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      Why Trump Can Afford to Disrespect His Anti-Abortion Voters

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      The Babylon Bee, which is like The Onion for conservative Christians, last month ran a despairing story about the presidential options anti-abortion voters have before them. “Pro-Lifers Excited to Choose Between Moderate Amount of Baby Murder and High Amount of Baby Murder,” said the headline. It was a dark joke, but it spoke to something real: a disquiet among some anti-abortion activists over Donald Trump’s attempts to distance himself from the abortion bans enabled by his Supreme Court appointees. Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told my Times colleague Astead W. Herndon that declining evangelical enthusiasm for Trump could be a “grave danger” to his campaign.As someone who wants Trump to lose, I hope he’s right, but I’m skeptical. “One of the things that Trump has done is reveal what you might call the G.O.P.’s dirty little secret, and that is that it’s never really been only about abortion,” said Robert P. Jones, the president of the Public Religion Research Institute. Conservative activists, he argued, have long seen themselves as part of a moral crusade against the killing of babies, but Republican voters, even white evangelical ones, tend to have more complicated views. In P.R.R.I. surveys, he said, white evangelicals are more likely to identify the economy, crime and immigration as critical issues than abortion. “The bond between Trump and rank-and-file Republicans and between Trump and white evangelical Protestants has really not been abortion,” said Jones.Clearly, a second Trump presidency would be catastrophic for reproductive rights. He obviously doesn’t care about abortion and is happy to take whatever position suits him at any given moment. But many of the people he will sweep into office with him are devoted to abortion bans. Part of the purpose of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 was to make sure there was a deep bench of MAGA apparatchiks ready to staff a second Trump administration, freeing him from the legal and bureaucratic roadblocks that stymied his first administration. The same people Heritage selected to defend Trump at all costs have thought deeply about how to use the levers of the federal government to restrict abortion.Still, in his spasmodic abortion positioning, Trump has annihilated the expectation that Republicans show deference to the social conservatives who’ve been crusading against abortion for a generation. On his vanity social media site, Truth Social, he wrote that he would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” He’s come out against six-week abortion bans. He removed a plank from the Republican Party platform calling for an anti-abortion amendment to the Constitution. He’s promised that his administration would provide free in vitro fertilization, a procedure that the Southern Baptist Convention voted to oppose in June.In doing all this without losing significant support among Christian conservatives, he’s demonstrated how little leverage the anti-abortion movement has over him.Part of the reason Trump is less constrained on this issue than his predecessors is that he’s transformed the Christian right just as he has the broader conservative movement, dethroning serious-seeming figures while promoting those once regarded as flamboyant cranks. In Republican politics, Steve Bannon and Alex Jones now have far more influence than erstwhile conservative stalwarts like Paul Ryan and Dick Cheney. Similarly, in the religious realm, the ex-president has elevated a class of faith healers, prosperity gospel preachers and roadshow revivalists over the kind of respectable evangelicals who clustered around George W. Bush. “Independent charismatic leaders, who 20 years ago would have been mocked by mainstream religious right leaders, are now frontline captains in the American culture wars,” writes the scholar Matthew D. Taylor in his fascinating new book, “The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Se enfría el apoyo a Kamala Harris, según una nueva encuesta

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      Es la primera encuesta nacional no partidista en un mes en que Donald Trump aventaja a la vicepresidenta; casi el 30 por ciento de los votantes dijo que necesitaban saber más sobre ella.Kamala Harris iba ligeramente por detrás en la última encuesta nacional de Times/SienaJamie Kelter Davis para The New York Times¿Comienza a menguar el auge de Kamala Harris?Esa es la pregunta que plantea la encuesta de ayer del New York Times y el Siena College, según la cual Donald Trump la aventaja por poco entre los votantes probables de todo el país, 48 por ciento a 47 por ciento.Para mí, el resultado es un poco sorprendente. Es la primera ventaja de Trump en una encuesta nacional no partidista en aproximadamente un mes. Por esa razón, vale la pena ser al menos un poco cauteloso acerca de estos resultados, ya que no hay mucha confirmación de otras encuestas.Dicho esto, no sería difícil de explicar si el apoyo de la vicepresidenta Harris realmente se ha desvanecido un poco en las últimas semanas. Después de todo, se estaba beneficiando de un entorno noticioso ideal: un mes ininterrumpido de cobertura elogiosa desde la salida del presidente Joe Biden de la carrera en julio hasta la convención demócrata en agosto. Es posible que se encontrara en un momento de euforia política; de ser así, tendría sentido que se desinflara en las dos semanas sin incidentes transcurridas desde la convención.También hay una razón plausible por la que la encuesta del Times/Siena sería la primera en captar un giro hacia Trump: simplemente no ha habido muchas encuestas de alta calidad desde la convención, cuando Harris estaba en la cresta de la ola. Esta semana ha habido un puñado de encuestas online, pero no ha habido ninguna encuesta tradicional de alta calidad con entrevistas realizadas después del 28 de agosto.¿Por qué no ha habido más encuestas? Una explicación es el fin de semana del Día del Trabajo, que siempre hace una pausa en las encuestas. También es plausible que muchos encuestadores prefieran esperar hasta después del debate del martes antes de hacer otro sondeo. Cualquiera que sea la explicación, la encuesta del Times/Siena sería una de las primeras oportunidades para recoger una reversión hacia Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Floats I.V.F. Coverage Mandate While Campaigning in Michigan

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      The week after Democrats spent much of their national convention attacking him over his position on abortion rights and reproductive health, former President Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that he would require insurance companies or the federal government to pay for all costs associated with in vitro fertilization treatments if he is elected in November.Mr. Trump’s announcement — made in an NBC interview, a speech in Michigan and a town hall in Wisconsin — came with little detail about his proposal or how he might address its cost. For one cycle, the treatments can cost up to $20,000 or more. But he has been trying to rebrand himself to voters on reproductive access and abortion rights, issues that have cost Republicans at the ballot box.Mr. Trump, who often on the campaign trail has bragged about his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, last week on social media declared that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” a phrase used by abortion-rights advocates.The post appeared to be an effort by Mr. Trump to cast himself as more of a political moderate on abortion, an issue that could hurt him in November.On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign accused Mr. Trump of trying to run from his record on abortion access.“Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters aren’t stupid,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, said in a statement. “Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, I.V.F. is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Las Vegas, Trump Calls Harris a ‘Copycat’ Over ‘No Tax on Tips’ Plan

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      Former President Donald J. Trump on Friday fumed over the fact that when it comes to exempting tips from being taxed, he and his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, are on the same page.Mr. Trump, before a gathering of supporters at a Las Vegas restaurant, complained that Ms. Harris had stolen his idea and sought to cast her as an opportunist who was pandering to service industry workers by cribbing from one of his signature proposals.“She’s a copycat,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s a flip-flopper, you know. She’s the greatest flip-flopper in history. She went from communism to capitalism in about two weeks.”A Harris campaign spokesman declined to comment. This month, while in Las Vegas herself, Ms. Harris said she would seek to end federal income taxes on tips if she were elected. Mr. Trump first floated the idea in June, and it quickly garnered bipartisan support.He has publicly stewed over her embrace of the plan, especially in Nevada, a battleground state that Mr. Trump lost in 2016 and 2020.Before President Biden withdrew from the race in late July, Mr. Trump had appeared to be on a trajectory to end his electoral drought in the desert — where one of his hotels towers over the Strip. Mr. Biden, whose campaign called the “no tax on tips” overture a “wild campaign promise,” had been trailing Mr. Trump by an average of seven percentage points in Nevada.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sadness Among Teen Girls May Be Improving, C.D.C. Finds

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      A national survey found promising signs that key mental health measures for teens, especially girls, have improved since the depths of the pandemic.In 2021, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on teen mental health focused on a stark crisis: Nearly three in five teenage girls reported feeling persistent sadness, the highest rate in a decade.But the newest iteration of the survey, distributed in 2023 to more than 20,000 high school students across the country, suggests that some of the despair seen at the height of the pandemic may be lessening.Fifty-three percent of girls reported extreme depressive symptoms in 2023, down from 57 percent in 2021. For comparison, just 28 percent of teenage boys felt persistent sadness, about the same as in 2021.Suicide risk among girls stayed roughly the same as the last survey. But Black students, who reported troubling increases in suicide attempts in 2021, reported significantly fewer attempts in 2023.Still, the number of teens reporting persistent sadness in 2023 remained higher than at any point in the last decade aside from 2021. And around 65 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender high school students reported persistent hopelessness, compared with 31 percent of their cisgender or heterosexual peers. One in five L.G.B.T.Q. students reported attempting suicide in the past year.“For young people, there is still a crisis in mental health,” said Kathleen Ethier, head of the C.D.C.’s adolescent and school health program. “But we’re also seeing some really important glimmers of hope.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Investigadores de oposición hablan de una contundente derrota de Maduro en Venezuela

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      El organismo electoral anunció que Nicolás Maduro había obtenido una clara victoria. Sin embargo, las cifras facilitadas al Times por un grupo de investigadores de oposición ponen en entredicho ese resultado.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El organismo electoral de Venezuela anunció el lunes que el presidente del país, Nicolás Maduro, había obtenido una cómoda victoria en las elecciones, ganando otros seis años en el cargo al superar a su principal oponente por siete puntos porcentuales en una votación que se vio empañada por irregularidades generalizadas.Sin embargo, los resultados parciales de las elecciones, facilitados a The New York Times por un grupo de investigadores asociados a la principal alianza opositora de Venezuela, aportan nuevas pruebas que ponen en entredicho el resultado oficial.Sus cifras sugieren que el candidato de la oposición, un diplomático jubilado llamado Edmundo González, en realidad venció a Maduro por más de 30 puntos porcentuales. La estimación de los investigadores del resultado —66 por ciento contra 31 por ciento— es similar al resultado obtenido por una encuesta de salida independiente realizada el día de las elecciones en todo el país.El Times no pudo verificar de manera independiente los conteos, que según los investigadores fueron tomados de los recuentos en papel impresos por unas 1000 máquinas de votación, alrededor del tres por ciento del total del país. El miércoles, la autoridad electoral venezolana, controlada por el gobierno, aún no había publicado los resultados detallados, a pesar de la creciente presión internacional.Pero varios analistas independientes de encuestas y elecciones revisaron el enfoque de los investigadores y dijeron que, basándose en los conteos compartidos en esa investigación, las estimaciones parecían creíbles. Partiendo de los recuentos parciales, el Times pudo replicar ampliamente las estimaciones de los investigadores sobre los resultados con una diferencia de dos puntos porcentuales. More

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      Elecciones en Venezuela: mandatarios del mundo exigen más transparencia a Maduro

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      Los manifestantes salieron a las calles de Caracas cuando Nicolás Maduro se proclamó vencedor, mientras que la oposición señaló que el recuento de votos mostraba que su candidato había ganado.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Las protestas estallaron el lunes en Caracas, la capital de Venezuela. Cientos de jóvenes marcharon por las calles indignados por los resultados de unas elecciones presidenciales en las que el presidente en funciones, Nicolás Maduro, se declaró ganador a pesar de las acusaciones generalizadas de fraude y proclamó de manera oficial que las elecciones estaban decididas sin hacer público el recuento completo de votos.Estados Unidos y países de todo el mundo denunciaron los resultados oficiales de la votación del domingo, que no parecían coincidir con las proyecciones estadísticas sustentados en recuentos parciales y otros datos que mostraban que el presidente perdía por un margen amplio.El lunes por la tarde, el gobierno venezolano anunció que había expulsado a las misiones diplomáticas de siete países latinoamericanos que habían condenado los resultados electorales oficiales.La líder de la oposición, María Corina Machado, anunció el lunes por la noche que su movimiento había recibido las actas del 73 por ciento de las mesas electorales del país y refutó las afirmaciones del gobierno. Estos resultados apuntaban a que el oponente de Maduro, Edmundo González, había recibido 3,5 millones de votos más que el presidente.González calificó el margen de “matemáticamente irreversible”.La decisión de la autoridad electoral de declarar la victoria pero no hacer públicos los resultados detallados de la votación, como había hecho habitualmente en elecciones anteriores, intensificó la sensación entre muchos venezolanos y observadores internacionales de que las elecciones habían sido, en efecto, robadas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hulk Hogan Is Not the Only Way to Be a Man

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      The Democratic Party must join the battle for the hearts and minds of young men. It matters not just for this election, though the vast and growing gender gap means that disaffected men could hand Donald Trump the presidency. It matters for how we mentor young men, and it matters for how we view masculinity itself.And yes, the Democrats can do it. Within the Kamala Harris coalition, there are men who can show a better way.If you ever wondered whether the Republican Party sees itself as the party of men, I’d invite you to rewatch the last night of the Republican National Convention. Prime time featured a rousing speech by the wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, a song by Kid Rock and a speech by Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship — all as warm-up acts before Trump delivered his acceptance speech. Republican manliness was the capstone of the convention.But what kind of men were featured? They’re all rich and powerful, and as a longtime fan of professional wrestling, I loved watching Hogan as a kid, but none of them are the kind of man I’d want my son to be. White was caught on video slapping his wife. Kid Rock has his own checkered past, including a sex tape and an assault charge related to a fight in a Nashville strip club. Hogan faced his own sex scandal after he had a bizarre sexual relationship with a woman who was married to one of his close friends, a radio host who goes by “Bubba the Love Sponge.”We know all about Trump, but it’s worth remembering some of his worst moments — including a jury finding that he was liable for sexual abuse, his defamation of his sex-abuse victim, the “Access Hollywood” tape and the countless examples of his cruelly insulting the women he so plainly hates.JD Vance is different. No one should denigrate his personal story. He has overcome great adversity, served his country honorably as a Marine and, by all accounts, is a good husband and father. But he now wears Trumpist masculinity like an ill-fitting suit. Last week, he was justifiably attacked for a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson in which he declared that the country is run, “via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies.” He identified Harris (who has two stepchildren) as just the kind of person he was talking about.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More