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      D.N.C. Helped Pay Biden’s Legal Bills in Special Counsel Investigation

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      Even as some of President Biden’s top campaign officials were attacking Donald J. Trump’s campaign for soliciting donations to pay his legal fees, the Biden-aligned Democratic National Committee was helping pay for lawyers in the special counsel investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents.The D.N.C. has directed at least $1.7 million to lawyers since July to cover the president’s representation in the documents inquiry, a figure that pales in comparison to Mr. Trump’s use of supporters’ donations to pay his hefty legal fees. The former president has spent more than $100 million on legal bills since leaving office, relying almost entirely on donations.Federal Election Commission records show that since the investigation began last year, the D.N.C. has paid $1.05 million to Bob Bauer, the president’s lawyer. The party committee has also paid $905,000 to Hemenway & Barnes, a Boston firm that employs Jennifer Miller, a lawyer whom the special counsel’s report identified as a “personal counsel for Mr. Biden.”The party’s payments to cover Mr. Biden’s lawyers — first reported by Axios on Friday — are roughly in line with amounts donors spent to pay for legal defenses for President Barack Obama during his first term.The Biden campaign has repeatedly amplified the Trump campaign’s use of donor money to pay the former president’s legal bills in his four criminal cases.As recently as last weekend, top Biden campaign officials celebrated their fund-raising prowess with jabs at Mr. Trump for asking donors to subsidize his lawyers.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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      Trump, Who Tried to Repeal Obamacare, Says He Is ‘Not Running to Terminate’ It

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      Former President Donald J. Trump said in a video posted to his social media site on Thursday that he was “not running to terminate” the Affordable Care Act, his latest effort to push back on attacks from the Biden campaign and other Democrats over his calls to replace the legislation known as Obamacare.In a statement similar to one he posted in March, Mr. Trump said the health care law was “much too expensive” and “not very good,” and added, without providing specifics, that he would improve it if re-elected. Those statements came after he drew criticism for having again suggested, in the last few months, that he would repeal the law, which has become more popular since its enactment 14 years ago.“We’re going to make the A.C.A. much better than it is right now and much less expensive for you,” Mr. Trump said in the video.On Tuesday in Washington, President Biden accused Republicans of aiming to “terminate the Affordable Care Act” at an event for caregivers, where he promoted expanding paid medical leave, child care subsidies and early education.Also this week, Mr. Trump shifted his stance on abortion. For months, he gave mixed signals on his position, before saying in a statement on Monday that abortion policies should be left to the states.The former president’s pledge to repeal the health care legislation dates to his first presidential campaign in 2016, when many Republicans were issuing calls to “repeal and replace” the law. But Mr. Trump did not offer a substantive proposal to replace it, and efforts backed by his administration to repeal parts of the law were rejected by Congress and the Supreme Court.For months, the Biden campaign has attacked Mr. Trump on the issue, after he described the Affordable Care Act last November as “out of control” and said he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to it. The Biden campaign quickly amplified those remarks, and Mr. Biden offered his own criticism last November, saying, “My predecessor once again called for cuts that could rip away health insurance for tens of millions of Americans.”Mr. Trump’s response on Thursday echoed a post he made on social media in March, in which he claimed, in all caps and with a misspelling of Mr. Biden’s name, that “crooked Joe Buden disinformates and misinformates all the time.” That post came days after the Biden campaign released a digital ad in battleground states that featured audio of Mr. Trump criticizing the Affordable Care Act and claiming that Mr. Trump “tried to rip away our health care” as president.More than 45 million people are enrolled in Affordable Care Act-related coverage, according to a recent report from the Department of Health and Human Services. A record number of people — more than 20 million — have signed up for plans on the act’s marketplaces this year, according to the Biden administration. Mr. Biden proclaimed that the figure proved that the legislation “is more popular than ever.” More

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      Kennedy Campaign Fires Consultant Who Sought to Help Trump Win

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      The presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired a consultant, according to the campaign’s manager, after a video circulated of her urging an audience to support Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in New York because it would help former President Donald J. Trump defeat President Biden.The consultant, Rita Palma, had falsely identified herself as the New York state director of Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, Amaryllis Fox, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager and daughter-in-law, said late on Wednesday, adding that the campaign had fired Ms. Palma “immediately” after seeing the video “in which she gave an inaccurate job title and described a conversation that did not happen.”In that video, Ms. Palma — who Ms. Fox said had been hired as a ballot access consultant in the state — said that “the Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, our mutual enemy is Biden,” adding, “Whether you support Bobby or Trump, we all oppose Biden.”Encouraging the audience of Republicans to support Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Palma outlined a hypothetical scenario in which Mr. Kennedy would win enough electoral votes to prevent both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden from winning 270 electoral votes, pushing the decision to Congress in what is known as a contingent election.“Right now, we have a majority of Republicans in Congress,” Ms. Palma said in the video, referring to the House of Representatives. “So who are they going to pick? If it’s a Republican Congress, they’ll pick Trump.” In such a scenario, the Senate — which the Democrats currently control — would also elect the vice president.CNN reported earlier this week that Ms. Palma had also promoted false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump, whom she repeatedly called her “favorite president.”Before saying that Ms. Palma had been fired, Ms. Fox said in a statement earlier in the week that “the video circulating was not taken at a campaign event.”She added: “Palma was speaking as a private citizen and her statements in no way reflect campaign strategy, the sole aim of which is to win the White House.”Allies of Mr. Trump have been discussing ways to elevate third-party candidates such as Mr. Kennedy in battleground states to divert votes away from Mr. Biden.Mr. Kennedy has also recently aligned himself closer to Mr. Trump by sympathizing with those who have been convicted of crimes in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol. Mr. Kennedy later retracted many of those comments, saying that his campaign made “unforced errors” when addressing the issue, but stood by his commitment to appoint a special counsel to “look at” the criminal cases of some of the rioters. More

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      Election 2024: How Voters Describe the Trump-Biden Rematch in One Word

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      It’s no secret that many voters are not looking forward to the election in November.A New York Times/Siena College poll from February found that 19 percent of voters held an unfavorable view of both President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. And 29 percent of Americans believe that neither candidate would be a good president, according to a March poll from Gallup.At the same time, the prospect of a new president is exciting for many, and nearly half of Republican primary voters are enthusiastic with Mr. Trump as their nominee, the Times/Siena poll found. About a quarter of Democratic primary voters said the same about Mr. Biden.Those findings are broad measures of an issue Americans have complex feelings on. To dig a little deeper, we asked respondents in that Times/Siena poll to summarize their feelings about the upcoming rematch in just one word. More

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      Biden’s State Dinner for Japan Was Heavy on Symbolism (and Yes, Cherry Blossoms)

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      The event’s musical guest, Paul Simon, even learned a little Japanese for the occasion.It was all very polite.Ambassadors, billionaires, a smattering of Biden family members and even one former president were all in attendance at the fifth state dinner President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, have held since taking office.The gauzy celebration leaned heavily into Japanese fans, cherry blossoms and other tokens of the softer side of the U.S.-Japan relationship. The substance of the state visit of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was focused on finding ways to counter China, but the style of the dinner was all about highlighting a capital city that owes its springtime resplendence, in large part, to the diplomatic overtures of the Japanese.President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida raising a toast during the dinner.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesAs the dinner got underway in the East Room, Mr. Biden toasted “to our alliance, to our friendship.” He kept things similarly light earlier in the evening when he greeted Mr. Kishida at the White House, replying, “Thank you,” to a question from a reporter about expectations that Iran would retaliate against Israel for its strike on an Iranian target in Syria.Mr. Kishida also leaned into the idea of friendship.“The Pacific Ocean does not separate Japan and the United States. Rather, it unites us,” Mr. Kishida said during his dinner toast, noting that President Kennedy once said the same thing 60 years ago. “I like this line. I use it so many times that my staff tried to delete it.”Naomi Biden Neal, the president’s oldest granddaughter, and Peter Neal. The couple were married at the White House in 2022.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesWe 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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      March’s Hot Inflation Report is a Political Blow to Biden

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      The unexpected re-acceleration in price growth across the economy is at least a temporary setback for President Biden, who has been banking on cooling inflation to lift his re-election prospects.Mr. Biden and his aides have publicly cheered the retreat of annual inflation rates over the last year, after watching the fastest price growth in 40 years dent the president’s approval ratings earlier in his tenure.They have been anxious for inflation to fall even further, in order give relief to consumers and to potentially spur the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates — a move that would help to drive down borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans and other consumer credit. Mr. Biden has been particularly focused on home buyers, including young voters who are key to his electoral coalition, and who are struggling to afford high housing prices as mortgage rates remain around 7 percent.Wall Street analysts saw Wednesday’s surprise pickup in the inflation rate as a sign that the Fed could leave rates on hold for months longer than expected. That could mean no cuts before the November election, a campaign where Mr. Biden’s Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, has slammed Mr. Biden for both rapid price increases and high borrowing costs.The news comes as polls have begun to show Americans’ views of the economy slowly improving over recent months. Democratic pollsters have also pointed to recent surveys as a road map for how Mr. Biden should talk about inflation in the months to come: They suggest American voters blame corporate greed, more than government spending, for price increases. Mr. Biden has leaned into that message, including calling out companies in his State of the Union address for keeping prices high.He struck a similar tone on Wednesday in a statement that emphasized consumer frustration with inflation.“Prices are still too high for housing and groceries, even as prices for key household items, like milk and eggs, are lower than a year ago,” Mr. Biden said. “I have a plan to lower costs for housing — by building and renovating more than two million homes — and I’m calling on corporations, including grocery retailers, to use record profits to reduce prices.” More

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      Biden’s State Dinner for Japan to Feature Paul Simon and Celebrate Spring

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      An elevated California roll and steak with sesame sabayon will be among the dishes presented to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan at the state dinner on Wednesday.The “bounty of spring” will be the theme of President Biden’s state dinner for Japan on Wednesday evening, an event that will feature decorations of cherry blossoms and peonies and conclude with a performance by Paul Simon.Jill Biden, the first lady, and the White House social secretary, Carlos Elizondo, previewed the menu and the décor ahead of the dinner for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and his wife. It will be the fifth state dinner of Mr. Biden’s term.The guests will enter the East Wing to a wall of oversized fans that spill onto the floor, a piece of art and a metaphor with “the small end representing the beginning of life, and each pleat the many paths our lives can take,” Mr. Elizondo said.The meal will include house-cured salmon with shiso leaf tempura (evoking a California roll) and dry-aged rib-eye beef with morel mushrooms from Oregon and shishito pepper butter. Salted caramel pistachio cake and cherry ice cream will be served for dessert.The White House executive chef Cris Comerford and the White House executive pastry chef Susie Morrison.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesSalted caramel pistachio cake, matcha ganache with cherry ice cream and raspberry drizzle will be served for dessert.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThe state dinner on Wednesday night will be the fifth of the Biden presidency.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesDr. Biden said the dinner had been designed with springtime in Washington in mind, and the decorations would evoke a garden of her favorite flowers, including sweet pea, roses and peonies.“As guests sit among the field of flowers, glass and silk butterflies from both our countries will dance over the tables,” Dr. Biden told reporters on Tuesday.The dinner will also spotlight Washington’s cherry trees, a present from Japan in 1912, which stand as “reminders of the gift Japan gave our nation’s capital and the bright future ahead for our partnership,” Mr. Elizondo said.The executive chef at the White House, Cris Comerford, said the dinner included ingredients sourced from across the country.Mr. Simon will perform after the dinner. Mr. Biden will also present Mr. Kishida with a two-volume LP set autographed by Billy Joel and a vintage vinyl record collection showcasing other American musicians, the White House announced on Tuesday.As the evening concludes, guests will leave through a path of hydrangeas, a selection of flowers common in both the United States and Japan.The guest list is typically released by the White House just before arrivals begin, but the Biden administration tends to invite prominent members of the visiting country, donors, administration officials and members of the Biden family. More

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      Another Red-Blue Divide: Money to Feed Kids in the Summer

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      The governor was firm: Nebraska would reject the new federal money for summer meals. The state already fed a small number of children when schools closed. He would not sign on to a program to provide all families that received free or cut-rate school meals with cards to buy groceries during the summer.“I don’t believe in welfare,” the governor, Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in December.A group of low-income youths, in a face-to-face meeting, urged him to reconsider. One told him she had eaten less when schools were out. Another criticized the meals at the existing feeding sites and held a crustless prepackaged sandwich to argue that electronic benefit cards from the new federal program would offer better food and more choice.“Sometimes money isn’t the solution,” the governor replied.A week later, Mr. Pillen made a U-turn the size of a Nebraska cornfield, approving the cards and praising the young people for speaking out.“This isn’t about me winning,” he said. “This is about coming to the conclusion of what is best for our kids.”After meeting with young people, Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska reversed himself and accepted federal money for summer meals.Kenneth Ferriera/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated PressMr. Pillen’s extraordinary reversal shows the conflicts shaping red-state views of federal aid: needs beckon, but suspicions run high of the Biden administration and programs that critics call handouts.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