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      The Ohio Primary and the Return of the Republican Civil War

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      Why has the Ohio Republican Senate primary, which reaches its conclusion Tuesday, been so interesting (if not always edifying) to watch? In part, because it’s the first time the divides of the party’s 2016 primary campaign have risen fully to the surface again.Six years ago, under the pressure of Donald Trump’s insurgency, the G.O.P. split into three factions. First was the party establishment, trying to sustain a business-friendly and internationalist agenda and an institutionalist approach to governance. This was the faction of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, much the party’s Washington D.C. leadership — but fewer of its media organs and activists.Those groups mostly supported the more movement-driven, True Conservative faction — the faction of Ted Cruz, the Tea Party, the House Freedom Caucus, talk radio. This faction was more libertarian and combative, and richer in grassroots support — but not as rich as it thought.That’s because Trump himself forged a third faction, pulling together a mixture of populists and paleoconservatives, disaffected voters who didn’t share True Conservatism’s litmus tests and pugilists who just wanted someone to fight liberal cultural dominance, with no agenda beyond the fight itself.When Trump, astonishingly, won the presidency, you might have expected these factions to feud openly throughout his chaotic administration. But that’s not exactly what happened. Part of the establishment faction — mostly strategists and pundits — broke from the party entirely. The larger part, the Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Nikki Haley camp, essentially ran policy in the early Trump era — passing tax reform, running the national security bureaucracy, bemoaning Trump’s tweets while setting much of his agenda.The movement faction, Tea Partyers and TrueCons, was given personnel appointments, the chance to write irrelevant budget proposals, and eventually a degree of personal power, through figures like Mick Mulvaney and Mark Meadows. (Trump clearly just liked the Freedom Caucus guys, whatever their ideological differences.) The populists, meanwhile, won some victories on immigration policy and trade, while complaining about the “deep state” on almost every other front.But because both the TrueCons and the populists delighted in Trump’s pugilism — even unto his election-overturning efforts in 2020 — it could be hard to see where one faction ended and the next began. And this pattern often held in Trump-era Republican primary battles, in which candidates with TrueCon or establishment backgrounds recast themselves as Trumpists by endorsing his grievances and paranoias.But in the Ohio Senate primary, finally, you can see the divisions clearly once again. First you have a candidate, Matt Dolan, who is fully in the establishment lane, explicitly refusing to court Trumpian favor and trying to use the Russian invasion of Ukraine to peel Republicans away from the America First banner.You have a candidate in the TrueCon lane, the adaptable Josh Mandel, who tried to hug Trump personally but who draws his support from the old powers of movement conservatism — from the Club for Growth to talk radio’s Mark Levin to the political consultancy that runs Ted Cruz’s campaigns.And you have J.D. Vance, who is very clear about trying to be a populist in full — taking the Trump-in-2016 line on trade and immigration and foreign policy, allying himself with thinkers and funders who want a full break with the pre-Trump G.O.P.Given this division, it’s significant that Trump decided to endorse Vance, and that his most politically active scion, Donald Jr., is enthusiastic for the “Hillbilly Elegy” author. It’s also significant that Trump’s endorsement hasn’t prevented the Club for Growth from continuing to throw money against Vance, prompting blowback from Trump himself. For the first time since 2016, there’s a clear line not just between Trump and the establishment but between Trumpian populism and movement conservatism.That line will blur again once the primary is settled. But the battle for Ohio suggests things to look for in 2022 and beyond. First, expect a Trump revival to be more like his 2016 insurgent-populist campaign than his incumbent run in 2020. Second, expect populism writ large to gain some strength and substance but still remain bound to Trump’s obsessions (and appetite for constitutional crisis).Third, expect many of the movement and TrueCon figures who made their peace with Trump six years ago to be all-in for Ron DeSantis should he seem remotely viable. Fourth, expect the remains of the establishment to divide over whether to rally around a candidate of anti-Trump principle — from Liz Cheney to certain incarnations of Mike Pence — or to make their peace with a harder-edged figure like DeSantis.Finally, expect a potential second Trump presidency to resemble the scramble for his endorsement in Ohio: the establishment left out in the cold, no Reince Priebus running the White House or McConnell setting its agenda, but just constant policy battles between movement conservatives and populists, each claiming to embody the true and only Trumpism and hoping that the boss agrees.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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      Lisa Murkowski Bets Big on the Center in Alaska

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      ANCHORAGE — Sitting in a darkened exhibition room at the Anchorage Museum on a recent Tuesday morning, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska conceded that she might lose her campaign for a fourth full term in Congress, where she is one of a tiny and dwindling group of Republicans still willing to buck her party.“I may be the last man standing. I may not be re-elected,” she said in an interview after an event here, just days after breaking with the G.O.P. to support confirming Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee and the first Black woman to serve there. “It may be that Alaskans say, ‘Nope, we want to go with an absolute, down-the-line, always, always, 100-percent, never-question, rubber-stamp Republican.’“And if they say that that’s the way that Alaska has gone — kind of the same direction that so many other parts of the country have gone — I have to accept that,” Ms. Murkowski continued. “But I’m going to give them the option.”In a year when control of Congress is at stake and the Republican Party is dominated by the reactionary right, Ms. Murkowski is attempting something almost unheard-of: running for re-election as a proud G.O.P. moderate willing to defy party orthodoxy.For Ms. Murkowski, 64, it amounts to a high-stakes bet that voters in the famously independent state of Alaska will reward a Republican centrist at a time of extreme partisanship.She has good reasons to hope they will. Though it leans conservative, Alaska is a fiercely individualistic state where the majority of voters do not align with either major political party. And under a new set of election rules engineered by her allies, Ms. Murkowski does not have to worry about a head-to-head contest with a more conservative opponent. Instead, she will compete in an Aug. 16 primary open to candidates of any political stripe, followed by a general election in which voters will rank the top four to emerge from the primary to determine a winner.Despite her penchant for defecting from the party line, Ms. Murkowski also has powerful help from the Republican establishment; Senator Mitch McConnell’s leadership political action committee announced last week that it had reserved $7.4 million worth of advertising in Alaska to support her candidacy.So she has embarked on a re-election campaign that is also an effort to salvage a version of the Republican Party that hardly exists anymore in Congress, as seasoned pragmatists retire or are chased out by right-wing hard-liners competing to take their places.“The easy thing would have been to just say, 20 years is good and honorable in the United States Senate. It’s time to, as I always say, it’s time to get my season ski pass at Alyeska and really get my money’s worth,” Ms. Murkowski said, referring to the nearby ski resort. “But there is a different sense of obligation that I am feeling now as a lawmaker.”Still, Ms. Murkowski, the daughter of a former Alaska senator and governor, faces a tough race. Her vote last year to convict former President Donald J. Trump at his impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol prompted Alaska’s Republican Party to censure her and join Mr. Trump in embracing a right-wing primary challenger, Kelly Tshibaka.Ms. Murkowski is the daughter of a former Alaska senator and governor.Ash Adams for The New York TimesA view of Anchorage, the biggest city in a famously independent state.Ash Adams for The New York TimesAnd while there is now no Democrat going up against Ms. Murkowski in the race, it is not clear whether she can attract enough support from liberal voters to offset the conservatives who have been alienated by her stance against Mr. Trump. Many liberals have been angered by Ms. Murkowski’s opposition to sweeping climate change policies, as well as her support in 2017 for the $1.5 trillion Republican tax law that also allowed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.So Ms. Murkowski has been reminding voters of her flair for pursuing bipartisan initiatives, such as the $1 trillion infrastructure law that is expected to send more than $1 billion to her state, and promoting her strong relationships with Democrats. At an Arctic policy event in the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center, she appeared with Senator Joe Manchin III, the centrist West Virginia Democrat, who was wearing an “I’m on Team Lisa” button and proclaimed, “I’m endorsing her 1,000 percent.”All of it is fodder for her staunchest opponents. Ms. Tshibaka, a Trump-endorsed former commissioner in the Alaska Department of Administration, has worked to paint Ms. Murkowski as a liberal and to rally the state’s conservative base against her. She is trying to capitalize on longstanding antipathy for the senator on the right, which was incensed when she voted in 2017 to preserve the Affordable Care Act and by her opposition in 2018 to Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation.“It’s time for a change. We feel forgotten,” Ms. Tshibaka told supporters at the opening of her Anchorage campaign office this month. “We feel unheard, and we don’t feel like these votes and decisions represent us.”Standing atop a desk, she urged them to “rank the red,” meaning to place her as their top choice without ranking any other candidate on the ballot.“We feel unheard, and we don’t feel like these votes and decisions represent us,” said Kelly Tshibaka, Ms. Murkowski’s leading challenger.Ash Adams for The New York TimesMs. Tshibaka, whose campaign did not respond to requests for an interview, told the crowd of supporters how Ms. Murkowski’s father, Frank, named his daughter to finish out his term as senator once he became governor in 2002, deriding what she called the “Murkowski monarchy.”Supporters grabbed slices of pizza and picked up bumper stickers, as well as decals that showed Ms. Murkowski embracing President Biden.“Nothing surprises me at this point. I don’t understand why she makes the decisions she makes,” said April Orth, 56, who called Ms. Murkowski’s vote to confirm Judge Jackson “an injustice to the people of the United States of America.”Ms. Tshibaka emphasized her conservative credentials and support from Mr. Trump, regaling the crowd with stories about her visit to the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., for a campaign event. (The February event cost her campaign $14,477.10 for facility rental and catering, according to her latest campaign filing.)Joaquita Martin, 55, a paralegal, called Mr. Trump’s support “an incredibly powerful endorsement” of Ms. Tshibaka, adding that “I identify as a conservative, and Murkowski can call herself Republican all day long, but if that’s the definition of Republican, I’m out. That’s not me.”Ms. Murkowski’s decision to seek another term did not come lightly. Ms. Murkowski famously lost her Republican primary election in 2010 to a Tea Party-backed candidate, then ran anyway as an independent and triumphed in a historic write-in campaign with a coalition of centrists and Alaska Natives.April Orth, 56, is a supporter of Ms. Tshibaka. “Nothing surprises me at this point,” she said of Ms. Murkowski. “I don’t understand why she makes the decisions she makes.”Ash Adams for The New York TimesDeventia Townsend, a registered Democrat, and his wife, Charlene. “She has so much courage,” Mr. Townsend said of the senator. “She votes from her heart.”Ash Adams for The New York TimesOf the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump last year, Ms. Murkowski is the only one facing voters this year. She has not shied away from that distinction; she speaks openly of her disdain for Mr. Trump and his influence on her party. She has also supported Deb Haaland, Mr. Biden’s interior secretary and the first Native American to serve in the post, and boasted of her lead role in negotiating the infrastructure law.It has made for some unpleasant moments, she and her family say.“On one hand, had she chosen not to run, I would have been completely supportive because it’s just been like, ‘Damn girl, this has been a long haul,’” said Anne Gore, Ms. Murkowski’s cousin. “But on the other hand, you’re like, ‘Oh, sweet mother of Jesus, God on a bicycle — thank God you’re running’ because, you know, we can’t lose any more moderates.”While Ms. Murkowski has never secured more than 50 percent of the vote in a general election, this year she could stand to benefit from the new election rules, which advantage candidates with the broadest appeal in a state where most voters are unaffiliated.“I don’t think it changes their behavior, but it rewards behavior that is in line with the sentiment of all Alaskans, rather than the partisan few,” said Scott Kendall, a former legal counsel to Ms. Murkowski who remains involved with a super PAC supporting her re-election and championed the new rules.Mr. Kendall said his push for the statewide changes was independent from the senator’s campaign, arguing that his goal was “treating every Alaska voter the same and giving them the same amount of power.”There is little question that it has made for a friendlier landscape for Ms. Murkowski and appeals to the middle. At least one candidate, the libertarian Sean Thorne, jumped into the race because of the potential to prevail in a broad primary.For now, Ms. Murkowski is focusing on the basic needs of her state.Earlier this month, she stood, beaming, before about 1,200 local, tribal and community leaders who had flown across the state for a symposium explaining how Alaska stood to gain from the infrastructure law, which she singled out as perhaps her proudest accomplishment.“This is going to be an Alaska that is better cared for than ever before and an Alaska with a higher quality of life, whether you’re here in Anchorage or whether you’re in a remote village,” she declared. She mingled through the buzzing crowd, introducing herself as Lisa and embracing longtime friends.Ms. Murkowski’s campaign is focusing on the basic needs of her state and trumpeting the bipartisan infrastructure legislation that was passed last year.Ash Adams for The New York TimesTribal leaders talked about how the law would give them a chance to connect communities with broadband and ensure they had clean drinking water. A Kwethluk city employee waited to give the senator a handout describing a port project, while another village official asked for help with a broken washateria, first built in 1975, that had left them without running water since Christmas. And then there were the constituents who wanted a brief word about Ms. Murkowski’s work in Washington.Deventia Townsend, 62, a retired Army veteran and registered Democrat, had come to the forum with his wife, Charlene, to see if they could get help with some home repairs. But when he saw Ms. Murkowski, he stopped her to express his gratitude for her vote for Judge Jackson.“She has so much courage,” Mr. Townsend said of the senator. “She votes from her heart.”Later, at a pizza party at a local bar to benefit her campaign, Ms. Murkowski talked to supporters about her friendship with Mr. Manchin and long-gone titans of the Senate in both parties, name-dropping former Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and quoting former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska as she recalled a bygone era when camaraderie and common purpose tempered partisanship on Capitol Hill.Perhaps her own candidacy could prove there was still hope for that kind of politics.“You’ve got to demonstrate that there are other possibilities, that there is a different reality — and maybe it won’t work,” Ms. Murkowski said in the interview. “Maybe I am just completely politically naïve, and this ship has sailed. But I won’t know unless we — unless I — stay out there and give Alaskans the opportunity to weigh in.”Kitty Bennett More

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      McConnell and McCarthy’s Jan. 6 Fury at Trump Faded by February

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      In the days after the attack, Representative Kevin McCarthy planned to tell Mr. Trump to resign. Senator Mitch McConnell told allies impeachment was warranted. But their fury faded fast.In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building, the two top Republicans in Congress, Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Mitch McConnell, told associates they believed President Trump was responsible for inciting the deadly riot and vowed to drive him from politics. Mr. McCarthy went so far as to say he would push Mr. Trump to resign immediately: “I’ve had it with this guy,” he told a group of Republican leaders.But within weeks both men backed off an all-out fight with Mr. Trump because they feared retribution from him and his political movement. Their drive to act faded fast as it became clear it would mean difficult votes that would put them at odds with most of their colleagues.“I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference,” Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, told a friend.The confidential expressions of outrage from Mr. McCarthy and Mr. McConnell, which have not been previously reported, illustrate the immense gulf between what Republican leaders say privately about Mr. Trump and their public deference to a man whose hold on the party has gone virtually unchallenged for half a decade.The leaders’ swift retreat in January 2021 represented a capitulation at a moment of extraordinary political weakness for Mr. Trump — perhaps the last and best chance for mainstream Republicans to reclaim control of their party from a leader who had stoked an insurrection against American democracy itself.This account of the private discussions among Republican leaders in the days after the Jan. 6 attack is adapted from a new book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” which draws on hundreds of interviews with lawmakers and officials, and contemporaneous records of pivotal moments in the 2020 presidential campaign.Mr. McConnell’s office declined to comment. Mark Bednar, a spokesman for Mr. McCarthy, denied that the Republican leader told colleagues he would push Mr. Trump to leave office. “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign,” Mr. Bednar said.Representative Kevin McCarthy in the Capitol two weeks after the riot.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesNo one embodies the stark accommodation to Mr. Trump more than Mr. McCarthy, a 57-year-old Californian who has long had his sights set on becoming speaker of the House. In public after Jan. 6, Mr. McCarthy issued a careful rebuke of Mr. Trump, saying that he “bears responsibility” for the mob that tried to stop Congress from officially certifying the president’s loss. But he declined to condemn him in sterner language.In private, Mr. McCarthy went much further.On a phone call with several other top House Republicans on Jan. 8, Mr. McCarthy said Mr. Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 had been “atrocious and totally wrong.” He faulted the president for “inciting people” to attack the Capitol, saying that Mr. Trump’s remarks at a rally on the National Mall that day were “not right by any shape or any form.”During that conversation, Mr. McCarthy inquired about the mechanism for invoking the 25th Amendment — the process whereby the vice president and members of the cabinet can remove a president from office — before concluding that was not a viable option. Mr. McCarthy, who was among those who objected to the election results, was uncertain and indecisive, fretting that the Democratic drive to impeach Mr. Trump would “put more fuel on the fire” of the country’s divisions.But Mr. McCarthy’s resolve seemed to harden as the gravity of the attack — and the potential political fallout for his party — sank in. Two members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet had quit their posts after the attack and several moderate Republican governors had called for the president’s resignation. Video clips of the riot kept surfacing online, making the raw brutality of the attack ever more vivid in the public mind.The mob breaking into the Capitol.Win McNamee/Getty ImagesOn Jan. 10, Mr. McCarthy spoke again with the leadership team and this time he had a plan in mind.The Democrats were driving hard at an impeachment resolution, Mr. McCarthy said, and they would have the votes to pass it. Now he planned to call Mr. Trump and tell him it was time for him to go.“What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,” he told the group.Mr. McCarthy said he would tell Mr. Trump of the impeachment resolution: “I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.”He acknowledged it was unlikely Mr. Trump would follow that suggestion.Mr. McCarthy spent the four years of Mr. Trump’s presidency as one of the White House’s most obedient supporters in Congress. Since Mr. Trump’s defeat, Mr. McCarthy has appeased far-right members of the House, some of whom are close to the former president. Mr. McCarthy may need their support to become speaker, a vote that could come as soon as next year if the G.O.P. claims the House in November.Representative Kevin McCarthy with Mr. Trump in Bakersfield, Calif., in 2020.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut in a brief window after the storming of the Capitol, Mr. McCarthy contemplated a total break with Mr. Trump and his most extreme supporters.During the same Jan. 10 conversation when he said he would call on Mr. Trump to resign, Mr. McCarthy told other G.O.P. leaders he wished the big tech companies would strip some Republican lawmakers of their social media accounts, as Twitter and Facebook had done with Mr. Trump. Members such as Lauren Boebert of Colorado had done so much to stoke paranoia about the 2020 election and made offensive comments online about the Capitol attack.“We can’t put up with that,” Mr. McCarthy said, adding, “Can’t they take their Twitter accounts away, too?”Mr. McCarthy “never said that particular members should be removed from Twitter,” Mr. Bednar said.Other Republican leaders in the House agreed with Mr. McCarthy that the president’s behavior deserved swift punishment. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican, said on one call that it was time for the G.O.P. to contemplate a “post-Trump Republican House,” while Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the head of the party’s House campaign committee, suggested censuring Mr. Trump.Yet none of the men followed through on their tough talk in those private conversations.In the following days, Mr. McCarthy heard from some Republican lawmakers who advised against confronting Mr. Trump. In one group conversation, Representative Bill Johnson of Ohio cautioned that conservative voters back home “go ballistic” in response to criticism of Mr. Trump, demanding that Republicans instead train their denunciations on Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden.“I’m just telling you that that’s the kind of thing that we’re dealing with, with our base,” Mr. Johnson said.When only 10 House Republicans joined with Democrats to support impeaching Mr. Trump on Jan. 13, the message to Mr. McCarthy was clear.By the end of the month, he was pursuing a rapprochement with Mr. Trump, visiting him at Mar-a-Lago and posing for a photograph. (“I didn’t know they were going to take a picture,” Mr. McCarthy said, somewhat apologetically, to one frustrated lawmaker.)Mr. McCarthy has never repeated his denunciations of Mr. Trump, instead offering a tortured claim that the real responsibility for Jan. 6 lies with security officials and Democratic legislative leaders for inadequately defending the Capitol complex.Senator Mitch McConnell, left, with Senator Patrick Leahy after it was announced that Mr. Leahy would preside over Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIn the Senate, Mr. McConnell’s reversal was no less revealing. Late on the night of Jan. 6, Mr. McConnell predicted to associates that his party would soon break sharply with Mr. Trump and his acolytes; the Republican leader even asked a reporter in the Capitol for information about whether the cabinet might really pursue the 25th Amendment.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5Signs of progress. More

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      Income Taxes for All? Rick Scott Has a Plan, and That’s a Problem.

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      The “Plan to Rescue America” is dividing the party and cheering Democrats, and its author, Senate Republicans’ top campaign official, won’t stop talking about it.WASHINGTON — Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the somewhat embattled head of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, said one utterly indisputable thing on Thursday when he stood before a packed auditorium of supporters at the conservative Heritage Foundation: His plan for a G.O.P. majority would make everyone angry at him, Republicans included.It was an odd admission for the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. His leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has repeatedly told Mr. Scott to pipe down about his “11-Point Plan to Rescue America,” with its call to impose income taxes on more than half of Americans who pay none now, and to sunset all legislation after five years, presumably including Social Security and Medicare.It has divided his party, put Mr. Scott’s own candidates in awkward positions, and is already featured prominently in Democratic advertising. But after Thursday, it is clear the Republicans have not figured out how to address their Rick Scott problem.“Washington’s full of a bunch of do-nothing people who believe that no conservative idea can ever happen, nothing will change for the better as long as they’re in charge, and that’s why we’re going to get rid of them,” the senator said, ambiguous about who exactly “they” were. “So Republicans are going to complain about the plan. They’ll do it with anonymous quotes, some not so anonymous. They’ll argue that Democrats will use it against us in the election. I hope they do.”The senator insisted on the Heritage Foundation stage that his plan would raise taxes on no one, only to concede to reporters after the talk that it would — or that it wouldn’t, he couldn’t decide.“The people that are paying taxes right now — I’m not going to raise their rates; I’ve never done it,” he said, before adding: “I’m focused on the people that can go to work, and decided to be on a government program and not participate in this. I believe whether it’s just a dollar, we all are in this together.”But most adults who pay no income tax do work, and the plan makes no distinctions. “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax,” it states.Last year, 57 percent of U.S. households paid no income tax, but that was by design. Successive Republican tax cuts, including President Donald J. Trump’s tax cut of 2017, which greatly expanded the standard deduction, took tens of millions of workers off the income tax rolls, though virtually all of them pay Social Security, Medicare and sales taxes.And for all of Mr. Scott’s evasions, the criticism is not coming just from the “militant left” that he denounced. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated that ensuring all households pay at least $100 in income taxes would leave families making about $54,000 or less with more than 80 percent of the tax increase. Those making less than about $100,000 would shoulder 97 percent of the cost.His leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, right, has repeatedly told Mr. Scott to pipe down about his plan.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times“Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda,” Mr. McConnell told reporters in early March. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”For Democrats, Mr. Scott is a gift. The 2022 campaign is shaping up as a conventional midterm, focused on the economy under Democratic control. That means inflation, gas prices and candidate ties to an unpopular president.“If you’re in power and you’re presiding over inflation, sorry, it’s tough to be you,” Representative Patrick McHenry, Republican of North Carolina, told The Ripon Society, a conservative research group, this week.Mr. Scott’s plan has allowed Democrats to talk about the alternative: what Republicans would do with power. Mr. Scott’s plan is chock-full of language about making children say the Pledge of Allegiance, prohibiting the government from asking citizens their race, ethnicity or skin color, and declaring that “men are men, women are women and unborn babies are babies.”But its economic section has been the focus. Beyond taxing everyone, under the plan, all federal laws would sunset in five years. “If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” the plan says. Taken literally, that would leave the fate of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to the whims of a Congress that rarely passes anything so expansive.Democrats are gleefully calling attention to it, even going so far as to promote the Republican senator’s speaking engagement on Thursday.“The chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee has put it on record in a document,” said David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, “and we are taking his word for it.”Mr. Scott’s ideas threaten to bring Republicans back to an economic argument they waged — and lost — before Mr. Trump won over wide swaths of white working-class voters with his pledges to leave entitlements alone and cut their taxes.In 2012, the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, committed a disastrous gaffe when he was caught on tape describing 47 percent of Americans as wealth takers, not wealth makers. In 2001, Jim DeMint, a House member from South Carolina at the time, who like Mr. Romney went on to the Senate, asserted that if more than half of Americans paid no taxes, they would vote to expand government largess for themselves and make others pay for it.“How can a free nation survive when a majority of its citizens, now dependent on government services, no longer have the incentive to restrain the growth of government?” he asked during a Heritage Foundation lecture, calling for all Americans to pay some income taxes.The vision of affluent Republicans counseling struggling workers to pay more taxes while they pay less was central to Mr. Trump’s critique of the party in the 2016 campaign.And Mr. Scott is an unlikely bearer of his revanchist message. He’s the richest man in Congress, worth around $260 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2002, the sprawling hospital chain he ran agreed to pay more than $880 million to settle the Justice Department’s longest-running inquiry into health care fraud, including $250 million returned to Medicare to resolve charges contested by the government.Fellow Republicans are not rushing to embrace Mr. Scott’s plan.“I think it’s good that elected officials put out what they’re for, and so I support his effort to do it,” said Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, among the most endangered Republicans up for re-election in November. “That’s what he’s for.”But for Republican candidates, the issue is getting awkward. In Arizona, Jim Lamon, a Republican seeking to challenge the Democratic incumbent, Senator Mark Kelly, first called the plan “pretty good stuff” only to have his campaign retreat from that embrace.Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said of the plan, “It’s good that people offer ideas.” His Democratic challenger, Representative Val B. Demings, nevertheless ran an ad on social media accusing him of embracing it.At a Republican Senate debate in Ohio on Monday, the current front-runner, Mike Gibbons, called the plan “a great first draft in trying to set some things we all believe in,” adding, “The people that don’t believe them probably shouldn’t be Republicans.”J.D. Vance, a candidate aligned with Mr. Trump’s working-class appeal, fired back: “Why would we increase taxes on the middle class, especially when Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook pay a lower tax rate than any middle-class American in this room or in this country? It’s ridiculous.”Even as he denied his plan would do that, Mr. Scott on Thursday was bold in the criticism of his fellow Republicans, who are relying on him to help them win elections this fall. Timidity is “the kind of old thinking that got us exactly where we are today, where we don’t control the House, the White House or the Senate,” he said, adding: “It’s time to have a plan. It’s time to execute on a plan.” More

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      Can Republicans Win by Just Saying No?

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      History suggests that opposing the party in power is often good enough.In the 1946 midterms, Republicans united around a simple but powerful mantra: “Had enough?”The slogan was the brainchild of Karl Frost, an advertising executive in Boston. In two short words, it promised a rejection of both New Deal liberalism and the monopoly of power Democrats had held in Washington since the 1930s.It helped Republicans that the economy was in chaos. World War II had just ended, and supply chains were going haywire as the U.S. emerged from wartime price controls. Thousands of workers went on strike. Meat was scarce and expensive — so much so that Republican candidates patrolled city streets in trucks booming out the message, “Ladies, if you want meat, vote Republican.” They slapped President Harry Truman with the moniker “Horsemeat Harry.”“This is going to be a damned beefsteak election!” Sam Rayburn, the Democratic speaker of the House, privately fumed. By Election Day, Truman’s approval rating was just 33 percent. Republicans picked up 55 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate, taking power for the first time since 1932.“It was so bad for Truman that people were saying he should resign,” said Jeffrey Frank, author of “The Trials of Harry S. Truman.”This was the year that a young Richard Nixon won his first congressional election, defeating a five-term Democratic incumbent in suburban Los Angeles by running against New Deal “socialism” and for what he called the “forgotten man.” His campaign literature asked: “Are you satisfied with present conditions? Can you buy meat, a new car, a refrigerator, clothes you need?”What’s old is new again.Inflation is way up, some goods are hard to find and Democrats are staring at a similar wipeout in November. And Republicans, as our colleague Jonathan Weisman reports today, are debating just how forthcoming to be about their own plans. Senator Rick Scott, the head of the Republican Senate campaign arm, has an 11-point plan to “rescue America.” House Republicans are working on their “Commitment to America,” a political and policy agenda they plan to release in late summer. And today, Mike Pence, the former vice president, unveiled a 28-page “Freedom Agenda” platform.Some Republicans argue that none of it is really necessary. All they need to do to win back power is point to voters’ frustrations with the high prices of gasoline and groceries and say, essentially: Had enough?“This isn’t rocket science,” said Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist. “The midterms are a referendum on one thing and one thing only: Joe Biden and the Democrats’ failed leadership. Period. End of discussion.”‘What’s Mitch for?’Democrats are eager to turn this fall’s elections into a choice between the two parties rather than a referendum on their own performance.At times, President Biden has tried to corral Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, into defining the party’s agenda. “The fundamental question is, what’s Mitch for? What’s he for on immigration? What’s he for? What’s he proposing?” Biden said in late January, adding: “What are they for? So everything’s a choice. A choice.”A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.McConnell never took the bait. He’s said his focus is “100 percent” on “stopping this new administration” and has avoided presenting ideas that Democrats might be able to attack.“The fundamentals of a midterm election hold: It’s about the party in power,” said Zack Roday, a Republican strategist who is working on several Senate campaigns. “McConnell understands this better than anyone of the last 15 years.”So Democrats have taken to Scott’s plan like a drowning man to a life preserver, highlighting his call for every American to have “skin in the game” by paying taxes and accusing him of wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security. Senate Democrats are running a paid ad on Scott’s plan this week in key swing states, and on Thursday they bought a geo-targeted ad around the Heritage Foundation in Washington, during a speech that Scott gave at the conservative think tank.It’s an article of faith among many on the right that the 1994 “Contract With America” led by Newt Gingrich was responsible for that year’s Republican takeover of Congress. But Republicans in the Senate, led by Bob Dole of Kansas, never embraced it, while polls at the time showed that only a minority of voters had ever heard of the idea. Democrats would later exploit Gingrich’s unpopularity to gain seats in the 1998 midterms, a rare victory for the president’s party.Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who hopes to become speaker of the House, shares Scott’s view that a plan is necessary, though they may differ on the details. At the recent policy retreat for House Republicans, McCarthy explained his hope of presenting Biden with legislation “so strong it could overcome all the politics that other people play.”To which Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a key McCarthy ally, added: “I think it’s real simple: You can’t do what you said if you haven’t said what you’ll do.”President Harry Truman and his daughter, Margaret, voting in Independence, Mo., in 1946. That year, Republicans picked up 55 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate.William J. Smith/Associated Press‘Just criticize rather than be specific’As a political strategy, though, no plan probably beats a plan.“If I were the Republicans, I would just criticize rather than be specific about my remedies, unfortunately,” said Geoffrey Kabaservice, a historian of the Republican Party.Michael Barone, the founding editor of the Almanac of American Politics, said he expected Republicans to win back the House and “probably” the Senate, regardless of how specific their plans were. A policy agenda, he said, is more important for determining “how you want to govern” once in power.For Republican leaders today, being in power poses a dilemma of its own. If they do win one or both branches of Congress, Democrats will be able to draw on a playbook made famous by the same president who was so humbled by the slogan “Had enough?” in 1946.Two years after his midterm drubbing, Truman mounted a comeback often hailed as the greatest in American political history, using the “do-nothing Congress” as his political foil.Never mind that Congress had been extraordinarily productive, passing more than 900 bills that included landmark legislation such as the Marshall Plan and the Taft-Hartley Act. Four months before Election Day, with his job approval rating stuck in the 30s, Truman went on offense.“He had just one strategy — attack, attack, attack,” writes David McCullough, another Truman biographer.At campaign stops, Truman called Republicans names like “bloodsuckers” and a “bunch of old mossbacks still living back in 1890.” At one appearance in Roseville, Calif., he said the “do-nothing Congress tried to choke you to death in this valley.” In Fresno, Calif., he said: “You have got a terrible congressman here in this district. He is one of the worst.” And in Iowa, he said the Republican Congress had “stuck a pitchfork in the farmer’s back.”The rest, as they say, is history.What to read tonightBiden announced he would tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve once again, Clifford Krauss and Michael D. Shear report, in a move intended to lower gasoline prices for American consumers.A federal judge in Florida said that sections of the state’s election law were unconstitutional, the first federal court ruling striking down key parts of a major Republican voting law since the 2020 election, Reid J. Epstein and Patricia Mazzei report.According to Alan Feuer, Katie Benner and Maggie Haberman, the Justice Department has widened its investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to encompass possible involvement of other government officials.Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, announced he would vote against the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, Annie Karni reports.Some voters in North Carolina think Representative Madison Cawthorn has finally gone too far, Trip Gabriel reports from Cawthorn’s district.FrameworkGov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut, a Democrat who is up for re-election, released an ad that struck an upbeat tone.Jessica Hill for The New York TimesDemocrats’ two paths There’s a lot of doom and gloom across America, something Republican campaigns have leveraged to try to persuade voters to change the status quo and oust Democrats from Congress.It leaves Democrats with a tough decision: empathize with voters’ hardships or put forward a different narrative entirely?In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat who is up for re-election this year, seems to be taking the second approach. In his first ad of the cycle, he paints a sunny picture, smiling as he strolls through suburban neighborhoods and talks with constituents. He boasts that he turned the state’s deficit into a surplus, while lowering taxes and investing in schools.“A balanced budget, lower taxes — our state is strong and getting stronger,” Lamont declares to the camera.It’s a sharp departure from a Democratic ad we highlighted last month from Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, in which the sun was noticeably absent. Or from another Democratic ad that Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona began running in late February that acknowledged “families are working hard to get by right now.”Governors might have a little more room to highlight state and local achievements than members of Congress. Still, by trying to prove that they’ve improved conditions since the coronavirus pandemic began, Democrats may run the risk of seeming out of touch with their constituents’ day-to-day struggles.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Call Logs Underscore Trump’s Efforts to Sway Lawmakers on Jan. 6

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      New details from White House documents provided to the House panel investigating the Capitol assault show a 7-hour gap in records of calls made by the former president on the day of the riot.WASHINGTON — As part of his frenzied attempt to cling to power, President Donald J. Trump reached out repeatedly to members of Congress on Jan. 6 both before and during the siege of the Capitol, according to White House call logs and evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the attack.The logs, reported earlier by The Washington Post and CBS and authenticated by The New York Times, indicated that Mr. Trump had called Republican members of Congress, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, as he sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes from several states.But the logs also have a large gap with no record of calls by Mr. Trump from critical hours when investigators know that he was making them. The call logs were among documents turned over by the National Archives to the House committee examining the Jan. 6 attack last year on the Capitol.The New York Times reported last month that the committee had discovered gaps in official White House telephone logs from the day of the riot. The Washington Post and CBS reported Tuesday that a gap in the phone logs amounted to seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being assaulted.Investigators have not uncovered evidence that any of the call logs were tampered with or deleted. It is well known that Mr. Trump routinely used his personal cellphone, and those of his aides, to talk with other aides, congressional allies and outside confidants, bypassing the normal channels of presidential communication and possibly explaining why the calls were not logged.The logs appear to have captured calls that were routed through the White House switchboard. Three former officials who worked under Mr. Trump said that he mostly used the switchboard operator for outgoing calls when he was in the residence. He would occasionally use it from the Oval Office, the former officials said, but more often he would make calls through the assistants sitting outside the office, as well as from his cellphone or an aide’s cellphone. The assistants were supposed to keep records of the calls, but officials said the record-keeping was not thorough.People trying to reach Mr. Trump sometimes called the cellphone of Dan Scavino Jr., the former deputy chief of staff and omnipresent aide, one of the former officials said. (The House committee investigating the attack recommended Monday evening that Mr. Scavino be charged with criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a subpoena from the panel.)But the call logs nevertheless show how personally involved Mr. Trump was in his last-ditch attempt to stay in office.One of the calls made by Mr. Trump on Jan. 6, 2021 — at 9:16 a.m. — was to Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s top Republican, who refused to go along with Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign. Mr. Trump checked with the White House switchboard operator at 10:40 a.m. to make sure a message had been left for Mr. McConnell.Mr. McConnell declined to return the president’s calls, he told reporters on Tuesday.“The last time I spoke to the president was the day after the Electoral College declared President Biden the winner,” Mr. McConnell said. “I publicly congratulated President Biden on his victory and received a phone call after that from President Trump and that’s the last time we’ve spoke.”The logs also show Mr. Trump reached out on the morning of Jan. 6 to Mr. Jordan, who had been among those members of Congress organizing objections to Mr. Biden’s election on the House floor.The logs show Mr. Trump and Mr. Jordan spoke from 9:24 a.m. to 9:34 a.m. Mr. Jordan has acknowledged speaking with Mr. Trump on Jan. 6, though he has said he cannot remember how many times they spoke that day or when the calls occurred.Mr. Trump called Mr. Hawley at 9:39 a.m., and Mr. Hawley returned his phone call. A spokesman for Mr. Hawley said Tuesday that the two men did not connect and did not speak until March. Mr. Hawley had been the first senator to announce he would object to President Biden’s victory, and continued his objections even after rioters stormed the building and other senators backed off the plan.The logs also show that Mr. Trump spoke from 11:04 a.m. to 11:06 a.m. with former Senator David Perdue, Republican of Georgia, who had recently lost his re-election campaign to Senator Jon Ossoff.A spokesman for Senator Bill Hagerty, Republican of Tennessee, confirmed he had called Mr. Trump on Jan. 6 but said they did not connect. Mr. Hagerty declined to comment.Despite the lack of call records from the White House, the committee has learned that Mr. Trump spoke on the phone with other Republican lawmakers on the morning of Jan. 6.For instance, Mr. Trump mistakenly called the phone of Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, thinking it was the number of Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama. Mr. Lee then passed the phone to Mr. Tuberville, who said he had spoken to Mr. Trump for less than 10 minutes as rioters were breaking into the building.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Trump’s tweet. More

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      Why Rick Scott and Mitch McConnell Are Feuding Over Midterm Elections

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      Senator Rick Scott has an 11-point plan to “rescue America.” Senator Mitch McConnell would rather he not.Republican insiders have long worried that they could blow a golden opportunity to retake the Senate this year. And while most are confident that a red wave will still wash enough of their candidates ashore in November to win a majority, some doubt occasionally creeps in.The latest reason: an ongoing disagreement between two of the top Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, and Rick Scott, the leader of the party’s campaign arm. At issue is the “11-Point Plan to Rescue America” that Scott has presented as a platform for the midterms, and that McConnell has emphatically rejected.And while Scott has said that the plan is just his opinion, developed using his own campaign funds, Democrats have been all too happy to pin its provisions on the Republican Party writ large.They’ve seized on one bullet point in particular, which reads: “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.” That idea polls badly, according to Morning Consult, though other provisions of Scott’s plan are popular.On Thursday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee paid for a truck-mounted billboard to troll Senate Republicans during their one-day retreat. “Senate Republicans’ Plan: Raise Your Taxes,” the billboard read.Never mind that McConnell has brushed back Scott, telling reporters at the Capitol last week, “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda. We will focus instead on what the American people are concerned about: inflation, energy, defense, the border and crime.”McConnell also made it clear who was in charge. “If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader,” he said. “I’ll decide, in consultation with my members, what to put on the floor.”Scott defended himself last week in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, saying his plan had “hit a nerve” with Washington elites, whom he accused of misleading voters about the sustainability of federal deficits and entitlement programs.“Part of the deception is achieved by disconnecting so many Americans from taxation,” he wrote. “It’s a genius political move. And it is bankrupting us.”Scott’s plan has some powerful backers, including the Heritage Foundation, which plans to host him for an event later this month. The think tank has long advocated “broadening the base,” the preferred term on the right for increasing the number of Americans who are subject to taxation.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.“Conservatives in this country are demanding an ambitious, conservative agenda,” said Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation. “Therefore, it excites us to see members talking that way.”Democrats dust off a playbookScott’s plan is a fortuitous turn of events for Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, Democrats say.“Chuck, I’m sure, is salivating,” said Jim Kessler, a former Schumer aide who is now an executive vice president at Third Way, a center-left think tank.In the first sentence of a letter to his Senate colleagues this week, Schumer wrote, “As Senate Republicans debate their plan to increase taxes on millions of working Americans, Senate Democrats have focused on ways to get rising prices under control to help working families.”Senate Democrats are considering holding hearings, and possibly a series of votes, to highlight Scott’s plan and to force Republicans to take uncomfortable positions on it.It’s a playbook that Schumer has run before. In 1995, as a member of the House representing New York, he used Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” to accuse Republicans of trying to force cuts in popular spending programs. Gingrich, who became the speaker of the House in 1995 — either because or despite that plan, depending on whom you ask — has embraced Scott’s platform.“That was probably the first thing that Chuck did that showed him as a national political leader,” recalled Kessler. With Scott’s plan, he said of Schumer, “I’m sure he sees it and says to himself, ‘I’ve taken this apart before.’”Privately, Democrats are realistic about their chances of hanging onto the Senate, and say they must seize the “gift” Scott has given them to force Republicans onto the defensive. On the day of the State of the Union, for instance, Senate Democrats ran an ad accusing McConnell of fighting “for the same wealthy insiders who get rich by keeping prices high.”During their own retreat on Wednesday, Democrats heard a presentation by Geoff Garin, a pollster, that impressed many of the senators present. Garin’s surveys have found that more voters blame the coronavirus pandemic, “China and foreign supply chains” and “large corporations raising prices to increase their profits” than they do President Biden for inflation.“The bottom line here is that Democrats have a very strong case to prosecute on rising costs,” Garin said.Republicans see the attack on Scott as a desperation play in what could be a difficult election for Senate Democrats, who must defend incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire while trying to pick up seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.“If I were them, I would try to use it, too,” said Justin Sayfie, a Republican consultant who runs an influential Florida political news website. “But they’re going to have to put a lot of money behind it. How much penetration are they going to be able to get with a message about Rick Scott?”Two visions of how to winMcConnell and Scott have a fundamental difference of opinion about how to win the Senate, people who have studied both men say.There’s McConnell, the calculating insider, who is leery of putting forward a political agenda that could open Republicans up to Democrats’ attacks. Republicans have long memories of how, in past election cycles, Democrats have had success in accusing them of wanting to cut popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.“McConnell hates variables,” said Kessler, the former Schumer aide. “He’s like a boxer who likes to cut off the sides of the ring.”In January, when a reporter asked McConnell what his agenda might be if Republicans retake the majority, he replied simply: “That is a very good question. And I’ll let you know when we take it back.”Then there’s Scott, the ambitious outsider, a former businessman whose presidential aspirations are no secret. He’s rankled some of his fellow Republican senators by taking broad swipes at Washington — despite leading the committee in charge of electing more of them.And while they share the same goal of winning back the Senate, aides and allies of both men have sniped at one another through the press, particularly over their relationship with Donald Trump.Scott has cultivated a relationship with the former president — he made sure to send copies of his plan to Mar-a-Lago — while McConnell at times has condemned Trump, who in turn refers to the Senate minority leader as “the Old Crow.” Trump has even tried to recruit Scott as a future majority leader, according to a Politico account.McConnell’s office declined to comment.“There will always be critics, but we don’t waste much time worrying about the opinions of Democrat operatives or anonymous Washington consultants,” said Chris Hartline, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Scott chairs. Asked what the Heritage Foundation would say to Senate leaders like McConnell, Roberts said, “We’re grateful for their service, and we’re looking forward to them embracing Senator Scott’s plan or coming up with a plan of their own.”What to read The U.S. Census Bureau says the 2020 census seriously undercounted the number of Hispanic, Black and Native American residents, even though its overall population count of 323.2 million was largely accurate, Michael Wines and Maria Cramer report.In February, the Consumer Price Index rose at its fastest pace in 40 years. Biden blamed Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for the increase, though inflation has been a problem for months, Jeanna Smialek reports.As oil prices rise, many governments are working to boost global production, potentially neglecting longer-term efforts to cut use of fossil fuels to fight climate change. Brad Plumer, Lisa Friedman and David Gelles report.postcardVice President Kamala Harris called for an investigation into potential war crimes by the Russian military, during a visit to Poland on Thursday.Andrzej Lange/EPA, via ShutterstockTwo V.P.s, one message for UkraineThe world got a glimpse of two potential future presidents today, in what we’re told was a sheer coincidence.Vice President Kamala Harris was visiting Poland, where she met with the country’s leaders, called for an investigation into potential war crimes by the Russian military, held a round-table event with displaced survivors from the war in Ukraine and appeared with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada in a show of Western solidarity.It so happened that her predecessor, Mike Pence, was in Ukraine on the same day as Harris’s trip. Along with his wife, Karen, he met with some of the refugees who are living in camps near the border with Poland. As Pence noted on Twitter, more than 2 million Ukrainians have fled the country over the last 12 days, according to U.N. figures.Pence’s trip comes as the former vice president tries to establish himself as a leader of the Republican Party on foreign policy ahead of a possible 2024 run. Last week, Pence blasted unnamed people in the party who, he said, were “apologists for Putin,” the Russian leader.Our colleague, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent, was traveling with Harris and sending dispatches from Poland all day long. According to a background briefing by an unnamed senior administration official, he reported, teams for the former vice president and the current vice president were “not in contact.”Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Republicans Wrongly Blame Biden for Rising Gas Prices

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      They have pointed to the Biden administration’s policies on the Keystone XL pipeline and certain oil and gas leases, which have had little impact on prices.WASHINGTON — As gas prices hit a high this week, top Republican lawmakers took to the airwaves and the floors of Congress with misleading claims that pinned the blame on President Biden and his energy policies.Mr. Biden warned that his ban on imports of Russian oil, gas and coal, announced on Tuesday as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, would cause gas prices to rise further. High costs are expected to last as long as the confrontation does.While Republican lawmakers supported the ban, they asserted that the pain at the pump long preceded the war in Ukraine. Gas price hikes, they said, were the result of Mr. Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, the temporary halt on new drilling leases on public lands and the surrendering of “energy independence” — all incorrect assertions.Here’s a fact check of their claims.What Was Said“This administration wants to ramp up energy imports from Iran and Venezuela. That is the world’s largest state sponsor of terror and a thuggish South America dictator, respectively. They would rather buy from these people than buy from Texas, Alaska and Pennsylvania.”— Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, in a speech on Tuesday“Democrats want to blame surging prices on Russia. But the truth is, their out-of-touch policies are why we are here in the first place. Remember what happened on Day 1 with one-party rule? The president canceled the Keystone pipeline, and then he stopped new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters.”— Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, in a speech on Tuesday“In the four years of the Trump-Pence administration, we achieved energy independence for the first time in 70 years. We were a net exporter of energy. But from very early on, with killing the Keystone pipeline, taking federal lands off the list for exploration, sidelining leases for oil and natural gas — once again, before Ukraine ever happened, we saw rising gasoline prices.”— Former Vice President Mike Pence in an interview on Fox Business on TuesdayThese claims are misleading. The primary reason for rising gas prices over the past year is the coronavirus pandemic and its disruptions to global supply and demand.“Covid changed the game, not President Biden,” said Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, which tracks gasoline prices. “U.S. oil production fell in the last eight months of President Trump’s tenure. Is that his fault? No.”“The pandemic brought us to our knees,” Mr. De Haan added.In the early months of 2020, when the virus took hold, demand for oil dried up and prices plummeted, with the benchmark price for crude oil in the United States falling to negative $37.63 that April. In response, producers in the United States and around the world began decreasing output.As pandemic restrictions loosened worldwide and economies recovered, demand outpaced supply. That was “mostly attributable” to the decision by OPEC Plus, an alliance of oil-producing countries that controls about half the world’s supply, to limit increases in production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Domestic production also remains below prepandemic levels, as capital spending declined and investors remained reluctant to provide financing to the oil industry.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only compounded the issues.“When you throw a war on top of this, this is possibly the worst escalation you can have of this,” said Abhiram Rajendran, the head of oil market research at Energy Intelligence, an energy information company. “You’re literally pouring gasoline on general inflationary pressure.”These factors are largely out of Mr. Biden’s control, experts agreed, though they said he had not exactly sent positive signals to the oil and gas industry and its investors by vowing to reduce emissions and fossil fuel reliance.Mr. De Haan said the Biden administration was “clearly less friendly” to the industry, which may have indirectly affected investor attitudes. But overall, he said, that stance has played a “very, very small role pushing gas prices up.”President Biden announced a ban on imports of Russian oil in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesMr. Rajendran said the Biden administration had emphasized climate change issues while paying lip service to energy security.“There has been a pretty stark miscalculation of the amount of supply we would need to keep energy prices at affordable levels,” he said. “It was taken for granted. There was too much focus on the energy transition.”But presidents, Mr. Rajendran said, “have very little impact on short-term supply.”“The key relationship to watch is between companies and investors,” he said.It is true that the Biden administration is in talks with Venezuela and Iran over their oil supplies. But the administration is also urging American companies to ramp up production — to the dismay of climate change activists and contrary to Republican lawmakers’ suggestions that the White House is intent on handcuffing domestic producers.Speaking before the National Petroleum Council in December, Jennifer M. Granholm, the energy secretary, told oil companies to “please take advantage of the leases that you have, hire workers, get your rig count up.”Understand Rising Gas Prices in the U.S.Card 1 of 5A steady rise. More