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      Republicans Will Regret a Second Trump Term

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      Now is the summer of Republican content.The G.O.P. is confident and unified. Donald Trump has held a consistent and widening lead over President Biden in all the battleground states. Never Trumpers have been exiled, purged or converted. The Supreme Court has eased many of Trump’s legal travails while his felony convictions in New York seem to have inflicted only minimal political damage — if they didn’t actually help him.Best of all for Republicans, a diminished Joe Biden seems determined to stay in the race, leading a dispirited and divided party that thinks of its presumptive nominee as one might think of a colonoscopy: an unpleasant reminder of age. Even if Biden can be cajoled into quitting, his likeliest replacement is Vice President Kamala Harris, whose 37 percent approval rating is just around that of her boss. Do Democrats really think they can run on her non-handling of the border crisis, her reputation for managerial incompetence or her verbal gaffes?In short, Republicans have good reason to think they’ll be back in the White House next January. Only then will the regrets set in.Three in particular: First, Trump won’t slay the left; instead, he will re-energize and radicalize it. Second, Trump will be a down-ballot loser, leading to divided and paralyzed government. Third, Trump’s second-term personnel won’t be like the ones in his first. Instead, he will appoint his Trumpiest people and pursue his Trumpiest instincts. The results won’t be ones old-school Republicans want or expect.Begin with the left.Talk to most conservatives and even a few liberals, and they’ll tell you that Peak Woke — that is, the worst excesses of far-left activism and cancel culture — happened around 2020. In fact, Peak Woke, from the campus witch hunts to “abolish the police” and the “mostly peaceful” protests in cities like Portland, Ore., and Minneapolis that followed George Floyd’s murder, really coincided with the entirety of Trump’s presidency, then abated after Biden’s election.That’s no accident. What used to be called political correctness has been with us for a long time. But it grew to a fever pitch under Trump, most of all because he was precisely the kind of bigoted vulgarian and aspiring strongman that liberals always feared might come to power, and which they felt duty bound to “resist.” With his every tweet, Trump’s presidency felt like a diesel engine blowing black soot in the face of the country. That’s also surely how Trump wanted it, since it delighted his base, goaded his critics and left everyone else in a kind of blind stupor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Fiery Biden, Ignoring Critics, Attacks Trump to Chants of ‘Lock Him Up’

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      Facing rising frustration in his party, the president brushed it off in an energetic speech in Michigan. Inside the room, at least, the Democratic mood was defiant, with cheers of “Don’t go, Joe.”President Biden on Friday strove to turn the nation’s attention back to former President Donald J. Trump, delivering a fiery and energetic speech in battleground Michigan that painted his Republican rival as a convict, a rapist and a cheater while simultaneously attacking the news media for an insufficient focus on such misdeeds.Even as Mr. Biden faces mounting pressure from congressional Democrats and major donors, he largely ignored the brewing Democratic revolt over his refusal to drop out of the race, beyond an emphatic statement that “I am running, and we’re going to win.”The president’s defiance, and the crowd’s enthusiastic response, helped give the Biden event at a Detroit high school gym the flavor of a Trump rally at times. When Mr. Biden referred to his political opponent, there were chants of “Lock him up” — which the president did not discourage. When he criticized news media coverage, big cheers followed, with his supporters turning to boo and point fingers at reporters.Mr. Biden thundered that his rival was a “convicted criminal” and a “business fraud,” and said that he had “raped” the writer E. Jean Carroll, whom Mr. Trump was found liable of sexually abusing by a civil court.In all, the 35-minute speech was a version of Mr. Biden that has been absent since he began his re-election campaign — and maybe one not seen since he was on a presidential ticket with Barack Obama. After two weeks of Democratic panic since his distressing debate performance, plummeting donations and polls that show him falling further behind Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden acted as if he was in the presidential race to stay.“I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party, the only Democrat or Republican who has beaten Donald Trump ever,” said Mr. Biden, whose remarks were greeted by loud chants of “Don’t go, Joe” and “Don’t you quit.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Republicans Have Been Up to While Biden’s Drama Has Unfolded

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      While Biden has been in the spotlight, Republicans rewrote their platform and used dark rhetoric.The self-generated political crisis that has convulsed the Democratic Party over the past two weeks has felt, to Republicans, like a lovely day on the fairway.“Republicans are standing on the sidelines with polite golf claps,” said David Urban, a political strategist and past campaign aide to former President Donald Trump, “going, ‘Wow, incredible, well done.’”They watched President Biden melt down on the debate stage. They watched his party agonize over his unsteady recovery. And, crucially, they managed to stay largely out of it (even when Trump was surreptitiously filmed weighing in from an actual golf course).“I can’t remember a time when there’s been a week that’s gone by, two weeks, when the former president hasn’t been dominating the news cycle,” Urban said.It has not, however, been an uneventful period for the G.O.P. Since the debate, two Trump allies — Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, have been imprisoned and disbarred, respectively. House Republicans failed to pass what should have been an easy spending bill (though they did manage to pass two bills blocking efficiency standards for kitchen appliances). The party approved a platform that has angered some conservatives and found itself on defense over Trump allies’ sweeping agenda.So, with just days to go before the Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee, on Monday, let’s take a look at a few story lines you might have missed if you’ve been glued to the Biden saga. I’ll be back next week — from Milwaukee.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      More Than 23 Million Watched Biden’s News Conference, Beating the Oscars

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      The swirling questions about President Biden’s age and mental fitness for office have captured Americans’ attention.More than 23 million people — a bigger audience than this year’s Academy Awards — tuned in on Thursday evening to see how Mr. Biden handled his first live news conference since a poor performance at last month’s debate with former President Donald J. Trump.The television audience amounted to roughly 45 percent of the 51.3 million who watched the debate, according to Nielsen.The president’s nearly hourlong appearance, at the NATO summit in Washington, was one of the most-watched telecasts of the year, outside of sporting events. It aired across several major TV networks, with ABC, CBS and NBC all pre-empting regular entertainment programming.Millions more may have watched on digital news sites and social media platforms, which are, for the most part, not captured by Nielsen’s data.Compared to his predecessors, Mr. Biden rarely grants solo news conferences, which added to the novelty of Thursday’s event.Fox News attracted the largest audience of any network, 5.7 million, representing nearly a quarter of the overall television viewership. ABC was the highest-rated broadcaster, with five million viewers, possibly benefiting from a lead-in from “Jeopardy!,” the game show that aired immediately before Mr. Biden’s news conference.Roughly four of five viewers were 55 or older, Nielsen said. ABC drew the largest audience among adults 25 to 54, the key demographic for advertisers in cable news.Mr. Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos, which aired last Friday on ABC, was seen by 8.5 million viewers. More

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      ‘Touch Me, Poke Me, Ask Me Questions,’ Biden Says of Voters Who Doubt Him

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      President Biden’s remarks were in response to a Democratic lawmaker who told him on a Zoom call that he should withdraw from the 2024 presidential campaign.President Biden on Friday told a Democratic lawmaker who called for him to step aside that voters should “touch me, poke me, ask me questions” if they have doubts about his ability to serve in the Oval Office or defeat former President Donald J. Trump in November.Mr. Biden made the remarks during a virtual meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, according to a partial transcript of the exchange obtained by The New York Times. He was responding to Representative Mike Levin of California, who told Mr. Biden during the meeting that he believed the president should not continue his bid for another term, according to two people familiar with the call. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it.Mr. Levin is the 19th member of Congress to call for him to step aside in the two weeks since Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance, but he is the first one known to have done so directly to the president — even virtually.“That’s why I’m going out and letting people touch me, poke me, ask me questions,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Levin. “I think I know what I’m doing, because the truth of the matter is — I’m going to say something outrageous — no president in three years has done what we have in three years other than Franklin Roosevelt.”In a statement after the meeting ended, Mr. Levin said he appreciated Mr. Biden’s “five-plus decades” of service, “but I believe the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch.”Mr. Levin said Friday that he had no comment beyond his statement, but it was clear from the fact that he didn’t back away from his comments that nothing in Mr. Biden’s response had changed his mind.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Donors Tell Pro-Biden Super PAC Roughly $90 Million in Pledges Is Frozen

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      Some major Democratic donors have told the largest pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, that roughly $90 million in pledged donations is now on hold if President Biden remains atop the ticket, according to two people who have been briefed on the conversations.The frozen contributions include multiple eight-figure commitments, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. The decision to withhold such enormous sums of money is one of the most concrete examples of the fallout from Mr. Biden’s poor debate performance at the end of June.Future Forward declined to comment on any conversations with donors or the amounts of any pledged money being withheld. A Future Forward adviser would say only that the group expected contributors who had paused donations to return once the current uncertainty about the ticket was resolved.Separately, one donor to the group described being approached multiple times by Future Forward since the debate for a contribution, but said he and his friends had been “holding off.”The two people briefed on the frozen pledges declined to say which individual donors were pulling back promised checks, which were estimated to total around or above $90 million. It was not clear how much of the pledged money was earmarked for Future Forward’s super PAC versus its nonprofit arm, which has also been running advertising in key battleground states.The cash freeze comes as some advisers around Mr. Biden are discussing how to persuade the president to exit the race, and as his campaign has begun to test Vice President Kamala Harris in head-to-head surveys of voters against former President Donald J. Trump. The number of congressional Democrats calling for Mr. Biden to step aside is growing by the day.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats Fear Safe Blue States Turning Purple as Biden Stays the Course

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      Lingering worries about President Biden’s age could make Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia competitive, party operatives believe.As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month.Some polls in these states suggest a tightening race between Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, with one showing a virtual tie in Virginia, which has not voted for a Republican for president since 2004, and another showing Mr. Trump squeaking ahead in New Hampshire, which has been in the Democratic column since 2000.On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report, a prominent elections forecaster, downgraded New Hampshire and Minnesota from “likely” wins for Mr. Biden to only leaning in his direction. And in a meeting at the White House last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico told Mr. Biden that she feared he would lose her state, according to two people briefed on her comments.The shakiness in the fringe battleground states is an alarming sign for Mr. Biden’s hopes in must-win contests that were already expected to be close, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. An expanding battleground map could force his campaign to divert resources away from the traditional swing states, where he has been falling further and further behind.But Mr. Biden has given no indication he is going anywhere, telling reporters at a high-profile news conference on Thursday that “I’m determined I’m running” and pushing back on his poor polling numbers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden’s News Conference Answered Many Questions. But Not the Big One.

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      For once, a presidential Q. and A. was must-see TV. But it didn’t put an end to the summer’s biggest drama.There were many questions at President Biden’s nearly hourlong news conference on Thursday night — questions about Gaza, Ukraine, the campaign, his health, his record.But at its heart there was only one question: Could he do it?That is, could Mr. Biden, who stunned viewers and his party and George Clooney with a doddering performance at the first presidential debate two weeks ago, stand and deliver? Could he be coherent? Could he dispel the talk of age and frailty and decline? Could he beat the doubters who want him to step down from the ticket? Could he look like a winner?On a national TV stage, Mr. Biden answered the individual questions, often comfortably, sometimes defensively, with depth and engagement and flashes of passion. As for the uber-question, the answer was incomplete. He was not the uncomfortable, lost presence of the debate, but he didn’t erase the memory of that version of himself either. He came across as the president he wants to be, but not necessarily the candidate his critics have said he needs to be.Presidential news conferences are rarely must-see TV. But the stakes — heightened by reports that some Democrats were waiting for it before weighing in on whether Mr. Biden should remain the nominee — gave this one the air of a test, if not a last stand.The telecast had the daredevil feel of a live walk through a minefield. The first false step came before the news conference proper, at remarks after the afternoon’s NATO meeting, when Mr. Biden introduced President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine: “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.”The president caught himself and recovered. “I’m better,” Mr. Zelensky joked; “You’re a hell of a lot better,” Mr. Biden said. The audience laughed. Anybody can mix up a name once.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More