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      Kevin McCarthy Claims G.O.P. Does Not Doubt Biden's 2020 Win

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      Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, suggested on Wednesday that members of his party recognized that President Biden had been legitimately elected, four months after he and 146 other Republicans voted to overturn the election results.“I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters after meeting with Mr. Biden and congressional leaders at the White House to discuss infrastructure spending. “I think that is all over with. We’re sitting here with the president today. So from that point of view, I don’t think that’s a problem.”In reality, numerous Republican lawmakers continue to question the legitimacy of the presidential election, in lock step with former President Donald J. Trump. Hours before Mr. McCarthy made his comments, he joined other House Republicans in voting to oust Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from her leadership position for repudiating the former president’s election lies and denouncing the lawmakers who encouraged them.Ms. Cheney’s likely replacement, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, recently claimed that election officials had engaged in “unprecedented, unconstitutional overreach” last year and expressed support for a Republican-led audit of the 2020 election results in Arizona, part of a continued effort to cast doubt on Mr. Biden’s victory there.Other congressional Republicans, including Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, have also endorsed the Arizona audit, and the lie that the election was stolen has fueled a barrage of restrictive voting bills across the country.In January, 147 Republican lawmakers voted against certifying Mr. Biden’s victory. When asked point-blank whether they believed Mr. Biden won the election legitimately, they rarely give a straight answer. And the few who have spoken out against efforts to delegitimize the election, or who have publicly criticized Mr. Trump’s actions related to the election — such as Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio — have been rebuked.Addressing her fellow Republicans before they voted to oust her Wednesday morning, Ms. Cheney said that they should not “let the former president drag us backward,” and that if they wanted a leader who would “enable and spread his destructive lies,” they should vote to remove her.They responded with jeers. More

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      House, Biden Administration Reach Deal Over McGahn Testimony

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      A terse announcement signaled a possible end to a long-running constitutional lawsuit. But former President Donald J. Trump is not a party to the arrangement.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and House Democrats have reached a tentative deal to allow President Donald J. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to testify before Congress about Mr. Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Russia inquiry, according to a court filing late Tuesday.The deal appears likely to avert a definitive court precedent that would draw a clear line in an ambiguous areas: the scope and limits of Congress’s constitutional power to compel testimony for its oversight responsibilities, and a president’s constitutional power to keep secret conversations with a White House lawyer.An appeals court had been set to hear arguments on the case next week, but lawyers for the Justice Department, which has been defending Mr. McGahn since 2019 against a House subpoena seeking to compel his testimony, and for the House of Representatives asked the court in a joint letter to drop that plan as mooted by the deal.“The Committee on the Judiciary and the executive branch have reached an agreement in principle on an accommodation and anticipate filing, as soon as possible, a joint motion asking the court to remove this case from the May 19, 2021, oral argument calendar in order to allow the parties to implement the accommodation,” the letter said.What to do about the subpoena case, which President Biden inherited from the Trump administration, has been a rare locus of institutional disagreement among Democrats in the two branches.Lawyers in the Biden White House have been hesitant about establishing a precedent that Republicans might someday use to force them to testify about their own internal matters. House Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been determined to push forward after frustration that the Trump administration’s uncompromising approach and litigation strategy ran out the clock, preventing any testimony by Mr. McGahn before the 2020 presidential election.The two sides had been negotiating for several months, leading to delays in the appeals court case. The filing was terse and offered no details about the deal, including what limits, if any, there would be — like whether Mr. McGahn would testify in public and the scope of what lawmakers could ask him to disclose.But the filing also flagged a potential wild card: “Former President Trump, who is not a party to this case, is not a party to the agreement in principle regarding an accommodation,” it said.That absence leaves open the question of whether Mr. Trump could try to intervene to block Mr. McGahn from testifying by asserting executive privilege. An attempt to invoke it by Mr. Trump would raise novel questions about the extent to which a former president may assert the privilege when the incumbent president declines to do so.Should Mr. Trump try to intervene, a rare but limited precedent is a 1977 case, Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Richard M. Nixon could assert executive privilege claims over official records from his White House even though he was no longer the president — but it also weighed that assertion against the contrary view of Jimmy Carter, the president at the time.That dispute, however, centered on control of Nixon-era White House documents, not a subpoena for a former White House lawyer’s testimony.The present dispute centers on the House Judiciary Committee’s desire to question Mr. McGahn about matters related to his role as a key witness in the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, about efforts by Mr. Trump to obstruct the Russia investigation.After the Justice Department made most of the report public, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Mr. McGahn to testify. After he refused to appear, on Mr. Trump’s instructions, the committee sued.The case has gone through several rounds of convoluted legal fights over constitutional issues that have lacked definitive precedents because previous disputes had generally been resolved with a negotiated compromise, averting a need for a court ruling.But the lawsuit over the McGahn subpoena is one of an unprecedented number of cases pitting the two branches against each other in court that arose after Democrats took the House in the 2018 midterm elections and Mr. Trump vowed to stonewall “all” subpoenas.First, the Justice Department under Mr. Trump had argued that Mr. McGahn was “absolutely immune” from any compelled appearance before Congress to testify about his work duties. Last year, the full District of Columbia Circuit rejected that theory.The Justice Department then continued to fight the subpoena on other legal grounds, arguing that Congress had no “cause of action” that authorized it to sue the executive branch. (The executive branch has taken that position under administrations of both parties, and the Biden administration had signaled that it was prepared to keep arguing it.)The apparent resolution of the McGahn subpoena case — unless Mr. Trump disrupts it — is similar to a dispute in 2009, when President Barack Obama took office and inherited a House lawsuit over a subpoena for testimony by President George W. Bush’s former White House counsel Harriet Miers related to the firings of United States attorneys.The Obama administration, a lawyer for the House and a legal representative of Mr. Bush worked out a deal under which Democrats were able to confidentially interview Ms. Miers about the topic, with limits. That accommodation mooted the case, so the District of Columbia Circuit never issued a binding ruling, leaving the legal questions it raised unresolved. More

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      Sin redes sociales y con baja aprobación, Trump sigue mandando en el Partido Republicano

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      La difamación de Liz Cheney y un extraño recuento de votos en Arizona mostraron el daño de su asalto a la base de la democracia: la integridad electoral.Suspendido de Facebook, aislado en Mar-a-Lago y objeto de burlas por su nueva red social no profesional, Donald Trump estuvo gran parte de la semana pasada fuera de la vista del público. Sin embargo, tanto la capitulación del Partido Republicano ante el expresidente como el daño a la política estadounidense que provocó con su mentira de que le robaron las elecciones fueron más evidentes que nunca.En Washington, los republicanos le retiraron su puesto de liderazgo en la Cámara Baja a la representante Liz Cheney como castigo por considerar que las falsas aseveraciones de fraude electoral hechas por Trump eran una amenaza a la democracia. Los legisladores de Florida y Texas adelantaron nuevas medidas radicales para restringir las votaciones, lo cual respalda la narrativa ficticia de Trump y sus aliados de que el sistema electoral fue manipulado en su contra. Y en Arizona, el Partido Republicano estatal dio inicio a una extraña revisión de los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre al buscar rastros de bambú en las boletas electorales del año pasado.Estos agitados melodramas ponen de relieve hasta qué grado, seis meses después de las elecciones, Estados Unidos sigue enfrentando las consecuencias del ataque sin precedentes —por parte de un candidato a la presidencia que estaba perdiendo— al principio fundamental de la democracia estadounidense: la legitimidad de las elecciones.También ofrecen sólidas evidencias de que el expresidente no solo ha logrado sofocar cualquier oposición dentro de su partido, sino que también ha convencido a la mayor parte de esa agrupación política para que haga una enorme apuesta: que la manera más segura de volver a lograr el poder es adoptando su estilo pugilístico, el divisionismo racial y las inaceptables teorías conspirativas, en vez de atraer a los electores suburbanos indecisos que le quitaron la Casa Blanca al partido y que quizás estén buscando políticas de fondo para la pandemia, la economía, la atención médica y otros temas.La lealtad al expresidente continúa a pesar de que haya azuzado a sus partidarios antes del asalto del 6 de enero al Capitolio y sus seguidores ignoran, redefinen o, en algunos casos, aprueban de manera tácita el letal ataque al Congreso.“Nos hemos alejado demasiado de cualquier interpretación sensata”, dijo Barbara Comstock, una veterana funcionaria del partido a quien le arrebataron su escaño suburbano de Virginia cuando los electores castigaron a Trump en las elecciones intermedias de 2018. “Es una verdadera enfermedad la que está atacando al partido en todos los niveles. Ahora simplemente vamos a decir que lo blanco es negro”.No obstante, mientras los republicanos se refugian en la fantasía de unas elecciones robadas, los demócratas están concentrados en el trabajo cotidiano de gobernar un país que sigue teniendo dificultades para salir de una mortífera pandemia.Los estrategas de ambos partidos afirman que es probable que la dinámica discordante —dos partidos que funcionan en realidades diferentes— defina la política del país en los años venideros.Al mismo tiempo, el presidente Joe Biden enfrenta un reto más general: qué hacer con respecto al amplio segmento de la población que duda de su legitimidad y un Partido Republicano que busca el apoyo de ese segmento al promover proyectos de ley que restrinjan las votaciones y tal vez debiliten más la confianza en las elecciones futuras.En una encuesta de CNN publicada la semana pasada, se descubrió que casi una tercera parte de los estadounidenses, incluyendo el 70 por ciento de los republicanos, decían que Biden no había ganado de manera legítima los votos para obtener la presidencia.Se espera que la representante Liz Cheney, la tercera republicana de alto rango en la Cámara, sea destituida de su cargo después de expresarse en contra de Trump.Stefani Reynolds para The New York TimesLos colaboradores de la Casa Blanca afirman que Biden cree que la mejor manera de recuperar la confianza en el proceso democrático es demostrar que el gobierno puede otorgarles beneficios tangibles a los electores (ya sean vacunas o cheques de estímulo económico).Dan Sena, un estratega demócrata que supervisó las acciones del Comité de Campaña del Congreso Demócrata para ganar la Cámara durante las últimas elecciones de mitad de periodo, dijo que el enfoque republicano en cuestiones culturales, como la prohibición de los atletas transgénero, era beneficioso para su partido. Muchos demócratas solo enfrentarán ataques dispersos en su agenda mientras continúan oponiéndose a la retórica polarizadora de Trump, que ayudó a que su partido se impusiera en distritos suburbanos en 2018 y 2020.“Preferiría tener un historial de estar del lado de los estadounidenses en la recuperación”, dijo Sena. “¿Qué historia quiere escuchar el público estadounidense: lo que han hecho los demócratas para que el país vuelva a reactivarse o Donald Trump y su guerra cultural?”.Durante su campaña, Biden predijo que los republicanos tendrían una “revelación” cuando ya se hubiera ido Trump y que volverían a ser el partido que él conoció durante las décadas que estuvo en el Senado. Cuando la semana pasada le preguntaron sobre los republicanos, Biden se quejó de que ya no los entendía y parecía un poco desconcertado por la “minirrevolución” dentro de sus filas.“Creo que los republicanos están más lejos de lo que pensé de determinar quiénes son y qué representan en este momento”, comentó.Sin embargo, durante gran parte de la semana pasada, los republicanos mostraron de manera muy elocuente qué es exactamente lo que representan: el trumpismo. Muchos de ellos han adoptado su estrategia de inducir las quejas de los blancos con enunciados racistas, y las legislaturas controladas por republicanos en todo el país están promoviendo restricciones que limiten el acceso al voto de tal forma que los electores de color se vean afectados de una manera desproporcionada.También existen consideraciones electorales donde hay mucho en juego. Con su estilo tan polarizador, Trump incitó tanto a sus bases como a sus detractores y presionó a ambos partidos a registrar la participación de los votantes en las elecciones de 2020. El total que obtuvo de 74 millones de votos fue el segundo más alto de toda la historia, solo detrás del total de 81 millones de votos para Biden, y Trump ha demostrado su capacidad para poner a sus partidarios políticos en contra de cualquier republicano que lo contradiga.Eso ha hecho que los republicanos sientan que deben mostrar una lealtad inquebrantable al expresidente con el fin de conservar los electores que ganó.“Solo les diría esto a mis colegas republicanos: ¿podemos seguir adelante sin el presidente Trump? La respuesta es no”, comentó esta semana en una entrevista de Fox News el senador por Carolina del Sur, Lindsey Graham. “Estoy convencido de que no podemos crecer sin él”.En algunas formas, el expresidente está más debilitado que nunca. Tras haber sido derrotado en las urnas, pasa su tiempo jugando golf y recibiendo visitas en su desarrollo turístico de Florida. Le hace falta la tribuna de la presidencia, lo han bloqueado de Twitter y no logró recuperar el acceso a su cuenta de Facebook la semana pasada. Dejó el cargo con un índice de aprobación de menos del 40 por ciento, el menor porcentaje al final de un primer periodo de cualquier presidente desde Jimmy Carter.Sin embargo, su dominio se ve reflejado desde el Congreso hasta las legislaturas estatales. Los legisladores locales y federales que han presionado para que su partido acepte los resultados de las elecciones, y por tanto la derrota de Trump, han enfrentado una condena constante y disputas de sus escaños por parte de miembros de su propio partido en las elecciones primarias. Parece que esas amenazas están teniendo impacto: el pequeño número de funcionarios republicanos que han criticado a Trump en el pasado, incluyendo diez que votaron a favor de su enjuiciamiento político en febrero, guardaron silencio, se rehusaron a dar entrevistas y le brindaron poco respaldo público a Cheney.La representante Elise Stefanik, quien probablemente la sustituya, se promovió públicamente para ese puesto y, en entrevistas con partidarios de extrema derecha del expresidente, mostró la buena fe que le tiene a Trump al darle credibilidad a sus infundadas aseveraciones de fraude electoral.El Partido Republicano llevó a cabo una revisión quijotesca de los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre, en Arizona.Foto de consorcio de Matt YorkEl enfoque en las elecciones ha desplazado casi cualquier discusión sobre política u ortodoxia partidaria. Heritage Action, una organización que califica a los legisladores según sus registros de votación conservadores, le otorgó a Cheney una calificación del 82 por ciento. Stefanik, quien tiene un historial de votación más moderado pero es una defensora mucho más vocal del expresidente, obtuvo un 52 por ciento.Stefanik y muchos otros líderes republicanos están apostando a que el camino para mantener los logros electorales de la era Trump radica en avivar su base con las políticas populistas que son fundamentales para la marca del presidente, incluso si repelen a los votantes indecisos.Después de varios meses en que los medios de comunicación conservadores han dicho mentiras sobre las elecciones, una buena parte de los republicanos han llegado a aceptarlas como verdaderas.Sarah Longwell, una estratega republicana que durante años ha estado conduciendo grupos de debate de los partidarios de Trump, mencionó que desde las elecciones había descubierto una mayor apertura a lo que ella llama “una curiosidad por QAnon”, que es la disposición a considerar teorías conspirativas sobre el robo de las elecciones y un Estado profundo. “Muchos de estos electores de las bases están viviendo en una negación de la verdad en la que no creen en nada y piensan que todo podría ser mentira”, comentó Longwell, quien impugnó a Trump.Algunos estrategas republicanos están preocupados por la posibilidad de que el partido esté perdiendo oportunidades para atacar a Biden, quien ha propuesto los planes de gastos e impuestos más radicales en generaciones.“Los republicanos deben volver a los temas que realmente les interesan a los votantes, rociar algunos comentarios sobre la guerra cultural aquí y allá, pero no dejarse llevar”, dijo Scott Reed, un estratega republicano veterano que ayudó a aplastar a los populistas de derecha en elecciones pasadas. “Pero algunos están haciendo una industria basada en dejarse llevar”.Aunque aferrarse a Trump podría ayudar a que el partido aumente la participación de sus bases, los republicanos como Comstock sostienen que esa estrategia dañará al partido con una población esencial que incluye a los electores jóvenes, los de color, a las mujeres y a los residentes de los suburbios. Ya están surgiendo luchas interpartidistas en las elecciones primarias emergentes debido a que los candidatos se acusan unos a otros de deslealtad al expresidente. Muchos líderes del partido temen que eso dé como resultado que salgan victoriosos los candidatos de extrema derecha y que al final pierdan las elecciones generales en los estados conservadores donde los republicanos deberían dominar, como Misuri y Ohio.“No queremos llegar a declarar a Trump ganador de una minoría menguante”, afirmó Comstock. “El futuro del partido no será un hombre de 70 años hablándole al espejo en Mar-a-Lago y todos estos aduladores haciendo maromas para obtener su aprobación”.Sin embargo, quienes se han opuesto a Trump —y pagado el precio— afirman que hay pocos incentivos políticos para ir contra la corriente. Criticar a Trump, e incluso defender a quienes lo hacen, puede hacer que los funcionarios electos se queden en una especie de tierra de nadie política, que sean considerados traidores a los electores republicanos, pero también demasiado conservadores en otros temas como para ser aceptados por los demócratas y los independientes.“Parece que se está volviendo cada vez más difícil que la gente salga a hacer campaña y defienda a alguien como Liz Cheney o Mitt Romney”, afirmó esta semana durante una presentación en un panel de la Universidad de Harvard el exsenador Jeff Flake, quien respaldó a Biden y obtuvo el repudio del Partido Republicano de Arizona. “Es posible que cerca del 70 por ciento de los republicanos realmente crean que les robaron las elecciones y eso es incapacitante. En verdad lo es”.Lisa Lerer es una periodista que vive en Washington, donde cubre campañas electorales, votaciones y poder político. Antes de unirse al Times, cubrió la política nacional estadounidense y la campaña presidencial de 2016 para The Associated Press. @llerer More

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      Trump Still Has Iron Grip on Republicans

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      The vilification of Liz Cheney and a bizarre vote recount in Arizona showed the damage from his assault on a bedrock of democracy: election integrity.Locked out of Facebook, marooned in Mar-a-Lago and mocked for an amateurish new website, Donald J. Trump remained largely out of public sight this week. Yet the Republican Party’s capitulation to the former president became clearer than ever, as did the damage to American politics he has caused with his lie that the election was stolen from him.In Washington, Republicans moved to strip Representative Liz Cheney of her House leadership position, a punishment for denouncing Mr. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud as a threat to democracy. Lawmakers in Florida and Texas advanced sweeping new measures that would curtail voting, echoing the fictional narrative from Mr. Trump and his allies that the electoral system was rigged against him. And in Arizona, the state Republican Party started a bizarre re-examination of the November election results that involved searching for traces of bamboo in last year’s ballots.The churning dramas cast into sharp relief the extent to which the nation, six months after the election, is still struggling with the consequences of an assault by a losing presidential candidate on a bedrock principle of American democracy: that the nation’s elections are legitimate.They also provided stark evidence that the former president has not only managed to squelch any dissent within his party but has also persuaded most of the G.O.P. to make a gigantic bet: that the surest way to regain power is to embrace his pugilistic style, racial divisiveness and beyond-the-pale conspiracy theories rather than to court the suburban swing voters who cost the party the White House and who might be looking for substantive policies on the pandemic, the economy and other issues. The loyalty to the former president persists despite his role in inciting his supporters ahead of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, with his adherents either ignoring, redefining or in some cases tacitly accepting the deadly attack on Congress.“We’ve just gotten so far afield from any sane construction,” said Barbara Comstock, a longtime party official who was swept out of her suburban Virginia congressional seat in the 2018 midterm backlash to Mr. Trump. “It’s a real sickness that is infecting the party at every level. We’re just going to say that black is white now.”Yet as Republicans wrap themselves in the fantasy of a stolen election, Democrats are anchored in the day-to-day business of governing a nation that is still struggling to emerge from a deadly pandemic.Strategists from both parties say that discordant dynamic — two parties operating in two different realities — is likely to define the country’s politics for years to come.At the same time, President Biden faces a broader challenge: what to do about the large segment of the public that doubts his legitimacy and a Republican Party courting the support of that segment by pushing bills that would restrict voting and perhaps further undermine faith in future elections. A CNN poll released last week found that nearly a third of Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, said Biden had not legitimately won enough votes to win the presidency.Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House, is expected to be removed from her leadership post next week after speaking out against Mr. Trump.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesWhite House aides say Mr. Biden believes that the best way to restore some faith in the democratic process is demonstrating that government can deliver tangible benefits — whether vaccines or economic stimulus checks — to voters.Dan Sena, a Democratic strategist who oversaw the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s strategy to win the House during the last midterm elections, said the Republican focus on cultural issues, like bans on transgender athletes, was a “win-win” for his party. Many Democrats will face only scattershot attacks on their agenda while continuing to run against the polarizing rhetoric of Mr. Trump, which helped the party flip suburban swing districts in 2018 and 2020.“I would much rather have a record of siding with Americans on recovery,” Mr. Sena said. “Which tale do the American public want to listen to — what Democrats have done to get the country moving again or Donald Trump and his culture war?”Mr. Biden predicted during the campaign that Republicans would have an “epiphany” once Mr. Trump was gone and would revert to being the party he knew during his decades in the Senate. When asked about Republicans this week, Mr. Biden lamented that he didn’t understand them anymore and appeared slightly flummoxed about the “mini-revolution” in their ranks.“I think the Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point,” he said.But for much of the past week, Republicans put on vivid display exactly what they now stand for: Trumpism. Many have adopted his approach of courting white grievance with racist statements, and Republican-led legislatures across the country are pushing through restrictions that would curtail voting access in ways that disproportionally impact voters of color. There are also high-stakes electoral considerations. With his deeply polarizing style, Mr. Trump motivated his base and his detractors alike, pushing both parties to record voter turnout in the 2020 election. His total of 74 million votes was the second-highest ever, behind only Mr. Biden’s 81 million, and Mr. Trump has shown an ability to turn his political supporters against any Republican who opposes him.That has left Republicans convinced that they must display unwavering fealty to a departed president to retain the voters he won over. “I would just say to my Republican colleagues: Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no,” Senator Lindsey Graham said in an interview on Fox News this week. “I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.”In some ways, the former president is more diminished than ever. Defeated at the polls, he spends his time at his Florida resort playing golf and entertaining visitors. He lacks the bully pulpit of the presidency, has been banished from Twitter and failed this week to have his account restored by Facebook. He left office with his approval rating below 40 percent, the lowest final first-term rating for any president since Jimmy Carter in 1979.Still, his dominance over Republicans is reflected from Congress to statehouses. Local and federal lawmakers who have pushed their party to accept the results of the election, and thus Mr. Trump’s loss, have faced a steady drumbeat of censure and primary challenges. Those threats appear to be having an impact: The small number of Republican officials who have been critical of Mr. Trump in the past, including the 10 who voted for his impeachment in February, remained largely silent this week, refusing interview requests and offering little public support for Ms. Cheney.Her likely replacement, Representative Elise Stefanik, publicly promoted herself for the post and moved to establish her Trump bona fides by lending credence to his baseless voter fraud claims in interviews with hard-right supporters of the former president.The state Republican Party in Arizona undertook a quixotic re-examination of the November election results.Pool photo by Matt YorkThe focus on the election has crowded out nearly any discussion of policy or party orthodoxy. The Heritage Action scorecard, which rates lawmakers on their conservative voting records, awarded Ms. Cheney a lifetime score of 82 percent. Ms. Stefanik, who has a more moderate voting record but is a far more vocal supporter of the former president, scored 52 percent.Ms. Stefanik and many other Republican leaders are betting that the path to keeping the electoral gains of the Trump era lies in stoking their base with the populist politics that are central to the president’s brand, even if they repel swing voters.After months of being fed lies about the election by the conservative news media, much of the party has come to embrace them as true. Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has been conducting focus groups of Trump voters for years, said that since the election she had found an increased openness to what she calls “QAnon curious,” a willingness to entertain conspiracy theories about stolen elections and a deep state. “A lot of these base voters are living in a post-truth nihilism where you believe in nothing and think that everything might be untrue,” said Ms. Longwell, who opposed Mr. Trump. Some Republican strategists worry that the party is missing opportunities to attack Mr. Biden, who has proposed the most sweeping spending and tax plans in generations.“Republicans need to go back to kitchen-table issues that voters really care about, sprinkle in a little culture here and there but not get carried away,” said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist who helped crush right-wing populists in past elections. “And some of them are making an industry out of getting carried away.”While clinging to Mr. Trump could help the party increase turnout among its base, Republicans like Ms. Comstock argue that such a strategy will damage the party with crucial demographics, including younger voters, voters of color, women and suburbanites. Already, intraparty fights are emerging in nascent primaries as candidates accuse each other of disloyalty to the former president. Many party leaders fear that could result in hard-right candidates’ emerging victorious and eventually losing general elections in conservative states where Republicans should prevail, like Missouri and Ohio.“To declare Trump the winner of a shrinking minority, that’s not a territory you want to head up,” Ms. Comstock said. “The future of the party is not going to be some 70-year-old man talking in the mirror at Mar-a-Lago and having all these sycophants come down and do the limbo to get his approval.”Yet those who have objected to Mr. Trump — and paid the price — say there’s little political incentive to pushing against the tide. Criticizing Mr. Trump, or even defending those who do, can leave elected officials in a kind of political no man’s land: seen as traitorous to Republican voters but still too conservative on other issues to be accepted by Democrats and independents.“It’s becoming increasingly difficult, it seems, for people to go out on the stump and defend somebody like Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney,” former Senator Jeff Flake, who endorsed Mr. Biden and was censured by the Arizona Republican Party this year, said during a panel appearance at Harvard this week. “About 70 percent of Republicans probably genuinely believe that the election was stolen, and that’s debilitating. It really is.” More

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      The Stock Market Loves Biden More Than Trump. So Far, at Least.

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      Stocks have soared under the new president, and the Dow has generally preferred Democrats since 1901. But don’t count on that for the future.From the moment he was elected president in 2016 through his failed campaign for re-election, Donald J. Trump invoked the stock market as a report card on the presidency.The market loved him, Mr. Trump said, and it hated Democrats, particularly his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr. During the presidential debate in October, Mr. Trump warned of Mr. Biden: “If he’s elected, the market will crash.” In a variety of settings, he said that Democrats would be a disaster and that a victory for them would set off “a depression,” which would make the stock market “disintegrate.”So far, it hasn’t turned out that way.To the extent that the Dow Jones industrial average measures the stock market’s affection for a president, its early report card says the market loves President Biden’s first days in office considerably more than it loved those of President Trump.Mr. Biden would get an A for this early period; Mr. Trump would receive a B for the market performance during his first days as president, though he would get a higher mark for much of the rest of his term.From Election Day through Thursday, the Dow rose about 26 percent, compared with 14 percent for the same period four years ago. Amid signs that the United States is recovering briskly from the pandemic, early returns for Mr. Biden’s actual time in office have also been exceptional. The stock market’s rise from its close on Inauguration Day to its close on Thursday marked the best start for any presidency since that of another Democrat, Lyndon B. Johnson.For those too young to remember the awful day of Nov. 22, 1963, Johnson, the vice president, was sworn in as president that afternoon after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Measuring stock market performance from the end of the day they were all sworn into office allows us to include Johnson as well as Theodore Roosevelt, who became president on Sept. 14, 1901, after President William McKinley died of gunshot wounds.The Republican Party has long claimed that it is the party of business, and that Republican rule is better for stocks. But the historical record demonstrates that the market has generally performed better under Democratic presidents since the start of the 20th century.Over all, the market under President Biden ranks third for all presidents during a comparable time in office since 1901, according to a tally through Thursday (the Biden administration’s 109th day) by Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group.These are the top performers:Franklin D. Roosevelt, inaugurated March 4, 1933: 78.1 percent.Johnson, inaugurated Nov. 22, 1963: 13.8 percent.Mr. Biden, inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021: 10.8 percent.William H. Taft, inaugurated March 4, 1909: 9.6 percent.Note that three of the top four — Roosevelt, Johnson and Mr. Biden — were Democrats. That fits an apparent pattern. Since 1900, the median stock market gain for Democrats for the start of their presidencies is 7.9 percent; for Republicans, only 2.7 percent.By contrast, the Dow gained 5.8 percent in Mr. Trump’s first days as president. That was a strong return for a Republican, but not quite up to snuff for a Democrat.Now consider longer-term returns — how the Dow performed over the duration of all presidencies, starting in 1901. Again, the market did better under Democrats, with a 6.7 percent gain, annualized, compared with 3.5 percent under Republicans.Using this metric, the Trump administration looks much better, placing fourth among all presidencies.These are the annualized returns for the top-ranking presidents:25.5 percent under Calvin Coolidge, a Republican, in the Roaring Twenties.15.9 percent under Bill Clinton, a Democrat.12.1 percent under Barack Obama, a Democrat.12.0 percent under President Trump.That’s an extraordinarily good market performance under Mr. Trump, when you recall that it includes the stock market collapse of late February and March last year as the world reeled from the coronavirus.The market recovered rapidly once the Federal Reserve jumped in on March 23, 2020, and in response to emergency aid programs enacted by Congress. But neither the market, nor the economy, nor the pandemic improved sufficiently in 2020 to win President Trump another term.As for President Biden, he is undoubtedly benefiting from the upward trajectory in the economy and the markets that started under his predecessor — much as President Trump benefited from the growing economy bequeathed him by President Obama.It doesn’t always work that way. In the Great Depression, the market roared in Franklin Roosevelt’s first 100 days. He offered a hopeful contrast — and a stark break — with his immediate predecessor, Herbert Hoover, who presided over what was then the worst stock market crash in modern history. During Hoover’s four years in office, the Dow lost 35.6 percent annualized, by far the worst performance of any president.The market’s recent boom can be easily explained. Back in July, I cited an investment analysis that suggested the stock market might perform quite well in a Biden presidency, despite Mr. Trump’s claims to the contrary. Those factors included more vigorous and efficient management of the coronavirus crisis, which would promote economic recovery and corporate profits; generous fiscal stimulus programs, with the possibility of colossal infrastructure-building; a return to international engagement accompanied by a reduction in trade friction; and a renewal of America’s global climate-change commitments.So far, that analysis is holding up. But will it lead to strong returns through the Biden administration?I have no idea. Alas, none of this tells us where the stock market is heading. All we know is that it has risen more than it has fallen over the long run, but has moved fairly randomly, day to day, and has sometimes veered into long declines. Another decline could happen at any time, regardless of what any president does.The only approach to investing I’d actively embrace is passive: using low-cost stock and bond index funds to build a well-diversified portfolio and hang on for the long run. And I’d try to ignore the exhortations of politicians, especially those who would tie their own electoral fortunes to the performance of the stock market. More

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      Republicans Attack Democrats as Liberal Extremists to Regain Power

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      As Democrats prepare to run on an ambitious economic agenda, Republicans are working to caricature them as liberal extremists out of touch with voters’ values.WASHINGTON — Minutes after a group of congressional Democrats unveiled a bill recently to add seats to the Supreme Court, the Iowa Republican Party slammed Representative Cindy Axne, a Democrat and potential Senate candidate, over the issue.“Will Axne Pack the Court?” was the headline on a statement the party rushed out, saying the move to expand the court “puts our democracy at risk.”The attack vividly illustrated the emerging Republican strategy for an intensive drive to try to take back the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans are mostly steering clear of Democrats’ economic initiatives that have proved popular, such as an infrastructure package and a stimulus law that coupled pandemic relief with major expansions of safety-net programs, and are focusing instead on polarizing issues that stoke conservative outrage.In doing so, they are seizing on measures like the court-expansion bill and calls to defund the police — which many Democrats oppose — as well as efforts to provide legal status to undocumented immigrants and grant statehood to the District of Columbia to caricature the party as extreme and out of touch with mainstream America.Republicans are also hammering at issues of race and sexual orientation, seeking to use Democrats’ push to confront systemic racism and safeguard transgender rights as attack lines.The approach comes as President Biden and Democrats, eager to capitalize on their unified control of Congress and the White House, have become increasingly bold about speaking about such issues and promoting a wide array of party priorities that languished during years of Republican rule. It has given Republicans ample fodder for attacks that have proved potent in the past.“They are putting the ball on the tee, handing me the club and putting the wind at my back,” said Jeff Kaufmann, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party.Democrats argue that Republicans are focusing on side issues and twisting their positions because the G.O.P. has nothing else to campaign on, as Democrats line up accomplishments to show to voters, including the pandemic aid bill that passed without a single Republican vote.“That was very popular, and I can understand why Republicans don’t want to talk about it,” said Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the new chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “But we’re going to keep reminding folks who was there when they needed them.”The contrast is likely to define the 2022 races. Democrats will sell the ambitious agenda they are pursuing with Mr. Biden, take credit for what they hope will continue to be a surging economy and portray Republicans as an increasingly extreme party pushing Donald J. Trump’s lies about a stolen election. Republicans, who have embraced the false claims of election fraud and plan to use them to energize their conservative base, will complain of “radical” Democratic overreach and try to amplify culture-war issues they think will propel more voters into their party’s arms.A release from the National Republican Senatorial Committee highlighted what it called the “three pillars” of the Democratic agenda: “The Green New Deal, court packing and defund the police,” even though the first two are far from the front-burner issues for Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders and the third is a nonstarter with the bulk of the party’s rank and file.President Biden and Democrats have promoted a wide array of party priorities that languished during years of Republican rule.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesLast week Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, sought to thrust a new issue into the mix, leading Republicans in protest of a proposed Biden administration rule promoting education programs that address systemic racism and the nation’s legacy of slavery. He has taken particular aim at the 1619 Project, a journalism initiative by The New York Times that identifies the year when slaves were first brought to America as a key moment in history.“There are a lot of exotic notions about what are the most important points in American history,” Mr. McConnell said on Monday during an appearance in Louisville. “I simply disagree with the notion that The New York Times laid out there that year 1619 was one of those years.”Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the Republicans’ Senate campaign arm, has been explicit about his strategy.“Now what I talk about every day is do we want open borders? No. Do we want to shut down our schools? No. Do we want men playing in women’s sports? No,” Mr. Scott said during a recent radio interview with the conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt.“Do we want to shut down the Keystone pipeline? No. Do we want voter ID? Yes,” he continued. “And the Democrats are on the opposite side of all those issues, and I’m going to make sure every American knows about it.”Democrats who have fallen victim to the Republican cultural assault concede that it can take a toll and that their party needs to be ready.“It was all these different attacks that were spread all over mainstream media, Spanish-language media, Facebook, WhatsApp,” said Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former Democratic House member from South Florida who was defeated last year after Republicans portrayed her as a socialist who was anti-police. “A lot of it was misinformation, false attacks.”She said Democrats must begin taking steps now to combat Republican misdirection, warning that their legislative victories might not be enough to appeal to voters.“We can have a great policy record,” she said, “but we need to be present in our communities right now, reaching out to all of our constituencies to tell them we are working for them, that their health and their jobs are our priorities.”On the Supreme Court issue, progressive groups began pushing the idea of an expansion after Mr. Trump was able to appoint three justices, including one to a vacancy that Republicans blocked Barack Obama from filling in the last year of his presidency and another who was fast-tracked right before last year’s election.Hoping to neutralize the issue, some Senate Democrats who will be on the ballot next year have made it clear that they would oppose expanding the court, and the bill seems to be going nowhere at the moment. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would not bring any court bill to the floor until at least after a commission named by Mr. Biden to study the matter issued its report, which is due in six months. The president has been cool to the expansion idea as well.The office of Ms. Axne, the only Democrat in Congress from Iowa, did not respond to requests for reaction to the Republican attacks on her over the court plan. In an interview with MSNBC, Ms. Axne said that she, like Ms. Pelosi, would await the findings of the commission.But Republicans are not waiting to try to score political points. They say more moderate Republican voters and independents who broke with the party during the Trump years have been alienated by the call to enlarge the court and other initiatives being pushed by progressives.One key for Republicans next year will be winning back suburban voters while running campaigns that also energize the significant segment of their supporters who are fiercely loyal to Mr. Trump and want the party to represent his values. That may be a difficult balance to achieve, as evidenced this week when Republican leaders moved to strip Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming of the party’s No. 3 leadership post for calling out the former president’s false election claims.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said it would matter less what Republicans said about Democrats than what his party was able to accomplish.“The one thing that will win people over, no matter what they do, is whether we can deliver,” he said. “They are doing what appeals to their base, but the voters in the middle, including a good chunk of Republican voters, actually care about getting things done.”Instead of focusing on Democrats’ economic initiatives that have proved popular, Republicans are seizing on measures like a bill to expand the Supreme Court.Al Drago for The New York TimesMr. Peters said Democrats would be better positioned to rebut attacks such as those that falsely portray them as pressing to defund the police after voters had experienced two years of the party holding power.“President Biden and the caucus have been very clear that we are not about defunding the police, we are about making sure police have the resources they need to do their jobs,” he said. “Ultimately, it is about how it is impacting people’s lives.”Mr. Kaufmann, the Republican leader in Iowa, begged to differ. He said he believed the hot-button issues Republicans were homing in on would drive voters more than “the nuance of tax policy and who gets credit for the vaccine.” He is eager to get started.“Some of this stuff is really controversial,” he said. “These are all very bold and clearly delineated issues. I can use this to expand the base and get crossover voters.” More

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      Keisha Lance Bottoms Won’t Seek Second Term as Atlanta Mayor

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      Ms. Bottoms, who was mentioned briefly as a potential running mate with President Biden, is the latest mayor to move on after a year of pandemic challenges and social justice protests.ATLANTA — Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first-term Atlanta mayor who rose to national prominence this past year with her stern yet empathetic televised message to protesters but has struggled to rein in her city’s spike in violent crime, will not seek a second term in office, according to two people who were on a Zoom call with the mayor on Thursday night.The news shocked the political world in Atlanta, the most important city in the Southeast and one where the mayoral seat has been filled by African-American leaders since 1974, burnishing its reputation as a mecca for Black culture and political power.It is unclear why Ms. Bottoms, a Democrat, is not seeking another term, but 2020 took a toll on mayors nationwide. It was one of the most tumultuous years for American cities since the 1960s, with the social and economic disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic as well as racial justice protests that sometimes turned destructive.In November, St. Louis’s mayor at the time, Lyda Krewson, announced she would not pursue a second term. A month later, Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle announced she would not run for re-election. Several mayors in smaller cities have also declined to run again, exhausted or demoralized by the ravages of 2020.Two contenders who have been seeking to unseat Ms. Bottoms in the November election have promised to do a better job fighting what Ms. Bottoms has called a “Covid crime wave,” which includes a 58 percent spike in homicides in 2020.But Ms. Bottoms, 51, was expected to mount a formidable defense. She has a loyal ally in President Biden, whom she was early to endorse, and who repaid her loyalty with an appearance at a virtual fund-raiser in March. Ms. Bottoms was mentioned briefly as a potential vice-presidential running mate and said that she later turned down a cabinet-level position in the Biden administration.Ms. Bottoms, who served as a judge and a city councilwoman before being sworn in as mayor in 2018, is also blessed with a voice — measured, compassionate, slightly bruised and steeped in her experience as a Black daughter and Black mother — that seemed uniquely calibrated to address the challenges of the past year.It was in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis that Ms. Bottoms went on live television and became a national star as she spoke directly to protesters. Some of their demonstrations had descended into lawlessness, with people smashing windows, spray-painting property and jumping on police cars.“When I saw the murder of George Floyd, I hurt like a mother would hurt,” she said. Then she scolded the protesters, insisting that they “go home” and study the precepts of nonviolence as practiced by the leaders of the civil rights movement. More

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      Stefanik Moves to Oust Cheney, Resurfacing False Election Claims

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      Republicans say Liz Cheney, their No. 3, is being targeted because she won’t stay quiet about Donald J. Trump’s election lies. Her would-be replacement is campaigning on them.WASHINGTON — As House Republicans have made the case for ousting Representative Liz Cheney, their No. 3, from their leadership ranks, they have insisted that it is not her repudiation of former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies that they find untenable, but her determination to be vocal about it.But on Thursday, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the Republican whom leaders have anointed as Ms. Cheney’s replacement in waiting, loudly resurrected his false narrative, citing “unprecedented, unconstitutional overreach” by election officials in 2020 and endorsing an audit in Arizona that has become the latest avenue for conservatives to try to cast doubt on the results.“It is important to stand up for these constitutional issues, and these are questions that are going to have to be answered before we head into the 2022 midterms,” Ms. Stefanik told Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former strategist, in the first of a pair of interviews on Thursday with hard-right acolytes of the former president.The comments, Ms. Stefanik’s first in public since she announced she was taking on Ms. Cheney, reflected how central the former president’s election lies have become to the Republican Party message, even as its leaders insist they are determined to move beyond them and focus on attacking Democrats as radical, big-spending socialists before the 2022 midterm elections.Far from staying quiet about the false election claims on Thursday, Ms. Stefanik effectively campaigned on them, describing Mr. Trump on Mr. Bannon’s show as the “strongest supporter of any president when it comes to standing up for the Constitution,” and asserting that Republicans would work with him as “one team.”“The job of the conference chair is to represent the majority of the House Republicans, and the vast majority of the House Republicans support President Trump, and they support his focus on election integrity and election security,” Ms. Stefanik later told Sebastian Gorka, a former adviser to Mr. Trump. The job, she said in an unmistakable jab at Ms. Cheney, “is not to attack members of the conference and attack President Trump.”While Ms. Stefanik avoided claiming outright that the election was stolen, she praised the Arizona audit, a Republican-led endeavor that critics in both parties have described as a blow to democratic norms and a political embarrassment, as “incredibly important.” She said recounting votes there and scrutinizing how Pennsylvania and other states administered the 2020 election were “valid, important questions and issues that the American people deserve policy proposals and answers on.”It was a stark contrast from Ms. Cheney, who has relentlessly upbraided the former president for falsely claiming the election was stolen and on Wednesday beseeched Republican lawmakers in a scathing opinion piece to excise him from the party. Ms. Cheney voted against her party’s efforts to invalidate the election results on Jan. 6, while Ms. Stefanik — like most House Republicans — voted to reject Pennsylvania’s electoral votes for President Biden.Some Republicans, including the hard-right lawmakers who led a charge to try to remove Ms. Cheney in February after she voted to impeach Mr. Trump, readily conceded that they were unwilling to tolerate dissent from their party leaders.“All the polling indicates that President Trump is still the titleholder,” Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said on Fox News. Ms. Cheney “can tell what her version of the truth is, but she can’t do it as the leader of the Republican Party in Congress.”For many Republicans, however, the calculation to boot Ms. Cheney, a strict conservative, in favor of Ms. Stefanik, who has a far more moderate voting record but has wholeheartedly embraced Mr. Trump, is more complicated.In interviews with lawmakers and party operatives, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss the internal turmoil, several expressed concern about the optics of purging the only female member of leadership and a daughter of a conservative dynasty for her resolve to call out Mr. Trump’s lies. They worried that the move to oust Ms. Cheney could spook donors who might chafe at sending money to Republicans so closely associated with the Jan. 6 riot, and ultimately voters who might be alienated by the party’s refusal to brook dissent.But they were also wrestling with the political downsides of keeping Ms. Cheney in her post, worried that they would continue to be forced to answer for her unyielding broadsides against the myth of a stolen election that many of their voters believe. Several lawmakers privately lamented her stubbornness and said they wished Ms. Cheney would focus solely on attacking Democrats.Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the Republican whom leaders have annointed as Ms. Cheney’s replacement in waiting, has loudly resurrected Mr. Trump’s false election narrative.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesThat has been the approach taken by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, who was initially vocal in his criticism of Mr. Trump and support of Ms. Cheney, but more recently has refused to broach either subject.On Thursday, for the second day in a row, he sidestepped questions about Mr. Trump and Ms. Cheney, saying he was solely focused on challenging Mr. Biden and Democrats, and “looking forward — not backward.”“Members do not want to have to defend themselves against attacks from members of their own leadership team,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist and former House leadership aide. “The primary job of the House Republican Conference chair is to set up and facilitate the weekly press conferences conducted by the House Republican leadership. If you go out of your way to embarrass your leaders at those press conferences, you are not doing your job and you won’t last in that position very long.”Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa, a rising freshman star who voted against her party’s attempt to invalidate the election results, came out on Thursday in support of Ms. Stefanik, saying she respected Ms. Cheney’s “strong conservative record and service to our country” but wanted relief from the infighting that had plagued the conference.“If Republicans are divided, and not focusing all of our efforts against radical Democrat policies, Speaker Pelosi will remain in power,” Ms. Hinson said in a statement that called Ms. Stefanik “the right person to unify and lead our conference at this time.”Others appeared torn. Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, who had vocally condemned Mr. Trump for his role in encouraging the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and warned that the Republican Party could not define itself solely around the former president, said she was tired of “having these fights publicly.”“I want to move forward,” Ms. Mace told Fox Business’s Neil Cavuto. “I want to win back the House in a year and a half. We can get the majority back, and we’ve got to stop fighting with each other in public.”Ms. Mace warned that if the party continued “to make our party and our country about one person, and not about hard-working Americans in the this country, we’re going to continue to lose elections.” Asked whether she was referring to Mr. Trump or Ms. Cheney, Ms. Mace replied, “All of the above.”Some arch-conservative Republicans who are eager to oust Ms. Cheney — many of whom have despised her hawkish foreign policy views for years — have been quietly skeptical of Ms. Stefanik despite her endorsement from Mr. Trump, noting the low rankings conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and American Conservative Union have given her. On Wednesday night, the anti-tax Club for Growth opposed her campaign, branding her “a liberal.”“House Republicans should find a conservative to lead messaging and win back the House Majority,” the group wrote in a statement on Twitter.But despite the hand-wringing among the rank-and-file, by Thursday, Ms. Stefanik’s allies, including Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus, publicly predicted that she would be conference chairwoman as soon as Wednesday, when Republicans plan to meet.“For sure the votes are there,” Mr. Jordan said on Fox News. “You can’t have a Republican conference chair taking a position that 90 percent of the party disagrees with, and you can’t have a Republican Party chair consistently speaking out against the individual who 74 million Americans voted for.”Carl Hulse More