Biden, Joseph R Jr

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      It Would Be Foolish to Ignore What Just Happened in Chicago

      by

      Bret Stephens: Gail, the biggest political news from last week was the resounding defeat of the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, in the primary. Your thoughts on her political downfall?Gail Collins: Well, running Chicago is a very tough job in the best of times, and Mayor Lightfoot was stuck doing it in the pandemic era.Bret: Hmmm …Gail: OK, that was my best shot at defending her. She was a huge disappointment — in a place like Chicago, you expect the mayor to get into a lot of fights, but she seemed to pick a new one every hour.If you’ve got a city beset by crime and economic problems, any incumbent mayor would need a great plan and a whole lot of emotional connection to the average voter to deserve another term. None of that there.What’s your opinion?Bret: Every thriving city needs to get two basic things right: It has to be safe for people and safe for commerce. Under Lightfoot, homicides, carjackings and shoplifting skyrocketed, and businesses fled the city. Nearly a third of Michigan Avenue’s retail space is vacant. Boeing decided to move its headquarters out of the city. When the McDonald’s C.E.O. complained about crime, Lightfoot scolded him. So I’m glad Chicago voters had the good sense to give her the boot. I just hope they also have the good sense to go with the centrist Paul Vallas in the runoff election instead of his opponent, Brandon Johnson, who may be even further to the left than Lightweight — er, Lightfoot.Gail: We’re gonna have more to discuss on that point.Bret: The election will also have national implications, Gail. Notice that President Biden has said he won’t veto a bill in Congress that would reverse a District of Columbia law that lightened sentences for various felonies. Higher crime rates are going to dog Democratic candidates everywhere until they start to get as tough on the issue as they were when Biden was in the Senate, promoting the federal crime bill.Gail: Doubt there’s a Democrat in America who isn’t sensitive to the crime issue now. But as we follow this story, just want to leave you now with one thought: Getting tough on lawbreakers is not enough to make a great chief executive. Nearly. Remember Rudy Giuliani.Bret: A highly successful mayor who brought down crime, made the city livable again and was endorsed in 1997 for a second term by the editorial board of … The New York Times. Granted, it’s a shame about the rest of his career.Gail: Now Bret, here’s a change of subject for you. Masks! Been so eager to converse about your anti-mask column the other day. Eager in part because people keep stopping me on the street and yelping: “Bret! Masks!”Bret: Oh, yeah. I’m aware.Just to be clear, Gail, my column was not against masks per se. It was anti-mask mandates as an effective means of curbing communitywide spread. Masks can obviously work in tightly controlled settings, like operating rooms. People who correctly wore high-quality masks probably protected themselves and others, at least if they never removed them in public.Gail: Go on …Bret: But the mandates didn’t work, and it’s not just on account of the recent Cochrane analysis that I cited in my column. Our Times colleague David Leonhardt came to basically the same conclusion last year based on U.S. data. What can work at the individual level can, and often does, totally fail at the collective level.It’s also common sense. If you’re required to wear a mask on an airplane but allowed to take it off to eat or drink, the requirement becomes useless. If you’re supposed to wear a mask while walking to a table at a restaurant but not when sitting down, it’s useless. If you’re supposed to wear a mask but nobody is very concerned about whether it’s an N95 or a cloth mask, it’s useless.Gail: “Less useful” yeah. But my understanding has always been that the masks aren’t as important for protecting the healthy as they are critical for keeping people who are already infected from spreading germs to others.Those folks are going to go out sometimes whether we like it or not, and if they’re the only ones who have to wear masks, it’s like a walking declaration of disease — ringing a bell to warn that the leper is coming.Make sense? Why do I suspect I haven’t persuaded you?Bret: Human nature. People who are infected but don’t know it will be no better about wearing masks properly than anyone else. People who are infected, know it and irresponsibly walk around with the disease are probably not going to be responsible mask-wearers, either.There’s also the fact that, in a culture like America’s, there was never a chance we’d get the kind of compliance we need to make a real difference. Maybe in China, which could be draconian in its enforcement, but I don’t think any of us would have wanted that here.Bottom line, the government would have been wiser telling people: If you are immunocompromised or you have a potential comorbidity like obesity or diabetes, please wear N95 masks at all times in public. If you aren’t, please be respectful of those who do wear them.Gail: Not necessarily. One of the things that struck me when mask wearing began was how it kinda defined community. Folks declaring solidarity with their fellow citizens in joining together to fight a common battle.Bret: To me, the lesson was the opposite. Many of the people who were most emphatic in their belief in mask wearing — particularly those with media bullhorns — worked the sorts of jobs that didn’t require them to wear masks all their working hours. Not like waiters or store clerks or Uber drivers who had to wear them 8, 10, 12 hours a day, and sometimes wound up with sores in their mouths. The mandates didn’t just polarize us politically, they also exacerbated class divides.Gail: I got into the habit of telling Uber drivers to feel free to take off the mask. Most of them didn’t, which made me presume they were voluntarily protecting themselves against the passengers.Bret: Gail, you scofflaw!Gail: But on to another topic entirely — the Murdaugh murder trial! I have to say when you spend most of your life listening to reports about political drama, a major murder trial reminds you how nondramatic that stuff can be.Did you follow the case? I did and figured he’d be convicted. But I was shocked by how fast the jury came to a decision.Bret: You and our colleague Farhad Manjoo, who looked at the case through a technological lens and offered a terrific, contrarian take on the trial. That said, from what I watched of the trial, Alex Murdaugh struck me as evil incarnate. My wife will probably kill me for saying this — er, so to speak — but while I can at least grasp how someone can murder a spouse, I simply can’t comprehend how anyone could murder his own child.Gail: Yeah, but about the jury: I remember years and years ago, being a juror on a trial where the defendant had punched an old lady on a bus. In front of a lot of other people. Tons of testimony and the defendant himself — if I recall this correctly — took the stand to offer the excuse that he found the old lady really irritating.Still, we deliberated for hours! Not because there was any doubt about what we were going to do. It just seemed to show respect for the process. And, maybe, to qualify for another excellent free courthouse lunch.Bret: Spoken like a true journalist: Anything for a free lunch.Gail, before we go, I hope all of our readers spend some time with Hannah Dreier’s moving and brilliantly rendered report on the thousands of migrant children, sometimes as young as 12, who came to this country alone and are now working grueling hours in factories, kitchens, construction sites, garment makers, slaughterhouses and sawmills trying to survive and sending what little extra money they have to help their families back home. It’s a powerful reminder that the migration crisis isn’t just happening at the southern border. In many ways, it’s just beginning there.Gail: Bret, I love the way you point to the great work our colleagues are doing. Hannah’s reporting on the migrant children was heartbreaking. Politically, both sides agree there’s a terrible problem here in regulating both migration itself and what happens to people who arrive in hopes of creating better lives.But do you see any hope — any at all — of their getting together on a solution? Even a partial one?Bret: The problem shouldn’t be difficult to solve through compromise. Discipline and order at the border combined with compassion and aid toward those who are vulnerable and suffering. America has shown in the past that we can meet that challenge. We just need to muster the will to meet it again.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

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      House Committee Budgets Swell as G.O.P. Plans Road Shows Across U.S.

      by

      Republican leaders have told their colleagues to get out of Washington for field hearings that allow the party to take their message straight to voters, a costly pursuit that can be a boon to big donors.WASHINGTON — When the House Ways and Means Committee traveled to Petersburg, W.Va., last month for its inaugural field hearing on “the state of the economy in Appalachia,” it met at the headquarters of a hardwood lumber manufacturer whose chief executive has donated the maximum campaign contribution allowed to a Republican member of the panel.The logo of his company was on prominent display during the event.When the committee descends on Yukon, Okla., this week for its second field hearing, this one on “the state of the economy in the heartland,” it will convene at Express Clydesdales, a restored barn and event space owned by a major donor to the super PAC aligned with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Republican National Committee, Senate Republicans’ campaign committee and former President Donald J. Trump.The owner, the business magnate Robert Funk, has also given the maximum campaign donation allowable to another member of the panel, Representative Kevin Hern, Republican of Oklahoma, for the past three cycles.Determined to take their message directly to voters at a time when they are hard-pressed to get anything concrete done on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are increasing the budgets of their congressional committees and going out on the road, planning a busy schedule of field hearings in all corners of the country aimed at promoting their agenda outside the Beltway.The Judiciary Committee, for example, which has held one field hearing at the U.S. border with Mexico to criticize the Biden administration’s immigration policies and is planning more, requested a travel budget of $262,000 for this year. That is more than 30 times what the panel spent on travel last year. (In 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic significantly curtailed travel, the Judiciary Committee spent about $85,000 on travel costs, according to a public disclosure form, one-third of what Republicans are planning this year.)It is part of a well-worn political strategy to reach voters where they live and generate local media attention for activity that would most likely draw little notice in Washington.Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said last week that he had “made it a priority” to take the committee’s work “outside the halls of Congress, away from the politically connected voices of Washington lobbyists and into the communities of the American people whose voices have for too long been ignored.”But it also has a direct payoff for Republicans, allowing them to reward major donors with publicity and exposure for their businesses.In West Virginia, the chief executive of Allegheny Wood Products, John Crites, whose company hosted the first Ways and Means field hearing, gave the maximum contribution allowed to Representative Carol Miller, Republican of West Virginia and a member of the panel, for the past two cycles.A spokesman for the committee declined to comment on the choice of venues. Staff aides noted that some of the witnesses who they can hear from in remote locations may not have the time or resources to travel to Washington to testify.Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the Republican chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said that he had “made it a priority” to take the panel’s work “outside the halls of Congress.”Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesGetting out of Washington and into “real America” is part of a mandate that House Republican leaders have issued to their members, whose narrow, four-seat majority, coupled with deep party divisions, is making it difficult to pass any major legislation.“One of the things we committed is we would bring Congress to the people,” Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, said at a news conference last week. “We’d actually have field hearings in communities across America to listen to real citizens.”A Divided CongressThe 118th Congress is underway, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding the Senate.Resolution of Disapproval: Republicans are scoring wins and dividing Democrats by employing the arcane maneuver to take aim at policies that they oppose and see as political vulnerabilities for Democrats.‘Weaponization’ of Government: The first three witnesses to testify before the new Republican-led House committee investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government have offered little firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing or violation of the law, according to Democrats on the panel.Merrick Garland: Republicans subjected the attorney general to a four-hour grilling in a contentious Senate hearing, a harbinger of the fights that loom ahead as the G.O.P. targets the Justice Department.The uptick in budgets comes as Republicans are pledging not to raise the federal debt ceiling, threatening a first-ever default, unless Democrats agree to deep budget cuts and an end to what they describe as profligate bureaucratic spending..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Their plans to pour substantial money into field hearings have for the most part received little pushback from Democratic committee leaders, who hope to take back the majority in two years and are eager to codify the precedent of larger travel budgets.“If we’re going to be able to do more field hearings, which I think are important, we are going to need more money,” said Representative Frank Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, who led the Energy and Commerce Committee in the last Congress and said his ability to hold such sessions was limited by a lack of funding.But the focus on getting out of Washington also appears to be deepening partisan divisions on congressional committees, where Democrats are complaining about not being given enough notice about the travel, or rejecting field trips out of principle.The Judiciary Committee’s hearing last month on the “Biden border crisis” in Yuma, Ariz., capped a two-day tour of the border where House Republicans accompanied law enforcement officials in an unsuccessful effort to see undocumented immigrants crossing the border.Democrats on the panel boycotted that hearing, dismissing it as a political stunt and noting that they had not been consulted about it.“It’s a shame that not one Democratic member of Congress would join us on this trip despite having weeks of advance notice,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican  of Ohio and the chairman.Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the committee, said Democrats on the panel planned to make their own trip to the border to hear from government officials and community members.“Republicans are so desperate to change the narrative from their failing agenda that they’re gearing up to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on political stunts,” he said. “These guys are roaming around the desert at night like part-time vigilantes, looking for migrants with their flashlights and with right-wing media outlets in tow. That’s not a solution; that’s a made-for-TV stunt.”Only one Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, Representative Donald S. Beyer Jr. of Virginia, attended the West Virginia hearing. “There was very little notice,” he said in an interview, explaining the absence of his Democratic colleagues. Mr. Beyer said he worried about the cost of relying primarily on field hearings, which often require the use of chartered planes to get members on location. For the upcoming Oklahoma hearing, he said, “they’re flying most of their 25 members and at least eight Democrats — they’re flying them and feeding them. There’s no reason not do to it, but we still live in a world of scarce resources.”Two different subcommittees of the Energy and Commerce Committee scheduled two different field hearings last month in Texas, roughly 18 hours and 600 miles apart. When inclement weather tanked the lawmakers’ commercial travel plans to get to the second hearing in Midland, they ended up chartering a plane to get them there in time.The House Judiciary Committee, led by Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, held a field hearing in Yuma, Ariz., last month.Randy Hoeft/The Yuma Sun, via Associated PressRepublicans said they were planning to ramp up the travel throughout the next two years despite the criticism, whether or not Democrats join them, and would need substantial budgets to accomplish that.“We’d like to do a lot more field hearings,” said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “The reality is they also cost a lot more money.”Representative Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, testified last week to the House Administration Committee, which oversees panels’ budgets, that he anticipated his committee would hold “10 to 15” field hearings each year. That is a significant increase from previous years.Some panels appear to be taking the mandate to travel to greater extremes than others. Representative Mike Bost, Republican of Illinois and the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, said panel members should prepare to get “out in the field” at “the drop of a hat” to respond to crises at veterans’ facilities across the nation. He requested a travel budget of $150,000, up from $100,000 last year.So many panels requested more travel spending this year that it raised some eyebrows during the House Administration Committee hearing when some said they did not plan to do so. When Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and the chairman of the Rules Committee, testified that he was not requesting a budget increase for his panel, a G.O.P. member of the Administration Committee sounded surprised.“You’re not having field hearings in Alaska or anything?” asked the fellow Republican, Representative Greg Murphy of North Carolina. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Asks Judge to Block Pence’s Testimony to Grand Jury

      by

      The former president’s lawyers cited executive privilege, a tactic they have used with other ex-Trump aides.Former President Donald J. Trump has filed a motion asking a federal judge to prevent his former vice president, Mike Pence, from testifying to a grand jury about specific issues that Mr. Trump is claiming are protected by executive privilege, a person briefed on the matter said.The filing is unsurprising — Mr. Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly sought to assert executive privilege over former aides as a means of blocking testimony — but it underscores how much the Justice Department’s attempts to get Mr. Pence to testify in the investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power may be drawn out.The sealed filing was made on Friday, according to the person briefed on the matter. Its existence was reported earlier by CNN. A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Pence was recently subpoenaed for grand jury testimony after negotiations between his team and the Justice Department over his appearance came to an impasse, people briefed on the matter said. Mr. Pence is a key potential witness in the investigation, as the person Mr. Trump pressured repeatedly to thwart the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory by Congress.Mr. Trump took his pressure campaign public several times, including on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the congressional session, which Mr. Pence had a ceremonial role in overseeing. At a rally near the White House before it began, Mr. Trump publicly pressured Mr. Pence and then directed his supporters to go to the Capitol in protest.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.The pro-Trump mob ultimately overran the Capitol building, with some chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!”The New York Times reported earlier that the Justice Department had filed what amounted to a pre-emptive move to say executive privilege did not apply, seeking to compel Mr. Pence’s testimony in the matter. Before that motion was filed, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had sent a letter to prosecutors saying they were not going to waive executive privilege with regard to Mr. Pence’s testimony.Mr. Pence has said he will try to fight the subpoena, but has indicated it will be under the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution, which applies to legislators. His argument is under the auspices of his role as president of the Senate..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The investigation is being led by a special counsel, Jack Smith, whose aggressive moves to advance the case have contrasted with the Justice Department’s handling of the Jan. 6-related investigation previously.But it is unclear how quickly it will be settled. The matter could take months, at a time when Mr. Trump is a presidential candidate for the Republican nomination and Mr. Pence is considering a campaign of his own.Mr. Trump’s lawyers also sought to block testimony by two of Mr. Pence’s top aides: his former chief counsel Greg Jacob and his former chief of staff Marc Short. The privilege disputes have been dealt with by the chief federal judge in Washington, Judge Beryl A. Howell, who is stepping down this month and will be replaced by a new chief judge.In the cases of Mr. Jacob and Mr. Short, she ruled that they had to testify on issues that Mr. Trump had sought to shield through executive privilege, people briefed on the matter said at the time.Grand jury subpoenas in the Jan. 6 case were also recently issued to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. It remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will seek to assert executive privilege there. More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Lesion Removed During Biden’s Physical Was Cancerous

      by

      President Biden’s physician said that the lesion was basal cell carcinoma, a common and relatively unaggressive form of skin cancer, and that no further treatment was needed.WASHINGTON — President Biden had a cancerous lesion removed from his chest during his physical last month, the president’s doctor said Friday.The existence of the lesion was included in the summary of Mr. Biden’s physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in mid-February. On Friday, Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, the president’s longtime physician, said a biopsy confirmed that it was basal cell carcinoma, a common and relatively unaggressive form of skin cancer.Dr. O’Connor said all the cancerous tissue was successfully removed and the area was treated through electrodessication, a procedure that uses electrical currents to remove skin lesions, and curettage, which removes tissue by scraping. Several small non-melanoma skin cancers on Mr. Biden were removed several years ago, Dr. O’Connor noted in his initial physical summary last month.“The site of the biopsy has healed nicely, and the president will continue dermatologic surveillance as part of his ongoing comprehensive health care,” Dr. O’Connor wrote in a memo to Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary. In the doctor’s earlier summary, he said Mr. Biden was “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”In recent weeks, Mr. Biden and his advisers have sought to signal that the 80-year-old president is healthy and capable of maintaining a physically rigorous schedule as he prepares to run for re-election in 2024. Last week, Mr. Biden secretly visited Ukraine, running on little sleep as he traveled into the war-ravaged country to meet with its president.Who’s Running for President in 2024?Card 1 of 6The race begins. More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      J.B. Pritzker Is Democrats’ ‘Break Glass’ Candidate

      by

      CHICAGO — Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois sat comfortably in an office board room high above the Loop on Monday and halfheartedly batted away the notion that he was preparing a run for the White House.The billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune may be seen by some Democrats as the “in case of emergency break glass” candidate, one of the few prominent politicians who could stand up a White House run at a moment’s notice. Although President Biden has said he intends to mount a campaign, that has not eased Democrats’ obvious worry: the famously dilatory Hamlet on the Potomac might decide not to run for re-election at 81, and worry could turn to panic.But while Mr. Pritzker declined to provide a yea or nay on whether he would run, he added that a last-minute swap of an understudy for Mr. Biden was “such an odd hypothetical if you ask me.”“I think it assumes a lot of things about someone who’s 80 in this world today. No kidding, you know, 80 is a lot different today than it was in the ’80s,” he said with his signature aw-shucks wave.Politicians hate hypotheticals, or say they do to dodge questions, but if Mr. Biden cannot or will not run, the Democratic Party would have 3.6 billion reasons — Forbes’s most recent estimate of Mr. Pritzker’s net worth — to turn to the Illinois governor.“I intend to be impactful in the 2024 elections, helping Democrats run for Congress, helping Democrats run for United States Senate, and helping Joe Biden win re-election,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois.Evan Jenkins for The New York TimesFour months after winning a second term by 12.5 percentage points, Jay Robert Pritzker, 58, has maintained his political operation and his ambition. His influence and money reach far beyond state lines, and a string of progressive victories in the last year has raised his stature.“He would run for two good reasons,” said Ray LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Peoria who served as a transportation secretary in the Obama administration. “He’s a billionaire who’s not afraid to spend his own money, and he’s very progressive, which is where the Democratic Party is today.”Indeed, Mr. Pritzker has turned center-left Illinois into an island of prairie progressivism, much as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who won re-election last year by 19 points, has enacted a blood-red “Florida Blueprint” that he is now pitching to the wider nation ahead of an expected campaign.And while Mr. DeSantis has created a conservative bastion in Florida over the wishes of millions in his diverse state, Mr. Pritzker’s policies have rankled much of Illinois beyond Chicagoland. Under his leadership, the legislature has approved a $15 minimum wage, legalized recreational cannabis, ended cash bail, guaranteed access to abortions and gender-affirming care and banned assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.Who’s Running for President in 2024?Card 1 of 6The race begins. More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Give Kamala Harris the Credit She Is Due

      by

      Vice President Kamala Harris occupies an office that can be the butt of jokes and criticism. The only duties of the vice president spelled out in the Constitution are to cast tiebreaking votes in the Senate and to become president if the office becomes vacant.I’ve never run for government office, but as a Black woman who has spent my life working in politics — including as manager of Vice President Al Gore’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2000 — I know what it’s like to be underestimated, over-scrutinized and unfairly criticized, just as Ms. Harris has been. Yet I’ve never been under such a glaring spotlight as hers.I have watched politicians up close for decades. And‌ I have known Vice President Harris for years and urged Joe Biden to make her his running mate in 2020. I ‌believe that the criticism of her is unrelated to her performance as vice president and fails to account for the role she plays in the White House.As a consequential and successful vice president himself for eight years under Barack Obama, President Biden has a keen understanding of the job he once held and he has tasked Vice President Harris with major responsibilities. She has done an outstanding job and her record in two years stands up to that of her predecessors. Has she solved every problem? No, but name me one vice president who has.We should think about our expectations for the vice presidency. It was only starting with the presidency of Jimmy Carter, and the role Vice President Walter Mondale played in foreign and domestic policy, that the job became more than a ceremonial position. Vice President Harris ranks third in breaking Senate ties (and first in the first two years in office), after John C. Calhoun and John Adams. While some claim that her duties breaking ties in the Senate have limited her scope of influence, the reality is that Ms. Harris regularly traveled the country to meet with Americans even as she cast the tiebreaking vote on key legislation to better the lives of the American people, including the Inflation Reduction Act.To advance President Biden’s objective to strengthen America’s foreign alliances, Ms. Harris has met (mostly in person) with more than 100 world leaders to repair damage to our international relationships caused by Donald Trump. At the Munich Security Conference in February she announced that the Biden administration has formally concluded that Russia is guilty of “crimes against humanity” in its war against Ukraine and warned China not to assist Russia in its invasion. Through public-private partnerships, she helped raise over $4.2 billion to address the root cause of migration from Central America.Ms. Harris has pushed for federal legislation to secure voting rights, worked to expand access to the child tax and earned-income tax credits, is co-leader of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, was an integral part of the White House’s push to get Americans vaccinated against Covid, and is the chair of the National Space Council.Questions have been raised about the fitness of just about every vice president to move into the Oval Office should the president die or is unable to continue serving for another reason. Mr. Biden knew what he was doing when he selected Ms. Harris to be his vice president and had confidence that she would be up to the task of succeeding him if necessary. I hope that never happens, but if tragedy strikes, Mr. Biden’s judgment will be proven correct.Ms. Harris has more experience in elected office than several past presidents and vice presidents — a successful record beginning in 2004 as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general and including four years as U.S. senator. By contrast, Presidents Trump, Dwight Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover and Zachary Taylor never held elected office before becoming president. Many other presidents had fewer years in elected office than Ms. Harris has had.Ms. Harris has been derided by some as an affirmative-action hire, perhaps because Mr. Biden pledged to select a female running mate when he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination.On many occasions when people of color and women have climbed the career ladder we’ve heard criticism that they advanced only because of their race and/or gender. This was the case last year during the confirmation process for Ketanji Brown Jackson, a brilliant and extraordinarily qualified jurist who is the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.For too many Americans, the idea that nonwhites and women actually got their jobs because of their qualifications, experience and talents is hard to believe. Maybe that’s because for most of American history, white men were the only people considered for high-level jobs in what amounted to affirmative action for them.And as the first woman, African American and Asian American to serve as vice president, Ms. Harris has arguably faced greater — and a different type — of scrutiny than previous vice presidents.The clothes and shoes she wears, the role of her spouse (Doug Emhoff, America’s first second gentleman), the way she sometimes laughs, her cooking skills and staff turnover in her office have all drawn greater attention than her predecessors experienced.Mr. Emhoff summarized the challenges confronting his wife in a 2021 interview. “She has faced challenges as a groundbreaker her whole career,” he said. “When you’re breaking barriers, there’s breaking involved and breaking means you might get cut sometimes, but that’s OK.”Vice President Harris is fulfilling the dream of the empowerment of Black women advanced by the Rev. Willie T. Barrow, a Black woman who was a field organizer for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a co-chair of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and supporter of his presidential campaigns.Ms. Barrow, who was an inspiration to me when I was a young member of the staff on Mr. Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign, died at age 90 in 2015. She was a mentor to Mr. Obama before he entered the White House but didn’t live long enough to see Ms. Harris become vice president.Ms. Barrow never received the accolades and fame she deserved for her work because the most visible leadership roles in the civil rights movement, government and elsewhere were reserved for men. But I have no doubt that she and other Black female civil rights pioneers paved the way for Ms. Harris to climb to the second-highest office in our government.Vice President Harris stands on the steely, unbowed shoulders of Black women like Willie Barrow and others who broke barriers before her. It shouldn’t be so hard for a leader like Ms. Harris, so visible in the office she holds, to get some credit where credit is due.Donna Brazile teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University and is a contributor to ABC News.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

    • 163 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Fox Leaders Wanted to Break From Trump but Struggled to Make It Happen

      by

      Executives and top hosts found themselves in a bind after Donald Trump began pushing unfounded claims about election fraud, court filings show.Five days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol, a board member of the Fox Corporation, Anne Dias, reached out to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch with an urgent plea.“Considering how important Fox News has been as a megaphone for Donald Trump,” she said, it was time “to take a stance.” Ms. Dias, who sounded shaken by the riot, said she thought Fox News and the nation faced “an existential moment.”As quickly as the two Murdochs began discussing how to respond, their bind became evident.“Just tell her we have been talking internally and intensely,” Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls the company, wrote in an email. Fox News, he told his son, “is pivoting as fast as possible.” But he sounded a note of caution: “We have to lead our viewers, which is not as easy as it might seem.”Ever since Donald J. Trump announced his presidential campaign in 2015, Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News Channel have struggled with how to handle the man and the movement they helped create.“Navigating” the delicate balance between truth and “crazy” was how Mr. Murdoch described his challenge in emails made public this week as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which is expected to go to trial in April.For the most part, Mr. Murdoch has been wildly successful at striking the balance. Fox converted Mr. Trump’s mass following into loyal viewers who deliver Mr. Murdoch and his shareholders huge profits.A 2018 headline about President Donald J. Trump that was displayed outside Fox News studios in New York.Mark Lennihan/Associated PressBut the emails among the Murdochs and the senior leadership of their companies, along with depositions of both men as part of the case, revealed just how Fox and its leaders strained to push back against Mr. Trump when he began spreading unfounded claims about widespread election fraud.The leadership of Fox and its star hosts are often viewed from the outside as power brokers in Republican politics — with much justification. But in the wake of the election, they appeared fearful of alienating Mr. Trump’s supporters, almost to the point of powerlessness, court filings containing internal communications and depositions show.Privately, the executives and hosts expressed despair and disgust at the Trump associates who were using Fox News’s platforms to spread bogus allegations of voter fraud. Yet the wishes of the audience — or how the network’s executives interpreted them — dictated which guests were booked, what kind of new programming was created, what correspondents could say on the air and even which people lost their jobs, according to the details in a 212-page brief that Dominion filed in a Delaware state court this week.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.Fox News has expressed confidence that Dominion’s claims will fall apart once their full context becomes apparent at the trial. “Dominion blatantly misconstrued the facts by cherry-picking sound bites, omitting key context and mischaracterizing the record,” a Fox News spokeswoman said.As it became evident that some of Fox’s audience was turning against it after it projected President Biden’s victory, and viewers started switching to hard-right alternatives like Newsmax, people inside the network scrambled to stanch the bleeding.Even as executives raised concerns about Mr. Trump to one another, they came down hard on those seen as too tough on him.Eleven days after the election, for instance, Lachlan Murdoch became irritated watching the Fox News correspondent Leland Vittert’s reporting on a pro-Trump rally in Washington, considering it too critical. Mr. Murdoch called Mr. Vittert’s coverage “smug and obnoxious” in a message to Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media. Ms. Scott responded that she was “calling now,” to direct someone to relay the message to the correspondent and his producer.As word of Mr. Murdoch’s complaint made its way down the food chain, the executive in charge of Fox’s weekend programming, David Clark, also weighed in, telling a colleague in an email that he had texted Mr. Vittert “and told him to cut it out.”To Lachlan Murdoch, there seemed to be no detail too small to complain about if he believed it was hurting the bond that Fox News had forged with its audience over the years. He also complained to Ms. Scott at one point about what he saw as the negative tone toward Mr. Trump in the chyron — the block of text that appears at the bottom of the screen. It was too wordy, he said, and too negative about the president.Lachlan Murdoch complained that a Fox News reporter’s coverage of a pro-Trump rally was “smug and obnoxious.”Mike Cohen for The New York TimesRupert Murdoch offered Ms. Scott suggestions on booking guests who were known to Trump supporters as loyal defenders. One person he proposed in late November 2020 was the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, who had pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with a Russian ambassador. A week after Mr. Murdoch sent his note, Dominion’s filing says, Mr. Flynn appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business program.The elder Mr. Murdoch also told Ms. Scott to get rid of a senior Fox News manager, Bill Sammon, telling her that it would go a long way with the former president’s core supporters. “Maybe best to let Bill go right away,” he told Ms. Scott on Nov. 20. Mr. Sammon ran the network’s Washington bureau and oversaw the unit that was responsible for Fox’s early — and correct — decision to project that Mr. Biden would win Arizona. That call had infuriated Mr. Trump and his supporters.Mr. Murdoch explained to Ms. Scott that the firing would “be a big message with Trump people.” According to the Dominion brief, Mr. Sammon was told that he was being let go that same day.As Fox executives stamped out skepticism of Mr. Trump in the network’s coverage, they also grew disillusioned with the increasing amount of “crazy” on their airwaves, as Rupert Murdoch described the Trump legal adviser Sidney Powell in an email to a friend, according to the legal filings. By early December 2020, as Mr. Trump’s claims of being cheated grew more far-fetched, Mr. Murdoch acknowledged how difficult it had become to continue delivering coverage that didn’t insult loyal, pro-Trump viewers without stating the obvious: The president was lying to them about his loss.In one message to Ms. Scott, Mr. Murdoch lamented Mr. Trump’s performance at a rally in Georgia where he called for Gov. Brian Kemp to help overturn the election, as well as other recent comments from the president. “All making it harder to straddle the issue! We should talk through this,” he wrote.After Jan. 6, 2021, as hopes among many conservatives skeptical of Mr. Trump swelled that the Republican Party might finally be done with him, some of his biggest stalwarts inside Fox News seemed to be backing away from him — even the host Sean Hannity, one of Mr. Trump’s most dedicated on-air supporters, according to Mr. Murdoch’s emails.“Wake-up call for Hannity,” Mr. Murdoch wrote in an email on Jan. 12, 2021, to Paul D. Ryan, the former Republican speaker of the House and a Fox Corporation board member. Mr. Murdoch explained that the host had been “privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers.”For a time, at least. It did not take long for Mr. Hannity and other prime-time hosts, including Tucker Carlson, to begin talking about the attack and its aftermath as Mr. Trump and his supporters preferred.In the opening monologue of one of his shows in June 2022, with a congressional investigation into the assault in full swing, Mr. Hannity told his audience, “January 6 is just another excuse to smear Donald Trump and anyone who supports them.” More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      This Is Not How Pete Buttigieg Wanted to Visit Ohio

      by

      Gail Collins: Bret, Democratic strategists are worried about hanging on to support in the working class. The good news, from my perspective, is that it looks like the big problem is economic concerns, not cultural ones.Saying that’s good news because the Biden administration can respond to those worries by pointing to a ton of effort to create jobs and fight inflation.Guessing you may, um, disagree?Bret Stephens: In the immortal words of the “Airplane” sequel: “Just a tad.”The big problem for Democrats is that their economic message — that happy times are here again — isn’t landing in the places where they need to win, particularly factory towns where elections in states like Wisconsin or Ohio are sometimes decided. Inflation is still too high and probably means the Fed will continue to raise interest rates. Unemployment is low in part because so many people have dropped out of the labor force. Years of lax border control creates a perception that cheap immigrant labor will further undercut working-class wages. And a lot of the projects that President Biden’s spending bills are supposed to fund will take years to get off the ground because there’s rarely such a thing as a “shovel-ready” project.Gail: Yeah, gearing up for a big construction effort does take time. But people who’ve suffered with terrible transportation problems for years do know the shovels are coming. Like the bridge project over the Ohio River that Democrats in Cincinnati have joined hands with Mitch McConnell to celebrate.Bret: The other problem for Democrats is that if they aren’t winning the messaging battle when it comes to the economy, they are losing it badly when it comes to cultural issues. You and I often rue the collapse of the moderate wing of the G.O.P. that was occasionally willing to break with right-wing orthodoxies, but Democrats could also do more to embrace candidates who depart from progressive orthodoxies on issues like guns, immigration, school choice, trans issues and so on.Gail: “Depart from progressive orthodoxies” is a nice way of saying “embrace the bad.” I appreciate that it would be strategic for some purple-state Democrats to take moderate positions on guns, immigration, etc. But I’m not gonna be applauding somebody who, for instance, votes against an assault weapon ban.Bret: You’re reminding me of the story, probably apocryphal, of the supporter who told Adlai Stevenson, during one of his presidential runs in the 1950s, that “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.”“I’m afraid that won’t do,” he supposedly replied. “I need a majority.”Gail: Let’s go back to infrastructure for a minute. Big story about that train wreck in Ohio. Do you agree with me that the whole thing is the fault of Republicans caving in to pressure from the rail industry to loosen regulations?Bret: Er, no. I read recently that there were more than 1,000 train derailments last year, which averages out to more than two a day, and that there’s been a 60 percent decline in railroad safety incidents since 1990. Accidents happen. When they do, they shouldn’t become a partisan issue.Gail: When major accidents happen in an industry that’s both necessarily regulated and greatly lobbied over, it should be a call for investigation.And while we’re on this subject, please let’s talk about our transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg ….Bret: So, to illustrate my point, I’m not going to raise an accusing finger at him. Not even remotely his fault, even if Republicans are trying hard to pin him with the blame. Although, for someone with presidential aspirations, he didn’t exactly help himself by showing up a day after Donald Trump did.Gail: Sort of embarrassed that while I was trying to ponder rail regulation, my thoughts kept drifting off to Buttigieg the possible presidential candidate.He’s one of the guys we always mention when we talk about who might be nominated if Biden doesn’t go for a second term. But Buttigieg’s performance in Ohio was definitely not the work of a guy who knows how to run for that job.Steve McCurry/Magnum PhotosBret: Switching subjects again, we should talk about the legacy of President Jimmy Carter. I was a 7-year-old child living in Mexico City when he left office, so your recollections of him are much more valuable and interesting than mine.Gail: I distinctly remember bemoaning the energy shortage that left drivers waiting in long lines at the gas stations, but that’s hardly an insider’s story.Bret: Those lines put last year’s spike in gas prices in perspective.Gail: And every Democrat worried about Carter’s minimal talent for communication. He made a big TV appearance to promote energy conservation, wearing a sweater and sitting next to a fire, looking more silly than inspiring.Now, when I recall some of the stuff he did — environmental protection, promoting diversity, negotiating a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt — I appreciate him a lot more.Bret: Airline deregulation, too. Made air travel affordable to middle-class America for the first time. And he had the guts to nominate Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve in 1979 to jack up interest rates and finally tame inflation, even though it would help cost him his presidency the next year.Gail: But the biggest thing he’s leaving us, Bret, is the story of his post-presidency. Campaigning endlessly for human rights, fair voting around the world and housing for the poor. Rather than holding press conferences to make his point, he’d swing a hammer with the crew at low-income housing construction sites.If high-ranking politicians see retirement from their top jobs as just a path to giving big-money speeches and writing the occasional memoir, they set a bad example for every older American. Carter showed how the later stages of life can actually be the richest and most rewarding.Bret: There’s a lot about Carter’s policy views that didn’t square with my own, and his persona sometimes struck me as … immodestly modest. But he was a unique figure in American political life, and he single-handedly disproved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s contention about there being no second acts in American lives.Gail: Not to mention third acts!Bret: He also showed how much more valuable a purpose- and values-driven life can be than one consumed by the culture of celebrity, wealth and pleasure — something that seriously tarnished the post-presidential legacy of a certain Southern Democrat who succeeded him, to say nothing of an even more saturnalian Republican president.Totally different topic, Gail, but I want to recommend our colleague Michelle Goldberg’s terrific column on the terrible mental-health effects of social media, particularly for teenagers. She mentions a proposal by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri to totally ban social media for kids under 16. It’s one to which, as a father of three teenagers, I’m pretty sympathetic. Your thoughts?Gail: I read Michelle’s great piece and remembered how paranoid I was as a teenager when I thought two of my friends might be talking about me on the phone after school. Can’t imagine how I’d have felt if they had the capacity to do it as a group, while they were supposed to be studying after dinner. With a transcript available to the entire class later in the evening.Bret: Not only frequently abusive but also addictive. Someone once said that there are only two industries that speak of their customers as “users” — drug dealers and social-media companies.Gail: Just saying that kids can’t use social media sounds very attractive. But somehow I have my doubts it’ll work. Wonder if the more likely outcome might be a system the more sophisticated kids could use while the poorer, or less technologically cool ones, got sidelined.Am I being overly paranoid?Bret: No ban works perfectly. But if we were able to more or less end teenage cigarette smoking over the last 20 years, it shouldn’t be out of the question to try to do the same with social-media use. I can’t imagine that it’s beyond the technological reach of a company like Apple to write some code that stops social-media apps from being downloaded to phones whose primary users they know are under the age of 16.Gail: Well, happy to insist they do that. Even if they don’t know how, it’d increase pressure for them to find a way.Bret: I would welcome it, and I suspect most teenagers would, too. It’s hard enough being 14 or 15 without needing to panic about some embarrassing Instagram pic or discovering too late that something stupid or awful you wrote on Facebook or Twitter at 16 comes back to haunt you at 20.Gail: Hey, it’s traumatic enough being haunted by what I said last month.Bret: Or last week.As columnists, we volunteered to have a paper trail for our critics to pick through. We owe it to the kids to shield them from creating public records of their own indiscretions and idiocies. Life will come roaring at them soon enough. I say no social media till they’re old enough to vote, smoke and maybe even buy a drink. Full-frontal stupidity should be left to the grown-ups — like us!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