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      Robert Kennedy Jr., With Musk, Pushes Right-Wing Ideas and Misinformation

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      Mr. Kennedy, a long-shot Democratic presidential candidate with surprisingly high polling numbers, said he wanted to close the Mexican border and attributed the rise of mass shootings to pharmaceutical drugs.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of one of the country’s most famous Democratic families, on Monday dived into the full embrace of a host of conservative figures who eagerly promoted his long-shot primary challenge to President Biden.For more than two hours, Mr. Kennedy participated in an online audio chat on Twitter with the platform’s increasingly rightward-leaning chief executive, Elon Musk. They engaged in a friendly back-and-forth with the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman turned right-wing commentator; a top donor to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida; and a professional surfer who became a prominent voice casting doubt on coronavirus vaccines.Mr. Kennedy, who announced his 2024 presidential campaign in April, is himself a leading vaccine skeptic, and has promoted other conspiracy theories. Yet he has consistently hovered around 20 percent in polling of the Democratic primary, which the party has otherwise ceded to Mr. Biden.On Monday, he sounded like a candidate far more at ease in the mushrooming Republican presidential contest.He said he planned to travel to the Mexican border this week to “try to formulate policies that will seal the border permanently,” called for the federal government to consider the war in Ukraine from the perspective of Russians and said pharmaceutical drugs were responsible for the rise of mass shootings in America.“Prior to the introduction of Prozac, we had almost none of these events in our country and we’ve never seen them in human history, where people walk into a schoolroom of children or strangers and start shooting people,” said Mr. Kennedy, who noted that both his father and uncle were killed by guns.Mr. Kennedy said he now had “about 50 people” working for his campaign. Unlike Marianne Williamson, the other announced Democratic challenger to Mr. Biden, he does not appear to be aiming to appeal to Democrats who are ideologically opposed to the moderate president or are otherwise uneasy with renominating him. Instead, he has used his campaign platform — and his famous name — to promote misinformation and ideas that have little traction in his party.Asked during the discussion by David Sacks, a top DeSantis donor who is also close to Mr. Musk, “what happened to the Democratic Party,” Mr. Kennedy spent nine uninterrupted minutes attacking Mr. Biden as a warmonger and claimed that their party was under the control of the pharmaceutical industry.“I think the Democratic Party became the party of war,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I attribute that directly to President Biden.” He added, “He has always been in favor of very bellicose, pugnacious and aggressive foreign policy, and he believes that violence is a legitimate political tool for achieving America’s objectives abroad.”The Democratic National Committee and Mr. Biden’s campaign declined to comment about Mr. Kennedy.The event, which at its peak had more than 60,000 listeners, according to Twitter, at times felt as if Mr. Kennedy were interviewing Mr. Musk about his stewardship of Twitter, a platform that has lost more than half of its advertising revenue since the billionaire acquired it in October. For more than 30 minutes at the event’s start, the presidential candidate interrogated the tech mogul about releasing the so-called Twitter files, self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.“These are really interesting topics for people, but I think a lot of the public would like to hear about your presidential run,” Mr. Musk said to Mr. Kennedy.Mr. Kennedy, 69, is a longtime amplifier and propagator of baseless theories, beginning nearly two decades ago with his skepticism about the result of the 2004 presidential election as well as common childhood vaccines. His audience for such misinformation ballooned during the coronavirus pandemic.On Monday, Mr. Kennedy repeated a host of false statements, among them:He said that after the Affordable Care Act of 2010, “Democrats were getting more money from pharma than Republicans.” An analysis by STAT News found that political action committees with ties to pharmaceutical companies gave more money to Republicans than Democrats in 14 out of 16 election years since 1990.He claimed, without evidence, that “Covid was clearly a bioweapons problem.” American intelligence agencies do not believe there is any evidence indicating that is the case.And as he blamed psychiatric drug use for the rise of gun violence in the United States, he contended that the gun ownership rate in the U.S. was similar to that of Switzerland. The United States had the highest civilian gun ownership rate in the world, at an estimated 120.5 firearms per 100 people, according the latest international Small Arms Survey. That was more than double the rate of the second-highest country, Yemen at 52.8, and much higher than Switzerland’s 27.6. More

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      Trump and Cuomo Agree That DeSantis Mishandled Covid

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      The two combative men from Queens have often been antagonists, but now they both see an opening to attack the Florida governor over his pandemic leadership.For years they overlapped in New York politics, two brash sons of Queens rising through the worlds of real estate and government, as Donald J. Trump donated to Andrew M. Cuomo’s campaigns and made a virtual appearance at his bachelor party.Then they were antagonists, with Mr. Cuomo, a powerful Democratic governor of New York, embracing chances to serve as a foil to the divisive Republican president.Now out of power after Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election and Mr. Cuomo resigned in disgrace, they have found themselves in a moment of alignment, each lacing into Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.“Even Cuomo did better,” Mr. Trump said in a recent video.“Donald Trump tells the truth, finally,” Mr. Cuomo declared on Twitter on Tuesday, though he distanced himself from the former president’s faint accolades on a new podcast.Assessing the success or failure of each state’s handling of the pandemic is a complex task.New York and Florida, two large and populous states, both had higher death rates per 100,000 people than many other states.According to a New York Times tracker, Florida had a slightly lower death rate than New York did from the beginning of the pandemic to March of this year. Florida had a slightly higher number of total deaths than New York did, about 87,000 versus 80,000 in the same period, though New York was known early on as the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the pandemic.As he campaigns in Iowa and other early nominating states, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has made his handling of the pandemic central to his presidential bid.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesBoth governors faced plenty of scrutiny and criticism over their stewardship of the pandemic, with Mr. Cuomo sustaining particular heat over his administration’s handling of nursing home deaths in the pandemic.For his part, Mr. DeSantis, who has emerged as Mr. Trump’s chief Republican rival, has made his pandemic record — including his decision to reopen his state’s economy relatively early, even in the face of coronavirus surges and rising hospitalizations — a focal point of his campaign.He has used the issue as a way to draw his own contrasts with Mr. Trump, who, he suggests, went too far in empowering Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert during the pandemic.“Do you want Cuomo or do you want free Florida?” Mr. DeSantis said in Iowa this week. “If we just decided the caucuses on that, I would be happy with that verdict by Iowa voters.”And in an interview on “Good Morning New Hampshire” on Thursday, Mr. DeSantis defended his record again, saying that “people fled Cuomo’s lockdowns to come to Florida.”“He’s attacking me, siding with Andrew Cuomo in New York, over me,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I think that’s a huge mistake.”Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.In New York, former Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat, said the relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cuomo had at times been less rancorous than those between Mr. Trump and many other Democrats.“The acrimony that existed between the president and others was far greater than what theirs was,” said Mr. Paterson, who mentioned that he had recently dined with Mr. Cuomo.“The positive interaction now is, it’s a tricky path,” he said, even as he noted that he did not expect it to be a “prelude to a partnership.”In his podcast, Mr. Cuomo made plain that he did not intend to bear-hug Mr. Trump, noting that the former president had been highly critical of Democratic governors at the height of the pandemic, but seemed to be changing his tune — making a “total 180” — as he focused on a primary rival.“Now the politics has shifted for Mr. Trump, who is running against Mr. DeSantis, and now Mr. Trump says, ‘Cuomo did a better job than DeSantis,’” Mr. Cuomo said. “I’m very proud of the way New York handled it.” More

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      Alberta’s Vote Will Test American-Style Far-Right Politics

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      An election in Alberta will be a test of a premier who has said that she models her politics after those of prominent right-wing U.S. politicians.The NewsVoters in Alberta, the epicenter of conservative politics in Canada, will select a new provincial government on Monday. Albertans will vote for local representatives in the provincial legislature and the party that wins the most seats will form the government, with its leader becoming premier. The election pits the United Conservative Party, led by the current premier, Danielle Smith, against a leftist party, the New Democratic Party, led by Rachel Notley, a lawyer. Before the pandemic, the governing United Conservative Party appeared to have a firm hold on power. But last year, large and angry demonstrations against pandemic restrictions and against vaccine mandates helped spark a trucker convoy in the province that eventually spread, paralyzing Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and blocking vital cross-border crossings.A small group of social conservatives within the United Conservatives ousted their leader, Jason Kenney, ending his premiership, after the government refused to lift pandemic measures. The party replaced him with Ms. Smith, a far-right former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist prone to incendiary comments; she compared people who were vaccinated against Covid-19 to supporters of Hitler. Danielle Smith, the leader of the United Conservative Party, while campaigning this month in Calgary.Amber Bracken for The New York TimesThe BackgroundMs. Smith likes to extol right-wing U.S. politicians, for example, calling Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican running for president, her hero. She also has floated ideas that most Canadians would never support, like charging fees for public health care.Ms. Smith now finds herself, analysts say, far to the right of many conservative loyalists, turning what should been a near-certain victory for her party into a close race that has provided an opening for their opponents, the New Democratic Party, a leftist party.“This would not be a close race if anyone other than Danielle Smith was leading the U.C.P.,” said Janet Brown, who runs a polling firm based in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city. Ms. Notley is seeking to steer the labor-backed New Democrats to a second upset victory in the province in recent years. In 2015, she led the New Democrats to power for the first time in Alberta’s history, thanks in part to a fracturing of the conservative movement into two feuding parties. The stunning win broke a string of conservative governments dating to the Great Depression. But her victory coincided with a collapse in oil prices that cratered the province’s economy. Ms. Notley’s approval ratings plunged and the United Conservatives took over in 2019.Ms. Smith’s support is largely based in the province’s rural areas, surveys show, while Ms. Notley’s path to victory on Tuesday will likely be through Alberta’s urban centers, including its two largest cities, Edmonton and Calgary. Edmonton, the provincial capital and a city with a large union presence, is likely to back the New Democrats. That could make Calgary, which is generally more conservative leaning, a deciding factor. Calgary also has a growing ethnic population, particularly immigrants from South Asia, and Ms. Smith’s is unpopular with many of those voters because of some of her extreme statements.Why It MattersIf Ms. Smith’s brand of conservatism fails to return her party to office in Canada’s most conservative province, the federal Conservative Party of Canada may need to reconsider its strategy as it prepares to take on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party in the next national elections. The federal conservatives also replaced the party’s leader during the pandemic with a combative right-wing politician, Pierre Poilievre, who welcomed truck convoy protesters to Ottawa, the capital, with coffee and doughnuts. Mr. Poilievre shares Ms. Smith’s penchant for promoting provocative positions.Even a narrow victory for Ms. Smith could actually be a loss, if it means fewer conservative seats in the provincial legislature, said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary. In that scenario, Ms. Smith could find her position as premier and party leader tenuous and many of the policies she promotes could be cast aside, he said. “If she loses, she’s gone,” he said. “If she wins, I think she’s still gone.” More

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      DeSantis Steps Up Attacks on Trump, Hitting Him on Crime and Covid

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida vowed to repeal the First Step Act, a Trump-era criminal justice law, if elected president. He called it “basically a jailbreak bill.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida escalated his hostilities with former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, arguing that his Republican presidential rival was weak on crime and immigration, and accusing him of ceding critical decision-making during the coronavirus pandemic to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci.In an appearance with the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Mr. DeSantis accused Mr. Trump, the G.O.P. front-runner, of “moving left” on criminal justice and immigration issues after winning over the party’s base in 2015 and 2016.He pledged that he would repeal what is known as the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice measure signed into law by Mr. Trump in 2018 that expanded early-release programs and modified sentencing laws, including mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.“He enacted a bill, basically a jailbreak bill,” Mr. DeSantis said. “It has allowed dangerous people out of prison who have now reoffended and really, really hurt a number of people.”This year, The New York Times reported that Mr. DeSantis and his allies saw the criminal justice bill, which Mr. Trump signed at the urging of his son-in-law Jared Kushner — and instantly regretted — as an area of political weakness, and that Mr. DeSantis had signaled he would use it in the nomination fight. The bill is unpopular with parts of Mr. Trump’s hard-core base.But for Mr. DeSantis, assailing Mr. Trump over the First Step Act is potentially complicated. Mr. DeSantis himself voted for the first version of the bill when he was in Congress, and Trump allies have sought to highlight that fact.“So now Swampy Politician Ron DeSanctimonious is claiming he voted for it before he voted against it,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement. “He sounds just like John Kerry. What a phony! He can’t run away from his disastrous, embarrassing, and low-energy campaign announcement. Rookie mistakes and unforced errors — that’s who he is.”(Mr. DeSantis’s allies note that the version of the bill he voted for looked significantly different, and that the final version passed when he was no longer in the House.)When Mr. Shapiro asked Mr. DeSantis about Mr. Trump’s recent criticism that crime had risen on his watch in Florida, the former president’s adopted state, Mr. DeSantis bristled and said Mr. Trump’s policies had undermined law and order.Mr. DeSantis stepped up his attacks on his onetime ally, whom he had avoided criticizing directly for months, less than 48 hours after he entered the race in a bumpy Twitter event.And as Mr. DeSantis seems to veer to the right on issues like crime, some of his campaign’s internal strategy is coming to light.At a fund-raising meeting in Miami on Thursday, donors peppered Mr. DeSantis’s top campaign staff members with questions about his policy positions and how they should be presented to other Republicans, according to a leaked audio recording posted online by the website Florida Politics.One donor raised a question about the rightward shift, to which a campaign official eventually responded, “We just got to win a primary in order to be in a general.”The donors and officials also discussed how to talk to Republicans who support abortion rights. (Mr. DeSantis last month signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida, which contains limited exceptions, while Mr. Trump has been hesitant to support a federal ban.)A staff member offered one possible answer.“Abortion is safe, legal and rare in Florida,” he said, parroting a phrase coined by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. “It has not been banned,” he added. “It is limited.”In his interview with Mr. Shapiro on Friday, Mr. DeSantis sought to cast himself as unwavering on illegal immigration, saying that Mr. Trump had attacked him for opposing amnesty legislation while in Congress.He also faulted Mr. Trump for his administration’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, especially the level of influence exerted by Dr. Fauci, the longtime top infectious disease expert and face of the federal government’s pandemic response.Dr. Fauci, who retired in January, has been a frequent target of Republican attacks over issues like remote learning, stay-at-home orders and vaccine mandates.“He responded by elevating Anthony Fauci and really turning the reins over to Dr. Fauci, and I think to terrible consequences for the United States,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I was the leader in this country in fighting back against Fauci. We bucked him every step of the way.”He said that Dr. Fauci should have been fired, but Mr. Trump had honored him.“I think the fact that Donald Trump gave Anthony Fauci a presidential commendation on Trump’s last day in office, that was a gut punch to millions of people around this country who were harmed by Fauci’s lockdowns,” Mr. DeSantis said.A day earlier, in a post by Mr. Trump on his Truth Social platform, the former president slammed Mr. DeSantis over Florida’s response to the pandemic. He said that even former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York had done a better job limiting the loss of lives to the virus than Mr. DeSantis had.Mr. DeSantis described Mr. Trump’s claim as “very bizarre,” and said that it suggested he would double down on his actions if there were another pandemic. More

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      Alberta Election Tests Conservatives’ Far-Right Shift

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      The pandemic took the conservative party in the oil-rich province of Alberta far to the right. An election on Monday will test if voters, traditionally among Canada’s most conservative, will follow.Sitting at a cafe terrace overlooking a park commemorating the birthplace of the vast oil industry in the western Canadian province of Alberta, Audrey Cerkvenac and Ernestine Dumont, wrestled with a political dilemma.In a province long the epicenter of Canada’s conservative politics, the two older women had been unwavering conservative supporters.But now, as Monday’s provincial election approached, they said they had been turned off by the strident right turn the province’s conservative party had taken as it ruled Alberta during the pandemic, fueled by extremist protests against Covid restrictions and baseless claims about vaccines.The hard-right turn of the United Conservative Party has put a province that was once a sure win for Canada’s conservatives up for grabs in Monday’s elections. Beyond a referendum on the ideological shift of the party, the vote could also serve as a gauge of the conservative standing nationwide.Led by someone who compared people vaccinated against Covid-19 to Nazi supporters, Alberta’s conservative party has moved so far right since the pandemic that it has created an opening for the left-leaning New Democratic Party to win control of the province. A conservative loss in Alberta would deal a blow to the political viability of Canada’s far right.“The pandemic has allowed a radical, right wing group to develop” here, said Ms. Cerkvenac, a retired health care administrator, who like Ms. Dumont, said she would probably deface her ballot to void it. “I have to do what I can to try and stop this.’’Anger over pandemic rules, especially vaccine mandates for cross border travel, gave birth to trucker convoys in Alberta that spread east, eventually paralyzing Canada’s capital for nearly a month and closing border crossings.Police officers began to make arrests at a trucker protest in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, in February 2022. The protest had paralyzed the city for nearly a month. Brett Gundlock for The New York TimesThe fury also upended the political landscape, paving the way for a small, socially conservative faction of the United Conservative Party to install the current premier and party leader, Danielle Smith, 52, a far-right former newspaper columnist and radio talk show host.After becoming premier last October, she declared that the unvaccinated were the “most discriminated against group” she’d seen in her lifetime and, in May, a video surfaced of her likening people who chose to be vaccinated to followers of Hitler.In a province with a large and longstanding Ukrainian community, she suggested that some parts of Ukraine may “feel more affinity to Russia” and should separate. One of her first legislative acts was to sign a law she claimed would allow Alberta to ignore federal laws.And Ms. Smith broke ethics laws to intervene on behalf of a prominent protester who was facing prosecution. Last week, the province’s ethics commissioner found that she broke conflict of interest laws when she spoke with her attorney general on behalf of a pastor facing criminal charges for inciting a border blockade as part of the protests.Danielle Smith, the leader of the United Conservative Party, during a campaign event in Calgary.“When you look at public opinion data from pre-Covid, during Covid and whatever this period is now; there is something different in the water in Alberta from a cultural-political perspective,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, the province’s largest city.That difference may also surface during the next federal elections.Canada’s conservatives will challenge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party in elections that must be held by October 2025.The federal Conservative Party also replaced its leader during the pandemic with a combative right-wing politician, Pierre Poilievre, who welcomed truck convoy protesters to Ottawa, the capital, with coffee and doughnuts and who shares Ms. Smith’s tendency for provocative rhetoric.On Monday, Alberta’s voters have a stark choice between the United Conservatives and the New Democrats, or N.D.P., which held power in Alberta from 2015 to 2019.A pumpjack, farmland and mountains near Longview, Alberta. While Calgary is contested, Alberta’s rural areas are more likely to vote for the United Conservative Party.The N.D.P. gained power then from conservatives, who had run Alberta from 1935 to 2015, by taking advantage of divisions among conservatives to narrowly win a stunning victory. They installed Rachel Notley, a lawyer for labor groups, but her approval ratings sank as oil prices plunged, decimating the province’s budget. The party lost power in 2019.Ms. Notley, 59, is representing the N.D.P. again in this election. During campaign stops, she portrays Ms. Smith as unpredictable and promoting ideas most voters would reject, like selling public hospitals to a for-profit business or making patients pay fees for public hospitals — both considered politically toxic in Canada.“This election is about leadership and it’s about trust,” Ms. Notley said at a campaign rally in Calgary. “Albertans don’t have a high level of trust that they can count on her to protect our health care. ”Ms. Notley said she plans to expand transit lines, and build new schools and hospitals.Rachel Notley, the leader of the New Democrats, speaking at a campaign rally in Calgary.For her part, Ms. Smith warns voters that Ms. Notley’s party is bent on embarking on a spending spree that would inevitably lead to higher taxes.Ms. Smith promises crime reduction and tax cuts. She also looks to the United States to define her conservative values, calling Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who just announced his entry into the Republican presidential primary, “my hero.”During a debate between the two party’s leaders, Ms. Smith sought to focus on Ms. Notley’s performance as premier.“Ms. Notley likes to show grainy videos of things I said while I was on radio and the reason she does that is she doesn’t want to run on her record,” Ms. Smith said. “And the reason she doesn’t want to run on her record is it was an absolute disaster.”Calgary is among the urban areas of Alberta where support for the New Democratic Party is heavily concentrated though it is unclear if it can offset conservative votes in rural regions.To become the premier again, Ms. Notley would need to see her party win the most seats on Monday. Her hopes hinge largely on how well her party will perform in Calgary, which historically has been a fickle base of support for the left, according to Janet Brown, the head of a Calgary-based polling firm. The New Democrats are already solidly ahead in Edmonton, the provincial capital, and one of their traditional bases of support, according to surveys.“I’m not discounting any possible outcome,” she said.One deciding factor, she said, may be the large and rapidly growing ethnic communities in Calgary.At a sprawling community center in a Calgary neighborhood home to many South Asian immigrants, Rishi Nagar, the host of a local Punjabi language morning radio show, said the United Conservatives had already alienated many South Asian voters before Ms. Smith became leader.Rishi Nagar, the host of a radio show, said the United Conservatives have alienated many South Asian voters.Her predecessor, Jason Kenney, appeared on his program and suggested that the high rates of Covid infections in South Asian communities was the result of their failure to abide by public health restrictions, even though Mr. Nagar and other community leaders pointed out that they worked jobs that exposed them to the virus.“We are the people sitting at the cash counters of the grocery stores,’’ he said. “We are the people driving taxis. We are the people driving buses. Don’t you think this is the reason of the spread?”He said many South Asians voters trust Ms. Notley to provide more funding for schools and health care even if her party is further to the left than many of them are. Voters may not embrace her party, “but people like Rachel Notley,” he said. “People do not like Danielle Smith.”Members of the South Asian community at a community center in Calgary. The city’s growing ethnic communities could play a key role in Monday’s election.Ms. Smith still has support in rural regions of Alberta.At a junior high school event on the rodeo grounds in High River, Alberta, Ms. Smith’s hometown, Frank McInenly, a retired auctioneer, said he had little use for public health measures and was only vaccinated so he could vacation in the United States.“The whole Covid thing with these people walking around these masks on, how dumb was that?” he said.While Mr. McInenly will go on at some length about what he views as Ms. Notley’s shortcomings, he’s less than enthusiastic about Ms. Smith.“She’s OK,” he said.More than anything, Mr. McInenly’s vote reflects his desire to keep the New Democrats out of power. “It’s really scary,” he said. “Because if the N.D.P. get back in, we’re done.”Dylan Zakariasen, 3, leading a horse with Colton Zakariasen, 11, as their mother, Robyn Zakariasen, watched at a junior high school rodeo in High River, Alberta, Ms. Smith’s hometown. More

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      Biden Is Running on His Record as President. Here’s Where He Stands.

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      President Biden has acknowledged that he has not accomplished all he wished to. But that, he maintains, is an argument for his re-election.WASHINGTON — Just hours after formally kicking off his re-election campaign, President Biden appeared on Tuesday before a crowd of union supporters chanting “four more years” to outline his case for a second term.In his telling, unsurprisingly, the record sounds pretty good — more jobs, more roads and bridges, more clean energy, more opportunities for workers without college degrees. In just two and a half years, he argued, he has helped restore America following a debilitating pandemic and societal collapse. “Our economic plan is working,” he maintained.But as with any incumbent seeking a renewal by voters, there is the record he is running on and the record he is running away from. During his address to more than 3,000 members of North America’s Building Trades Unions, Mr. Biden made no mention of the promises he has failed to achieve so far or the setbacks that have left him with some of the lowest approval ratings of a president at this point in their term.Mr. Biden’s record looks different depending on the angle from which it is viewed, all the more so in polarized times when voters and viewers migrate to their own corners of the information world for radically different vantage points. The president is either the mature leader fixing the country as he stands against the forces of evil or he is the leader of the forces of evil destroying the country.“Under my predecessor, infrastructure week became a punchline,” Mr. Biden told the union members, mocking former President Donald J. Trump’s failure to pass legislation rebuilding the nation’s worn public facilities that his successor did succeed in enacting. “On my watch, infrastructure has become a decade headline — a decade.”Mr. Trump, now seeking a rematch against Mr. Biden in 2024, gave his potential opponent no credit. “When I stand on that debate stage and compare our records,” he said in a statement, “it will be radical Democrats’ worst nightmare because there’s never been a record as bad as they have, and our country has never been through so much.”Along with the $1 trillion infrastructure package, which passed with Republican votes, Mr. Biden can boast of sweeping legislative victories that would have seemed improbable when he took office. Among other measures he pushed through a Congress with narrow Democratic majorities were a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package; major investments to combat climate change; lower prescription drug costs for seniors; increased corporate taxes; expanded treatment for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits and incentives to turbocharge the semiconductor industry.He has been unable, however, to fulfill other major promises, including an assault weapons ban; an immigration overhaul providing a path to citizenship for migrants in the country illegally; two years of free community college; free universal preschool for all three- and four-year-olds; national paid sick leave; greater voting rights protections; and policing changes to counter excessive force. Some of those were never realistic in the first place, but Mr. Biden was the one to highlight them as priorities.His economic record is similarly complicated. More than 12 million jobs have been created since he took office as the economy bounced back from the pandemic, and unemployment is at or near its lowest level in a half-century. But inflation rocketed up to its highest level in four decades, which some critics blamed on excessive federal spending under Mr. Biden, although cost increases have been a global phenomenon. Likewise, gas prices shot up to record levels. While both have begun to come back down — inflation has fallen from 9 percent to 5 percent — Americans remain skittish about the economy, according to polls, and economists still worry about a possible recession.After fitful starts, Mr. Biden has presided over the easing of the Covid pandemic and accompanying restrictions despite vaccine resistance among many, especially on the political right. But he has failed to quell a surge of migration at the southwestern border, where attempted crossings have hit record highs, and Republicans blame him for a wave of crime, which actually began while Mr. Trump was still in office.Mr. Biden has worked to reverse Mr. Trump’s impact on the judiciary, pushing through more judicial appointments through the Senate in his first two years than his predecessor had, but the pipeline has slowed in recent months with the absence of an ailing Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, from the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Biden fulfilled his promise to appoint the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson.Where he has not been able to work his will on lawmakers, he has relied on an expansive interpretation of his executive power to achieve policy goals, most notably his decision to forgive $400 billion in student loans. But such actions are inherently subject to court challenges, and analysts expect the Supreme Court to overrule the student loan decision.In the international arena, Mr. Biden worked to revitalize international ties that had frayed under Mr. Trump, recommitting to NATO and rejoining the Paris climate change accord. But his effort to resurrect the Iran nuclear agreement abandoned by Mr. Trump has gone nowhere.Mr. Biden’s withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan after 20 years turned into a debacle, leading to a swift and brutal takeover of the country by the Taliban and a chaotic withdrawal of troops and allies, with fleeing Afghans swarming American planes and a suicide bomber killing 13 American troops and 170 civilians.Although Mr. Trump has criticized Mr. Biden over the episode, the president was carrying out a pullout deal that his predecessor struck with the Taliban, a pact that one of Mr. Trump’s own national security advisers called a “surrender agreement.” Some experts argue the fiasco at the Kabul airport emboldened President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to assume that Mr. Biden was weak.But Mr. Biden rallied the world when Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine last year to isolate Moscow and cut off much of its financial ties with the West. With bipartisan support, Mr. Biden has committed more than $100 billion to arm Ukraine’s military and enable its government and people to survive the Russian onslaught. American assistance helped the Ukrainians surprise Russian invaders by preventing the takeover of their capital and most of the country, but the situation remains volatile.It remains volatile at home as well. Mr. Biden made the theme of his inaugural address his desire to unite the country after the divisions of the Trump years. And while he has to some extent lowered the temperature in Washington and worked at times with Republicans, America remains deeply polarized.Republicans accuse Mr. Biden of being the divisive one, citing his rhetoric assailing “MAGA Republicans” and blaming him for the investigations of his rival, Mr. Trump, although there is no evidence of involvement by the president.In his campaign kickoff video and subsequent speech on Tuesday, Mr. Biden acknowledged that he has not accomplished all he wished to. But that, he maintained, was an argument for his re-election. “We’ve got a lot more work to do,” he said. More

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      Your Monday Briefing: Evacuations from Sudan

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      Also, China suppressed Covid-19 data.A building that was damaged during battles in Khartoum.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEvacuations from SudanThe U.S. evacuated its diplomats from Sudan yesterday, starting an exodus of foreign diplomats from the country as fighting there stretched into a second week.Officials said almost 100 people — mostly U.S. Embassy employees — were evacuated by helicopters that arrived from Djibouti, where the U.S. has a base. More than 100 special operations troops were involved in the operation. Within hours after the U.S. announced the move, a swell of countries, including France, Britain and Germany, followed suit.India said that it had two military aircraft and a naval vessel on standby to prepare for the evacuation of its citizens. China issued a notice via its embassy in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, asking its citizens to register if they wanted to be rescued.As helicopters and planes swept away foreigners, Sudanese citizens continued to flee. They often face greater risks than diplomats or aid workers, and many have been trying to leave through land borders, but the journeys are dangerous.Sudan’s challenges: Many of those still stranded in their homes in Khartoum are without electricity, food or water. The health care system is on the verge of a breakdown, medical workers say.Context: The evacuations came on the ninth day of brutal fighting between the Sudanese Army and a paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, whose leaders are vying for supremacy. At least 400 people have been killed in the violence and more than 3,500 injured, according to the U.N.A patient in a hospital in Wuhan in January 2020.Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesChina rewrites the Covid-19 storyIt is well documented that China muzzled scientists, hindered international investigations and censored online talk about Covid-19. But Beijing’s censorship goes far deeper than even many pandemic researchers are aware of.Chinese researchers have withheld data, withdrawn genetic sequences from public databases and altered crucial details in journal submissions, shaking the foundations of shared scientific knowledge, a Times investigation found. Western journal editors enabled those efforts by agreeing to those edits or by withdrawing papers for murky reasons.Notably, in early 2020, a team of scientists from the U.S. and China released data on the coronavirus, which showed how quickly the virus was spreading and who was dying. But days later, the researchers quietly withdrew the paper.It’s now clear that the paper was withdrawn at Beijing’s direction amid a crackdown on science, starving doctors and policymakers of critical information about the virus when it was most needed.Analysis: The censorship helped China control the narrative about the early days of the pandemic, especially the timeline of early infections. Beijing has faced criticism over whether it responded to the virus quickly enough.The military junta has escalated its attacks on civilians.Aung Shine Oo/Associated PressAn assassination in MyanmarA rebel group in Myanmar claimed responsibility for the assassination of a high-ranking election official for the military junta. The attack on Saturday, by bicycle-riding gunmen, came as violence escalated on both sides of the country’s internal conflict.The official, Sai Kyaw Thu, was fatally shot while he was driving his wife to her job in Yangon. He had worked on elections before the 2021 coup and had testified at the trial of the ousted civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the ousted president, U Win Myint. The junta convicted them of election fraud.The resistance group, “For the Yangon,” targeted him for his testimony and accused him of being complicit in “oppressing and terrorizing” the public. The killing is one of several recent high-profile assassinations. It comes as the junta faces growing resistance from pro-democracy forces and ethnic rebel groups, which have long fought for autonomy.Recent context: The military has responded in recent months with an increasing number of atrocities, including the beheading, disembowelment or dismemberment of rebel fighters, as well as attacks on civilians.THE LATEST NEWSThe War in UkraineThe funeral for Oleksandr Dykiy, 41, a Ukrainian soldier killed last week near Bakhmut.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesRussian troops are forcibly relocating people from areas near Kherson, a Ukrainian official said. The moves suggest Russian troops could be preparing to withdraw further ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.President Volodymyr Zelensky banned Russian place names and made knowledge of Ukrainian language and history a requirement for citizenship.My colleagues spoke to a Ukrainian soldier who rescues the wounded from the front lines. “It’s difficult to see young boys die,” he said, in a video. “Sometimes I cry quietly.”Many Russian prisoners are H.I.V. positive. They were promised anti-viral medications if they agreed to fight.Asia PacificThe wreck of a Japanese ship that was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine in 1942 was found. When it sank, it was carrying more than 1,000 prisoners of war, most of whom were Australian.The Australia Letter: Natasha Frost went looking for darkness ahead of the solar eclipse.Other Big StoriesSifan Hassan was as stunned as everyone else when she crossed the finish line first in the women’s race.John Walton/Press Association, via Associated PressSifan Hassan, of the Netherlands, won the women’s race in the London Marathon after training during Ramadan. Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum won the men’s race, posting the second-fastest time on record: 2:01:25.The Red Cross expressed alarm about the health of aging prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.Britain’s deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, resigned on Friday after an investigation that found he had bullied subordinates.A Morning ReadAnn Peetermans hosts three boarders with mental illness.Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesFor centuries, families in the Belgian town of Geel have taken in people with mental illnesses. The approach has often been regarded with suspicion, but more recently the town has come up for reconsideration as an emblem of a humane alternative to neglect or institutionalization.Lives lived: Bruce Haigh, an Australian diplomat, helped offer covert support to anti-apartheid figures in South Africa. He died at 77.ARTS AND IDEASWomen inspiring womenT magazine asked 33 mid- and late-career female artists (the majority of them over 45 years old) to identify a younger female creative person who inspired them. The artists didn’t have to know each other or even be in the same field.Hanya Yanagihara, the editor in chief of T, wrote that she was struck by how many of these artists’ younger counterparts saw the lives of those who picked them as models of self-possession and assuredness, even as the older artists themselves claim this wasn’t the case.For instance, both Margaret Cho, 54, and Atsuko Okatsuka, 34, imagined each other was born confident. But it took years for each to find her voice.“I had a hard time understanding, or committing to, artistic integrity, whereas Atsuko already has the presentation down,” Cho said. “She knows who she is. She has a strong sense of self that took me a long time to develop.”For more: T also talked to seven artistic mother-and-daughter groups and explored how female mentor-mentee relationships have shaped artistic history.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChris Simpson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas.To order the best thing on a menu, look for sleeper hits, like these citrus-glazed turnips.What to WatchIn “Other People’s Children,” a Parisian teacher falls for a father — and his young daughter — in a subtle, deeply felt drama.What to Listen toOur pop critics recommend these new songs. Here’s their playlist, on Spotify.The News QuizHow well did you follow last week’s headlines?Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Trail trekker (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. My colleague Kim Severson talked to Marketplace about her reporting on Gen Z saying no to milk.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the leaked documents. Or, listen to the story of an Italian town where people pelt each other with oranges.I’m always available at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      in Elections

      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Makes His White House Run Official

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      Announcing his long-shot bid to challenge President Biden, he spoke to a crowd of people who voiced their shared skepticism about vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry.More than half a century after his father sought the White House to end a calamitous war in Vietnam and to salve the country’s racial wounds, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a presidential campaign on Wednesday built on re-litigating Covid-19 shutdowns and shaking Americans’ faith in science.Mr. Kennedy, a California resident, traveled to Boston, once the citadel of his family’s power, to declare that he would challenge President Biden for the Democratic nomination in a long-shot bid for the White House.Appearing at the Park Plaza Hotel — a favorite fund-raising venue of his uncle Ted Kennedy’s — he sought to wrap himself in the Kennedy political luster.The event was saturated, in words and images, with reminiscences of Mr. Kennedy’s father as well as another uncle, President John F. Kennedy.In a rambling speech lasting nearly two hours, Mr. Kennedy, 69, evoked his father’s 1968 campaign and death, and spoke in detail about his career as an environmental lawyer decades ago. He also aimed criticisms at the pharmaceutical industry, big social media companies that he accused of censorship, Mr. Biden’s commitment to the war in Ukraine and former President Donald J. Trump’s “lockdown” of the country early in the pandemic.“This is what happens when you censor somebody for 18 years,” Mr. Kennedy said, a reference to his complaint that social media platforms and the mainstream media have not given him a fair hearing. “I got a lot to talk about. They shouldn’t have shut me up for that long because now I’m really going to let loose on them for the next 18 months. They’re going to hear a lot from me.”Late in his speech, an alarm sounded and an announcement asked people to evacuate. Nobody moved. “Nice try,” Mr. Kennedy said, and continued to speak.Numerous attendees, who had come from Boston, neighboring New England states and Florida, recounted in interviews their skepticism about vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry.While polls show that up to half of Democrats want someone besides Mr. Biden as their 2024 nominee, no party leader has stepped up with a challenge, and past opponents have rallied to the president’s side. Mr. Kennedy is the latest in a history of fringe presidential aspirants from both parties who run to bring attention to a cause, or to themselves.For Mr. Kennedy, that cause is vaccine skepticism, which he cloaked in terms of truth-seeking and free speech, a crusade that in the past led him to falsely link childhood vaccines to autism. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, he sought to undermine public trust in vaccines, comparing government efforts to impose mandates in some places to “Hitler’s Germany.” Both Facebook and Instagram took down accounts of a group he runs for spreading medical misinformation.Family members have accused Mr. Kennedy of sowing distrust in the science behind vaccines. His campaign has appalled members of his famous Democratic clan.“I love my brother Bobby, but I do not share or endorse his opinions on many issues, including the Covid pandemic, vaccinations and the role of social media platforms in policing false information,” Kerry Kennedy, a sister of Mr. Kennedy’s, said in a statement.Bob Shrum, a former aide to Ted Kennedy, said Mr. Kennedy’s attacks on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and the federal government’s top medical and scientific agencies would have infuriated his uncle. “It’s contrary to everything his uncle Ted Kennedy ever did,” he said. “He called health care the cause of his life.”In a statement of his own, Mr. Kennedy said he had made a “difficult choice to put my principles ahead of my personal affections” for Mr. Biden. “Some members of my family agree with me and others do not,” he added. “I bear them no ill will.”On Wednesday in Boston, Mr. Kennedy was introduced by his wife, Cheryl Ruth Hines, an actress, and he pointed out his children and grandchildren seated in a balcony of the hotel ballroom. But there was a notable absence of members of his family who have made careers in politics. A number of them affirmed their support for Mr. Biden’s re-election in recent days, part of a decades-long alliance between the Biden and Kennedy families.Ted Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, is Mr. Biden’s ambassador to Austria. Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President Kennedy, is ambassador to Australia. And Joe Kennedy III, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, is Mr. Biden’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, who flew with him this month to Belfast.Though his campaign is unlikely to pose a serious threat to Mr. Biden, the strength of emotions expressed by his supporters on Wednesday pointed to a group that is angry and distrustful of traditional Democrats when it comes to vaccines. Any link between childhood vaccines and autism has been widely rebuked by peer-reviewed scientific studies. Covid vaccines, which have been administered to millions of Americans, are safe and effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Nonetheless, misinformation about vaccines swirls online.Attendees, echoing Mr. Kennedy, took aim at a corrupt alliance of big business and government.“The Covid vaccines are not effective and not safe,” maintained Claire Mortimer, 69, a nurse practitioner who drove from Brooklin, Maine, to hear Mr. Kennedy. “I believe that only Bobby Kennedy Jr. is capable of getting rid of the corruption that is so deeply embedded in every agency of our government.”Andy Migner, 67, who works in regenerative healing in Boston, described herself as a “lifetime Democrat” who now feels politically homeless. She said “our ability to question,” as well as journalism and public debate, “has gone down the tubes.” More