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    The Sunday Read: ‘A Republican Election Clerk vs. Trump Die-Hards in a World of Lies’

    Tally Abecassis and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeCindy Elgan glanced into the lobby of her office and saw a sheriff’s deputy waiting at the front counter. “Let’s start a video recording, just in case this goes sideways,” Elgan, 65, told one of her employees in the Esmeralda County clerk’s office. She had come to expect skepticism, conspiracy theories and even threats related to her job as an election administrator. She grabbed her annotated booklet of Nevada state laws, said a prayer for patience and walked into the lobby to confront the latest challenge to America’s electoral process.The deputy was standing alongside a woman that Elgan recognized as Mary Jane Zakas, 77, a longtime elementary schoolteacher and a leader in the local Republican Party. She often asked for a sheriff’s deputy to accompany her to the election’s office, in case her meetings became contentious.“I hope you’re having a blessed morning,” Zakas said. “Unfortunately, a lot of people are still very concerned about the security of their votes. They’ve lost all trust in the system.”After the 2020 election, former President Donald J. Trump’s denials and accusations of voter fraud spread outward from the White House to even the country’s most remote places, like Esmeralda County. Elgan knew most of the 620 voters in the town. Still, they accused her of being paid off and skimming votes away from Trump. And even though their allegations came with no evidence, they wanted her recalled from office before the next presidential election in November.There are a lot of ways to listen to “The Daily.” Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, Frannie Carr Toth and Krish Seenivasan. More

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    Tim Ryan Says Kamala Harris Should Replace Biden as Democratic Nominee

    Tim Ryan, a former Ohio congressman, called on Democrats to replace President Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the party’s ticket in the November election against former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Ryan, in a Newsweek opinion column, wrote that he had lost confidence in Mr. Biden’s ability to defeat his rival after watching the president struggle in Thursday’s head-to-head debate with Mr. Trump. He noted that Mr. Biden had said he would be a bridge to a new generation of Democratic leaders, an idea he said he liked. “Regrettably, that bridge collapsed last week,” he wrote.“Witnessing Joe Biden struggle was heartbreaking,” Mr. Ryan wrote of the debate. “And we must forge a new path forward.”In 2020, Mr. Ryan endorsed Biden after his own bid for the party’s nomination failed. During the midterm elections in 2022, he lost his bid for Senate in Ohio to J.D. Vance, a Republican who is said to be on Mr. Trump’s shortlist of running mates.Since Mr. Biden’s poor debate performance last week, the noise has intensified about whether Democrats should replace him as the party’s nominee. He is scheduled to accept the Democratic nomination at the party’s convention in August in Chicago.While figures such as Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom, the governors of Michigan and California, have drawn attention as potential replacements, Mr. Ryan wrote that Ms. Harris gives Democrats their best shot at holding the presidency. “Those who say that a Harris candidacy is a greater risk than the Joe Biden we saw the other night and will continue to see are not living in reality,” he wrote. “It is not just utterly preposterous for the haters to say that, it is insulting.” More

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    Trump Is Partly Shielded From Prosecution in Election Interference Case

    The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump is entitled to some level of immunity from prosecution, a decision that may effectively delay the trial of the case against him on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election.The vote was 6 to 3, dividing along partisan lines.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said Mr. Trump had immunity for his official acts.“The president is not above the law,” the chief justice wrote. “But Congress may not criminalize the president’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the executive branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent executive. The president therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the decision was gravely misguided.“Today’s decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency,” she wrote. “It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”The justices said there was a crucial distinction between official and private conduct and returned the case to the lower courts for additional analysis.The court’s ruling raises the possibility of further delay in the case against former President Donald J. Trump on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesWe 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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    This Isn’t All Joe Biden’s Fault

    What Is the Democratic Party For?Top Democrats have closed ranks around Joe Biden since the debate. Should they?On Thursday night, after the first presidential debate, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner interviewed Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. “You were out there getting a chorus of questions about whether Biden should step down,” she said. “There is a panic that has set in.”Newsom’s reply was dismissive. “We gotta have the back of this president,” he said. “You don’t turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?”Perhaps a party that wants to win? Or a party that wants to nominate a candidate that the American people believe is up to the job? Maybe the better question is: What kind of party would do nothing right now?In February, I argued that President Biden should step aside in the 2024 election and Democrats should do what political parties did in presidential elections until the 1970s: choose a ticket at their convention. In public, the backlash I got from top Democrats was fierce. I was a bed-wetter living in an Aaron Sorkin fantasyland.In private, the feedback was more thoughtful and frightened. No one tried to convince me that Biden was a strong candidate. They argued instead that he couldn’t be persuaded to step aside, that even if he could, Vice President Kamala Harris would lose the election and that if a convention didn’t choose Harris, passing her over would fracture the party. They argued not that Biden was strong but that the Democratic Party was weak.I think Democrats should give themselves a little bit more credit. Biden’s presidency is proof of the Democratic Party’s ability to act strategically. He didn’t win the Democratic nomination in 2020 because he set the hearts of party activists aflame. Support for him always lacked the passion of support for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or even Andrew Yang. Biden won because the party made a cold decision to unite around the candidate it thought was best suited to beating Donald Trump. Biden won because Democrats did what they had to do, not what they wanted to do.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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    Biden debería poner fin a su candidatura

    Varias veces y de manera acertada, el presidente Joe Biden ha dicho que lo que está en juego en las elecciones presidenciales de noviembre es nada menos que el futuro de la democracia estadounidense.Donald Trump ha demostrado ser un peligro significativo para esa democracia, una figura errática e interesada que es indigna de la confianza pública. Ha atentado de manera sistemática contra la integridad de las elecciones. Sus partidarios han descrito públicamente una agenda para 2025 que le daría poder para llevar a cabo sus promesas y amenazas más extremas. Si vuelve a ocupar el cargo, ha prometido ser un presidente diferente, sin las restricciones que imponen los controles de poderes del sistema político de Estados Unidos.Biden ha dicho que es el candidato con más posibilidades de enfrentarse a esta amenaza de tiranía y vencerla. Su argumento se basa en gran medida en el hecho de que derrotó a Trump en 2020. Esa ya no es una justificación suficiente para que Biden sea el candidato demócrata este año.En el debate del jueves, el presidente necesitaba convencer a los estadounidenses de que está a la altura de las exigencias extraordinarias del cargo que busca ocupar por otro periodo. Sin embargo, no se puede esperar que los votantes ignoren lo que fue evidente: Biden no es el hombre que era hace cuatro años.El jueves por la noche, el presidente se presentó como la sombra de un gran servidor público. Batalló por explicar lo que lograría en un segundo mandato. Le costó responder a las provocaciones de Trump. Tuvo dificultad para responsabilizar a Trump por sus mentiras, fracasos y planes escalofriantes. Más de una vez le costó trabajo llegar al final de una frase.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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    Supreme Court Rules for Member of Jan 6. Mob in Obstruction Case

    The Supreme Court sided on Friday with a member of the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, saying that prosecutors had overstepped in using an obstruction law to charge him.The ruling may affect hundreds of other prosecutions of rioters, as well as part of the federal case against former President Donald J. Trump accusing him of plotting to subvert the 2020 election. But the precise impact of the court’s ruling on those other cases was not immediately clear.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, read the law narrowly, saying it applied only when the defendant’s actions impaired the integrity of physical evidence.Lower courts will now apply that strict standard, and it will presumably lead them to dismiss charges against many defendants.The vote was 6 to 3, but it featured unusual alliances. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, voted with the majority. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, wrote the dissent.Most Jan. 6 defendants have not been charged under the law, which prosecutors have reserved for the most serious cases, and those who have been charged under it face other counts, as well. The defendant in the case before the justices, Joseph W. Fischer, for instance, faced six other charges.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 Hawks American Flag Pins with His Name in Gold Splashed Across Them

    Donald J. Trump’s campaign is billing it as a must-have fashion accessory for his supporters: an American flag lapel pin with the former president’s name scrawled in gold block letters across it — in all caps.The pins were available starting Thursday for a $50 donation to the Trump campaign, the latest merchandising gambit from a candidate who has hawked a plethora of products over the decades, most recently Bibles and Trump sneakers.A donation page for the pins declared that Mr. Trump’s political opponents had rendered him a convicted felon and asked supporters if he could count on their support.His latest marketing pitch is further testing the norms of flag etiquette and drawing fresh scrutiny from critics.It’s not only the flag flap surrounding Mr. Trump, whose birthday, June 14, happens to fall on Flag Day. Some election deniers have flown the flag upside-down, a historical symbol of distress, to protest Mr. Trump’s 2020 election defeat. An inverted flag appeared at the home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a display that he attributed to his wife.Alterations to the flag are forbidden under the U.S. Flag Code, which was created in the 1920s by a group of patriotic and civic groups that included the American Legion and adopted as law by Congress in 1942.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 Allies Begin First Line of Attack Against Arizona Election Case

    The challenges from defendants charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election will be a test case for a new but little-known state law aimed at curbing political prosecutions.Allies of former President Donald J. Trump charged in a sweeping Arizona election case on Friday began filing what is expected to be a series of challenges, seizing on a new state law aimed at curbing litigation and prosecutions involving political figures.The law was originally crafted by Kory Langhofer, a Phoenix lawyer who worked for the Trump campaign during the 2020 election but who subsequently fell out of favor with the former president. He said the 2022 law’s intent was to limit politically motivated prosecutions on both sides of the aisle.The new challenges could have the effect of delaying the election case in Arizona for several months, given the timeline for decisions and appeals. The case was brought in April by the state attorney general, Kris Mayes, a Democrat.The 18 defendants have each been charged with nine counts of fraud, forgery and conspiracy. The indictment lays out a series of efforts by the defendants to overturn Arizona’s election results, from the plan to deploy fake electors on Mr. Trump’s behalf, despite his loss at the polls, to the steps some took to put pressure on “officials responsible for certifying election results.”Seven Trump advisers are among those charged, among them Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff. Eleven Republicans committed to Mr. Trump who claimed to be the state’s electors, even though President Biden had already been certified by state officials as the winner in Arizona, were also charged.Seven Trump advisers are among those charged, among them Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesWe 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