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    As Donors Work Against Mamdani, Top Democrats Stop Short of Backing Him

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    After Zohran Mamdani’s performance in the New York City mayoral primary, Republicans and suburban Democrats attacked him, and party leaders seemed to be hedging their bets.The day after Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani rocked the nation’s largest city by becoming the presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee, New York’s political leaders declined to formally endorse him, and some donors to former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo considered coalescing behind Mayor Eric Adams.In an interview, Scott Rechler, one of the city’s biggest landlords, said that in a general election race between Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, and Mr. Adams, he would put his support and potentially his financial resources behind the scandal-tarred incumbent.Mr. Rechler, who donated $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Mr. Cuomo, expressed hope that the former governor and Mr. Adams, who is running in the general election as an independent, would not split the centrist vote.“You want to have leadership that speaks to what New York is,” Mr. Rechler said. “It’s the capital of capitalism.”Mr. Cuomo, who for months led in Democratic primary polls, continued on Wednesday to leave open the possibility that he would run in November on a third-party line. Polls and conventional political wisdom suggest that such a move would only enhance Mr. Mamdani’s chances, at the expense of Mr. Adams.Bill Ackman, a hedge fund billionaire and supporter of President Trump who donated $500,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s super PAC, said on social media that he also “may ultimately support and endorse” Mr. Adams.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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      Republican Lawmakers Cheer Strike on Iran as Top Democrats Condemn It

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      Republicans in Congress praised President Trump’s decision to hit Iran. Many Democrats and some G.O.P. lawmakers said he should have consulted Congress.Top Republicans in Congress swiftly rallied behind President Trump on Saturday after he ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, even as senior Democrats and some G.O.P. lawmakers condemned it as an unconstitutional move that could drag the United States into a broader war in the Middle East.In separate statements, the leading Republicans in Congress, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, commended the military operation, calling it a necessary check on Iran’s ambitions of developing a nuclear weapon. Both men had been briefed on the military action before the strike was carried out, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thune both argued that the airstrikes were necessary after Iran had rejected diplomatic overtures to curb its nuclear program.“The regime in Iran, which has committed itself to bringing ‘death to America’ and wiping Israel off the map, has rejected all diplomatic pathways to peace,” Mr. Thune said.Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said that Iran rejected pathways to peace.Tierney L. Cross/The New York TimesMr. Johnson argued that the military action was consistent with Mr. Trump’s muscular foreign policy.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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      Juneteenth Goes Uncelebrated at White House as Trump Complains About ‘Too Many’ Holidays

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      President Trump made no statement about the federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, other than saying there were too many like it. Lesser occasions routinely garner official proclamations.Juneteenth, the holiday that marks the end of slavery in the United States, has been celebrated at the White House each June 19 since it was enshrined into law four years ago. But on Thursday, it went unmarked by the president — except for a post on social media in which he said he would get rid of some “non-working holidays.”“Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year,” Mr. Trump said in mangled syntax, not mentioning Juneteenth by name nor acknowledging that Thursday was a federal holiday. “It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, indicated to reporters earlier in the day that she was not aware of any plans by Mr. Trump to sign a holiday proclamation. In the past week alone, he’d issued proclamations commemorating Father’s Day, Flag Day and National Flag Week, and the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill — none of which are among the 11 annual federal holidays.In response to a reporter’s question about Juneteenth, Ms. Leavitt acknowledged that Thursday was “a federal holiday,” but noted that White House staff had shown up to work during a briefing that focused primarily on the matter of whether Mr. Trump would order strikes on Iran.Mr. Trump, who has often used holidays as an occasion to advance his political causes and insult critics and opponents on social media, chose the occasion of Juneteenth instead to float the idea of reducing the number of federal holidays, claiming that they are costing businesses billions of dollars. While most federal employees get those holidays off, private businesses have the choice to close or remain open. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day when a Union general arrived in Galveston, Texas, nearly two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, to finally inform enslaved African Americans there that the Civil War had ended and that all enslaved people had been freed. Months later, the 13th Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery in the final four border states that had not been subjected to Lincoln’s order.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 Sue Trump Over Executive Order on Elections

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      Nearly every arm of the Democratic Party united in filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday night, arguing that a recent executive order signed by the president seeking to require documentary proof of citizenship and other voting reforms is unconstitutional.The 70-page lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., accuses the president of vastly overstepping his authority to “upturn the electoral playing field in his favor and against his political rivals.” It lists President Trump and multiple members of his administration as defendants.“Although the order extensively reflects the president’s personal grievances, conspiratorial beliefs and election denialism, nowhere does it (nor could it) identify any legal authority he possesses to impose such sweeping changes upon how Americans vote,” the lawsuit says. “The reason why is clear: The president possesses no such authority.”The lawsuit repeatedly argues that the Constitution gives the president no explicit authority to regulate elections, noting that the Elections Clause of the Constitution “is at the core of this action.” That clause says that states set the “times, places and manner” of elections, leaving them to decide the rules, oversee voting and try to prevent fraud. Congress may also pass federal voting laws.As Democrats debate how best to challenge the Trump administration’s rapid expansion of executive power, the lawsuit represents one of the first moments where seemingly every arm of the party is pushing back with one voice.Such unity is further evidence that Democrats still view the issue of democracy as core to their political brand, as well as a key issue that can help them claw back support with voters as they aim to build a new coalition ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. In February, Democrats sued the Trump administration over attempts to control the Federal Election Commission. Weeks earlier, the D.N.C. joined a lawsuit over new voting laws in Georgia.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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      Chuck Schumer Postpones Book Tour Amid Spending Bill Vote Backlash

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      Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, on Monday postponed a multicity tour to promote his forthcoming book, citing security concerns amid backlash to his decision to vote with Republicans for a stopgap spending bill to stave off a government shutdown.Mr. Schumer was scheduled to participate in promotional events in Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, as well as a few stops in California, for his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.” Many Democratic activists, desperate for their leaders to stand up to President Trump, have been staging protests outside of Mr. Schumer’s Brooklyn home and calling for his resignation. Online, they have been organizing protests for every stop on his book tour.A spokeswoman for Mr. Schumer said that the tour was being rescheduled because of “security concerns.” But the move was immediately criticized by both the right and the left, who accused Mr. Schumer of being unwilling to face a restive public.Since voting on Friday for the stopgap bill, Mr. Schumer has been defending his decision to stave off a government shutdown, which he has said was the less devastating of two bad options that Senate Democrats were presented with. “I’ll take some of the bullets,” Mr. Schumer said of the vitriol directed at him.“There is no off-ramp,” for a government shutdown, Mr. Schumer said in an interview Friday from his office just off the Senate floor. “The off-ramp is in the hands of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE. We could be in a shutdown for six months or nine months,” he said, referring to Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting team, the Department of Government Efficiency.Mr. Schumer said that a shutdown would have allowed Mr. Trump to decide which programs were essential, and which were not. “The day after the shutdown, they can say all of SNAP is not essential, we’re not funding it,” Mr. Schumer said, referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “In a shutdown, it is solely the executive branch that determines what is essential and what is nonessential. There is no court check.”Still, the backlash has been unrelenting.Over the weekend, Mr. Schumer met with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, in Brooklyn. The meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News. Mr. Jeffries and House Democrats, who stuck together to oppose the government funding bill in the House, have criticized Mr. Schumer’s decision. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Mr. Schumer’s decision “unacceptable.” And Mr. Jeffries has avoided expressing any confidence in Mr. Schumer’s leadership since the vote.On Friday, asked at a news conference whether it was time for new leadership in the Senate, Mr. Jeffries responded curtly.“Next question,” he said. More

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      Democrats Don’t Need a Perfect Message Against Trump, They Need to Show Some Fight

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      I asked Senator Chuck Schumer what Americans want from Democrats right now.“They want us to beat Trump and stop this shit,” he told me. “And that’s what we’re doing.”It was a welcome sign of life. For three weeks now, President Trump and the world’s richest man have ransacked from within a democracy that took 250 years to build. The country faces a second crisis: an opposition party that doesn’t seem to know how to respond.With no obvious party standard-bearer, the job of leading Washington Democrats in the second Trump era has fallen largely to Mr. Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leaders of the Senate and the House. It’s been a rocky start.Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries are seasoned dealmakers. But in the minority and facing a president bent on laying waste to the very meaning of the U.S. Congress, both men have struggled to shed the familiar rhythms of business as usual.On Monday, they sent letters to congressional Democrats about using litigation and oversight inquiries to fight Mr. Trump’s agenda. There was some substance. But it’s hard to convey that America is in peril through a letter.Last week they touted a bill from House Democrats aimed at barring Elon Musk from having access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, even though it was clear — at least to state attorneys general who have sued — that Mr. Musk’s access violated the Constitution as well as existing laws, including the Privacy Act of 1974. At times, Mr. Jeffries has sounded like someone who has given up. “What leverage do we have?” he told reporters at his weekly news conference on Friday. “They control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s their government.”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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      Rep. Clay Higgins Posts, Then Deletes, Racist Comments About Haitians

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      Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, advanced racist claims about Haitians in a post on social media that was subsequently deleted on Wednesday.Mr. Higgins’s post on X was a response to an Associated Press article about a court filing by the leader of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit group. The group invoked a citizen’s right to file charges against former President Donald J. Trump and Senator JD Vance of Ohio, his running mate, for knowingly making false claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, that caused panic, the filing said.Mr. Higgins repeated some of those claims in his post on X.“These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters,” he wrote.“But damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP. All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th,” Mr. Higgins continued, referring to the date of the presidential inauguration.Mr. Trump has pledged, if elected, to “get them the hell out,” referring to migrants in Springfield, most of whom are in the United States legally and have filled jobs in local industry.Mr. Higgins’s post appears to have been deleted after he faced backlash. Democrats seized on his post. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House minority leader, said in a statement that Mr. Higgins “must be held accountable for dishonorable conduct that is unbecoming of a member of Congress.”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 Turn to Their National Security Go-To for Trump Assassination Inquiry

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      Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, whom Democrats tapped for impeachment, investigations and tough questioning of President Biden, is their top member of a task force investigating the shooting.Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger, had just ordered his second martini at a bar in Bucharest, Romania, when Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, called him with an urgent question: How quickly could he get to Ukraine?It was April 2022, weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine and touched off an international crisis, and two Republican lawmakers had rushed to be the first to travel to the besieged country. Now Ms. Pelosi wanted to quickly arrange her own visit — and she wanted Mr. Crow, whose national security background distinguished him in his party, to come with her.A late-night phone call from Ms. Pelosi to Mr. Crow would have been improbable when he first came to Congress in 2019. Hailing from a competitive district in Colorado, he had run as a centrist and avowed detractor of the liberal Ms. Pelosi, and after he knocked off a Republican incumbent he pledged that he would not vote for her for speaker.But since then, his credentials — including three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and a Bronze Star, as well as a law degree and a background in private-sector investigations — have made Mr. Crow a go-to lawmaker for Democratic leaders on difficult national security issues.Ms. Pelosi tapped him in 2019 to manage the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. He was part of the whip operation to rally support for legislation to send tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. He was selected as the top Democrat on a subcommittee investigating the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.And last month, he was named the senior Democrat on a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.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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      National and World Leaders Condemn the Shooting at Trump’s Rally

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      Leaders across the United States and the world condemned the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday at his rally in Butler, Pa. President Biden, a wide array of prominent Democratic figures and other political opponents of the former president were among those who quickly condemned the violence, called for national unity and prayed for Mr. Trump’s safety.Mr. Biden, who was being briefed by national security officials in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, issued a written statement later in the evening.“I have been briefed on the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Biden said in the statement. “I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally.”He continued: “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”The top Republicans in Congress — Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana — and their Democratic counterparts — Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York — also quickly published statements denouncing the shooting.“My thoughts and prayers are with former President Trump,” Mr. Jeffries said, adding, “America is a democracy. Political violence of any kind is never acceptable.”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