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      Trump Lawyers Are Focus of Inquiry Into Alternate Electors Scheme

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      In recent subpoenas, federal prosecutors investigating alternate slates of pro-Trump electors sought information about Rudolph W. Giuliani, John Eastman and others.The Justice Department has stepped up its criminal investigation into the creation of alternate slates of pro-Trump electors seeking to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 election, with a particular focus on a team of lawyers that worked on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.A federal grand jury in Washington has started issuing subpoenas in recent weeks to people linked to the alternate elector plan, requesting information about several lawyers including Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and one of his chief legal advisers, John Eastman, one of the people said.The subpoenas also seek information on other pro-Trump lawyers like Jenna Ellis, who worked with Mr. Giuliani, and Kenneth Chesebro, who wrote memos supporting the elector scheme in the weeks after the election.A top Justice Department official acknowledged in January that prosecutors were trying to determine whether any crimes were committed in the scheme.Under the plan, election officials in seven key swing states put forward formal lists of pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College on the grounds that the states would be shown to have swung in favor of Mr. Trump once their claims of widespread election fraud had been accepted. Those claims were baseless, and all seven states were awarded to Mr. Biden.It is a federal crime to knowingly submit false statements to a federal agency or agent for an undue end. The alternate elector slates were filed with a handful of government bodies, including the National Archives.The focus on the alternate electors is only one of the efforts by the Justice Department to broaden its vast investigation of hundreds of rioters who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.In the past few months, grand jury subpoenas have also been issued seeking information about a wide array of people who organized Mr. Trump’s rally near the White House that day, and about any members of the executive and legislative branches who may have taken part in planning the event or tried to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election.The widening and intensifying Justice Department inquiry also comes as the House select committee investigating the efforts to overturn the election and the Jan. 6 assault prepares for public hearings next month.The subpoenas in the elector investigation are the first public indications that the roles of Mr. Giuliani and other lawyers working on Mr. Trump’s behalf are of interest to federal prosecutors.After Election Day, Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Ellis appeared in front of a handful of legislatures in contested swing states, laying out what they claimed was evidence of fraud and telling lawmakers that they had the power to pick their own electors to the Electoral College.Mr. Eastman was an architect of a related plan to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use the alternate electors in a bid to block or delay congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.Examining the lawyers who worked with Mr. Trump after the election edges prosecutors close to the former president. But there is no guarantee that an investigation of the lawyers working on the alternate elector plan would lead prosecutors to discover any evidence that Mr. Trump broke the law.The plot to use alternate electors was one of the most expansive and audacious schemes in a dizzying array of efforts by Mr. Trump and his supporters to deny his election loss and keep him in the White House.John Eastman, a lawyer advising Mr. Trump, was an architect of a plan to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use alternate electors in a bid to block Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesIt began even before some states had finished counting ballots, as officials in places like Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin came under pressure to create slates of electors announcing that Mr. Trump had won.The scheme reached a crescendo in the days leading up to Jan. 6, when Mr. Trump and his allies mounted a relentless campaign to persuade Mr. Pence to accept the alternate electors and use them at a joint session of Congress to deny — or at least delay — Mr. Biden’s victory.At various times, the plan involved state lawmakers and White House aides, though prosecutors seem to believe that a group of Mr. Trump’s lawyers played a crucial role in carrying it out. Investigators have cast a wide net for information about the lawyers, but prosecutors believe that not all of them may have supported the plans that Mr. Trump’s allies created to keep him in office, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer said he was unaware of any investigation into his client. Mr. Eastman’s lawyer and Ms. Ellis did not return emails seeking comment. Mr. Chesebro declined to answer questions about the inquiry.The strategy of pushing the investigation forward by examining the lawyers’ roles could prove to be tricky. Prosecutors are likely to run into arguments that some — or even much — of the information they are seeking is protected by attorney-client privilege. And there is no indication that prosecutors have sought to subpoena the lawyers or search their property.“There are heightened requirements for obtaining a search warrant on a lawyer,” said Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama. “Even when opening a case where a lawyer could be a subject, prosecutors will flag that to make sure that people consider the rights of uninvolved parties.”As a New York real estate mogul, Mr. Trump had a habit of employing lawyers to insulate himself from queries about his questionable business practices and personal behavior. In the White House — especially in times of stress or scandal — he often demanded loyalty from the lawyers around him, once asking in reference to a mentor and famous lawyer known for his ruthlessness, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”Some of the lawyers who have come under scrutiny in connection with the alternate elector scheme are already facing allegations of professional impropriety or misconduct.In June, for instance, Mr. Giuliani’s law license was suspended after a New York court ruled that he had made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” while fighting the election results on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Boris Epshteyn, another lawyer who worked with Mr. Giuliani, has also come under scrutiny in the Justice Department investigation, the people familiar with the matter said.Two months before Mr. Giuliani’s license was suspended, F.B.I. agents conducted extraordinary searches of his home and office in New York as part of an unrelated inquiry centered on his dealings in Ukraine before the 2020 election, when he sought to damage Mr. Biden’s credibility.In March, a federal judge in California ruled in a civil case that Mr. Eastman had most likely conspired with Mr. Trump to obstruct Congress and defraud the United States by helping to devise and promote the alternate elector scheme, and by presenting plans to Mr. Pence suggesting that he could exercise his discretion over which slates of electors to accept or reject at the Jan. 6 congressional certification of votes.There is no guarantee that an investigation of the lawyers working on the alternate elector plan would lead prosecutors to discover evidence that Mr. Trump broke the law.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe scheme, which involved holding meetings and drafting emails and memos, was “a coup in search of a legal theory,” wrote the judge, David O. Carter of the Central District of California.It was revealed this month that Mr. Eastman was involved in a similar — but perhaps even more brazen — effort to overturn to the election results. According to emails released by a public records request, Mr. Eastman pressed a Pennsylvania state lawmaker in December 2020 to carry out a plan to strip Mr. Biden of his win in that state by essentially retabulating the vote count in a way that would favor Mr. Trump.A week before the disclosure of Mr. Eastman’s emails, Ms. Ellis was accused of misconduct in an ethics complaint submitted to court officials in Colorado, her home state.The complaint, by the bipartisan legal watchdog group the States United Democracy Center, said that Ms. Ellis had made “numerous public misrepresentations” while traveling the country with Mr. Giuliani after the election in an effort to persuade local lawmakers that the voting had been marred by fraud.It also noted that Ms. Ellis had assisted Mr. Trump in an “unsuccessful and potentially criminal effort” to stave off defeat by writing two memos arguing that Mr. Pence could ignore the electoral votes in key swing states that had pledged their support to Mr. Biden.As for Mr. Chesebro, he was involved in what may have been the earliest known effort to put on paper proposals for preparing alternate electors.A little more than two weeks after Election Day, Mr. Chesebro sent a memo to James Troupis, a lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, laying out a plan to name pro-Trump electors in the state. In a follow-up memo three weeks later, Mr. Chesebro expanded on the plan, setting forth an analysis of how to legally authorize alternate electors in six key swing states, including Wisconsin.The two memos, obtained by The New York Times, were used by Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Eastman, among others, as they developed a strategy intended to pressure Mr. Pence and to exploit ambiguities in the Electoral Count Act, according to a person familiar with the matter. More

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      The Depp-Heard Trial Isn’t Even the Weirdest Thing About America Right Now

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. It looks like I won’t be vacationing in Vladivostok anytime soon. Or Omsk, Tomsk, Yakutsk or Smolensk, for that matter.Gail: Bret, this is one of the most interesting openings we’ve ever had. Is this because you canceled a summer vacation reservation for the Trans-Siberian Railway? Or perchance the Russian reaction to your very powerful anti-Putin column?Bret: I woke up on Saturday to the news that my name was on a list of 963 Americans barred for life by the Russian foreign ministry from visiting Mother Russia. Which is about as upsetting as waking up to a call from your doctor who says, “It isn’t cancer” or a message from an ex that reads, “I was wrong about everything.”Gail: You know, when people visit our apartment, their favorite home decoration is almost always the letter Donald Trump wrote calling me a dog “with the face of a pig.” If only you could get Vladimir Putin to drop you a note saying, “Looking forward to seeing you — Never!” it’d be the ultimate example of high-end hate mail.Bret: I’m OK with the Russian sanction on me so long as it doesn’t involve poisoned underpants. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine rages on, abortion rights are on the line at the Supreme Court, inflation is high and the markets are tanking, and yet the most divisive issue of our time seems to be … Amber Heard v. Johnny Depp.Are you taking a side?Gail Collins: Bret, I’m a big fan of Hollywood gossip as an antidote for dwelling too long on deeply depressing current events. But this one is pretty depressing itself and I kinda wish we could talk about some other celebrity story. Hey, did you know Dick Van Dyke has signed up for a fitness class at 96?Bret: I did. Good to know we are both attentive readers of The New York Post.Gail: I guess everyone who watches late-night talk shows now knows that Depp is suing his ex-wife for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post about domestic violence. Couldn’t be a more important topic, but the stories we’ve heard since — like the controversy over whether she defecated on their bed or if it was the dog — don’t really bring a desirable kind of attention to spousal abuse issues.Your thoughts?Bret: Heard is a lot more convincing as an actress than she is as a witness. I also think the reason the trial has captured this kind of attention — aside from the pure entertainment value of watching two deeply troubled celebrity exes go at each other as if they were re-enacting a scene from “Gladiator” — is that for many people it represents a kind of corrective to the excesses of the #MeToo movement.Gail: OK, we’re now at Disagreement Central. Men who are subject to those kinds of accusations obviously deserve to have their defenses listened to. And nobody should automatically be seen as guilty until the evidence is in.Bret: Yes and yes.Gail: But when it comes to issues of physical abuse, a woman deserves immediate attention, partly just out of concern for her safety. And because we’re trying to turn around a long human history in which violence against a sexual partner wasn’t seen as serious as violence against anybody else.Bret: Agree again, but while Heard has accused Depp of being violent, she also said on the stand that “It’s always been my own testimony that I hit Johnny.” I think the case serves as a reminder that the current politicized vision of relationships — in which men always hold all the power, including physical power; women are generally presumed to be the victimized party, as well as the honest one; and romantic relationships are supposed to abide by the dictates of a legal brief, not the alchemy of desire — just doesn’t conform to the way most people experience life.Gail: If our readers want to mull this matter further, I really recommend our colleague Michelle Goldberg’s Heard-Depp column from last week.Bret: Michelle eloquently expresses the exact opposite of my view.Gail: Speaking of eloquent, what about the primaries that just occurred? The big one in Pennsylvania for the Republican Senate nomination, featuring Dr. Oz versus Business Guy, is still unresolved. Which has got to be a plus for the Democratic nominee, John Fetterman. Any thoughts on that race?Bret: My guess is that Fetterman will have a tough time winning in November. He’s on the leftward side of a Democratic Party that is struggling to overcome the perception that it leaned too far left in Biden’s first year. Of course, Oz and David McCormick, his closest opponent, could still tear the Pennsylvania G.O.P. to pieces fighting for the 1,000 or so votes that separated them in last week’s primary. The older I get, the more I realize that winning in politics is mostly a game of being slightly less stupid than your opponent.Gail: Embarrassing to look all around the country and see previously sane Republicans who now feel compelled to deny Biden won the election.Bret: Those Republicans aren’t sane, but I take your point.Gail: Fetterman is overly colorful for my taste, constantly showing up in shorts for public events and bragging about his tattoos. But his policies are perfectly reasonable, and I think he has a real shot.Bret: The other primary race that fascinates me, Gail, is the one for governor in Georgia. Trump favorite David Perdue is making a run for incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp’s job, and it looks like Perdue will lose in a rout. That’s all the more notable because Kemp stood by Biden’s victory in the state’s 2020 presidential election. It may be a good indication that Trump’s power in the party is finally beginning to wane.Or is that just wishful thinking?Gail: Maybe the rule on Republican primaries is that party voters will back the Trump candidate if they know virtually nothing about the people who are running. If the endorsee is, say, Representative Madison Cawthorn, the newly rejected 26-year-old congressional juvenile delinquent, they’ve got plenty of information to make a choice on their own.Bret: On a related note, it will be interesting to see if Marjorie Taylor Greene wins her G.O.P. primary in Georgia. If she loses, maybe she can blame those Jewish space lasers again.Gail: One primary that’s going to tell us a lot about Trump’s ability to impose his will on an election where the voters are well informed should be in Wyoming. Will Liz Cheney get renominated? That’d certainly leave our former president gnawing on a Mar-a-Lago porch railing.Bret: Whatever happens to Liz Cheney — and things don’t look great for her right now — she’s earned her own chapter in some future sequel to John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage.” After the recent shooting in Buffalo, she tweeted that the “House G.O.P. leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism.” There’s a word for that kind of magnificent honesty, often associated with bowling, tennis or golf.Gail: Of course the Wyoming primary isn’t until August. Plenty of stuff to look forward to before then. As well as watching the actual government in operation. How do you think Biden’s doing these days?Bret: Well, he’s done a much better job standing up for Ukraine than I had expected he might, and I’ll give him and his national-security team full marks for that.On the other hand, homicide rates in major American cities were 44 percent higher in 2021 than they were in 2019, and there’s a palpable sense of lawlessness and urban decay in one downtown after another, including a random killing Sunday morning on the subway in New York. That isn’t Biden’s fault, but it adds to a perception of Democratic misgovernance.Gail: Conservative refusal to control gun sales is my nominee for the Misgovernment Medal.Bret: Inflation hasn’t been this high in 40 years and it can cost more than $100 to fill a tank of gas. We may have been spared a migration crisis this summer, but only because a Trump-appointed judge blocked the C.D.C.’s effort to end Title 42. We also seem to be teetering on the verge of a recession, which would be … bad. Despite all this, the White House seems to think that Biden is a plausible candidate for re-election in 2024, which at this point looks about as likely as that vacation I was supposed to take in Vladivostok.My question for you is, when do Democrats start panicking?Gail: Well, the first panic-possible moment is this fall, when we see how the midterm elections go. Can’t actually say I’m feeling optimistic right now, but I do believe there’s a huge difference between Democrats Can’t Govern — the big issue this fall — and Who Wants Trump Back?, which will be the big issue in two years.Totally confident right now that most Americans don’t want Trump back. In fact that’s possibly the only question in which Biden definitely comes out the winner.Bret: A decent strategy unless Ron DeSantis is the nominee.Gail: Not a fan of Biden acknowledging now that he won’t run again, as I’ve mentioned before, but I do admit one plus would be bringing the race for 2024 up front right away and giving the new talent a chance to show itself.Bret: Glad to have possibly won you over on that point. Last thing, Gail, our readers shouldn’t miss Dwight Garner’s obituary for Roger Angell, The New Yorker’s great baseball writer, who died last week at 101. Always good to see one magnificent writer do justice to another.Gail: Amen.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Ginni Thomas Urged Arizona Lawmakers to Overturn Election

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      The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote to legislators in a crucial swing state after the Trump campaign’s loss in 2020.In the weeks after the 2020 presidential election, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, twice lobbied the speaker of the Arizona House and another lawmaker to effectively reverse Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s popular-vote victory and deliver the crucial swing state to Donald J. Trump.Ms. Thomas, known as Ginni, a right-wing political activist who became a close ally of Mr. Trump during his presidency, made the entreaties in emails to Russell Bowers, the Republican speaker, and Shawnna Bolick, a Republican state representative. Ms. Bolick’s husband, Clint, once worked with Justice Thomas and now sits on the Arizona Supreme Court.The emails came as Mr. Trump and his allies were engaged in a legal effort to overturn his defeats in several battleground states. While the Arizona emails did not mention either presidential candidate by name, they echoed the former president’s false claims of voter fraud and his legal team’s dubious contention that the power to choose electors therefore rested not with the voters but with state legislatures.“Do your constitutional duty,” Ms. Thomas wrote the lawmakers on Nov. 9. On Dec. 13, with Mr. Trump still refusing to concede on the eve of the Electoral College vote, she contacted the lawmakers again.“The nation’s eyes are on you now,” she warned, adding, “Please consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you do not stand up and lead.”After she sent her first round of emails, but before the second round, Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, more directly pressured Mr. Bowers. They called him and urged him to have the state legislature step in and choose Arizona’s electors.Mr. Bowers could not be reached for comment on Friday. In a statement to The Arizona Republic, a spokesman said that Mr. Bowers never saw Ms. Thomas’s email. He ended up rebuffing all the requests to intervene, even in the face of protests outside his house.Ms. Bolick, who did not return requests for comment and is now running to become Arizona’s next secretary of state on a platform to “restore election integrity,” proved more of an ally. She thanked Ms. Thomas for reaching out, writing that she hoped “you and Clarence are doing great!” Among other things, she would go on to urge Congress to throw out Arizona’s presidential election results and award the state’s Electoral College votes to Mr. Trump.The emails, reported earlier by The Washington Post and obtained by The New York Times, were part of a letter-writing campaign hosted on FreeRoots, a political advocacy platform. On Friday, Mark Paoletta, a lawyer and close friend of the Thomases, said on Twitter that Ms. Thomas “did not write the letter and had no input in the content,” but rather merely “signed her name to a pre-written form letter that was signed by thousands of citizens.”“How disturbing, what a threat!” he wrote, dismissing the revelations as a “lame story.” He added: “A private citizen joining a letter writing campaign, hosted by a platform that served both conservative and liberal causes. Welcome to America.”In fact, the emails are a reflection of the far broader and more integral role that Justice Thomas’s wife played in efforts to delegitimize the election and install Mr. Trump for a second term — efforts that culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, with a protest called the “March to Save America” that turned into a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.As a string of revelations by The Times and other outlets in recent months has demonstrated, Ms. Thomas actively supported and participated at the highest levels in schemes to overturn the election. Those efforts have, in turn, cast a spotlight on her husband, who from his lifetime perch on the Supreme Court has issued opinions favoring Mr. Trump’s efforts to both reverse his loss and stymie a congressional investigation into the events of Jan. 6.This February, The New York Times Magazine reported on Ms. Thomas’s role on the board of C.N.P. Action, a conservative group that had instructed members to adopt letter-writing tactics — of the kind she personally used in Arizona — to pressure Republican lawmakers in swing states to circumvent voters by appointing alternate electors.C.N.P. Action had also circulated a newsletter in December 2020 that included a report targeting five swing states, including Arizona, where Mr. Trump and his allies were pressing litigation. It warned that time was running out for the courts to “declare the elections null and void.” The report was co-written by one of Mr. Trump’s leading election lawyers, Cleta Mitchell, a friend of Ms. Thomas.And in the lead-up to the rally on Jan. 6, Ms. Thomas played a mediating role, uniting feuding factions of planners so that there “wouldn’t be any division,” one of the organizers, Dustin Stockton, later told The Times.Ms. Thomas declined to speak to The Times for that article, but a few weeks later, in an interview with a friendly conservative outlet, she denied playing any role in the organization of the rally, even as she acknowledged attending it. (She said she left before Mr. Trump addressed the crowd.)But she has adamantly opposed a fuller inquiry into the insurrection. Last December, she co-signed a letter calling for House Republicans to expel Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from their conference for joining the committee investigating the Capitol riot, saying it brought “disrespect to our country’s rule of law” and “legal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong.”And in late March, The Post and CBS reported that she had sent a series of text messages to Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, imploring him to take steps to reverse the election. Ms. Thomas urged him to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down,” invoking a slogan popular on the right that refers to a set of conspiratorial claims that Trump supporters believed would overturn the vote. In the text messages, she also indicated that she had been in contact with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about a post-election legal strategy.Democrats expressed outrage. In a letter after the text messages were reported, two dozen Democrats, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker, wrote: “Given the recent disclosures about Ms. Thomas’s efforts to overturn the election and her specific communications with White House officials about doing so, Justice Thomas’s participation in cases involving the 2020 election and the January 6th attack is exceedingly difficult to reconcile with federal ethics requirements.”Still, it remains an open question whether the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack will seek an interview with Ms. Thomas. In March, people familiar with the committee’s work signaled a desire to ask Ms. Thomas to voluntarily sit for an interview. But the committee has yet to do so, and its chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, told reporters that Ms. Thomas had not come up recently in the panel’s discussions.Justice Thomas has remained defiant amid questions about his own impartiality, resisting calls that he recuse himself from matters that overlap with his wife’s activism. Earlier this year, when the Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 to allow the release of records from the Trump White House related to Jan. 6, Justice Thomas was the sole dissenter. In February last year, he sharply dissented when the court declined to hear a case brought by Pennsylvania Republicans seeking to disqualify certain mail-in ballots.The latest revelations about his wife follow a speech last week in which he lambasted protests in front of the houses of justices after a draft opinion was leaked that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case. “I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them,” he told a conference of fellow conservatives. “And then I wonder when they’re gone or destabilized, what we’re going to have as a country.”And he flashed at his own partisanship in claiming that the left’s protests lacked the decorum of the right — while failing to mention last year’s attack on the Capitol, or protests like those in front of Mr. Bowers’s house.“You would never visit Supreme Court justices’ houses when things didn’t go our way,” he said. “We didn’t throw temper tantrums. It is incumbent on us to always act appropriately and not to repay tit for tat.”Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife have frequently appeared at political events despite longstanding customs of the Supreme Court.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThe Thomases have long defied norms of the high court, where justices often avoid political events and entanglements and their spouses often keep low profiles. No spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice has ever been as overt a political activist as Ms. Thomas. C.N.P. Action, where she sits on the board, is a branch of the Council for National Policy, a secretive conservative organization that includes leaders from the National Rifle Association and the Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group. Ms. Thomas also founded an organization called Groundswell that holds a weekly meeting of influential conservatives, many of whom work directly on issues that have come before the Supreme Court.Justice Thomas, for his part, has frequently appeared at political events hosted by advocates hoping to sway the court. He and his wife sometimes appear together at such events, and often portray themselves as standing in the breach amid a crumbling society.“It’s very exciting,” Ms. Thomas said during a 2018 Council for National Policy meeting, “the fact that there’s a resistance on our side to their side.”Luke Broadwater More

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      Democrats, the Midterm Jinx Is Not Inevitable

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      In November, the Democrats are widely expected to lose the House and probably also the Senate. Large defeats are the norm for a new president’s first midterm. A harbinger is a president’s approval rating, and President Biden’s stands at a lackluster 41.1 percent.But standard political history may not be a good guide to 2022. The Democrats are facing long odds, but there are several reasons this could be an unusual political year.For starters, Donald Trump is just as likely to hobble Republicans as he is to energize them. Mr. Trump will not be on the ballot, but many of his surrogates will. He has endorsed over 175 candidates in federal and state elections, and in his clumsy efforts to play kingmaker, Mr. Trump has promoted some badly compromised candidates and challenged party unity.In the Georgia primary for governor, a Trump surrogate, Sonny Purdue, is polling well behind Mr. Trump’s nemesis, the incumbent Brian Kemp. In the Georgia Senate race, Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidate, Herschel Walker, is running away from his past and locked in a tight race against the incumbent Raphael Warnock. It may not happen again, but in 2020, Mr. Trump’s meddling backfired and helped Democrats take two Senate seats.To hold the Senate, Democrats need to defend incumbents in New Hampshire, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. But they have pickup opportunities in several states.In Pennsylvania, the popular lieutenant governor John Fetterman, an economic populist, will run against the winner of a close Republican primary, either the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz or the financier David McCormick. Mr. Oz, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, has a very slight edge, as well as a very slight connection to Pennsylvania, having lived in New Jersey for many years. Either nominee would most likely alienate part of the Trump base, and neither is remotely populist.In Ohio, Mr. Trump’s endorsement helped the author and venture capitalist executive J.D. Vance prevail. In the general election, we will get a test of the divisive culture-war populism of Mr. Vance versus the genuine pocketbook populism of Representative Tim Ryan — the kind that keeps re-electing Ohio’s Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown.For Democrats to succeed in many of these races, their base will have to be energized — but at the moment, it is not. Still, there’s hope: Even if the ubiquitous lunacy of Mr. Trump doesn’t wake Democrats up, the likelihood of abortion being banned in half the country probably will.If the leaked opinion in the Supreme Court abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, becomes law in an official June decision, it will not just allow states to criminalize abortion, but will turn doctors into agents of the state when they treat women for miscarriages. This extremism on women’s health does not have the support of most voters.The Democratic revival of 2017-20 began with the epic women’s marches of January 2017. If Democrats are more competitive than expected this year, it will be in part because women are galvanized, especially women in the Democratic base but also independent or “soft Republican” college-educated suburban women.Something like this happened in 2017, when large numbers of liberals and moderates, appalled by Mr. Trump’s presidency, saw the 2018 election as a firebreak. That year, Democrats made a net gain of 40 seats in the House, and historic turnout gains in 2018, relative to the previous midterm, were a great benefit for Democrats.All will depend on how closely 2022 resembles 2018. With the electorate so divided, there are relatively few swing voters — but potentially dozens of swing districts. How they swing depends entirely on turnout.A Democratic effort reminiscent of grass roots groups in 2017 is beginning to gear up. For example, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland sponsors a Democracy Summer for college students who want to get out and organize. This idea has been picked up in dozens of other congressional districts.Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, in the January 2021 runoff election that won him a Senate seat, helped pioneer a technique called paid relational organizing. He hired some 2,800 Georgians to reach out to their own peer networks to win support for Mr. Ossoff. Now several people who worked with Senator Ossoff are taking this strategy national.Other events this summer may have bearing on the fall. The House panel investigating the attack of Jan. 6, 2021, will hold public hearings in June. Closer to the midterms, it will release its final report, which will put Republicans on the spot to answer for their defense of an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Mr. Trump will surely continue to insist the 2020 election was stolen, but most Republicans will be whipsawed between the demands of Mr. Trump and his base and their wish to focus on more winning issues.Mr. Trump’s own behavior is exposing all the latent fissures in the contradictory coalition that narrowly elected him. Democratic candidates will be reminding Americans of the potential menace of a second Trump term. If Mr. Trump rejoins Twitter, he will remind them himself.Even so, Republican extremism is at risk of being overshadowed by economic conditions, none more than inflation. Federal Reserve economists project that inflation could begin to subside by fall. As with so much in politics, sheer luck and timing will play a role in the Democrats’ prospects and the future of our Republic.Stranger things have happened than a Democrat midterm resurgence. A wipeout is still likely, but far from inevitable — if Democrats can get organized.Robert Kuttner is a co-editor of The American Prospect and the author of “Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the Struggle to Save Democracy.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      America’s Doug Mastriano Problem

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      If the Ohio Senate primary two weeks ago provided some clarity about the ideological divisions in the Republican Party, Tuesday’s primaries often seemed more like a showcase for the distinctive personalities that populate a Trumpified G.O.P.The Pennsylvania Senate race gave us an especially vivid mix: As of this writing, the Celebrity Doctor and the Hedge Fund Guy Pretending to Be a MAGA True Believer may be headed for a recount, after the Would-Be Media Personality With the Inspiring Back Story and the Unfortunate Twitter Feed faded back into the pack. In the governor’s race, Republican voters chose to nominate Doug Mastriano, a.k.a. the QAnon Dad. In North Carolina, they ended — for now — the political career of Representative Madison Cawthorn, the Obviously Suffering Grifter.On substance, as opposed to personality, though, the night’s stakes were relatively simple: Can Republicans prevent their party from becoming the party of constitutional crisis, with leaders tacitly committed to turning the next close presidential election into a legal-judicial-political train wreck?This is a distinctive version of a familiar political problem. Whenever a destabilizing populist rebellion is unleashed inside a democratic polity, there are generally two ways to bring back stability without some kind of crisis or rupture in the system.Sometimes the revolt can be quarantined within a minority coalition and defeated by a majority. This was the destiny, for instance, of William Jennings Bryan’s 1890s prairie-populist rebellion, which took over the Democratic Party but went down to multiple presidential defeats at the hands of the more establishmentarian Republicans. You can see a similar pattern, for now, in French politics, where the populism of Marine Le Pen keeps getting isolated and defeated by the widely disliked but grudgingly tolerated centrism of Emmanuel Macron.In the alternative path to stability, the party being reshaped by populism finds leaders who can absorb its energies, channel its grievances and claim its mantle — but also defeat or suppress its most extreme manifestations. This was arguably the path of New Deal liberalism in its relationship to Depression-era populism and radicalism: In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt was able to sustain support from voters who were also drawn to more demagogic characters, from Huey Long to Charles Coughlin. Two generations later, it was the path of Reaganite conservatism in its relationship to both George Wallace’s populism and the Goldwaterite New Right.The problem for America today is that neither stabilizing strategy is going particularly well. Part of the Never Trump movement has aspired to a Macron-style strategy, preaching establishment unity behind the Democratic Party. But the Democrats haven’t cooperated: They conspicuously failed to contain and defeat Trumpism in 2016, and there is no sign that the Biden-era variation on the party is equipped to hold on to the majority it won in 2020.Meanwhile, the Republican Party at the moment does have a provisional model for channeling but also restraining populism. Essentially it involves leaning into culture-war controversy and rhetorical pugilism to a degree that provokes constant liberal outrage and using that outrage to reassure populist voters that you’re on their side and they don’t need to throw you over for a conspiracy theorist or Jan. 6 marcher.This is the model, in different styles and contexts, of Glenn Youngkin and Ron DeSantis. In Tuesday’s primaries it worked for Idaho’s conservative incumbent governor, Brad Little, who easily defeated his own lieutenant governor’s much-further-right campaign. Next week the same approach seems likely to help Brian Kemp defeat David Perdue for the governor’s nomination in Georgia. And it offers the party’s only chance, most likely via a DeSantis candidacy, to defeat Donald Trump in 2024.Unfortunately this model works best when you have a trusted figure, a known quantity, delivering the “I’ll be your warrior, I’ll defeat the left” message. The Cawthorn race, in which the toxic congressman was unseated by a member of the North Carolina State Senate, shows that this figure doesn’t have to be an incumbent to succeed, especially if other statewide leaders provide unified support. But if you have neither unity nor a figure with statewide prominence or incumbency as your champion — no Kemp, no Little — then you can get results like Mastriano’s victory last night in Pennsylvania: a Republican nominee for governor who cannot be trusted to carry out his constitutional duties should the presidential election be close in 2024.So now the obligation returns to the Democrats. Mastriano certainly deserves to lose the general election, and probably he will. But throughout the whole Trumpian experience, the Democratic Party has consistently failed its own tests of responsibility: It has talked constantly about the threat to democracy while moving leftward to a degree that makes it difficult to impossible to hold the center, and it has repeatedly cheered on unfit Republican candidates on the theory that they will be easier to beat.This happened conspicuously with Trump himself, and more unforgivably it happened again with Mastriano: Pennsylvania Democrats sent out mailers boosting his candidacy and ran a big ad buy, more than twice Mastriano’s own TV spending, calling him “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters” — an “attack” line perfectly scripted to improve his primary support.Now they have him, as they had Trump in 2016. We’ll see if they can make the story end differently this time.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      Congress Is Paralyzed on Guns. Here’s Why Chris Murphy Is Still Hopeful.

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      The Democrat from Connecticut, who has spent his decade in the Senate trying and failing to enact gun safety bills, says his party should make the issue the core of its 2022 midterm message.WASHINGTON — It did not take long after the racist gun massacre in Buffalo for a familiar sense of resignation to set in on Capitol Hill about the chance that Congress would be able to muster the will to act on meaningful legislation to combat gun violence in America.In emotional remarks at the scene of the mass shooting on Tuesday, President Biden made no direct call for Congress to take such action. Afterward, he told reporters that he intended to do so, but was frank about his belief that persuading lawmakers to move would be “very difficult.”Around the same time, top Democrats on Capitol Hill were publicly conceding that their paper-thin majority in the Senate meant there was little they would be able to do to prevent the next tragedy.“We’re kind of stuck where we are, for the time being,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, playing down the chance that even a modest bill to strengthen background checks for gun purchases could overcome a Republican blockade.Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, shares his colleagues’ skepticism that any legislation can move. But he is also concerned that Democrats may squander a chance to turn the issue of gun safety into a rallying cry for the midterm elections.For a decade, the issue of gun violence has defined Mr. Murphy’s career; the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., took place a month after he won his seat.Mr. Murphy spoke to The New York Times from a Senate cloakroom about the chances for legislative action on guns, what Mr. Biden should do and why he thinks Democrats will lose control of Congress if they don’t make combating gun violence the core of their 2022 appeal to voters.The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, when 20 young children and six adults were killed, did Democrats and President Barack Obama miss the opportunity to pass meaningful gun safety legislation?There was this popular meme in 2013, which said that if the killing of 20 children didn’t result in any action, nothing will. That’s fundamentally the wrong way to look at how Washington works. There are few epiphanies here. It’s all about political power, and political muscle, and we’re in the process of building our own.The National Rifle Association and the gun lobby was ready for us, and for those parents, in 2013. The anti-gun-violence movement was essentially nonexistent, and the N.R.A. was at its peak power.From Opinion: The Buffalo ShootingCommentary from Times Opinion on the massacre at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo.The Times Editorial Board: The mass shooting in Buffalo was an extreme expression of a political worldview that has become increasingly central to the G.O.P.’s identity.Jamelle Bouie: G.O.P. politicians and conservative media personalities did not create the idea of the “great replacement,” but they have adopted it.Paul Krugman: There is a direct line from Republicans’ embrace of crank economics, to Jan. 6, to Buffalo.Sway: In the latest episode of her podcast, Kara Swisher hosts a discussion on the role of internet platforms like 4chan, Facebook and Twitch in the attack.We needed time to build up a movement that is stronger than the gun lobby.My worry is that a lot of my colleagues still believe in the mythology of 1994, when everyone thought Democrats lost Congress over the assault weapons ban. That’s not true — that’s not why Congress flipped. Ever since then, Democrats are under the illusion that it’s a losing issue for us.It’s one of the most important wedge issues, and if we don’t talk about it, then we’re going to lose.Many are urging Senator Chuck Schumer and Mr. Durbin to bring up a bill to expand background checks. Even if it couldn’t pass, it would force Republicans to defend their opposition to a policy that polls show has broad support. Should they?There are times when show votes help define the parties. I’m not confident this is one of those moments, given the fact that it’s already pretty clear which side Republicans fall on and which side Democrats fall on.My main recommendation is for Democrats to go out and run on this issue, proudly and strongly. My worry is we would have a vote on the Senate floor, but then Democrats would not be willing to go out and talk about that vote in campaigns.The only way we actually change the dynamic on this issue is to make Republicans show we believe this is a winning electoral issue. That’s what we did in 2018. My worry is, we don’t feel the same confidence in this issue as a winning electoral issue in 2022.I don’t know why we don’t learn a lesson from 2018, that when we run strongly on the issue of guns, universal background checks, banning assault weapons, we turn out voters that otherwise would stay home in the midterms. I’ve talked to Senator Schumer about bringing a vote to the Senate floor. I’m not interested in taking a vote on the Senate floor if we don’t talk about it.If legislation can’t pass, what executive actions are you pushing the administration to take?There is still a ton of harmful gray area around the question of who needs to be a licensed gun dealer. There are a lot of folks peddling guns online and at gun shows who are truly in the business of selling guns, and should be required to do background checks. President Obama put out helpful, but not binding, guidance. The administration could put some real meat on the existing statute and define what it means to be in the business of selling guns.Have you pitched that to them?I have. There has been significant interest from the White House in pursuing that line of policy. I don’t know that they have made a commitment or issued any directive to the Justice Department.Do you support eliminating the filibuster in order to pass gun reforms?One hundred percent. The reason we can’t get this done is the rules of the Senate, not because the American people haven’t made a choice.Guns were one of the most important issues for voters in 2018; it ranked second behind health care. When voters came to the polls in 2018 and elected a Democratic majority in the House, it was with the explicit purpose of getting gun legislation passed. The same voters came back and elected a Democratic president. It’s simply the rules of the Senate that stopped the will of the American people from becoming law.Is there anything happening in terms of discussions with Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, about trying to revive their bill to tighten background checks?There’s nothing new happening now. Manchin-Toomey doesn’t have 60 votes. I spent much of the last two years trying to find a piece of Manchin-Toomey that could get 60 votes. Ultimately, we couldn’t find a landing place. I’ll continue to try any creative avenue to find an expansion of background checks.Does a weakened National Rifle Association create any opening for Republicans to move off their opposition to gun safety measures?This N.R.A. stamp of approval still really matters to them. Inside a Republican Party that has become bereft of big ideas, they’ve only got one left, which is the destruction of government. Nothing signals that more than the endorsement of the organization that supports people arming themselves against the government. In this era of anti-government fervor, it’s more important than ever.Eventually, we have to figure out a way for Republicans to show how much they hate government other than the N.R.A. endorsement. Maybe I should be rooting for the Club for Growth to be a more effective voice within the Republican Party.Can guns really be a winning issue for Democrats in a year when Republicans are attacking your party over inflation, rising gas prices and not meeting the basic needs of American families?I think voters are emotionally moved by the slaughter of innocents. And I think they find it a little weird when Democrats who claim to care about this don’t actually talk about it.We live in an era where authenticity is the coin of the realm. You just have to show voters who you are. I don’t think there’s any more potent means by which to translate who you are, and what you care about, than this issue. I think when you leave this out when you list your priorities as a candidate, it causes voters to scratch their heads a bit.What grade would you give the Biden administration on this issue?The administration could have moved faster on executive actions and the appointment of a new A.T.F. director. I want them to keep going. There’s still more regulatory and executive action that this administration can take and more things the team can do to use the bully pulpit to make sure this is an election issue.Would you give the administration a grade?No.A number of gun violence prevention organizations have called on Mr. Biden to open a White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Do you think that would make a difference?I do. It’s become clear to me we need a specific, driving focus on gun violence. The president is clearly personally committed to this issue, but he’s stretched thin due to myriad international and domestic crises. He would be best served by a high-level senior official who wakes up every day and coordinates the issue.After another mass shooting like the one in Buffalo, do you find yourself becoming resigned to the idea that nothing can be done on gun violence?I’ve studied enough great social change movements to know they often take decades to succeed. It was a full 10 years from the shooting of James Brady to the passage of the Brady handgun bill. I think I am part of one of these great social change movements, and I’m confident that you have to put up with a lot of failures before you’re met with success.I also don’t think democracy can allow for 80 percent of the American people to not get their way, forever. Eventually we will be able to break through. We just have not been able to find that pathway yet.This is an exhausting issue to work on, but I have this very deep sense that I will see my time in public service as a failure if I don’t meet the expectations of those parents in Sandy Hook, and Hartford and Bridgeport. And fear is a powerful motivator. More

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      Is John Fetterman the Future of the Democratic Party?

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      John Fetterman’s resounding victory in the Democratic Pennsylvania Senate primary was not surprising, but it was uncharacteristic.Pennsylvania Democrats do not ordinarily veer too far from the center lane, and they are cautious about whom they send forward from their primary elections to take on Republicans in general elections. They’re not gamblers, and given the state’s perennially up-for-grabs status and its unforgiving electoral math, you could argue they shouldn’t be.But on Tuesday, Democrats made Mr. Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, their nominee to compete for the seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Pat Toomey. (They did it despite Mr. Fetterman’s recent health scare; last week he suffered a stroke, but he said that he was on his way to “a full recovery.”)Conor Lamb, 37, a Pittsburgh-area congressman, would have been a more conventional choice. His House voting record tracks to the center, and he has been compared to the state’s three-term Democratic senator, Bob Casey, a moderate and the son of a former Pennsylvania governor.Mr. Fetterman, 52, offers something different, a new model for Pennsylvania. It is built on quirky personal and political appeal rather than the caution of a traditional Democrat in the Keystone State. With over 80 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Fetterman was more than doubling the total of Mr. Lamb, whose campaign, despite winning many more endorsements from party leaders, never gained momentum.For Democrats, the stakes are high: The outcome may well determine the balance of the evenly divided U.S. Senate, future votes to confirm Supreme Court nominees and much else in our bitterly divided nation.Nearly every story about Mr. Fetterman points out his 6-foot-8 frame, shaved head, tattoos and preferred attire — work clothes from Carhartt, a brand long favored by construction workers and miners and more recently by hip-hop artists. He sometimes attends public events in baggy gym shorts.It is all part of a style that has won him passionate followers among progressive Democrats. Mr. Fetterman has been a frequent presence on MSNBC and is a skilled social media practitioner, with over 400,000 Twitter followers. (His dogs, Levi and Artie, have their own Twitter account and more than 25,000 followers.) It can sometimes seem that he skirts the line between being a traditional candidate and an internet influencer.“Fetterman doesn’t have supporters so much as full-on fans,” The Philadelphia Inquirer noted during the campaign. “Fans who write songs about him, buy his merch and know his life story.”Mr. Fetterman has served as lieutenant governor since 2019 and, before that, for four terms was the mayor of Braddock, a town east of Pittsburgh with just over 1,700 residents. He vows to conduct a “67-county campaign” — the whole of Pennsylvania.Rebecca Katz, his senior political adviser, told me that she believes the campaign’s mantra of “every county, every vote” is being received with too much skepticism and said that people “haven’t seen what kind of map he can run on in Pennsylvania.”But he still must solve the math of an evenly divided state: A Democrat hoping to win in Pennsylvania has to thread an electoral needle.Mr. Fetterman will face either the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz or the financier David McCormick.In the fall, Mr. Fetterman will need to pile up huge winning margins in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and win by healthy margins in their suburbs and the state’s few other pockets of blue in order to withstand the lopsided totals that Republicans win nearly everywhere else.In less populous counties, as recently as 2008, Barack Obama took 40 percent of the vote or more, but as polarization has increased, Democrats have struggled to get even 25 percent.State Democrats hoped that Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native and senator from neighboring Delaware — and a white septuagenarian running in a state that is whiter and older than the national average — could reverse that trend. But he did only marginally better than Hillary Clinton four years earlier, cutting the margins by a couple of percentage points but hardly reversing the trend of Democrats being routed in the smaller counties.That Mr. Biden could not do better outside the cities and close-in suburbs has made many Democrats pessimistic about what’s possible in those areas. Mr. Fetterman’s background, his attention to the state’s rural communities and his manner — the work clothes, a straightforward speaking style — could make some difference. In the winning Fetterman model, he narrows the massive margins that have been run up by Republicans.His positions do not differ that much from more traditional Democrats’, but some of his central concerns do set him apart. A signature issue has been the legalization of marijuana — “legal weed,” as he calls it. He has flown a flag displaying cannabis leaves from the official lieutenant governor’s office, alongside a rainbow-colored L.G.B.T.Q. banner.The advocacy of legal marijuana may be the rare issue that draws support from unpredictable corners and crosses all kinds of lines — including urban and rural.The lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania has few defined duties, but as chairman of the Board of Pardons, Mr. Fetterman modernized an outdated system and granted clemency in cases where it was long overdue.Mr. Fetterman’s one glaring departure from progressive causes, and a nod to Pennsylvania realpolitik, is that he does not support a ban on fracking, the environmentally questionable hydraulic extraction of natural gas. Tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians have benefited financially from it by selling drilling rights on their land, working in the industry or both.Mr. Fetterman’s most worrisome vulnerability is his appeal to his party’s most dependable voting bloc: Black voters in Philadelphia and the state’s other urban centers, the places where any Democrat running statewide must mine the largest trove of votes. Only about 10 percent of the state’s voters are Black, but they are an essential component of the margins that the party runs up in the cities.Mr. Fetterman’s challenge stems in large part from a 2013 incident in Braddock, when he used his shotgun to stop a Black jogger and detained him until police arrived. Mr. Fetterman, who was mayor at the time, told police he had heard gunshots in the area and suspected the jogger. Police searched the man down and released him after they found no weapon.The incident has come up during the campaign, and Mr. Fetterman’s responses have been awkward, at best.“He has said he did not actually point the gun, but what difference does that make?” said Mark Kelly Tyler, the pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation’s oldest A.M.E. churches. “Even if he admitted that it was from his implicit bias and says that he has learned from it, that would actually be better. It would be accepted.”Mr. Tyler said that if Mr. Fetterman does not do a better job of explaining it, the incident will be “weaponized on Black talk radio and elsewhere” and used by his opponent in the fall to depress turnout.Mr. Fetterman won by huge margins all across Pennsylvania, with one notable exception: Philadelphia. There, it was a close race against a third Democratic primary candidate, Malcolm Kenyatta, a city resident and the first Black openly gay L.G.B.T.Q. member of the state legislature.With the primary complete, everything is reset. In a big state with six television markets, the candidates will likely combine to spend $200 million or more — much of it, undoubtedly, in an attempt to label each other as too extreme for middle-of-the-road Pennsylvania.Mr. Fetterman’s progressive politics and persona appeal to younger people. They lean to the left and are always potentially influential in any election. But they are also traditionally the least reliable voters, especially in nonpresidential years.In Pennsylvania and all other battleground states, it always comes down to the math. The state’s graying electorate does not always like new things or ideas.Mr. Fetterman is ultimately going to have to go where the votes are. And if he has a problem with Black voters, he will have to solve it.Michael Sokolove, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, is the author of “Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town and the Magic of Theater,” which is set in his hometown, Levittown, Pa.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

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      Here’s what you need to know at the end of the day.(Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.)Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Tuesday.President Biden and Jill Biden, at a memorial outside the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, today.Doug Mills/The New York Times1. In a speech in Buffalo today, President Biden called white supremacy “a poison” and Saturday’s racist massacre “domestic terrorism” and shared each victim’s name and story.Biden and his wife, Jill, met with victims’ families before the speech, in which Biden denounced “replacement theory” and condemned those “who spread the lie for power, political gain and for profit.” Biden added, “I don’t know why we don’t admit what the hell is going on.” But he stopped short of naming influential proponents of the conspiracy theory, like Tucker Carlson.Not all residents welcomed his words: “I could care less about what Biden said. I want to see action,” one resident said. “I want to see our community actually get help.”Biden voiced support for getting assault weapons off the streets but, before leaving, said he could do little on gun control via executive action and that it would be hard to get Congress to act.The Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, on Sunday.Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters2. By early Tuesday, more than 260 Ukrainian fighters at the Mariupol steel mill had surrendered to Russia. Their fate is uncertain, as is that of hundreds more still in the plant.The soldiers laid down arms under orders from their country’s military, after very secretive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. The surrender seems to end the war’s longest battle so far, solidifying one of Russia’s few major territorial gains.What happens next is unclear. The evacuated soldiers were taken to Russian-controlled territory, where Ukrainian officials said the fighters would be swapped for Russian prisoners. But the Kremlin did not confirm the swap and signaled that it might level war-crimes charges against the soldiers.Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine appear farther apart than ever on peace negotiations.Voters in Asheville, N.C., cast their ballots today.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times3. Five states held primaries today.No state is more closely watched than Pennsylvania. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who spent the day recovering from a stroke, is the front-runner for the Democratic Senate nomination over Representative Conor Lamb. Three candidates are neck and neck in the Republican Senate race; Dr. Mehmet Oz, a celebrity physician endorsed by Donald Trump, was slightly ahead in polls. The former president also endorsed Doug Mastriano, a far-right loyalist who has promoted conspiracy theories and is the leading Republican candidate for governor. Officials said that final election results might not come tonight.Madison Cawthorn, the controversial G.O.P. representative, is in a closely watched race in North Carolina. In Idaho, an extreme far-right candidate is running against its conservative governor. Oregon and Kentucky also held primaries; check in with us for results.Attorney General Merrick Garland in the White House Rose Garden.Sarah Silbiger for The New York Times4. The Justice Department is requesting transcripts from the Jan. 6 committee.The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol has interviewed more than 1,000 people so far. And the Justice Department has asked the committee to send transcripts of any interviews it is conducting — including discussions with Trump’s inner circle, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.The transcripts could be used as evidence in potential criminal cases or to pursue new leads. The move comes amid signs that Attorney General Merrick Garland is ramping up the pace of his painstaking investigation into the Capitol attack, which coincided with the certification of the election that the former president lost.Capistrano Unified School District, in Orange County, Calif., has lost over 2,800 students since 2020.Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times5. America’s public schools have lost at least 1.2 million students since 2020.Experts point to two potential causes: Some parents became so fed up with remote instruction or mask mandates that they started home-schooling their children or sending them to private schools that largely remained open during the pandemic. Other families were thrown into such turmoil by pandemic-related job losses, homelessness and school closures that their children dropped out.While a broad decline was underway as birth and immigration rates have fallen, the pandemic supercharged that drop in ways that experts say will not easily be reversed.Elon Musk, chaos agent.Susan Walsh/Associated Press6. Is he in or out?The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, raised further doubts about his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, saying (on Twitter) that “this deal cannot move forward” until he gets more details about the volume of spam and fake accounts on the platform.Musk has latched onto the issue of fake accounts, which Twitter says make up fewer than 5 percent of its total, in a move that some analysts figure is an attempt to drive down the acquisition price, or walk away from the deal.The social media company is pressing ahead. In a lengthy regulatory filing, Twitter’s board urged shareholders to vote in favor of the deal, and provided a play-by-play view of how the board reached an agreement with Musk last month.A baby formula display shelf at Rite Aid in San Diego, Calif. on May 10, 2022.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times7. More baby formula may be on the way.As a national shortage of infant formula put many parents on edge, the F.D.A. announced an agreement with Abbott Laboratories to reopen the company’s shuttered baby formula plant.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4In Mariupol. More