers plummet as his onetime benefactor, former President Donald J. Trump, has become a fierce rival, attacking at every turn.Jason Pizzo, a Democratic state senator from South Florida, said Mr. DeSantis’s decision smelled like politics.“Campaign strategy has replaced civility and decorum,” Mr. Pizzo said.Politicians have been caught out in the past for acting cordial with their opponents.In 2012, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican who was considering an eventual run for president, greeted President Barack Obama warmly on a visit to New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.“That’s what civilized people do when someone comes to your state to offer help,” Mr. Christie argued later on Fox News. “You shake their hand and you welcome them, which is what I did.”But Republicans thought the greeting — wrongly called a hug in some quarters — was too warm, and Mr. Christie suffered for it. Some of his conservative critics never forgave him for what they saw as being too friendly with the enemy.President Biden, at the White House on Friday, has struggled with mediocre approval ratings.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesEarlier this week, before Mr. Biden announced his trip, Mr. DeSantis suggested that it was important to put politics aside in the interests of his state.“We have to deal with supporting the needs of the people who are in harm’s way or have difficulties,” Mr. DeSantis said earlier this week when asked about Mr. Biden. “And that has got to triumph over any type of short-term political calculation or any type of positioning. This is the real deal. You have people’s lives that have been at risk.”White House officials appeared to take his comments at face value. On Thursday, Liz Sherwood-Randall, the president’s top homeland security adviser, told reporters that Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis “are very collegial when we have the work to do together of helping Americans in need, citizens of Florida in need.”But 24 hours later, that collegiality appeared to have faded.Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis have put politics on hold — for the most part — in the past when faced with disaster. Mr. Biden and the governor met in the aftermath of the collapse of a condominium building and later were cordial together after Hurricane Ian.A visit on Saturday would have been their first joint event since Mr. DeSantis officially announced he was running for president.After Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28, Mr. Biden waited seven days before visiting Florida on Oct. 5. Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida on Wednesday.Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis in Florida last year following the far more devastating Hurricane Ian.Doug Mills/The New York TimesHurricane Idalia, which hit Florida as a Category 3 storm, forced Mr. DeSantis off the campaign trail. But it also allowed him an opportunity to project strength, which he has not always done as a presidential candidate. Mr. DeSantis launched his candidacy with a disastrously glitchy event on Twitter. He has at times struggled to take on the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Donald J. Trump, and has repeatedly rebooted his campaign amid a fund-raising shortfall, layoffs and a shake-up of his senior staff.Facing the powerful hurricane, however, the governor sprang into action, as many Florida governors have done in the past.He blanketed local and national airwaves with hurricane briefings, telling residents in the storm’s path that they needed to evacuate. His official schedule showed that he started his workdays at 4 a.m. And early surveys after the storm had passed showed that the damage was not as severe as originally feared, even though many homes and businesses were flooded and the area’s cherished fishing industry may be in long-term peril.Mr. Biden’s administration also moved quickly to confront the storm. Officials said that by Friday there were 1,500 federal personnel in Florida dealing with the storm, along with 540 Urban Search and Rescue personnel and three disaster survivor assistance teams.FEMA made available more than 1.3 million meals and 1.6 million liters of water, officials said. Other efforts were underway by more than a half-dozen other federal agencies.So far, state officials have confirmed only one death as being storm-related as of Friday. Power had been restored to many homes. Roads and bridges were being reopened.A family sifts through belongings in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., on Thursday.Emily Kask for The New York Times“We were ready for this,” Mr. DeSantis told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday night, as he spoke in front of a historic oak tree that had fallen on the governor’s mansion. “Most of the people did evacuate, and so we’re cautiously optimistic that we’re going to end up OK on that.”(Mr. Hannity set up the interview by showing images of Mr. Biden vacationing on a beach in Delaware in mid-August.)Undoubtedly, Mr. DeSantis was helped that Idalia, while it made landfall as a Category 3 storm, struck a sparsely populated section of the Gulf Coast known as Big Bend. In contrast, Ian overwhelmed a far more dense and developed part of Florida, killing 150 people in the state and becoming its deadliest storm in decades. Rebuilding efforts from that storm are still far from over.Now, having put on a solid display in last week’s Republican debate, Mr. DeSantis will likely hope to return to the campaign trail from a position of strength. He often tells voters in Iowa and New Hampshire about his response to Ian, particularly his efforts to immediately repair bridges and causeways to barrier islands that had been cut off from the mainland. The quick return of power and low number of fatalities from Idalia may be added to that litany.And with the storm gone, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has started to resume normal operations. On Friday, his campaign sent out a fund-raising appeal, offering signed baseball caps with the phrase “Our Great American Comeback” on them.“He autographed 10 hats for us to launch a new contest for YOU to win and raise the resources we need to defeat Joe Biden,” the text appeal said. “Let’s show the nation that we have what it takes to defeat Joe Biden and the far Left.” More

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      On the Economy, Biden Struggles to Convince Voters of His Success

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      Wages are up, inflation has slowed and the White House has a new slogan. Still, President Biden’s poor marks on the economy are making Democrats worried.When a chant slamming President Biden spread from a NASCAR race to T-shirts and bumper stickers across red America two years ago, the White House pulled off perhaps its savviest messaging feat to date. Biden aides and allies repackaged the “Let’s Go Brandon” insult and morphed it into “Dark Brandon,” a celebratory meme casting Mr. Biden as some sort of omnipotent mastermind.Now, the White House and the Biden campaign is several weeks into another appropriation play — but it isn’t going nearly as well. Aides in July announced that the president would run for re-election on the virtues of “Bidenomics,” proudly reclaiming the right’s derisive term for Mr. Biden’s economic policies.The gambit does not appear to be working yet. Even as Mr. Biden presides over what is by all indicators a strong economy — one on track to dodge the recession many had feared — he is still struggling to convince most of the country of the strength of his economic stewardship. Wages are up, inflation has slowed, but credit to the president remains in short supply.Polling last month from the Democratic organization Navigator found that 25 percent of Americans support Mr. Biden’s major actions, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, but still think the president is doing a poor job handling the economy. It’s a group that tends to be disproportionately younger than 40 and is more likely to be Black or Latino — voters critical to Democratic victories.“This is the thing that’s vexing all Democrats,” said Patrick Gaspard, the president of the Center for American Progress.Democratic economists, pollsters and officials have a variety of explanations for why voters don’t credit Mr. Biden for the economy. Inflation remains elevated, and interest rates have made home buying difficult. There is also evidence that voters’ views on the economy are shaped as much by their political views as by personal experiences.And then there is the regular refrain that people don’t know about Mr. Biden’s successes. Even Mr. Biden’s supporters say that he and his administration have been too reluctant to promote their record and ineffective when they do.“I’ve never seen this big of a disconnect between how the economy is actually doing and key polling results about what people think is going on,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.Mr. Biden on Friday attempted another victory lap in a White House speech celebrating the latest jobs report, which found no sign of an imminent recession and a slight increase in the unemployment rate as more people sought work. He credited the heart of his economic plan, including investment in infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing and climate-related industries along with caps on the price of insulin medication.Bidenomics, Mr. Biden said, “is about investing in America and investing in Americans.”Mr. Biden said his economic plan was to credit for the latest jobs report, which found no sign of an imminent recession and a slight increase in the unemployment rate as more people sought work.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesThe term Bidenomics emerged as a pejorative in conservative media and has been widely adopted by Mr. Biden’s rivals. “One of the most important issues of the campaign will be who can rescue our country from the burning wreckage of Bidenomics,” former President Donald J. Trump said in a recent video, “which shall henceforth be defined as inflation, taxation submission and failure.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida offered his definition at a recent campaign stop in Rock Rapids, Iowa. “Bidenomics is basically: You have a lower standard of living so he can pursue the left’s ideological agenda,” he said.Behind the rhetoric, there is some debate over whether the economy will be the driving force it has been in past presidential elections. Some Democrats argue that their party’s resilience in last year’s midterm elections showed that the fight over abortion rights and Mr. Trump’s influence over Republicans can trounce more kitchen-table concerns.The White House argues that Democrats’ strong showing last year is a sign the Mr. Biden’s electoral performance isn’t strictly tied to the economy.“By all metrics, his economic record has improved since then,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman.Still, nearly all of Mr. Biden’s campaign advertising this year sells his economic record. The ads — which don’t use the term Bidenomics — cast the president’s policies as a work in progress. “All of the things that Biden fought to get passed helped the middle class,” a cement mason from Milwaukee says in an ad the campaign released last week.“It’s no secret that a lot of Americans are struggling with the cost of living, and that’s a reality that shapes their views about the economy more broadly,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who conducts surveys for the Democratic National Committee.Explaining why Mr. Biden’s policies will help, Mr. Garin said, “is what campaigns are for.”This summer Mr. Biden has promoted “Bidenomics” at events around the country, often speaking in factories or with labor groups. Even some in friendly audiences of local Democratic leaders and supporters questioned whether his emphasis would resonate with the coalition that elected him in 2020.“Is Bidenomics the right thing to sell?” Mayor Katie Rosenberg of Wausau, Wis., said after seeing Mr. Biden speak in Milwaukee last month. “I just keep thinking, why aren’t they just doing Build Back Better still? That was a really good slogan. Bidenomics is just an effort to capitalize on the negativity around him.”Build Back Better, the mix of economic, climate and social policy that Mr. Biden ran on in 2020, was a bumper-sticker-length encapsulation of Mr. Biden’s ambitions as president. Significant elements became law, but the branding exercise failed, doomed in part by rising inflation.Mr. Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan was a bumper-sticker-length encapsulation of his ambitions as president.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesDemocrats rebranded their climate legislation as the Inflation Reduction Act, even though the bill had little to do with inflation. Even Mr. Biden recently said that he regretted the name, suggesting that it promised something the bill was not devised to deliver.Though the rate of inflation has slowed, it remains the chief drag on Mr. Biden’s economic approval ratings, said Joanne Hsu, the director of Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan.“We track people who have heard negative news about inflation,” Dr. Hsu said. “Over the past year, that number has been much higher than in the 1970s and ’80s, when inflation was so much worse.”One theme of Mr. Biden’s aides, advisers and allies is to plead for time. The economy will get better, more people will hear and understand what Bidenomics means and credit will accrue to the president, they say.“The public more and more is going to be seeing low unemployment and will continue to get more bullish on the economy,” said Representative Robert Garcia of California, a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board. “But I also understand it’s very hard for people now. We just can’t expect overnight for people to feel better about the economy.”For most Americans, their views on the economy are directly tied to their partisan leanings — a phenomenon that is particularly acute for Republicans. In 2016, before Mr. Trump took office, just 18 percent of Republicans rated the economy excellent or good, according to a Pew Research survey. By February 2020, just before the pandemic shut down public life in America, 81 percent of Republicans said the economy was excellent or good.An Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last month found just 8 percent of Republicans, along with 65 percent of Democrats, approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy.Mr. Biden’s sympathizers say part of his problem on the economy is an unwillingness to promote its bright spots out of fear of seeming insensitive to Americans struggling with higher prices. Mr. Trump had no such restraint, describing the economy as the best in history and the envy of the world. Using “Bidenomics” as a framework lets the president take ownership of the economy, but it doesn’t exactly tell voters that the economy is great.“Trump chose people who were probably less experienced in terms of making policy, but some of them are quite good about talking up the president,” said Ben Harris, a former top Treasury official in the Biden administration who played a leading role in outlining the Build Back Better agenda during the 2020 campaign. “Biden’s taken a more modest and humble approach, and there’s a chance that’s come back to haunt him.”Jason Furman, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration, said there was a regular debate in that White House about how much to sell the public on the idea that the economy was improving even if people didn’t feel in their own lives.Now he said it was difficult for the Biden administration to take victory laps over slowing inflation because wages haven’t kept pace, leaving a typical worker about $2,000 behind compared with before the pandemic.“The way to think about that is people were in an incredibly deep hole because of inflation and we’re still not all the way out of that hole,” Mr. Furman said. “The fact that you protected people in the bad times means the good times don’t feel as good.”Nicholas Nehamas More

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      For Politicians, Vacations Can Be a Lot of Work

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      Taking a break from the campaign trail is risky. History is littered with cautionary tales of candidates who got it wrong.Labor Day weekend, once the official kickoff of campaign season, now comes almost a year after most candidates have hit the trail and after the first primary debate.The occasion lays out a basic fact of modern presidential campaigns: Politicians need vacations, too. But while taking a break can create an opportunity for campaigns to show that their candidates are just like the rest of us, it also carries potential peril.The “right” vacation can give a candidate time to rest and recharge, to reconnect with family after weeks on the road, and a chance to look presidential while doing it. A tone-deaf vacation — too elite, too disconnected, too much beach bod — is tabloid catnip and can alienate voters. And the wrong vacation can upend a campaign faster than a wave topples a windsurfer.So it’s no surprise that the presidential candidates this year, by and large, are lying low.Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, will be at home on Kiawah Island, S.C. (“Vacation? LOL,” a spokeswoman said. Ms. Haley, she noted, is heading back to New Hampshire on Tuesday.)Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has no scheduled public events, but a campaign spokesman said Mr. Scott planned to play pickleball, a game that can make even the deftest of athletes look ridiculous.A spokesman for the campaign of former President Donald J. Trump, an avid golfer who counts two vacation properties as homes, did not respond to requests for comment about where Mr. Trump would spend the weekend.President Biden is scheduled to go to Florida on Saturday, not for a vacation but to see the damage from Hurricane Idalia. He will then head to his house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., with his family, before going to Philadelphia on Monday.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whose state was badly battered by the storm, will also be working through the weekend. But there will probably be no beach outing for the two potential rivals: Jeremy Redfern, press secretary for Mr. DeSantis, said Friday that there were no plans for the governor to meet with the president.Some of the 2024 candidates already have experience with the awkward vacation moment. In the summer of 2017, when a state government shutdown forced the closure of New Jersey beaches before the July 4 holiday, Chris Christie, then the governor, was infamously photographed lounging on a deserted strip of sand at Island Beach State Park.A spokesman for Mr. Christie’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment about his plans, though he got an early start on the holiday weekend Wednesday by attending a Bruce Springsteen concert, the first of the rocker’s three shows in New Jersey this week.Vivek Ramaswamy will spend the weekend campaigning in New Hampshire. A spokeswoman for his campaign said he had a town hall Friday night, a breakfast and a rally Saturday, a few meet-and-greets and a Labor Day parade on Monday in Milford. The spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy said his most recent vacation was around Christmas, and he had not taken a day off since before launching his campaign.Former Vice President Mike Pence will also be in New Hampshire on Monday, attending a “smoke-off” at a Baptist church, a picnic and a barbecue. (While in office, one of Mr. Pence’s family’s preferred vacation destinations was Sanibel Island in Florida.)While most of the 2024 candidates have chosen to emphasize that they are at work rather than at play, vacations were once seen as an opportunity to burnish a politician’s image. Ronald Reagan chopped wood and rode horses at his California ranch. George W. Bush cleared brush in Texas. John F. Kennedy, perhaps the embodiment of the artful presidential vacation, sailed.John F. Kennedy on a vacation in Rhode Island in 1962.American Photo Archive, via AlamyRonald and Nancy Reagan at their ranch in California in 1982.White House, via Associated PressGeorge W. Bush clearing brush at his Texas ranch in 2007.Charles Ommanney/Getty ImagesThese days, it seems, the risks are not worth the reward.Stories of vacations restoring the candidate but tanking the campaign are many. When Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president, went on vacation in late August 1988, he was seen by some as checking out of the race as George H.W. Bush gathered momentum from the Republican convention. Mr. Dukakis was also once pilloried for reading a book called “Swedish Land Use Planning” on the beach.Vacations can even be perilous after you win. As president, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were each criticized for palling around with donors on Martha’s Vineyard. In 2015, Hillary Clinton went to the Hamptons for an August vacation, despite concerns about the political optics.Bill Clinton with Hillary Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, on Martha’s Vineyard in 1993.Marcy Nighswander/Associated PressBarack Obama with Michelle, left, and Malia on Martha’s Vineyard in 2014.Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressA getaway can also become a fashion meme or a wardrobe minefield. In August 2008, Mr. Obama, then a candidate, was photographed without a shirt on a beach in Honolulu. People swooned. In 1993, Mr. Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were photographed in short shorts. People cringed. Both appearances drew comparisons to Richard Nixon in a suit and wingtips on the beach. More recently, Mr. Biden took the internet by storm when he went shirtless at the beach, with his trademark aviators and baseball cap.And then there are those moments of R & R that can cause real problems for a campaign. During John Kerry’s 2004 presidential run, he spent time at the family house on Nantucket, where he engaged in one of his favorite pastimes: windsurfing. What might, in some circumstances, have created the impression of athleticism, strength and adventure was instead turned against him by the Bush campaign to illustrate, memorably, that his political stances shifted with the wind.John Kerry windsurfing off the coast of Nantucket, Mass., in 2004.Laura Rauch/Associated PressEven parades, a Labor Day staple, seem to have fallen out of favor.No candidates plan to take part in the parade in Chapin, S.C., which is billed as the largest in the state and has been a traditional stop for Republican presidential hopefuls. According to The Post and Courier, this will be the first Chapin Labor Day parade held the year before a contested Republican primary since at least 1996 in which no candidates make an appearance — though several campaigns will have “a presence” there, with walkers, trucks and probably a few flags.Maya King, Michael D. Shear and Nick Corasaniti contributed reporting. More

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      Republicans Agree on Foreign Policy — When It Comes to China

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      At first glance, last week’s Republican presidential debate revealed a party fractured over America’s role in the world. Ron DeSantis said he wouldn’t support additional aid to Ukraine unless Europe does more. Vivek Ramaswamy said he wouldn’t arm Ukraine no matter what. Chris Christie, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, all staunch defenders of Kyiv, pounced. Within minutes, the altercations were so intense that the moderators struggled to regain control.But amid the discord, one note of agreement kept rising to the surface: that the true threat to America comes from Beijing. In justifying his reluctance to send more aid to Ukraine, Mr. DeSantis said he’d ensure that the United States does “what we need to do with China.” Mr. Ramaswamy denounced aiding Ukraine because the “real threat we face is communist China.” Ms. Haley defended such aid because “a win for Russia is a win for China.” Mr. Pence said Mr. Ramaswamy’s weakness on Ukraine would tempt Beijing to attack Taiwan.Regardless of their views on Ukraine, Republicans are united in focusing on China. They are returning to the principle that many championed at the beginning of the last Cold War. It’s neither internationalism nor isolationism. It’s Asia First.When Americans remember the early Cold War years, they often think of Europe: NATO, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, which justified aiding Greece and Turkey. But for many leading Republicans at the time, those commitments were a distraction: The real menace lay on the other side of the globe.Senator Robert Taft, nicknamed “Mr. Republican” because of his stature in the party, opposed America’s entrance into NATO and declared in 1948 that “the Far East is ultimately even more important to our future peace and safety than is Europe.” The following year, Senator H. Alexander Smith, a Republican on the Foreign Policy and Armed Services Committee, warned that while the Truman administration was “preoccupied with Europe the real threat of World War III may be approaching us from the Asiatic side.” William Knowland, the Senate Republican leader from 1953 to 1958, was so devoted to supporting the Nationalist exiles who left the mainland after losing China’s civil war that he was called the “senator from Formosa,” as Taiwan was known at the time.Understanding why Republicans prioritized China then helps explain why they’re prioritizing it now. In her book “Asia First: China and the Making of Modern American Conservatism,” the historian Joyce Mao argues that Cold War era Republicans’ focus on China stemmed in part from a “spiritual paternalism that arguably carried over from the previous century.” In the late 19th century, when the United States was carving out a sphere of influence in the Pacific, China, with its vast population, held special allure for Americans interested in winning souls for Christ. The nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, who were Christians themselves, used this religious connection to drum up American support — first for their war against Communist rivals on the Chinese mainland and then, after they fled to the island of Taiwan, for their regime there.Many of America’s most influential Asia Firsters — like the Time magazine publisher Henry Luce — were either the children of American missionaries in China or had served as missionaries there themselves. The John Birch Society, whose fervent and conspiratorial brand of anti-Communism foreshadowed the right-wing populism of today, took its name from an Army captain and former missionary killed by Chinese communists at the end of World War II.Today, of course, Americans don’t need religious reasons to put Asia first. It boasts much of the world’s economic, political and military power, which is why the Biden administration focuses on the region, too. In Washington, getting tough on China is now a bipartisan affair. Still, the conservative tradition that Ms. Mao describes — which views China as a civilizational pupil turned civilizational threat — is critical to grasping why rank-and-file Republicans, far more than Democrats, fixate on the danger from Beijing.In March, a Gallup poll found that while Democrats were 23 points more likely to consider Russia a greater enemy than China, Republicans were a whopping 64 points more likely to say the reverse. There is evidence that this discrepancy stems in part from the fact that while President Vladimir Putin of Russia casts himself as a defender of conservative Christian values, President Xi Jinping leads a nonwhite superpower whose regime has spurned the Christian destiny many Americans once envisioned for it.In a 2021 study, the University of Delaware political scientists David Ebner and Vladimir Medenica found that white Americans who expressed higher degrees of racial resentment were more likely to perceive China as a military threat. And it is white evangelicals today — like the conservative Christians who anchored support for Chiang in the late 1940s and 1950s — who express the greatest animosity toward China’s government. At my request, the Pew Research Center crunched data gathered this spring comparing American views of China by religion and race. It found that white non-Hispanic evangelicals were 25 points more likely to hold a “very unfavorable” view of China than Americans who were religiously unaffiliated, 26 points more likely than Black Protestants and 33 points more likely than Hispanic Catholics.This is the Republican base. And its antipathy to China helps explain why many of the right-wing pundits and politicians often described as isolationists aren’t isolationists at all. They’re Asia Firsters. Tucker Carlson, who said last week that American policymakers hate Russia because it’s a “Christian country,” insisted in 2019 that America’s “main enemy, of course, is China, and the United States ought to be in a relationship with Russia aligned against China.” Mr. Ramaswamy, who is challenging Mr. DeSantis for second place in national polls, wants the United States to team up with Moscow against Beijing, too.And of course, the Republican front-runner for 2024, former President Donald Trump — deeply in tune with conservative voters — has obsessed over China since he exploded onto the national political stage eight years ago. Mr. Trump is often derided as an isolationist because of his hostility to NATO and his disdain for international treaties. But on China his rhetoric has been fierce. In 2016, he even said Beijing had been allowed to “rape our country.”Republicans may disagree on the best way forward in Ukraine. But overwhelmingly, they agree that China is the ultimate danger. And whether it’s Mr. Trump’s reference earlier this year to his former secretary of transportation as “Coco Chow” or House Republicans implying that Asian Americans in the Biden administration and Congress aren’t loyal to the United States, there’s mounting evidence that prominent figures on the American right see that danger in racial terms.That’s the problem with Republicans’ return to Asia First. Many in the party don’t only see China’s rise as a threat to American power. They see it as a threat to white Christian power, too.Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) is a professor of journalism and political science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is also an editor at large of Jewish Currents and writes The Beinart Notebook, a weekly newsletter.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Is It Time to Negotiate With Putin?

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      Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicIt’s been 18 months since Russia invaded Ukraine. No true negotiations have happened. As the stalemate continues, what role should the United States play in the fight?This week on “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts discuss how the war is playing out at home and why the G.O.P. seems more interested in invading Mexico than defending Ukraine.Plus, a trip back in time to a magical land of sorcerers and “Yo! MTV Raps.”(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)A photo illustration of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, as if printed in a newspaper, with one edge folded over, showing print on the other side.Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Nils Petter Nilsson/GettyMentioned in this episode:“An Unwinnable War,” by Samuel Charap in Foreign Affairs“The Runaway General,” by Michael Hastings in Rolling Stone“First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin,” by Vladimir PutinThoughts? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.Follow our hosts on Twitter: Michelle Cottle (@mcottle), Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT), Carlos Lozada (@CarlosNYT) and Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen).“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Sophia Alvarez Boyd and Derek Arthur. It is edited by Stephanie Joyce. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Original music by Pat McCusker, Carole Sabouraud and Sonia Herrero. Our fact-checking team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser. More

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      Biden Makes Lower Drug Prices a Centerpiece of His 2024 Campaign

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      President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act allows Medicare to negotiate some drug prices, a change that the pharmaceutical industry and Republicans have opposed for decades.As he heads toward a re-election campaign next year, President Biden is betting that his success in pushing for policies intended to lower health care costs for millions of Americans will be rewarded by voters at the ballot box.In speech after speech, Mr. Biden talks about capping the cost of insulin at $35, putting new limits on medical expenses for seniors, making some vaccines free and pushing to lower the prices of some of the most expensive drugs in the world.At the White House, Mr. Biden and his advisers have already begun to elevate the issue as a centerpiece of his agenda. And at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., aides are preparing television ads, talking points and speeches arguing that Mr. Biden’s push for lower health care costs is a stark contrast with his Republican opponents.“The president will have a very strong case to make,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a member of the president’s national campaign advisory board. “Not only will people want to keep the benefits they have seen, they are going to want to get the benefits that are coming their way.”On Tuesday, the White House announced that the Biden administration will negotiate on behalf of Medicare recipients for lower prices on 10 popular — and expensive — drugs that are used to treat diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses.The move was made possible by passage last year of Mr. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which for the first time allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for older adults, a change that has been opposed by the pharmaceutical industry for decades.Republicans also generally oppose giving the government the right to negotiate drug prices. But the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have said little about the cost of medication, focusing instead on abortion, transgender medical issues and Covid lockdowns.In his speeches, Mr. Biden rails against the industry and his Republican adversaries in Congress, all of whom voted against the law that included the prescription drug provisions. Aides say it is an effective message.“Today is the start of a new deal for patients where Big Pharma doesn’t just get a blank check at your expense,” the president said at a White House event celebrating the change.Since signing the law a year ago, Mr. Biden has repeatedly called it one of his proudest legislative victories. But his approval numbers have hardly budged. And while polls show that the new policy is widely popular among Americans who know about it, they also suggest that far fewer people are even aware that the change was made.That is most likely because prices on just the first handful of drugs are not scheduled to actually drop until 2026 at the earliest, assuming Mr. Biden’s program survives legal challenges. Drug companies have filed numerous lawsuits against the administration that claim the law is unconstitutional. Court cases could drag on for years.In its lawsuit against the administration, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade group, called the plan for negotiated prices “a government mandate disguised as negotiation.”Even if Mr. Biden’s plan goes into effect, older adults who have made the choice to ration their drugs will have to continue doing so until more than a year after the 2024 presidential election.Danny Cottrell, 67, a pharmacist who owns his retail pharmacy group in Brewton, Ala., said he regularly advised his Medicare patients on the ins and outs of the government’s prescription program. He welcomed Mr. Biden’s changes, but said it would be up to people like him to explain the complicated process.“I got to remind them, this doesn’t start till 2026,” Mr. Cottrell said. “And then also remind them this thing will change several times between now and then.”Neera Tanden, Mr. Biden’s top domestic policy adviser, said the White House was confident that the plan would survive the legal challenges.“It is absurd to argue that negotiation is unconstitutional,” she said in an interview. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says Medicare negotiating drug prices is unconstitutional.”But more broadly, Ms. Tanden said that she and the president’s other advisers in the West Wing were determined to make the push for lower health care costs a central part of Mr. Biden’s message to Americans.And next September, just weeks before Election Day, the administration will announce the results of the yearlong negotiations over the first 10 drugs.“We plan to work extensively, to really remind folks of this issue,” Ms. Tanden said.For the people leading Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, the political benefits of focusing on lower health care costs are clear.Some polls show that 80 percent of Americans support giving the government the ability to negotiate lower prices for Medicare, much the way it already does for veterans and members of the military.Campaign aides said talking about lower costs of drugs or limits on out-of-pocket medical expenses is one way to help Mr. Biden win support among seniors, who traditionally have voted for Republicans in greater numbers. That is especially important in battleground states like Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and Ohio, where increasing support among older adults will be critical in close contests.The campaign’s early television ads have included numerous references to the president’s efforts to lower health care costs. A spokesman for the campaign said the issue of health care would be a central feature of a $25 million ad blitz focusing on what the president has done to lower costs overall and make economic progress.Kate Bedingfield, who served as Mr. Biden’s communications director for the first two years of his presidency, said the issue had political benefits even when it came to appealing to people who do not benefit directly from the specific cost reductions.“It draws a really clear contrast with the Republicans, who have stood in the way and continue to stand in the way of getting more done on this,” she said.Representative Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas and a doctor, said Mr. Biden’s drug price negotiations were akin to government-imposed price controls that would lead to drug shortages.“This administration’s approach goes beyond ‘negotiation,’” he said in a statement. “Instead, it holds pharmaceutical companies hostage, jeopardizing their future innovation and the well-being of American patients.”Mr. Biden’s campaign aides said a debate with Republicans about the cost of medical care was one they were eager to have.“MAGA Republicans running for president want to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which would deliver a massive win for Big Pharma and increase costs for the American people,” said Julie Chávez Rodríguez, the president’s campaign manager, referring to Republicans loyal to former President Donald J. Trump.She said the choice in the election was between Mr. Biden and “a slate of candidates focused on extreme policies that put their wealthy donors first.”Robert Jimison More

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      The Object of Ukraine’s Desire: F-16s From the West. But It’s Tricky.

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      Ukraine’s sense of urgency in obtaining the fighter jet reflects concerns about the war against Russia, but also the political calendar in the West. But training pilots and support crew is a lengthy process.The F-16 fighter jets would not be delivered to Ukraine until next year, but that did not dissuade President Volodymyr Zelensky from hopping into one last week in the Netherlands — one stop on a European tour to collect commitments to donate the warplane as quickly as possible.There he was in Denmark, praising the government for “helping Ukraine to become invincible” with its pledge to send 19 jets. In Athens, he said Greece’s offer to train Ukrainian pilots would “help us fight for our freedom.” Within days of returning to Kyiv, Mr. Zelensky had secured promises from a half-dozen countries to either donate the jets — potentially more than 60 — or provide training for pilots and support crew.“It is important and necessary,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store of Norway told Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv, announcing that his government would provide an undetermined number of the jets — probably 10 or fewer — in the future.It was a remarkable victory lap for a sophisticated attack aircraft that even Ukraine’s defense minister has acknowledged is unlikely to perform in combat until next spring — and then only for the few pilots who can understand English well enough to fly it. With Ukraine’s counteroffensive grinding ahead slowly this summer, Mr. Zelensky’s airy announcements of securing the F-16s signal a tacit acknowledgment that the 18-month war in Ukraine will likely endure for years to come.They were also a palpable signal of Mr. Zelensky’s fixation on a fighter jet that is faster, more powerful and more versatile than existing Ukrainian aircraft, but that has spurred debate over how substantially it can advance Kyiv’s immediate war effort. The F-16 has both offensive and defensive capabilities — it can be launched within minutes and is equipped to shoot down incoming missiles and enemy aircraft.People gathered outside the Danish Parliament during a visit by Mr. Zelensky. Mads Claus Rasmussen/EPA, via ShutterstockUkraine has adamantly insisted the planes would make a significant difference, though American officials have long maintained that tanks, ammunition and most of all, well trained ground troops are far more important in what is, right now, primarily a ground war. The Western warplanes are costly and it could take years to train and field enough pilots to provide sufficient air cover.As it presses for the fighter jets, Ukraine also senses a ticking political clock, current and former officials in Kyiv and Washington said. Mr. Zelensky appears driven to get as many of the F-16s as possible delivered before elections in Europe and the United States, which could bring a change of heart in the governments that have promised the planes.The Netherlands, for example, has pledged to give Ukraine as many as 42 F-16s it is phasing out of its air force; it will hold parliamentary elections this November. The larger concern, though, is the United States, where Republican support for sending tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine is dropping. Former President Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, said in July he would push Mr. Zelensky into peace agreements by telling him “no more — you got to make a deal.”“The American political uncertainties are very much on the minds of Ukrainians, and all of Europe,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who met with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv just as the Ukrainian president was returning from his F-16 tour last week. “One of the objectives here, clearly, is to lock in commitments as clearly and unequivocally as possible.”Mr. Zelensky, left, met with Senators (from left) Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren and Lindsey Graham in Kyiv earlier this month. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/via ReutersHe said Mr. Zelensky did not directly discuss next year’s U.S. elections during their meeting, which also included Senators Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and was held in an underground room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kyiv immediately after an air raid alarm. But, he said in a telephone interview, the more that can be delivered before November 2024, “the more that air support is not threatened by the vagaries of American politics.”So far, the Biden administration has not committed to sending Ukraine any F-16s from its own fleet, although it announced last week that it would train pilots at air bases in Texas and Arizona starting in September.It is expected to take at least four months to train Ukraine’s pilots on aircraft more advanced than what they are used to flying, and on tactics and weapons they are not used to employing. It could take even longer to teach them enough English to understand training manuals and to communicate with air traffic controllers and instructors. The avionics on the planes, including the buttons, are in English.There is another wrinkle in plans to deliver the planes. The United States must give approval before other countries can send American-made jets to Ukraine. The Biden administration has signaled to Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands that it will allow the transfers, but a new president could reverse those case-by-case agreements if delivery has not yet been completed, according to a U.S. official.Several officials cited in this article spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.A former senior Biden administration official said that Mr. Zelensky’s spate of F-16 announcements was also likely intended to lock in Western commitments in the event that a sluggish counteroffensive erodes political support among allies.Ukrainians firing on Russian positions from an infantry fighting vehicle. Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesMr. Zelensky’s sense of urgency has been unmistakable. In addition to his diplomatic forays, he mentioned the F-16s at least eight times during his nightly addresses in August, predicting that their presence in Ukrainian skies will vanquish Russian forces. Officials in Kyiv have even used the death last week of one of their famed pilots in a training accident to underscore that Ukraine needs the jets to win. Part of the jets’ appeal is that they are in plentiful supply. Many European air forces have F-16s and are getting rid of them to transition to the even more advanced F-35. So they exist in ample numbers with a built-in Western repair and supply chain, and training programs that can support them years into the future.However, the immediate hurdle to fielding the F-16s that have been pledged is not the actual jets, but the shortage of trained English-speaking Ukrainian pilots and support crew to fly and maintain them.A former senior U.S. Air Force officer said it takes between 8 to 14 support personnel to maintain, fuel and support each F-16, depending on how many bases the jets operate from. It will take roughly as long to train the support crews as the pilots, the officer said.So far, American officials have said, only eight Ukrainian pilots are sufficiently fluent in English and experienced in flying combat aircraft to have started training on the F-16s in Denmark. At least 20 other pilots are starting English-language instruction in Britain. Even Ukrainian pilots skilled at flying the Soviet-era MiG-29 jets that make up much of Kyiv’s current fleet would have to learn to navigate the F-16s’ “hands-on throttle and stick” or “HOTAS” technology; that’s a system that would let them shift from bombing targets on the ground to engaging in air-to-air combat without taking their hands off the controls.The system makes it easier to navigate between the two targets than on a MiG-29, but it still takes time to learn.“That all is going to take time and that probably is not going to happen before the end of the year,” Gen. James B. Hecker, the top U.S. air commander in Europe, told reporters at George Washington University’s Defense Writers Group on Aug. 18.One U.S. adviser said Ukraine will probably deploy the initial F-16s as soon as the pilots are certified to fly, in a range of defensive and offensive combat missions. Given the advanced weapons the F-16s will carry, just having them deployed, even in a niche capacity, could force Russia to dedicate valuable resources to monitor and counter them, the adviser said.Pro-Ukraine demonstrators called on President Joe Biden to send F-16 jets to Ukraine in a protest outside the hotel where he stayed in Warsaw in February. Aleksandra Szmigiel/ReutersStill, their effectiveness would still be limited by Russian air defenses and advanced fighters developed to specifically combat NATO aircraft such as the F-16.“In the short term they’ll help a little bit, but it’s not the silver bullet,” General Hecker said.U.S. officials say the F-16s are important for other reasons. Their arrival will boost Ukrainian morale and signal the shift of Ukraine’s air force to a NATO-caliber fleet. That sends an important deterrent message to Russia, to stave off future attacks from Moscow once this war is over, U.S. officials say.U.S. officials have repeatedly stated that providing Ukraine with F-16s is more about the future than the present.“Putin’s strategy is clearly to outlast, or out-wait, America and count on it lacking the will or the arms to continue,” Mr. Blumenthal said.He added: “There is a kind of gap, so to speak, between the victory lap of accepting the planes and the actual delivery. But the goal is to close that gap as quickly as possible and get F-16s on the battlefield.” More