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      ‘Maybe Gen Z Is Just Kinder’: How America’s Youngest Voters are Shaping Politics

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      Members of Gen Z (Americans under 26 years old) have come of age during the Trump presidency and a pandemic, in an era of protests over police violence, attacks on reproductive rights, rising economic inequality, and frequent school shootings. These young people are calling for major changes, but many aren’t confident that politicians will act with the urgency necessary to carry them out. As Gen Z voters consider the midterms, they are prioritizing the issues, not party allegiance.But with a history of low turnout, and disenchantment with politics across the spectrum, will young voters be moved enough by the issues to show up at the polls? And if so, will there be enough of them to sway decisive races?[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]Today on “The Argument,” Jane Coaston convenes three voters in their early 20s to talk about how their families and communities have affected their politics, what matters most to them at the ballot box, and what they wish older Americans and politicians understood about people their age.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressThoughts? Email us at argument@nytimes.com or leave us a voice mail message at (347) 915-4324. We want to hear what you’re arguing about with your family, your friends and your frenemies. (We may use excerpts from your message in a future episode.)By leaving us a message, you are agreeing to be governed by our reader submission terms and agreeing that we may use and allow others to use your name, voice and message.“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, and Vishakha Darbha and Derek Arthur. Edited by Alison Bruzek and Anabel Bacon. With original music by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker; mixing by Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta with editorial support from Kristina Samulewski. More

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      Rishi Sunak’s Challenge: Unifying the Party and Fixing the Economy

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      The Conservative Party is fractured and Britain’s public finances are battered. That will test the political skills of a leader who has been involved in national politics for only seven years.LONDON — Rishi Sunak took over as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday, the third in seven weeks, hoping to slow the revolving door at 10 Downing Street and restore stability to a government in turmoil.But as he assembled a cabinet and began to confront a grave economic crisis, Mr. Sunak faced formidable political challenges, for which analysts said his seven-year career in national politics had not fully prepared him. The swift, truncated nature of his election may further complicate his task.Having been elected with the votes of some 200 Conservative Party lawmakers, but not the party’s rank-and-file members, Mr. Sunak could have trouble claiming a mandate to lead a deeply fractured party, let alone the whole country. With his government forced into spending cuts and tax increases, he will have few resources with which to reward either his lawmakers or the public.“He’s inheriting a divided party with a large number of Conservative M.P.s and members who believe he has no legitimate mandate,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent. “That’s compounded by the fact that the party is in a free-fall and it’s not clear it has a parachute.”And yet, on a day of now-familiar rituals, as Mr. Sunak, the fifth prime minister in six years, traveled to Buckingham Palace to be anointed by King Charles III, there was also a calm in British politics — something that had been missing since Boris Johnson’s chaotic departure this past summer.Much of that owed to the 42-year-old prime minister himself: His well-received address to the nation on Tuesday showed a degree of political awareness, conceding the mistakes of his predecessor, Liz Truss, and promising improvement, while also reaching out to her and Mr. Johnson.“I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda,” a somber and solitary Mr. Sunak said on Downing Street, after returning from the palace. “This will mean difficult decisions to come.”Mr. Sunak and King Charles III in Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.Pool photo by Aaron ChownHis decision to appear there without his wife or daughters, and to dispense with the cheering staff members that greeted Ms. Truss last month, lent his arrival a brisk, businesslike tone. It also underlined the contrast between Mr. Sunak and his predecessor, which he said would extend beyond optics.A former chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Sunak is expected to pull Britain back to more mainstream policies after Ms. Truss’s experiment in trickle-down economics, which rattled financial markets and badly damaged Britain’s fiscal reputation.More on the Political Turmoil in BritainMaking History: Rishi Sunak is the first person of color and the first Hindu to become prime minister of Britain — a milestone for a nation that is more and more ethnically diverse but also roiled by occasional anti-immigrant fervor.Economic Challenges: Sunak already has experience steering Britain’s public finances as chancellor of the Exchequer. That won’t make tackling the current crisis any easier.Political Primaries: Are primary elections of British leaders driving Britain’s dysfunction? The rise and fall of Liz Truss offers some lessons.Lifelong Allowance: As a former prime minister, Ms. Truss is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.“Mistakes were made,” Mr. Sunak said. “Not borne of ill will or bad intentions. Quite the opposite, in fact. But mistakes, nonetheless. And I have been elected as leader of my party, and your prime minister, in part, to fix them.”Mr. Sunak quickly set about selecting a cabinet remarkable for its familiar faces. He retained Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor whom Ms. Truss installed after ousting Kwasi Kwarteng, the architect of ill-fated tax cuts. Mr. Hunt, who has soothed the markets, is scheduled to present a more detailed fiscal plan on Oct. 31.Mr. Sunak also kept on Ben Wallace as defense secretary and James Cleverly as foreign secretary, even though both had backed Mr. Johnson over him in the leadership race. And he retained Penny Mordaunt, who mounted a spirited challenge to him in that contest, as leader of the House of Commons.It was a striking contrast to Ms. Truss, whose cabinet consisted almost entirely of people who had backed her for leader, and it seemed to signal a recognition by Mr. Sunak that he could not succeed by drawing dividing lines in the party.Clockwise from top left: Jeremy Hunt, Ben Wallace, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Suella Braverman, James Cleverly.AFP — Getty; EPA, via Shutterstock; EPA, via Shutterstock; EPA, via Shutterstock; AFP — Getty; AFP — GettyMost conspicuously, Mr. Sunak reappointed Suella Braverman as home secretary, a job she had been forced out of only a week ago, ostensibly because she breached security rules. Her appointment was a gesture to the Conservative Party’s right flank: Ms. Braverman is a hard-liner who wants to cut immigration numbers. She said her “dream” was to see flights deporting asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda.Mr. Sunak did reward some loyalists, naming Dominic Raab, who campaigned faithfully for him, as deputy prime minister and justice minister, posts he held under Mr. Johnson.Ms. Truss made her own appearance at Downing Street in the morning with her family, after formally submitting her resignation to the king, just seven weeks after she had been anointed by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in one of her last official acts, two days before her death.In defiant, unapologetic farewell remarks, Ms. Truss took credit for protecting people from rising energy bills. Reiterating her belief in lower taxes and a fast-growing economy, she said, “I am more convinced than ever we need to be bold and confront the challenges that we face.”Taking a page from Mr. Johnson, who likened himself to the retiring fifth-century Roman politician Cincinnatus, Ms. Truss quoted the Roman philosopher Seneca: “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”Liz Truss after her farewell remarks on Downing Street on Tuesday.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Truss’s misfires have made Mr. Sunak’s job even more difficult. Britain’s straitened public finances and its higher borrowing costs — a consequence, in part, of rising interest rates in reaction to her policies — will require painful spending cuts. That will further test Mr. Sunak’s political skills. Last summer, he struggled to sell his tough-love message to party members, who preferred Ms. Truss’s supply-side remedies.“The ideological riddle that Sunak has to try to solve is how the Conservative Party, amid a profound and prolonged economic crisis, can reconnect with the voters it attracted after Brexit,” Professor Goodwin said.Mr. Sunak did reappoint Michael Gove, a seasoned minister, to a post overseeing efforts to “level up” struggling cities in the Midlands and north of England with more prosperous London. That is important to retaining working-class voters who propelled the Conservatives to their landslide general election victory in 2019.As chancellor, Mr. Sunak was lionized when he doled out billions of pounds to people who had lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic. He sponsored another good-news program, “Eat Out to Help Out,” which subsidized meals at restaurants to revive the industry after lockdowns.But when it came to withdrawing those benefits and raising taxes, Mr. Sunak’s reputation unsurprisingly suffered. During his campaign against Ms. Truss, he struggled to stick to his message of fiscal conservatism. Under pressure from her promises of tax cuts, he said he would temporarily suspend the value-added tax, a sales tax, on energy bills — something that he had earlier rejected.“He doesn’t have a lot of what I’d call trench-fighting experience,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “His progress through the party has been so rapid that he hasn’t spent years forging friendships with colleagues who’ve got his back come what may.”Mr. Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty at the British Asian Trust Reception at the British Museum in London, in February.Vickie Flores/EPA, via ShutterstockProfessor Bale said Mr. Sunak was also thin-skinned about criticism he faced last spring of his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian technology billionaire, for her privileged tax status. Her so-called non-domicile status allowed her to avoid paying taxes in Britain on millions of pounds of her global income (she eventually agreed to pay British taxes).While Mr. Sunak’s sensitive reaction to the attacks against his wife may have been understandable, he is likely to face many more of them in the coming months from an opposition Labour Party that will seize on his extreme wealth to paint him as out of touch with the anxieties of ordinary people.“They don’t care that he and his family are filthy rich,” Professor Bale said. “They do care they didn’t seem to be paying their fair share. That — and his heated outdoor swimming pool and his house in Santa Monica — is going to make it difficult for him to argue, ‘We’re all in this together.’”Political analysts said the sheer magnitude of Ms. Truss’s failure was Mr. Sunak’s biggest asset. The Conservatives are trailing Labour by more than 30 percentage points in some polls. Even those who ardently opposed Mr. Sunak recognize that he is likely their last hope of avoiding a general election rout that would sweep hundreds of Conservative lawmakers out of their seats.“His M.P.s have looked over the edge of the precipice and know that, unless they get behind the guy, who is basically their last chance, they’re heading for a huge fall,” Professor Bale said. “Basically, it’s Rishi or bust.”Mr. Sunak is Britain’s third prime minister in seven weeks. Hannah Mckay/Reuters More

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      Your Wednesday Briefing: Tensions Rise in the West Bank

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      Plus Myanmar’s junta kills dozens and Brittney Griner faces nine years in a Russian penal colony.Mourners attended the funeral of Palestinians killed in an overnight Israeli raid in Nablus.Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIsrael targets a Palestinian militiaIsraeli forces carried out a major raid against a new Palestinian militia in Nablus, a city in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian officials and militia members said the raid yesterday killed a leader of the group and four other men.Israel has blamed the militia, known as the Lions’ Den, for a rise in shootings that it says are aimed at its troops and Jewish settlements; one shooting killed a soldier this month. The militia, which emerged this year and does not answer to any of the established Palestinian factions, is steadily gaining support among young people.Many Palestinians have championed the group’s fighters as popular heroes. These young Palestinians are as frustrated with the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited authority over parts of the West Bank, as they are with Israel.The predawn raid came ahead of Israel’s general election, its fifth since 2019, set for next Tuesday. It could add to right-wing momentum and strengthen Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to retake power.Context: The Israeli army has kept Nablus under a tight siege for about two weeks. Palestinians have decried the move as a collective punishment.Background: This year has already been the deadliest in the West Bank since 2015 for Palestinians in the conflict with Israel, much of which has been focused on Nablus and Jenin. There has been a notable rise in violence against Palestinians by extremist Jewish settlers.One bomb killed Aurali Lahpai, a popular singer, and other performers mid-song.Associated PressAirstrike kills dozens in MyanmarAt least 80 people died in Myanmar after the military regime mounted its deadliest aerial attack since it seized power last year.The Sunday airstrike in northern Myanmar targeted the territory of ethnic Kachin rebels. People had gathered for an outdoor concert to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organization, one of the largest and most active ethnic groups in the country, which has been fighting the military for years.Since the coup, the organization has joined with pro-democracy forces and has helped train soldiers from the People’s Defense Force, an armed resistance group. The organization pledged to step up its military activities against the junta in retaliation.Military: The junta said that the site of the bombing was a Kachin army base, not a concert venue, and said widespread reports of civilian deaths, including the deaths of the performers, were “rumors based on fake news.”Context: The Kachin Independence Organization has long sought autonomy for Kachin State, which borders China and India and is well known for its lucrative jade trade.Brittney Griner has already been jailed for about eight months.Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesGriner’s prison term upheldA Russian court upheld the nine-year prison sentence for Brittney Griner, the U.S. basketball star. A prisoner swap with the U.S. may be her best hope to avoid a penal colony.There are two higher courts above the appellate division, culminating in the Supreme Court, but Griner’s lawyers said they had not decided whether to take the case any further. Higher courts in Russia are not known for overturning verdicts, especially in a case involving foreign policy and the interests of the Kremlin.The U.S. has proposed exchanging Griner and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine held since December 2018, for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year federal prison sentence, according to a person familiar with the talks. But negotiations have dragged on for months.Background: Griner was arrested days before Russia invaded Ukraine after she arrived in Russia with a small amount of hashish oil. Threats: Russia and Ukraine accused each other of planning attacks to spread radioactive material, raising fears in the West that Moscow’s claims could be a pretext for an escalation. President Biden sharply warned Moscow against using a tactical nuclear weapon.THE LATEST NEWSAustralia’s BudgetJim Chalmers, Australia’s treasurer, delivered the 2022-23 federal budget yesterday.Lukas Coch/EPA, via ShutterstockAustralia’s government released its first budget yesterday. It is the first from the Labor Party in almost a decade, The Guardian reports.Australia’s plan emphasizes spending on families, as well as on older adults, defense and other countries in the Pacific, The Associated Press reports.Reuters reports that the “low-drama” budget stressed stability, pragmatism and tight controls.Australia is anticipating an economic slowdown amid rising global inflation, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.British PoliticsKing Charles III welcomed Rishi Sunak to Buckingham Palace yesterday.Pool photo by Aaron ChownRishi Sunak is now Britain’s prime minister. He opted for stability and continuity in his cabinet. Jeremy Hunt, who quickly reversed Liz Truss’s economic proposals, will stay on as the top finance minister. Sunak supported Brexit and pledged to do “whatever it takes” to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. But he has been tight-lipped about his policy agenda.China said it supported advancing ties with Britain under Sunak, despite simmering tensions.Sunak’s ascent has inspired some members of the Indian diaspora. But his immense personal wealth makes him less relatable.Other Big Stories“I want to cry, I want to scream,” said a 31-year-old Venezuelan migrant, who said he had traversed 10 countries to get to the U.S. Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesTens of thousands of Venezuelans are stranded south of the U.S. border after an abrupt shift in the Biden administration’s immigration policy.WhatsApp went down in India, South Korea and other countries yesterday. The company did not provide a cause.Here are photos from the partial solar eclipse yesterday.A Morning ReadBefore the pandemic, Kathryn Wiltz’s employer repeatedly denied her requests to work from home because of her disability. Now, her new job allows her to do so permanently.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesThe pandemic prompted more employers to consider remote work arrangements. As a result, the share of adults with disabilities who are working has soared.A man with autism spectrum disorder, which has made it difficult for him to find steady work, recently landed a full-time job — with a 30 percent raise. “If I have my bad days, I just pick up the laptop and work from home,” he said.POP CULTUREAdidas drops YeAdidas said it was immediately ending its partnership with Kanye West, now known as Ye, who made a series of antisemitic remarks and embraced a slogan associated with white supremacists this month.In so doing, the German sneaker giant ended what may have been the most significant corporate fashion partnership of Ye’s career. It’s not the first to go: After days of notable silence, Balenciaga, the fashion house that had Ye walk down its runway, cut him loose. CAA, the talent agency that represents Ye, also dropped him as a client.Like many of Ye’s other fashion connections, Adidas seemed to be dragging its feet, perhaps hoping for a public apology. Now, Ye’s economic future and his status as a pop culture icon may be in peril.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKate Sears for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.Roast butternut squash in miso and butter for a savory vegetarian pasta dinner.Letter of RecommendationThere’s joy in jet lag.FashionFind your personal style.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Polluted air (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Park Chung-hee, South Korea’s president who seized power in a coup, was assassinated 43 years ago today. His friend Kim Jae-kyu, then the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, killed him and was sentenced to death.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on Europe’s energy crisis.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      New York’s Governor’s Race Is Suddenly Too Close for Democrats’ Comfort

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      For months, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has trusted that the state’s strong Democratic majority would keep her in office largely on the strength of a simple message: Her Republican opponent was too close to Donald J. Trump and would roll back abortion rights.But just two weeks before Election Day, a rapidly tightening contest has Ms. Hochul racing to expand her closing argument as Democrats warily concede they may have misjudged powerful fears driving the electorate, particularly around crime.In just the last few days, Ms. Hochul stood with Mayor Eric Adams to announce a new flood of police officers into New York City subways; she visited five Harlem churches to assure stalwart Black voters she was “laser-focused” on safety; and she highlighted new statistics showing that authorities were seizing more guns under her watch.“We believe in justice, the justice that Jesus teaches us, but it’s also about safety,” Ms. Hochul said at one of her stops in Harlem. “We are laser-focused on keeping you, your children and your grandchildren safe.”Her campaign has begun recalibrating its paid message, too, shifting the focus of millions of dollars in ad spending to highlight the governor’s efforts to stoke the economy and improve public safety, notably including a package of modest changes to the state’s bail laws that has divided her party. The spots trumpeting her record will run alongside a new ad tying Mr. Zeldin to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Anxious Democrats are hopeful that the changes can stabilize the governor’s campaign after weeks of increasingly shaky polls that show Ms. Hochul’s lead dwindling to single digits over Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican.The narrowing margin tracks closely with recent surveys showing that fears about public safety and inflation have eclipsed abortion and the former president as make-or-break issues for voters, eroding Democrats’ support even in liberal enclaves like New York City and its suburbs, while rewarding candidates like Mr. Zeldin who have made crime the visceral centerpiece of their campaign.“Maybe it was the right thing to do at the time,” David A. Paterson, the former Democratic governor, said of the decision by Democrats to spend precious time and money messaging on abortion rights this summer.“But these times, meaning September and October,” he continued, “really call for more conversation about what we do with convicted felons, what we do with the judges’ capacity to assess dangerousness, and obviously what we do with a significant number of people with mental illness walking the streets right now.”Ms. Hochul has used appearances with Mayor Eric Adams of New York City to highlight anti-crime initiatives.Yuki Iwamura/Associated PressThose issues are all but certain to figure prominently in the first and only televised debate between Ms. Hochul, 64, and Mr. Zeldin, 42, on Tuesday night.Certainly, Ms. Hochul remains the favorite in the race, and her campaign has tried to calm jittery allies. She has a vast fund-raising advantage, passable approval ratings and a two-to-one registration advantage statewide for Democrats over Republicans. While several polls last week showed a tight race, a Siena College survey from that period showed the governor still up by 11 points.“There is no question that the national environment has gotten tougher for Democrats in the last few weeks,” said Jefrey Pollock, Ms. Hochul’s pollster. “We are focused on making sure that every Democrat understands the stakes and votes. When Democrats vote in New York, we win.”But for Democrats who are not accustomed to close statewide races in New York, some level of panic appears to be setting in — that Mr. Zeldin could flip Black, Latino and Asian voters worried about public safety, but also that other rank-and-file Democratic voters may simply sit the race out because of apathy about Ms. Hochul and her low-key campaign.“It doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of groundswell from the bottom up,” Crystal Hudson, a left-leaning Brooklyn City Council member. “Perhaps Democrats are taking for granted that New York state is bluer than we think it might be.”In Manhattan, the borough president, Mark D. Levine, said he, too, had grown increasingly concerned in recent weeks that Democratic voters were missing the warning signs. On Sunday, he put together a rally with more than a dozen elected Democrats on the ultraliberal Upper West Side to “wake up Dems.” The event turned raucous when hecklers, some wearing Zeldin garb, tried to derail the speakers.“There hasn’t been a seriously competitive statewide election in 20 years and Democrats certainly in Manhattan and elsewhere have been taking November on autopilot,” Mr. Levine said afterward. “It’s not an exaggeration to say we can’t win statewide unless we get Democrats in Manhattan excited to vote.”The stakes have only grown in recent weeks amid a massive outside spending campaign by a handful of ultrawealthy conservative donors seeking to capitalize on the public safety debate to damage Ms. Hochul.Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir, put more than $9 million into a pair of pro-Zeldin super PACs at the start of September, almost single-handedly bankrolling statewide television ads that savage Ms. Hochul’s record on public safety. Just on Friday, one of the PACs reported new contributions totaling $750,000 — a sum that would take even Ms. Hochul, a prolific fund-raiser, days to raise from scores of donors — from a shell company that appears to be tied to Thomas Tisch, an investor from one of New York’s richest families.New York is not the only state dealing with increases in certain crimes since the onset of the pandemic, and the reality is more nuanced than Republicans would suggest. As Ms. Hochul likes to point out, the state remains safer than some far smaller, many run by Republicans.But a rash of highly visible, violent episodes on the subways and on well-to-do street corners around the state in recent months have left many New Yorkers with at least the perception that parts of the state are growing markedly less safe.In Ms. Hochul’s 14 months as governor, she has taken a nuanced approach to public safety issues. She has meaningfully tightened the state’s gun laws. She and Mr. Adams have pledged more money for mental health services for disturbed people who commit crimes. And she has initiated plans to put cameras in every subway car. Under pressure from Mr. Adams, a former police captain, Ms. Hochul used the state’s annual budget to strengthen bail restrictions and tighten rules for repeat offenders, over the objections of some more left-leaning colleagues.“He doesn’t own the crime issue,” Ms. Hochul said in an interview on Sunday about Mr. Zeldin. “Saying that more people should have guns on our streets and in our subways and in our churches as a strategy to deal with public safety — that’s absurd.”But until very recently, she had relatively little to say about it in the general election campaign, outside of criticizing Mr. Zeldin’s opposition to many gun control measures, and a single Spanish-language ad focused on Ms. Hochul’s gun policies.That omission has left some moderate Democrats fearing that the party has ceded the terms of the debate to Republicans like Mr. Zeldin, who have decried legislative attempts by the Democrats to make the system fairer as “pro-criminal” laws.After Ms. Hochul and Mr. Adams announced on Saturday that the state would pay for more police officers in the subways, Mr. Zeldin pilloried the plan as little more than a political gimmick.His own campaign platform calls for firing the Manhattan district attorney and declaring a state of emergency to temporarily repeal the state’s cashless bail laws, and other criminal justice laws enacted by the Democrat-run Legislature.“For Kathy Hochul, it wasn’t the nine subway deaths that drove her to action. It wasn’t a 25-year-high in subway crime. It wasn’t New Yorkers feeling unsafe on our streets, on our subways and in their homes,” he said on Sunday. “For Kathy Hochul, all it took for her to announce a half-ass, day-late, dollar-short plan was a bad poll.”Lee Zeldin, right, has received endorsements from numerous law enforcement unions, including the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesThe challenge for Ms. Hochul in shifting that narrative was on clear display on Sunday, as she shuttled up and down Harlem to speak at five different Black churches, usually a hotbed of Democratic support.At the first stop, Mount Neboh Baptist Church, the Rev. Johnnie Melvin Green Jr. gave a full-throated, personal endorsement of the governor from the pulpit, but he sounded alarmed about low turnout and the state of the race.Without naming Mr. Zeldin, the reverend warned that certain people had “hijacked” the public’s understanding of what was happening in the city, leading to “a race that shouldn’t be tight.”“I want to make something crystal clear because they aren’t going to explain it to you in the media,” he said, adding: “They want to make us afraid.”Jeffery C. Mays More

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      A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Trump Enabler

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      ​​“What would you do for your relevance?” the political journalist Mark Leibovich asks in his new book, “Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission.” “How badly did you want into the clubhouse, no matter how wretched it became inside?” For Leibovich, you can’t truly understand the current Republican Party without taking stock of the almost Shakespearean drama that unfolded during the Trump presidency — in which Republican after Republican bowed to the will of their ascendant party leader.Through his extensive — and often quite colorful — reporting with Trump’s inner circle of enablers, Leibovich tries to understand the motivations that fueled Trump’s takeover of the G.O.P. But this conversation isn’t only important in retrospect. With the Republican Party poised to possibly recapture at least one house of Congress in November, many of Trump’s core enablers could soon hold considerable political power. Who are they? What do they believe? How will they act if given power?[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]We discuss why the stakes in 2022 midterms feel higher than ever, why the Republican Party has changed so profoundly since the days of Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, how the governing structure of the G.O.P. fell apart as Trump rose in influence, the many reasons politicians from Lindsey Graham to Elise Stefanik converted from Trump skeptics to staunch Trump defenders, the political motivations of Kevin McCarthy — who may become the next speaker of the House — and how he might wield power, how the persistence of Trumpism could profoundly alter American democracy, why Leibovich believes figures like J.D. Vance prostrated themselves to a man who insulted them, what options Democrats have for countering election denialism and more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Ralph Answang“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld, Sonia Herrero and Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski. More

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      The John Fetterman-Mehmet Oz Debate: The Midterms in Miniature

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      Let’s imagine that someone wanted to design a debate scenario that captured the high-stakes, uncertain, migraine-inducing essence of this freaky election cycle. (Don’t ask me why. Politics makes people do weird stuff some times.) The final result could easily wind up looking an awful lot like the Senate showdown in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz.Here we are, two weeks out from Election Day, with Pennsylvania among a smattering of states set to determine which party controls the Senate. For various reasons, Pennsylvanians have had limited opportunities to take an extended measure of the candidates. With the race now tighter than a bad face lift, this debate may be the candidates’ last big chance for a breakout performance — or a catastrophic belly flop. Rarely have so many expectations been heaped onto one measly debate.Consider the stark contrast between the candidates’ core brands. On the Republican side, there’s Dr. Oz: a rich, natty, carpetbagging TV celebrity with a smooth-as-goose-poop manner and Mephistophelean eyebrows. Mr. Fetterman, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, is 6-foot-8 and beefy, with tats, a goatee and the sartorial flair of a high school gym teacher — an anti-establishment, regular-Joe type better known for his trash-tweeting than for his oratorical prowess.Hovering over this hourlong prime-time matchup are questions about Mr. Fetterman’s health. He suffered a stroke in May that has left him with auditory processing issues, and he will rely on a closed captioning system in the debate. Voters can be unforgiving — and the opposition ruthless — about verbal stumbling. (Just ask President Biden.) And the closed captioning technology Mr. Fetterman uses can lead to lags between questions being asked and answered.Already there has been chatter about his performance on the stump. This month, an NBC reporter said that, in a pre-interview sit-down, Mr. Fetterman seemed to be having trouble understanding her. Republicans have accused him of lying about the severity of his condition and suggested he is not up to the job. A major blunder on the debate stage, or even the general sense that Mr. Fetterman is struggling, could prove devastating.On the other hand … Dr. Oz and his team have mocked Mr. Fetterman’s medical travails — which seems like a particularly jerky move for a medical professional. This may tickle the Republican base but risks alienating less partisan voters. In appealing to a general-election audience, Dr. Oz will need a better bedside manner to avoid coming across as a callous, supercilious jackass.And here’s where the dynamic gets really tense: After much back-and-forth between the campaigns, Mr. Fetterman agreed to only a single debate, pushed to this late date on the campaign calendar. There are no second chances on the agenda, and precious little time to recover if something goes sideways for either candidate.While the particulars of the Pennsylvania race are unusual, the minimalist approach to debating is ascendant. For the past decade, the number of debates in competitive races has been on a downward slide, and they appear headed the way of floppy disks and fax machines. This election season, barring unforeseen developments, the major Senate contenders in Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida, as in Pennsylvania, will face off only once — which is once more than those in Nevada, where debates seem to be off the table altogether. Likewise, the Republican and Democratic candidates in Missouri have yet to agree on conditions for appearing together.This trend is not limited to the Senate. Several candidates for governor have so far opted to shun debates. And starting with the 2024 presidential election, the Republican National Committee has voted to keep its candidates out of events hosted by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates unless it overhauls its rules for how the debates are conducted, including when they are held and who can be a moderator. Even if the committee eventually backtracks (which seems likely), its threat emphasizes just how far debates have fallen.This is a not-so-great development for a democracy already under strain.Once upon a time, candidates felt obligated to participate in debates. But as campaigning increasingly take place inside partisan bubbles, and the ways to directly communicate with voters proliferate, the contenders have become less inclined to brave this arena. Why endure intense, prolonged, unscripted scrutiny when it is so much less stressful to post on social media? Increasingly, campaigns are deciding these showdowns simply aren’t worth the work or the risk involved.But this misses the point. Debates aren’t supposed to be conducted for the electoral advantage of the candidates. They are meant to benefit the voting public. Debates require political opponents to engage face-to-face. They give voters an opportunity to watch the candidates define and defend their priorities and visions beyond the length of a tweet or an Instagram post. They are one of the few remaining political forums that focus on ideas. They contribute to an informed citizenry. Failure to achieve these aims suggests that the practice should be reformed, not abandoned.Admittedly, this seems like wishful thinking as members of both parties grow more comfortable with ducking debates. Republicans in particular are conditioning their supporters to believe that such matchups, and the journalists who typically run them, are biased against them.Those who view debates as some combination of boring, artificial and pointless will probably cheer their decline. (I feel your pain. I really do.) But the loss of this ritual is another troubling sign of our political times, and of a democracy at risk of sliding farther into crisis as its underpinnings are being steadily eroded.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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      Justice Dept. Charges 2 Chinese Citizens With Spying for Huawei

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      Huawei has been a persistent target of the United States government since the administration of President Donald J. Trump.The Justice Department announced charges against two Chinese intelligence operatives who are accused of attempting to obtain inside information about the ongoing federal investigation into Huawei, a China-based telecommunications company.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced on Monday that it had indicted two Chinese intelligence officials who are believed to have unsuccessfully tried to obtain inside information about a federal investigation into a Chinese telecommunications company accused of stealing trade secrets, which people familiar with the situation later identified as Huawei Technologies.The Chinese intelligence officials, Guochun He and Zheng Wang, paid bribes to an official with access to sensitive details of the investigation into Huawei by the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, according to charging documents unsealed on Monday. The person turned out to be an agent working for the F.B.I. who handed over phony documents.The indictment was part of three unrelated legal actions against Chinese operatives in the United States that senior law enforcement officials announced on Monday, a day after President Xi Jinping of China solidified his grip on power as the Communist Party congress in Beijing closed.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Christopher A. Wray, the director of the F.B.I., issued blunt denunciations of China during a news conference, accusing the country’s leaders of meddling in the American judicial system, stealing technology and bullying Chinese citizens who emigrate to the United States.“The government of China sought to interfere with the rights and freedoms of individuals in the United States and to undermine our judicial system that protects those rights,” Mr. Garland told reporters. “We will continue to fiercely protect the rights guaranteed to everyone in our country.”Mr. Wray said the cases, which total 13 indictments and two arrests, “highlight the threat” that China’s intelligence services pose to “rights of people in the United States.”The bureau has identified 10 of the 13 people charged as intelligence agents, and will continue to focus on rooting out other Chinese agents, he said.More on the Relations Between Asia and the U.S.Seoul Gets Squeezed: The United States is South Korea’s main security ally. China is its biggest trading partner. As the rivalry between the two powers intensifies, South Korea is increasingly feeling the heat.Tech Crackdown: The Biden administration is waging a new global campaign against China, using U.S. influence to try to choke off China’s access to critical semiconductor technology.Bolstering Taiwan: U.S. officials are said to be intensifying efforts to build a giant stockpile of weapons in Taiwan in case China blockades the island as a prelude to an attempted invasion.The cases could cast a shadow over an effort by the Biden administration and TikTok to resolve national security concerns posed by the Chinese-owned video app. A draft agreement between the two parties has faced some skepticism among some administration officials, including Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco — who said the new allegations involving Huawei should serve as a warning to U.S. officials.“This case exposes the interconnection between intelligence officers and Chinese companies, and it demonstrates once again why such companies especially in the telecommunications industry shouldn’t be trusted to securely handle our sensitive personal data and communications,” Ms. Monaco said on Monday.In the Huawei case unsealed in Brooklyn federal court, the two Chinese intelligence operatives contacted an official with knowledge of the department’s investigation into Huawei in 2019, asking for documents, including trial evidence and witness lists, as well as summaries of confidential strategy meetings. Neither operative is in custody.They did not know the official was working with the F.B.I.Since that time, they have paid the official $41,000 in Bitcoin in exchange for what they believed to be inside information on the case. Instead, the F.B.I.’s double agent sent them a phony document, marked “Secret,” which contained publicly available information.Mr. He responded by telling the official, who was not identified, that the company was “obviously interested” in receiving more stolen material, according to court documents.A Huawei representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Huawei has been a persistent target of the United States government since the administration of President Donald J. Trump, which worried that the company could give Beijing access to sensitive information that travels over telecommunications networks. And the government’s efforts are part of a larger push to limit China’s influence over American consumers.In February 2020, the Justice Department indicted Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and two U.S. subsidiaries, over the company’s use of “fraud and deception” to obtain sophisticated technology from U.S. companies.Top American officials told allies around the world that they should exclude the Chinese company’s equipment from their next-generation wireless networks. The Commerce Department blacklisted the company in a bid to cut off its access to key American supplies for its products.Congress has provided money to reimburse American telecom operators who stop using equipment made by Chinese companies like Huawei. The Federal Communications Commission is also expected to vote soon on a measure to ban new Huawei products from being sold in the United States. It already blocks companies from spending federal subsidies on the gear.The government has also sought to rein in the influence of other Chinese companies.The Trump administration forced a Chinese company to sell Grindr, the dating app. It also tried to ban the viral video app TikTok unless its Chinese parent company sold a share of the app to an American company.Also on Monday, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment in Brooklyn charging seven people with engaging in a multiyear harassment campaign to force an unnamed U.S. resident to return to China as part of a repatriation effort known as Operation Fox Hunt.Two of those charged, Quanzhong An, 55, and Guangyang An, 34, both of Roslyn, N.Y., were arrested; the others remain at large, according to the department.In another case unsealed on Monday, the U.S. attorney in the District of New Jersey charged four people, including three Chinese intelligence officers, with recruiting agents while working under the cover of an academic institute, according to the charging documents.None of them are in U.S. custody. 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