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      Americans Think Our Democracy Is on the Brink. So Does Biden.

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      We examine the president’s speech in Philadelphia with Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House reporter.In a new national poll this week from Quinnipiac University, 67 percent of American adults said they thought the country’s democracy was “in danger of collapse.”That’s a huge number. And, as Quinnipiac noted, it is an increase of nine percentage points from its January survey, when 58 percent of Americans said the same thing.One noteworthy caveat: “Adults” is not the same as “likely voters,” which is what political pollsters use to estimate who will turn out to vote in the next election. Figuring that out is as much art as it is science, as any pollster worth their salt would acknowledge.In January, Quinnipiac found that 62 percent of Republicans, and 56 percent of Democrats, agreed that America’s democracy was in danger of collapse. In the latest poll, the partisan breakdown is dead even: Sixty-nine percent of Republicans and Democrats alike share that fear.So Democrats have caught up to their Republican counterparts. But their views of who might be responsible for that potential collapse differ greatly, as Peter Baker writes in a forthcoming story analyzing the data in greater detail.The numbers are “disturbing,” Larry Sabato, the longtime director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said in a tweet reacting to the Quinnipiac poll. It doesn’t mean that American democracy is collapsing or will collapse; we’ve arguably endured far worse at various times in our history, and yet, like Tom Brady, we’re still here.But it does mean that people’s confidence in our system of government is declining to an alarming degree.In December, most of the Democratic and Republican political strategists I spoke with said democracy wasn’t a huge topic in their private polling and focus groups and wasn’t likely to move votes in the midterms.Some Democrats also told me then that they worried that drawing too much attention to the issue of “threats to democracy” (as Democrats describe the topic) and “electoral integrity” (as Republicans describe it) would help Republicans, as Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories and election falsehoods seemed to be a powerful motivator for voters in his party’s base.If more voters are indeed starting to prioritize democracy over other issues, that is big news in the political world. But the evidence for that notion is thin at the moment.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.Examining Biden’s speechPresident Biden laid out his own concerns about American democracy with a prime-time address on Thursday at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. My colleague Zolan Kanno-Youngs was there to capture it along with Michael Shear, his frequent collaborator.I asked Zolan to unpack Biden’s speech — why he made it and what the White House’s political calculations might be, alongside the serious concerns the president laid out in his 24-minute address. (Be sure also to read Peter Baker’s analysis and Jonathan Weisman’s takeaways.)Our Slack chat, lightly edited for length and clarity:You’ve been following President Biden’s focus on threats to democracy for a while now, including his idea for a summit rallying the world’s democracies and Thursday’s speech in Philadelphia. What’s your read on why he is doing this?President Biden has said all along that it is this threat against democracy that motivated him to run for president. For him, this battle began when he saw neo-Nazis and white supremacists marching through Charlottesville in 2017.From the conversations I have had with sources in and around the White House, the president is genuinely concerned about the rise of autocracy overseas and about extremism within the United States. He came into office expecting that people would leave Trumpism behind and that his message of unity and national healing would resonate. That obviously hasn’t happened.Some of his supporters found that assumption to be out of touch with the current polarized state of the nation. He had been planning Thursday’s speech since early this summer because of persistent false claims of election fraud and the impending midterm elections, according to officials familiar with the matter.When you talk to people at the White House, do they say that there is a political upside to Biden’s emphasis on saving democracy from the Republican Party, or that it is purely about substance? Because the political portion of my brain wonders why he keeps returning to a swing state for these speeches. More

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      Biden and Trump: ‘Contrasting Visions for America’

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      More from our inbox:Would Iran Abide by a New Nuclear Deal?Ukrainian Attacks in CrimeaNew York’s Ruined SkylinePresident Biden blamed his predecessor for stoking a movement filled with election deniers and people calling for political violence.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Biden Portrays Democracy as Under Fire in the U.S.” (front page, Sept. 2):What a day it was Thursday for contrasting visions for America.Early in the day, former President Donald Trump promised that if he returned to the presidency, he would issue full pardons and a government apology to rioters who attacked law enforcement officials and violently stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop the democratic transfer of power.Then in the evening, we heard President Biden describe what he called the “battle for the soul of the nation” against “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.” He appealed to the conscience of America to reject MAGA Republicans who do not respect the Constitution, do not believe in the rule of law, do not recognize the will of the people, thrive on chaos and embrace violence. He earnestly appealed to our values — democracy, freedom, honor, dignity and honesty. As Lincoln called them in another time of crisis, “the better angels of our nature.”These opposing visions for America could not present a more striking contrast and binary choice for the people.David PedersonExcelsior, Minn.To the Editor:President Biden gave a powerful speech identifying the threat to democracy posed by MAGA Republicans. He could have made it even stronger by including more detail on the effort of Republicans to put election deniers in office in November’s elections.The White House or the Democratic National Committee should fill this gap by publishing a list of election deniers who are candidates for offices, such as governor or secretary of state, in which they would have the power to control or influence vote tabulation and certification in 2024. The defeat of such candidates is a political and practical imperative.Douglas M. ParkerOjai, Calif.The writer served in the White House Counsel’s Office during the Watergate investigations and publishes a political blog, RINOcracy.com.To the Editor:Democracy is not at risk. The Democratic Party’s power is at risk. President Biden is conflating his party’s survival with democracy’s. If anything, he increased the threat to the Democratic Party in the next election by engaging in such shallowness.Andrea EconomosHartsdale, N.Y.To the Editor:The issue is charged. Are you a MAGA Republican or are you a patriotic American? One cannot wear the mantle of a freedom-loving patriot in the United States of America and storm the steps of our Capitol with the intent of stopping the peaceful transfer of power because your guy lost the election. Political violence and intimidation cannot be tolerated in this Republic. We are a country founded on the rule of law and democratic principles.In his speech, outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, President Biden cautioned us that the fate of this democracy rests in our hands, that it is not guaranteed. Of course he is right. It is time to choose.Felicia MassarskyPhiladelphiaWould Iran Abide by a New Nuclear Deal?President Biden and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.Illustration by The New York Times; images by Pool, Malte Mueller and Padel Bednyakov, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Will Iran Pay for Its Murderous Campaign?” by Bret Stephens (column, Aug. 24):Mr. Stephens argues that the Iranian government must be understood primarily, if not solely, on the basis of the “murderous tentacles” it has extended into many parts of the world. Based on that claim, Mr. Stephens concludes that a new nuclear deal must not be made with Iran, because Iran “doesn’t stop at red lights,” it “has found ways to cheat” in the past and “the lifting of sanctions will provide it with a financial bonanza.”Both his characterization of the Iranian government and the conclusions he draws therefrom are dubious. The Iranian government’s human rights abuses cannot be excused, but they are also not reasons not to strike a deal with Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. They are also not unique, and the singling out of Iran in this regard (in contrast to Saudi Arabia or Israel, for example) reveals the weakness of the argument.Most important, Mr. Stephens ignores the most obvious evidence to support the argument against the one he advances: If Iran abided by the previous nuclear deal, then why wouldn’t it be likely to abide by a new one?Annie Tracy SamuelChattanooga, Tenn.The writer is an associate professor of Middle East history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the author of “The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War: Faith, Firepower, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.”To the Editor:Just a few months ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Iran was several weeks away from having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Now the conventional wisdom is that it already has enough material, meaning a deal would just be a gift in the form of sanctions relief.The billions of dollars available to Iran upon granting it sanctions relief would immediately enable the Iranian regime to step up its support of terrorism for Hezbollah, for Hamas and for Islamic Jihad and other proxies, thereby destabilizing the entire Middle East.Walk away from the Iran deal!Holly RothkopfNew YorkUkrainian Attacks in CrimeaDaniel Babii, 18, with the 112 Brigade of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense, talks with his girlfriend on Saturday before deploying to the front lines in eastern Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “As Attacks Mount in Crimea, Kremlin Faces Rising Pressures at Home” (news article, Aug. 21):Let’s hope President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent hints about liberating Crimea are more posturing for a negotiated settlement than his actual war plans. Let’s also hope that Mr. Zelensky has coordinated his shift from pure defense to offensive strikes into Russia with U.S. policymakers to ensure our military aid is consistent with our own security goals.Illegally annexed or not, Crimea has been more de facto Russian than Ukrainian for the past few centuries. After eight years of actual annexation and a long history of a majority Russian presence, Vladimir Putin and most Russians consider Crimea to be sacred and vital to Russian security interests.Without acquiescing to Russia’s occupation of Crimea, the U.S. must recognize that our support for attempts to restore Crimea to its status before annexation will almost certainly lead to mission creep and direct confrontation with Russia. Without undercutting our support for the defense of Ukraine, the U.S. should ensure that Mr. Zelensky’s goals are consistent with our own regarding Crimea.Dennis CoupeGranite Bay, Calif.The writer is former director, national security legal issues, at U.S. Army War College.New York’s Ruined SkylineA view of Billionaires’ Row in Midtown Manhattan, where a number of supertall residential towers have yet to satisfy a range of safety-related tasks required by the city buildings department.Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Hochul Puts Bet on New Towers Amid Office Glut” (front page, Aug. 29):I can remember that as a young boy first seeing the Manhattan skyline, I was mesmerized by its Art Deco beauty in its soaring tapered majesty. That was in the late 1970s, and much has changed.The skyline now has all but obliterated those gorgeous edifices. All you see now are either soaring pencil-thin glass rods of dubious design or massive grotesque behemoths.What’s been allowed to happen to the Manhattan skyline is tragic. Can you imagine Paris or Rome allowing their landmarks to be overwhelmed and overshadowed by these monstrosities?Don’t even get me started on the desecration of McKim, Mead & White’s gorgeous Penn Station. Instead of trying to replicate it, now the state is pushing a plan to build 10 towers around the eyesore.It’s heartbreaking that New York City hasn’t been a better guardian of its architectural beauty. You have destroyed the very thing that makes the city magical to a young boy. You should be ashamed.Shannon DeasonSan Antonio More

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      A Rematch of Biden v. Trump, Two Years Early

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      Dispensing with his unity message, President Biden reached into the 2020 file cabinet and vowed to win “a battle for the soul of this nation,” the cornerstone of his successful election.WASHINGTON — By this point in his term, President Biden figured things would be different. His predecessor would have faded from the scene and the country would have restored at least some semblance of normalcy. But as he said on Thursday night, “too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.”And so the president who declared when he took office that “democracy has prevailed” declared in a prime-time televised speech that in fact democracy 19 months later remained “under assault.” Former President Donald J. Trump “and the MAGA Republicans,” as Mr. Biden termed his predecessor’s allies, still represent a clear and present danger to America.If it sounded like a repeat of the 2020 campaign cycle, in some ways it is, although the incumbent and likely challenger have changed places. A country torn apart by ideology, culture, economics, race, religion, party and grievance remains as polarized as ever. Mr. Biden has scored some bipartisan legislative successes, but he has been singularly unable to heal the broader societal rift that he inherited. It may be that no president could have.With an opposition party that has largely embraced the lie that the last election was stolen and remains in thrall to a twice-impeached and defeated former president who encouraged a mob that attacked the Capitol to stop the transfer of power, Mr. Biden’s appeals to national unity have found little traction. Some Republicans have argued that his efforts to build consensus were fainthearted at best, while some Democrats complain they were excessive.Either way, they have made little difference in the national conversation. And so with the midterm congressional campaign getting underway in earnest, Mr. Biden has dispensed with the unity message, at least for now, reaching into the 2020 file cabinet and bringing out the call to win “a battle for the soul of this nation” that was the cornerstone of his successful election.The immediate strategy is self-evident. Rather than a referendum on his own presidency, which has been hurt by high inflation and low public morale, Mr. Biden wants to make the election a choice between “normal” and an “extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” as he put it on Thursday.If he has his way, it would be a rerun of Biden vs. Trump without either man actually listed on the ballot. If Americans are asked whether they support Mr. Biden, they may say no. If they are asked whether they support him over Mr. Trump, they may say yes. At least, that is the theory in the White House.It is a view borne out by recent opinion surveys. In the wake of a string of legislative and policy victories, Mr. Biden’s anemic approval ratings have ticked upward, though they remain in the 40s. But when pitted against Mr. Trump in a new Wall Street Journal poll, Mr. Biden came out on top in a theoretical 2024 rematch, 50 percent to 44 percent.Mr. Trump has arguably helped Mr. Biden set the stage for such a political showdown with his highly visible efforts to maintain his grip on the Republican Party. But it means that Mr. Biden will take on a more confrontational posture for the next two months, undermining his desire to be a conciliator.That left him in the odd position of being accused on Thursday night of being divisive by allies of the most divisive president in modern times. Trump Republicans argued that Mr. Biden was the one tearing the country apart and threatening democracy, not the other way around. He had insulted, in their contention, the 74 million Americans who voted for Mr. Trump. More

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      Takeaways From Biden’s Speech in Philadelphia

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      Just before the traditional Labor Day launch of the political season, President Biden inserted himself into the midterm elections on Thursday with a fierce speech castigating former President Donald J. Trump and his followers but ending with optimism for the nation’s democratic future.Here are four takeaways from the prime-time address from Independence Hall in Philadelphia:It’s still about Trump.Sure, Mr. Biden rattled off the accomplishments of his first year and a half in office — infrastructure, gun safety, prescription drug price controls and “the most important climate initiative ever.” But in his address to the nation, Mr. Biden tacitly acknowledged that his predecessor still looms over the politics of the moment, like it or not. And he took it to Mr. Trump directly, calling him out by name and seeking to differentiate between “the MAGA Republicans” loyal to Mr. Trump and what he deemed reasonable Republicans who still stand by the American democratic experiment.“There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” he said. “And that is a threat to this country.”Midterm elections are usually a referendum on the party of the president in power, especially when that party also controls Congress. But Mr. Biden and the Democrats are betting that if they can make this November a choice between Democratic and Republican control, they can win, or at least keep their losses to a minimum. Mr. Biden’s speech was all about making the choice this Election Day between what he called “the light of truth” and “the shadow of lies.”Approval ratings be damned.Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have risen of late, buoyed by legislative successes as well as falling gas prices. Still, with a composite disapproval rate of 53 percent, and job approval still in the low 40s, the president is no one’s idea of Mr. Popularity.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.But on Thursday, the White House rolled the dice, apparently assuming that lying low would not help matters and hoping that a big, televised speech might remind voters why they chose Mr. Biden in 2020. Republicans have caricatured the president as a doddering old man, unable to assemble a string of coherent sentences. Rather than let such aspersions go unchallenged, the White House moved to dispel them with a forceful speech that would, if nothing else, rally the Democratic base, which was already energized by the Supreme Court’s decision to end the nearly 50-year-old right to an abortion.The president’s emphasis on the historic nature of the largest climate change measure ever enacted was aimed at young Democratic voters who are among the most disenchanted with him personally. But above all, Mr. Biden appealed to the fears that have gripped some of the most reliable Democratic voting groups — L.G.B.T.Q. voters, young voters and women — when he suggested the overturning of Roe v. Wade was just the beginning: “MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”The two Americas, divided and suspicious.During the Trump administration, much was made of the former president’s willingness to castigate his political enemies on the left, to the delight of his supporters. He tried to roll back transgender rights across the government, attacked the rights of lesbian and gay Americans, told the women of color in the House Democrats’ “Squad” to “go back” to where they came from, and gleefully attacked cities like Chicago, San Francisco and Baltimore.In his speech, Mr. Biden took pains to say, “Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans; not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.” But a Republican Party still dominated by Mr. Trump’s Make America Great Again ideology was not going to accept that distinction, not when the tribe of “Never Trump” Republicans has shriveled to a tiny cohort.On Thursday, it was the Republicans’ turn to denounce the divisiveness of a president who was scorning them. The Republican National Committee cast Mr. Biden as “the divider-in-chief” who “epitomizes the current state of the Democrat Party: one of divisiveness, disgust, and hostility towards half the country.”But at times, the Republican response felt like an extended taunt of “I know you are, but what am I?” Before Mr. Biden’s speech, the man who hopes to be House speaker next year, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, also spoke in Pennsylvania, trying to pre-empt a presidential address previewed as an appeal for the soul of the nation by — with little factual basis — turning Mr. Biden’s themes against him.“In the past two years, Joe Biden has launched an assault on the soul of America,” Mr. McCarthy, the House minority leader, said, “on its people, on its laws, on its most sacred values. He has launched an assault on our democracy.”It’s not the economy: a possibly stupid position.The entreaty from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid,” has become a truism in American politics, in good times and in bad. Today, a majority of Americans still rate the economy as their No. 1 concern, and large numbers believe the nation is in a recession.Not Mr. Biden, who declared, “today, America’s economy is faster, stronger, than any other advanced nation in the world.” The word “inflation” did not pass his lips.In the 2010 campaign season, after President Barack Obama and his vice president, Mr. Biden, labored to bring the nation out of the global financial crisis, Mr. Obama barnstormed the country, insisting that Democrats had lifted the nation’s economy out of the ditch that the Republicans had driven it into. Voters delivered what Mr. Obama called a “shellacking” — huge losses in Congress that Democrats would not overcome for eight years.Mr. Biden, learning from that mistake, had been trying to show voters he understood their pain and anxiety over rising prices and lingering uncertainty. On Thursday night, he seemed to set that aside to make the election about an entirely different issue: the fate of democratic pluralism.“America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept,” he concluded. “There’s nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American. That’s our soul.” More

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      Ahead of Biden Speech, McCarthy Embraces Trump After Mar-a-Lago Search

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      Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, on Thursday aligned himself with former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to undercut federal law enforcement over the search of Mar-a-Lago, condemning the court-ordered seizure of classified documents from the former president’s home as an “assault on democracy.”In a half-hour speech delivered from Scranton, Pa., Mr. McCarthy sought to take the themes that President Biden was hitting in a prime-time address and turn them on their head against Democrats, in a remarkable attempt at political jujitsu aimed at muddying the waters about Mr. Trump’s conduct and his handling of sensitive government material.Mr. McCarthy’s remarks, delivered from a competitive congressional district that Republicans hope to wrest from Democrats in November’s midterm congressional elections, were largely a point-by-point condemnation of Mr. Biden’s policies.The top House Republican, who has seen his party’s chances of sweeping into the majority dim in recent weeks, painted the November elections as a referendum on Mr. Biden’s presidency and said that it was the current president who had “launched an assault on our democracy” with policies that had “severely wounded America’s soul.”“Joe Biden is right: Democracy is on the ballot in November,” Mr. McCarthy said. “And Joe Biden and the radical left in Washington are dismantling Americans’ democracy before our very eyes.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.Using one of Mr. Trump’s favorite tactics, Mr. McCarthy falsely equated Mr. Biden’s conduct with actions that Mr. Trump himself has taken.“Joe Biden and a politicized Department of Justice launched a raid on the home of his top political rival, Donald Trump,” Mr. McCarthy said. “That is an assault on democracy.”In fact, the F.B.I. search at Mar-a-Lago came after a year and a half of failed efforts by government officials to recover presidential documents, including classified material, from Mr. Trump. Those efforts included a subpoena that was not fully complied with and a signed letter from one of the former president’s lawyers that turned out to be false.It was Mr. Trump who was impeached in 2019 for using the powers of his office to try to get the president of Ukraine to investigate Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump also sought to use the Justice Department to help him overturn the 2020 election. And it was his lies of a stolen election that inspired the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, perhaps the most literal assault on democracy in recent American history.Still, Mr. McCarthy said Mr. Biden was at fault. He demanded that the president “apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists,” a reference to comments that Mr. Biden made at a recent fund-raiser in Maryland denouncing “extreme MAGA philosophy” as akin to “semi-fascism.”“I respect conservative Republicans,” Mr. Biden said. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”Mr. McCarthy’s speech reflected the needle he is trying to thread as he attempts to win back control of the House and secure the speakership. He has labored to stick to issues that Republicans believe resonate with voters across the ideological spectrum — chiefly the economy, public safety and border security — while also showing fealty to Mr. Trump and courting the hard-right voters and candidates whose support he will need to propel him to power.“We will fight to lower the cost of gas,” Mr. McCarthy said. “We will stop taxpayer dollars from being wasted on failed programs.” He added, “We will conduct vigorous oversight, check abuses of power and hold all wrongdoers accountable, including our Department of Justice.” More

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      Biden to Address Threats to Democracy in Philadelphia Speech

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      The prime-time speech comes amid deep national divisions. According to a recent poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction.WASHINGTON — When President Biden travels to Philadelphia on Thursday, he will turn his attention to the threat to American democracy, the very issue he said drove him to run for the presidency in the first place.More than a year and a half after Mr. Biden pledged during his inauguration to “restore the soul and to secure the future of America,” he still believes democracy is in peril.White House officials said Mr. Biden is expected to use the prime-time speech to take direct aim at the Republican Party as Democrats fight to retain their hold on Congress in the midterm elections in November.In recent days, Mr. Biden has replaced his usual calls for unity with sharp condemnations of “MAGA extremists,” saying Republicans have embraced “semi-fascism” by staying loyal to former President Donald J. Trump.“The MAGA Republicans are the most energized part of the Republican Party,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary. She said they present “an extreme threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to our rights. They just don’t respect the rule of law.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.Republicans have cited Mr. Biden’s rhetoric as evidence that he has fallen short of his promise to bring the nation together.“Biden has pitted neighbors against each other, labeled half of Americans as fascist, and tarnished any idea of his promise of ‘unity,’” Emma Vaughn, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman, said in a statement.Thursday will be Mr. Biden’s second visit to Pennsylvania in three days, and he is expected to make a third on Labor Day. Pennsylvania, a swing state, will hold crucial races for the House and Senate as well as a closely watched governor’s race.During Mr. Biden’s first year in office, he promised to bring a sense of normalcy to the White House and he largely ignored former President Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Trump is once again at the fore, with investigations into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and an F.B.I. search of his Florida home for classified documents, and Mr. Biden is trying to frame a vote for Republicans as a vote for extremism.The speech comes at a time of deep national divisions.According to an NBC News poll released last month, nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction. The F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security have issued multiple warnings about false claims about election fraud motivating extremists attacks.“We are in a crisis in this country. There’s no doubt about it. Not just in terms of the sanctity of the vote or trusting our votes will be counted,” said Allida Black, a University of Virginia historian who had a private meeting with Mr. Biden to discuss the state of democracy last month. “We seem to attack rather than embrace responsibility and accountability.”It is not the first time Mr. Biden has delivered a speech that is not about policies or campaigns but rather the morality of the nation. He said he was inspired to run for office when white supremacists marched through Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. He had a “soul of the nation” bus tour during the presidential campaign and committed to unifying the nation during his inauguration.Ms. Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that Mr. Biden was working with senior advisers on drafts of his speech for Thursday.“He sees the challenges increasing. He sees the threats increasing,” Ms. Black said, adding that the speech was a way for Mr. Biden to convey “I’m not backing down.” More

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      Biden’s Message Shifts From Compromise to Combat Ahead of Midterms

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      President Biden is spending less time hailing the virtues of unity and more time calling out Republicans and dangers to democracy.WASHINGTON — President Biden likes to say there is nothing America cannot do if the country is united and its rival parties are willing to work together.But with just two months until the midterm elections, Mr. Biden is purposely spending less time hailing the virtues of compromise and more time calling out dangers to democracy — using some of the sharpest and most combative language of his presidency.He has accused Republicans of embracing “semi-fascism” by paying fealty to former President Donald J. Trump. He has blasted the party for being “full of anger, violence, hate and division.” And he has warned that the danger from Republicans loyal to Mr. Trump went far beyond differences in policy.“They’re a threat to our very democracy,” he said of a party that he has spent a half-century working with to find common ground. “They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace political violence.”After weeks of internal White House strategy sessions, the president and his aides have devised a confrontational election-season approach that focuses on Mr. Biden’s accomplishments coupled with an aggressive political assault on the G.O.P., including the poll-tested phrase he began using this spring: “ultra-MAGA Republicans.”Now, with Mr. Trump once again at the center of a criminal investigation, this time over his handling of classified documents, Mr. Biden has seized the moment to press a case that voters cannot risk a return to a party in the thrall of the former president.As the campaign season become more intense, Mr. Biden plans to deliver a prime-time speech on Thursday in Philadelphia in which aides say he will argue that Americans are in the grips of a “battle for the soul of the nation,” returning to a theme he has often used to describe his motivation for becoming a presidential candidate. Recent events have made the speech more urgent for the president, but a Democratic official said Mr. Biden had been thinking of delivering the address since early summer.“After a successful past couple of months, the president and Democrats have effectively turned this midterm into a choice, when it’s typically a referendum on the party in the White House,” said Stephanie Cutter, a veteran Democratic strategist. “The president now is articulating that choice, pretty damned well and at just the right time.”She added, “The choice couldn’t be clearer — a reminder of what people rejected just two years ago.”The speech will also be an opportunity for Mr. Biden to focus on falling gas prices, a booming job market and legislative victories on climate change, drug prices, infrastructure improvements and veterans’ health care.The Biden PresidencyWith midterm elections looming, here’s where President Biden stands.On the Campaign Trail: Fresh off a series of legislative victories, President Biden is back campaigning. But his low approval ratings could complicate his efforts to help Democrats in the midterm elections.‘Dark Brandon’ Rises: White House officials recently began to embrace this repackaged internet meme. Here is the story behind it and what it tells us about the administration.Questions About 2024: Mr. Biden has said he plans to run for a second term, but at 79, his age has become an uncomfortable issue.A Familiar Foreign Policy: So far, Mr. Biden’s approach to foreign policy is surprisingly consistent with the Trump administration, analysts say.But Mr. Biden is leaning into more political attacks, aides and allies said, in part because of what he sees as a growing embrace of violent political speech by Republicans and a threat to the democratic process of governing. The aides said he was dismayed by the number of Trump-backed election deniers who have won Republican primaries for governor or secretary of state across the country.Mr. Biden, whose own approval ratings have begun to improve slightly since lows earlier this summer, is hoping that his party can maintain control of Congress and deliver a forceful rebuke to Mr. Trump and his followers.It is a moment, one adviser said, to make sure people understand what is at stake.“Given everything that is happening right now, I have to imagine that this is weighing on him very heavily,” said Symone D. Sanders, who served as the chief spokeswoman for Vice President Kamala Harris and now hosts a new MSNBC show. “He feels as though he needs to ring the alarm, sound the alarm as he did throughout all of 2019, throughout all of 2020 in the lead-up to the election.” More

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      There Are Now F.E.C. Complaints Against Biden and Trump

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      A conservative group has filed a complaint against President Biden accusing him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the Federal Election Commission that he plans to run again in 2024.The complaint is unlikely to succeed or be resolved quickly — not only because the commission has been hobbled for years by partisan infighting, but also because of the high burden of proof required to show that Mr. Biden has in fact decided to pursue re-election.It nonetheless highlights the political bind the White House has found itself in while facing grumbling about the president from his fellow Democrats, as well as the gridlock that has crippled the nation’s top election agency and has led it to be mocked on late-night talk shows.The complaint was filed more than five months after a Democratic super PAC filed a similar complaint against former President Donald J. Trump, who has openly flirted with another White House bid.Complaint About Biden From Americans for Public Trust to the Federal Election CommissionA conservative group filed a complaint against President Biden that accuses him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the F.E.C. that he plans to run again in 2024.Read Document 6 pagesAmericans for Public Trust filed the complaint against Mr. Biden on Tuesday. The group is led by Caitlin Sutherland, a former research director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans.“It is very clear that President Biden meets the requirements of a candidate who needs to file with the F.E.C.,” Ms. Sutherland said in an interview.Her group is asking the commission to investigate whether Mr. Biden is running what she described as a “shadow campaign,” using taxpayer money to conduct what in essence are political activities under the guise of official travel to swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A potential punishment could include a hefty fine, as the F.E.C. has levied in the past.The complaint claims that Mr. Biden’s official campaign committee, Biden for President, has spent more than $5 million since Jan. 20, 2021. Most of that money has gone toward expenses related to the 2020 presidential election, but the complaint notes that Biden for President has reported spending $1 million on outreach to voters over email and text messages.Those messages, which are reviewed by Mr. Biden’s campaign lawyers for compliance with the law, promote his policy accomplishments, such as the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, and direct recipients to donate money to the Democratic National Committee.The Biden PresidencyWith midterm elections looming, here’s where President Biden stands.On the Campaign Trail: Fresh off a series of legislative victories, President Biden is back campaigning. But his low approval ratings could complicate his efforts to help Democrats in the midterm elections.‘Dark Brandon’ Rises: White House officials recently began to embrace this repackaged internet meme. Here is the story behind it and what it tells us about the administration.Questions About 2024: Mr. Biden has said he plans to run for a second term, but at 79, his age has become an uncomfortable issue.A Familiar Foreign Policy: So far, Mr. Biden’s approach to foreign policy is surprisingly consistent with the Trump administration, analysts say.But they also serve a tried-and-true function in political campaigns: keeping a valuable contact list warm in case Mr. Biden needs it for a future run.The complaint also details a litany of public statements made by White House officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, indicating that Mr. Biden plans to seek re-election.In late June, for instance, Ms. Harris told Dana Bash of CNN, “Joe Biden is running for re-election and I will be his ticketmate. Full stop.”She quickly walked back those comments, however, as aides apparently realized the legal implications of prematurely declaring Mr. Biden’s candidacy before he has officially decided to run again.Similarly, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on June 13 that Mr. Biden was “running for re-election.” She later tweeted that the president “intends to run in 2024,” only to clarify later that Mr. Biden had not yet decided.Those comments came in response to public reports, including in The New York Times, suggesting that many Democrats were not eager to see Mr. Biden become their party’s nominee again in 2024 given his advanced age and his relative unpopularity.White House officials and other surrogates for Mr. Biden leaned in hard against the emerging narrative, and, according to some accounts noted in the complaint, told reporters anonymously that they recognized that those comments had risked running afoul of legal restrictions on fund-raising.“Biden cannot hide behind the word ‘intend’, and it’s not the shield he thinks it is,” Ms. Sutherland said.The White House declined to comment, as did the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Biden himself has been coy about whether he has indeed decided to seek the Oval Office again, often couching his answers with a caveat: that he intends to do so if he remains in good health, but will not make that determination until sometime after the November midterms.In February, when a reporter asked if he was satisfied with Ms. Harris’s working on voting rights and whether she would be his running mate in 2024 “provided that you run again,” Mr. Biden replied, “yes and yes.”The complaint omits the reporter’s conditional phrase.Some campaign lawyers affiliated with the Democratic Party, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly, argued that the White House press secretary and even the vice president could not speak for Biden for President, the campaign committee — and therefore the commission was likely to dismiss the complaint quickly.That would be unusual: The F.E.C. is notoriously lax about meeting its own statutory deadline of 120 days. A different election-law-related complaint filed by the same group, Americans for Public Trust, about the pre-candidacy activities of Jeb Bush, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has been languishing for years.Complaint About Trump From American Bridge to the Federal Election CommissionA Democratic super PAC filed a complaint in March against former President Donald J. Trump that accused him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the F.E.C. that he planned to run again in 2024.Read Document 10 pagesAnn Ravel, a Democratic former commissioner at the F.E.C., said she found the complaint about Mr. Biden’s putative candidacy “persuasive.”Ms. Ravel, who has long been an outspoken critic of the commission, which consists of three members appointed by each of the two major political parties, added that “of all the government agencies, the F.E.C. is probably the most dysfunctional of all.”By law, a candidate is required to notify the commission within 15 days of deciding to run for federal office.Despite the F.E.C.’s dysfunction, the convention among presidents has been to obey the letter of the law while countermanding its spirit.Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden’s predecessor, exploded that convention through moves like holding his nominating convention on the White House grounds and failing to police violations of the Hatch Act, a law that governs political activities by presidential aides.In March, American Bridge, a group aligned with Democrats, lodged an F.E.C. complaint against Mr. Trump, accusing him of violating campaign finance law by spending political funds on a 2024 presidential bid without formally declaring himself a candidate. The group later sued the F.E.C. over the matter, claiming that the agency’s inaction gave Mr. Trump a competitive advantage.In a July interview with New York magazine, Mr. Trump said that “in my own mind, I’ve already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore.” More