McCarthy, Kevin (1965- )

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      A Handy Guide to the Republican Definition of a Crime

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      If you think Republicans are still members of the law-and-order party, you haven’t been paying close attention lately. Since the rise of Donald Trump, the Republican definition of a crime has veered sharply from the law books and become extremely selective. For readers confused about the party’s new positions on law and order, here’s a guide to what today’s Republicans consider a crime, and what they do not.Not a crime: Federal crimes.All federal crimes are charged and prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Now that Republicans believe the department has been weaponized into a Democratic Party strike force, particularly against Mr. Trump, its prosecutions can no longer be trusted. “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida recently tweeted.The F.B.I., which investigates many federal crimes, has also become corrupted by the same political forces. “The F.B.I. has become a political weapon for the ruling elite rather than an impartial, law-enforcement agency,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation.And because tax crimes are not real crimes, Republicans have fought for years to slash the number of I.R.S. investigators who fight against cheating.Crime: State and local crimes, if they happen in an urban area or in states run by Democrats.“There is a brutal crime wave gripping Democrat-run New York City,” the Republican National Committee wrote last year. “And it’s not just New York. In 2021, violent crime spiked across the country, with 14 major Democrat-run cities setting new record highs for homicide.” (In fact, the crime rate went up in the city during the pandemic, as it did almost everywhere, but it has already begun to recede, and remains far lower than its peak in the 1990s. New York continues to be one of the safest big cities in the United States.)Crime is so bad in many cities, Republican state leaders say, that they have been forced to try to remove local prosecutors who are letting it happen. Some of these moves, however, are entirely political; a New York Times investigation found no connection between the policies of a prosecutor removed by Mr. DeSantis and the local crime rate.Not a crime: Any crime that happens in rural areas or in states run by Republicans.Between 2000 and 2021, the per capita murder rate in states that voted for Donald Trump was 23 percent higher than in states that voted for Joe Biden, according to one major study. The gap is growing, and it is visible even in the rural areas of Trump states.But this didn’t come up when a Trump ally, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, held a hearing in New York in April to blast Manhattan’s prosecutor for being lax on crime, even though rates for all seven major crime categories are higher in Ohio than in New York City. Nor does House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who tweets about Democratic “lawlessness” — talk about the per capita homicide rate in Bakersfield, Calif., which he represents, which has been the highest in California for years and is higher than New York City’s.Crime: What they imagine Hunter Biden did.The Republican fantasy, being actively pursued by the House Oversight Committee, is that Hunter Biden and his father, President Biden, engaged in “influence peddling” by cashing in on the family name through foreign business deals. Republicans have yet to discover a single piece of evidence proving this theory, but they appear to have no doubt it really happened.Not a crime: What Hunter Biden will actually plead guilty to.Specifically: two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes on time. Because tax crimes are not real crimes to Republicans, the charges are thus proof of a sweetheart deal to let the president’s son off easy, when they would prefer he be charged with bribery and other forms of corruption. Mr. Trump said the plea amounted to a “traffic ticket.” The government also charged Mr. Biden with a handgun-related crime (though it said it would not prosecute this charge); gun-purchasing crimes are also not considered real crimes.Also not a crime: What the Trump family did.There is vast evidence of actual influence-peddling and self-dealing by the Trump family and the Trump Organization during and after Mr. Trump’s presidency, which would seem to violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution and any number of federal ethics guidelines. Just last week The Times published new details of Mr. Trump’s entanglement with the government of Oman, which will bring his company millions of dollars from a Mideast power player even as he runs for re-election.Crime: Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.“Hillary Clinton used a hammer to destroy evidence of a private e-mail server and classified information on that server and was never indicted,” wrote Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina. In fact, a three-year State Department investigation found that instances of classified information being deliberately transmitted on Mrs. Clinton’s server were a “rare exception,” and determined that “there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”Not a crime: Donald Trump’s mishandling of government secrets.The Justice Department has accused Mr. Trump of willfully purloining classified documents from the White House — including top military secrets — and then lying about having them and refusing the government’s demands that they be returned. Nonetheless, former Vice President Mike Pence warned against indicting his old boss because it would be “terribly divisive,” and Mr. McCarthy said “this judgment is wrong by this D.O.J.” because it treats Mr. Trump differently than other officials in the same position. (Except no other official has ever been in the same position, refusing to return classified material that was improperly taken from the White House.)Crime: Any urban disruption that occurred during the protests after George Floyd was killed.Republicans have long claimed that the federal government turned a blind eye to widespread violence during the 2020 protests, and in 2021 five Republican senators accused the Justice Department of an “apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals.” In fact, though the protests were largely peaceful, The Associated Press found that more than 120 defendants around the country pleaded guilty or were convicted of federal crimes related to the protests, including rioting, arson and conspiracy, and that scores received significant prison terms.Not a crime: The invasion of the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Many Republicans are brushing aside the insurrection that occurred when hundreds of people, egged on by Mr. Trump, tried to stop the certification of the 2020 electoral votes. “It was not an insurrection,” said Andrew Clyde, a Republican congressman from Georgia, who said many rioters seemed to be on a “normal tourist visit.” Paul Gosar, a Republican congressman from Arizona, described Jan. 6 defendants as “political prisoners” who were being “persecuted” by federal prosecutors. Mr. Trump said he was inclined to pardon many of the more than 600 people convicted, and Mr. DeSantis said he was open to the possibility of pardoning any Jan. 6 defendant who was the victim of a politicized or weaponized prosecution, including Mr. Trump.Crime against children: Abortion and transgender care.Performing most abortions is now a crime in 14 states, and 20 states have banned or restricted gender-affirming care for transgender minors (though some of those bans have been blocked in court).Not a crime against children: The possession of guns that kill them.The sale or possession of assault weapons, used in so many school shootings, is permitted by federal law, even though the leading cause of death for American children is now firearms-related incidents. Republicans will also not pass a federal law requiring gun owners to store their weapons safely, away from children. It is not a federal crime for unlicensed gun dealers to sell a gun without a background check, which is how millions of guns are sold each year.Any questions? Better not call CrimeStoppers.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      In Legal Peril, Trump Tries to Shift the Spotlight to Biden

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      Donald J. Trump, who is under indictment, is trying to undermine the American justice system by lashing out at his successor.Under indictment and enraged, former President Donald J. Trump — with the help of Republican allies, social media supporters and Fox News — is lashing out at his successor in the hopes of undermining the charges against him.“A corrupt sitting president!” Mr. Trump blared on Tuesday night after being arrested and pleading not guilty in Miami. “The Biden administration has turned us into a banana republic,” one of his longtime advisers wrote in a fund-raising email. “Wannabe dictator,” read a chyron on Fox News, accusing Mr. Biden of having his political rival arrested.The accusations against Mr. Biden are being presented without any evidence that they are true, and Mr. Trump’s claims of an unfair prosecution came even after Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel specifically to insulate the inquiries from political considerations.But that hardly seems to be the point for Mr. Trump and his allies as they make a concerted effort to smear Mr. Biden and erode confidence in the legal system. Just hours after his arraignment, Mr. Trump promised payback if he wins the White House in 2024.“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said during remarks at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.On Twitter, the former president’s followers used words like “traitor,” “disgrace,” “corrupt” and “biggest liar” to describe the current president. And while Fox News said on Wednesday that the “wannabe dictator” headline was “taken down immediately” and addressed, the network counts Mr. Trump’s many followers as loyal viewers.The response from Mr. Biden and his advisers has been studious silence.The president has vowed not to give the slightest hint that he is interfering in the criminal case against Mr. Trump, and he has ordered his White House aides and campaign staff members not to comment. That decision has quieted what is usually a robust rapid response team that aims to counter Republican attacks.The president’s press aides responsible for instantly blasting out pro-Biden commentary to reporters have gone dark. Even Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, issued a terse “no comment” on Wednesday.Jill Biden, the first lady, broke the code of silence on Monday, telling donors at a fund-raiser in New York that she was shocked that Republicans were not bothered by Mr. Trump’s indictment. “My heart feels so broken by a lot of the headlines that we see on the news,” she said at the event, according to The Associated Press.The attorney general also weighed in — somewhat — on Wednesday with his first public comments since Mr. Trump was charged. He took the opportunity to defend Jack Smith, the special counsel, as “a veteran career prosecutor.”“He has assembled a group of experienced and talented prosecutors and agents who share his commitment to integrity and the rule of law,” Mr. Garland said.Still, the no-comment strategy out of the White House is reminiscent of the determined silence by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between Russian operatives and Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Mueller said virtually nothing for more than a year as Mr. Trump and his allies attacked his investigation and his motives.Like Mr. Mueller’s approach, Mr. Biden’s refusal to comment is intended to make sure he does not provide ammunition that his adversaries can try to use to undermine his credibility and integrity.But in the end, the sustained assault on Mr. Mueller and his investigation helped Mr. Trump create a false narrative and survive the damning revelations contained in the more than 400-page report bearing the prosecutor’s name.On Wednesday, when a reporter noted that Mr. Trump had accused Mr. Biden of “having him arrested, effectively directing his arrest,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said, “I’m not going to comment.”Eddie Vale, a longtime Democratic strategist, said the White House position made sense, given the need to avoid even the hint that Mr. Biden was meddling in Mr. Trump’s case.But he said members of outside Democratic groups would most likely begin coming to Mr. Biden’s defense if the attacks continued.“This is such a charged and hot subject,” Mr. Vale said. “There’s nothing to be gained by weighing in. But I think as it goes on, you will have folks on the outer circle weighing in.”Strategists for Mr. Trump promise that the attacks will continue.Chris LaCivita, a senior campaign consultant for Mr. Trump, said on Wednesday that it was fair to assign responsibility for the investigation to Mr. Biden because the special counsel was appointed by Mr. Biden’s attorney general.“There’s a thing called in government, the chain of command,” he said.America First Legal, the pro-Trump group founded by Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s immigration agenda, sent out a fund-raising appeal on Wednesday morning, using the indictment as a rallying cry.The theme has been echoed by Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress, who trained their ire on Mr. Biden even as they also railed against the Justice Department, the F.B.I., the “mainstream media” and Democrats generally.Most of them, it seemed, were trying to goad Mr. Biden into a reaction.“I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice,” tweeted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in Congress.Mr. Biden has so far focused on governing.On Tuesday, the president met with Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, in the Oval Office. Later, he hosted a Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn of the White House, an event where it was easy to avoid the subject of Mr. Trump.“To me, making Juneteenth a federal holiday wasn’t just a symbolic gesture,” Mr. Biden told the crowd in brief remarks. “It was a statement of fact for this country to acknowledge the original sin of slavery.”But it is likely to get more difficult to refrain from wading into the Trump situation.On Saturday, the president is scheduled to attend a political rally with union supporters in Philadelphia. It is the kind of event where he would be expected to draw the contrast between himself and his rivals. Mr. Biden may be able to navigate that issue in the short term; Mr. Trump has a long way to go to win the Republican nomination.But if he does become Mr. Biden’s opponent for the presidency again, the strategy of avoidance may eventually have to change.As the first lady told donors at an event in California — referring to Mr. Trump’s four-year term in the White House: “We cannot go back to those dark days. And with your help, we won’t go back.” More

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      Can Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden Fix Washington?

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      Among the various reassessments of Kevin McCarthy following his successful debt ceiling negotiations, the one with the widest implications belongs to Matthew Continetti, who writes in The Washington Free Beacon that “McCarthy’s superpower is his desire to be speaker. He likes and wants his job.”If you hadn’t followed American politics across the last few decades, this would seem like a peculiar statement: What kind of House speaker wouldn’t want the job?But part of what’s gone wrong with American institutions lately is the failure of important figures to regard their positions as ends unto themselves. Congress, especially, has been overtaken by what Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute describes as a “platform” mentality, where ambitious House members and senators treat their offices as places to stand and be seen — as talking heads, movement leaders, future presidents — rather than as roles to inhabit and opportunities to serve.On the Republican side, this tendency has taken several forms, from Newt Gingrich’s yearning to be a Great Man of History, to Ted Cruz’s ambitious grandstanding in the Obama years, to the emergence of Trump-era performance artists like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And the party’s congressional institutionalists, from dealmakers like John Boehner to policy mavens like Paul Ryan, have often been miserable-seeming prisoners of the talking heads, celebrity brands and would-be presidents.This dynamic seemed likely to imprison McCarthy as well, but he’s found a different way of dealing with it: He’s invited some of the bomb throwers into the legislative process, trying to turn them from platform-seekers into legislators by giving them a stake in governance, and so far he’s been rewarded with crucial support from figures like Greene and Thomas Massie, the quirky Kentucky libertarian. And it’s clear that part of what makes this possible is McCarthy’s enthusiasm for the actual vote-counting, handholding work required of his position, and his lack of both Gingrichian egomania and get-me-out-of-here impatience.But McCarthy isn’t operating in a vacuum. The Biden era has been good for institutionalism generally, because the president himself seems to understand and appreciate the nature of his office more than Barack Obama ever did. As my colleague Carlos Lozada noted on our podcast this week, in both the Senate and the White House, Obama was filled with palpable impatience at all the limitations on his actions. This showed up constantly in his negotiation strategy, where he had a tendency to use his own office as a pundit’s platform, lecturing the G.O.P. on what they should support and thereby alienating Republicans from compromise in advance.Whereas Biden, who actually liked being a senator, is clearly comfortable with quiet negotiation on any reasonable grounds, which is crucial to keeping the other side invested in a deal. And he’s comfortable, as well, with letting the spin machine run on both sides of the aisle, rather than constantly imposing his own rhetorical narrative on whatever bargain Republicans might strike.The other crucial element in the healthier environment is the absence of what Cruz brought to the debt-ceiling negotiations under Obama — the kind of sweeping maximalism, designed to build a presidential brand, that turns normal horse-trading into an existential fight.Expectating that kind of maximalism from Republicans, some liberals kept urging intransigence on Biden long after it became clear that what McCarthy wanted was more in line with previous debt-ceiling bargains. But McCarthy’s reasonability was sustainable because of the absence of a leading Republican senator playing Cruz’s absolutist part. Instead, the most notable populist Republican elected in 2022, J.D. Vance, has been busy looking for deals with populist Democrats on issues like railroad safety and bank-executive compensation, or adding a constructive amendment to the debt-ceiling bill even though he voted against it — as though he, no less than McCarthy, actually likes and wants his current job.One reason for the diminishment of Cruz-like grandstanders is the continued presence of Donald Trump as the G.O.P.’s personality-in-chief, to whose eminence no senator can reasonably aspire. At least through 2024, it’s clear the only way that Trump might be unseated is through the counterprogramming offered by Ron DeSantis, who is selling himself — we’ll see with what success — as the candidate of governance and competence; no bigger celebrity or demagogue is walking through that door.So for now there’s more benefit to legislative normalcy for ambitious Republicans, and less temptation toward the platform mentality, than there would be if Trump’s part were open for the taking.Whatever happens, it will be years until that role comes open. In which case Kevin McCarthy could be happy in his job for much longer than might have been expected by anyone watching his tortuous ascent.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      George Santos Must Be Held Accountable by Republican Leaders

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      George Santos is far from the first member of Congress to be indicted while in office. Both chambers and both parties have endured their share of scandals. In 2005, for instance, F.B.I. agents discovered $90,000 hidden in the freezer of Representative William Jefferson, who was under investigation for bribery. He refused to step down, wound up losing his seat in the 2008 election, and was later sentenced to 13 years in prison. James Traficant was expelled from Congress in 2002 after being convicted of bribery and racketeering. Bob Ney resigned in 2006 because of his involvement in a federal bribery scandal.But in one way, Mr. Santos is different from other members of Congress who have demonstrated moral failures, ethical failures, failures of judgment and blatant corruption and lawbreaking in office. What he did was to deceive the very voters who brought him to office in the first place, undermining the most basic level of trust between an electorate and a representative. These misdeeds erode the faith in the institution of Congress and the electoral system through which American democracy functions.For that reason, House Republican leaders should have acted immediately to protect that system by allowing a vote to expel Mr. Santos and joining Democrats in removing him from office. Instead — not wanting to lose Mr. Santos’s crucial vote — Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed a measure to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee, notorious for its glacial pace, and the House voted predictably along party lines on Wednesday afternoon to follow that guidance.If the House doesn’t reverse that vote under public pressure, it’s incumbent on the Ethics Committee to conduct a timely investigation and recommend expulsion to the full House, where a two-thirds vote will be required to send Mr. Santos back to Long Island.Mr. Santos was arrested and arraigned in federal court last week on 13 criminal counts linked primarily to his 2022 House campaign. Mr. McCarthy and other members of the Republican leadership effectively shrugged, indicating that they would let the legal process “play itself out,” as the conference’s chair, Elise Stefanik, put it.In addition to expulsion, the Republican leaders have several official disciplinary measures they could pursue, such as a formal reprimand or censure, but so far, they have done little more than express concern. Mr. McCarthy has several tough legislative fights looming, including negotiations over the federal budget to avoid a government default, and Mr. Santos’s removal might imperil the G.O.P.’s slim majority. In effect, Mr. Santos’s bad faith has made him indispensable.His constituents believed he held certain qualifications and values, only to learn after Election Day that they had been deceived. Now they have no recourse until the next election.The question, then, is whether House Republican leaders and other members are willing to risk their credibility for a con man, someone whose entire way of life — his origin story, résumé, livelihood — is based on a never-ending series of lies. Of course they should not be. They should have demonstrated to the American people that there is a minimum ethical standard for Congress and used the power of expulsion to enforce it. They should have explained to voters that their commitment to democracy and public trust goes beyond their party’s political goals.At least some Republican lawmakers recognize what is at stake and are speaking out. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah reiterated his view that Mr. Santos should do the honorable thing and step aside, saying, “He should have resigned a long time ago. He is an embarrassment to our party. He is an embarrassment to the United States Congress.”Similarly, Anthony D’Esposito and Mike Lawler, both representing districts in New York, are among several House Republicans advocating his resignation. Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas has gone a step further, calling for Mr. Santos’s expulsion and a special election to replace him. “The people of New York’s 3rd district deserve a voice in Congress,” he wrote on Twitter.Mr. Gonzales gets at the heart of the matter. Mr. Santos has shown contempt for his constituents and for the electoral process. Mr. McCarthy and the other Republican House leaders owe Americans more.Source photograph by Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Republican Party Sorts Through Its Mess

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicIt may feel too early to be thinking about the 2024 presidential election — but it’s the perfect time to understand where the parties are at, and how their plans for the next election cycle are shaping up.In our first episode, we join the Republican National Committee in Dana Point, Calif., as it gathers for its winter meeting. After a disappointing midterms, fractures have formed within the committee’s ranks. After targeting Kevin McCarthy in the fight for House speaker, the grass roots turned their ire on Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the R.N.C.The effort to replace Ms. McDaniel at this year’s winter meeting is emblematic of what the party is at this moment: a mess of tangled lines and scrambled allegiances.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAbout ‘The Run-Up’First launched in August 2016, three months before the election of Donald Trump, “The Run-Up” is The New York Times’s flagship political podcast. The host, Astead W. Herndon, grapples with the big ideas already animating the 2024 presidential election. Because it’s always about more than who wins and loses. And the next election has already started.Last season, “The Run-Up” focused on grass-roots voters and shifting attitudes among the bases of both political parties. This season, we go inside the party establishment.New episodes on Thursdays.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      Politics Complicates Chinese Reaction to U.S. Visit by Taiwan’s President

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      For Beijing, showing displeasure too openly carries risks, particularly of harming the chances for its preferred party in Taiwan’s coming presidential election.China fired off a volley of condemnations on Thursday after Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, met the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, but it held off from the kind of military escalation that threatened a crisis last summer, when Mr. McCarthy’s predecessor visited Taiwan.China’s angry reaction to the meeting between Ms. Tsai and Mr. McCarthy in California followed weeks of warnings from Beijing, which treats Taiwan as an illegitimate breakaway region whose leaders should be shunned abroad. Despite the combative words, any retaliation by Beijing in coming days may be tempered by the difficult calculations facing China’s leader, Xi Jinping, including over Taiwan’s coming presidential race.Soon after the meeting at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, China’s ministry of defense, foreign ministry and other offices in Beijing issued warnings to Taiwan and the United States.“Do not go down this dark path of ‘riding on the back of the U.S. to seek independence,” said the Chinese Communist Party’s office for Taiwan policy. “Any bid for ‘independence’ will be smashed to pieces by the power of sons and daughters of China opposed to ‘independence’ and advancing unification.”So far though, Beijing’s pugnacious language has not been matched by a big military response like the one last year. After the previous speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan in August in a show of solidarity, China’s People’s Liberation Army held days of miliary exercises simulating a blockade of Taiwan.Early Thursday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense detected one Chinese military plane that entered the “air defense identification zone” off Taiwan — an informal area where aircraft are supposed to declare their presence — and three Chinese navy vessels in seas off the island. Last year, China announced its blockade exercise on the same day that Ms. Pelosi arrived in Taipei.Taiwan military vessels docked at a Navy base in Suao, Taiwan, on Thursday.Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times“China is not doing the kind of saber rattling that they were doing before the Pelosi visit. They haven’t set the stage in the same way,” said Patrick M. Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, who attended a closed-door speech Ms. Tsai gave in New York last week. “They’re going to have their hands close around the throat of Taiwan, but we’ll have to see how they squeeze.”Mr. Xi, anointed last month to a third term as president, wants to deter Taiwan from high-level contacts abroad. Yet he is also trying to improve China’s relations with Western governments, restore economic growth and aid the chances of his favored party in Taiwan’s presidential election in January. An extended military crisis over Taiwan could hurt all three goals, especially the last one.“On the one hand, there’s a desire to signal to Taiwan, to the U.S. and also to Taiwan voters, that efforts to raise Taiwan’s international profile are unacceptable from China’s standpoint,” said Scott L. Kastner, a professor of politics at the University of Maryland. But, he added, “on balance the incentives are for the People’s Republic of China to act with more restraint than usual in the run-up to the election.”China’s ties with Europe, Australia and other Western governments have been damaged by disputes over Covid, Chinese political influence abroad, and Mr. Xi’s ties to Russia. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is in China this week, and he is among the European leaders who Mr. Xi hopes can be coaxed away from Washington’s hard line on China.President Emmanuel Macron of France is welcomed by Chinese Premier Minister Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday in Beijing.Pool photo by Thibault CamusA menacing display by the People’s Liberation Army could also hurt the presidential hopes of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Nationalists, which favors stronger ties with China. Ms. Tsai must step down next year, and a crisis in the Taiwan Strait could help galvanize support for her Democratic Progressive Party and undercut the Nationalists’ case for more cooperation with Beijing.“Beijing will want to visibly register its displeasure, lest its leaders be accused at home of tolerating Taiwan’s efforts to move further away from China,” said Ryan Hass, a former adviser on China policy to President Obama and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “At the same time, Beijing also will want to preserve some headroom for further escalation should future circumstances require.”In Beijing and Taipei, memories linger of 1995, when Lee Teng-hui, then president of Taiwan, gave a speech celebrating Taiwan’s democratic transformation while visiting the United States. China condemned Mr. Lee’s visit and responded with military exercises that resumed in 1996. President Lee soundly won another term that year, despite Beijing’s missiles.President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan delivering a lecture at his alma mater, Cornell University, in 1995. Bob Strong/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn 2020, Ms. Tsai rebounded from low approval ratings to win a second term after a Beijing-backed crackdown on protests in Hong Kong repulsed voters in Taiwan.“Beijing likely has learned from past experience that whenever it uses tough fire-and-fury rhetoric around Taiwan’s presidential election, usually that invites voter backlash,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist with the Taiwan Studies Program of the Australian National University in Canberra.Still, if Taiwanese voters felt that Ms. Tsai was goading Beijing, that could hurt her standing and her party’s image. Her trip to the United States reflected her careful calculus: She sought to deepen Taiwan’s ties with Washington, while avoiding giving China an excuse for a new round of threatening military exercises.In California, Ms. Tsai thanked the Republican and Democrat lawmakers who attended. “Their presence and unwavering support reassure the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated,” she said, standing next to Mr. McCarthy.Ms. Tsai and Mr. McCarthy at a news conference at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesMany in Taiwan, especially supporters of Ms. Tsai’s government, believe that such meetings are important, despite Beijing’s warnings.“Taiwan is already very alone, and it’s very dangerous if we don’t show we have friends, especially the United States,” said Kao Teng-sheng, a businessman in Chiayi, a city in southern Taiwan, who previously ran a factory in southern China. “If she did not meet McCarthy, that would also be dangerous for Taiwan. It would look like we are panicking.”Taiwan’s presidential race is likely to come down to a contest between the Democratic Progressive Party’s Lai Ching-te, currently the vice president, and a Nationalist contender, possibly Hou You-yi, the popular mayor of New Taipei City. Beijing would prefer a Nationalist leader in Taipei, and over recent days has been hosting, and feting, Ma Ying-jeou, the previous Nationalist president.“In military threats, China’s attitude won’t soften, but it will also invite those like Ma Ying-jeou to China,” said I-Chung Lai, a former director of the China affairs section of the Democratic Progressive Party and now a senior adviser to the Taiwan Thinktank in Tapei.Beijing’s dismal relations with Washington may also factor into Mr. Xi’s calculations. At a summit in November, he and President Biden tried to rein in tensions over technology bans, military rivalry, human rights, and Chinese support for Russia.U.S. President Biden meeting with President Xi Jinping of China in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThose efforts stalled in February after the Biden administration revealed that a Chinese surveillance balloon was floating over the United States, and Mr. Xi affirmed his support for Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, during a summit in Moscow, despite the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A new crisis over Taiwan could push the strains between Beijing and Washington to a dangerous limit.Some Taiwanese analysts have said that China may announce some military exercises around Taiwan after Mr. Ma, the visiting former president, returns to Taipei on Friday.Even with Taiwan’s looming election, “if the Chinese Communist Party faces what it believes is a violation of its very core fundamental positions or interests, then it seems it won’t go soft on Taiwan,” said Huang Kwei-Bo, a professor of international relations at the National Chengchi University in Taipei who is a former deputy secretary-general of the Nationalist Party. More

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      This Is Trump’s ‘Magic Trick’

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      In his effort to outflank Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida — his most potent challenger-in-waiting for the Republican presidential nomination — Donald Trump goes only in one direction: hard right.At the start of this year, Trump announced his education agenda, declaring that he would issue mandates to “keep men out of women’s sports,” end teacher tenure and cut federal aid to any school system that teaches “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children.”“As the saying goes,” Trump declared, “personnel is policy and at the end of the day if we have pink-haired communists teaching our kids we have a major problem.”Later in January, Trump revealed his “Plan to Protect Children from Left-Wing Gender Insanity,” in which he promised to bring a halt to “gender-affirming care,” to punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors and to pass legislation declaring that “the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female and they are assigned at birth.”“No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender,” Trump declared. “Under my leadership, this madness will end.”At one level, these pronouncements reflect Trump’s determination to prevent DeSantis from outflanking him. On a larger scale, they reveal a predicament facing not only the former president as he seeks renomination in 2024, but the conservative movement in general, including white evangelicals, the Republican Party and Fox News.Trump’s strategy requires him to continue his equivocation on white supremacism and his antisemitic supporters and to adopt increasingly extreme positions, including the “termination” of the Constitution in order to retroactively award him victory in the 2020 election. The more he attempts to enrage and invigorate his MAGA base in the Republican primaries, the more he forces his fellow partisans and conservatives to follow suit, threatening Republican prospects in the coming general election, as demonstrated by the poor showing of Trump clones in the 2022 midterm contests.Questions about the pandemicCard 1 of 4When will the pandemic end? More

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      Nikki Haley’s Run for the Presidency

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      More from our inbox:Tucker Carlson’s Spin on the Jan. 6 TapesA Descent Into DementiaAgeism and CovidRisk Management Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Run by Haley Is a Tightrope in the G.O.P.” (front page, Feb. 19):Nikki Haley has no choice but to to use her gender to promote her candidacy. It is the only thing that distinguishes her from the pack of hypocritical, unprincipled Republican politicians likely to run for president.She long ago joined the ranks of Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, etc., who discarded their justifiable contempt for Donald Trump in favor of attaining or retaining elective office. In her singular pursuit of the presidency she’s discarded any integrity she might have once had.Ms. Haley is unqualified to be president not because she is a woman, but because she became “one of the boys” — the boys who sold their souls for power and position.Jay AdolfNew YorkTo the Editor:Re “Could Haley Be Our Next President?” (Opinion, Feb. 19):It’s independents who often swing elections, and not one of the Times Opinion writers discussing Nikki Haley’s chances considered her appeal to these voters. By thinking only of how she does or doesn’t fit within the current Republican Party, they miss her considerable appeal as a non-Trumpian traditional Republican, which will attract swing independents.Thomas B. RobertsSycamore, Ill.To the Editor:As an immigrant from India, a woman and an independent voter who sometimes voted Republican pre-Trump, I was excited when Nikki Haley became governor of South Carolina. But I do not support Ms. Haley’s presidential candidacy.David Brooks nailed it, saying “there was an awful lot of complicity and silence when she served under Trump.” She subverted her independence and her fighting spirit by becoming part of Donald Trump’s establishment.No self-respecting Democrat would ever cross party lines to vote for Ms. Haley even if she miraculously manages to secure the nomination. She would not beat Joe Biden!Mona JhaMontclair, N.J.To the Editor:Nikki Haley kicked off her campaign by suggesting that politicians over 75 should be required to take mental competency tests, implying that Donald Trump and President Biden were too old to be president.She would do well to remember Ronald Reagan’s quip during the 1984 presidential debates with Walter Mondale: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”Robert BatyOakland, Calif.To the Editor:Re “The Fox Newsification of Nikki Haley,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, Feb. 22):Mr. Friedman isn’t taking into account what Nikki Haley must do to win the Republican nomination.Questions about the pandemicCard 1 of 4When will the pandemic end? More