Presidential Election of 2024

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      Surprise Tactics and Legal Threats: Inside R.F.K. Jr.’s Ballot Access Fight

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s effort to get on the ballot in 50 states has already cost millions, federal campaign finance records show.As Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign mounts a bruising state-by-state battle for ballot access, he has often credited enthusiastic volunteers and grass-roots backers with driving the effort.In fact, the operation has become increasingly reliant on consultants and paid petitioners whose signature-gathering work has yielded mixed results and raised questions of impropriety, even among Mr. Kennedy’s fans. In order to get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in all 50 states, as is his goal, his campaign has deployed a multipart strategy: aggressive legal action, shrewd political alliances and surprise filing tactics meant to slow or prevent challenges.In most states, Mr. Kennedy, 70, an environmental lawyer and heir to an American political dynasty, must produce thousands of signatures, under rules that are varied, intricate and confusing at times even to the local officials administering elections. The effort has already cost his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a supporting super PAC at least $2.4 million more, federal campaign finance records show. It has involved a number of professionals who specialize in getting people on the ground with clipboards and petitions, and helping candidates navigate the complicated process. Their success is what will make or break Mr. Kennedy’s campaign. More

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      Trump and DeSantis Meet in Florida for First Time Since Bruising Primary

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      Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida met on Sunday morning, according to three people briefed on the meeting, the first time they’ve done so since the end of a bruising Republican presidential primary that Mr. Trump won while relentlessly attacking Mr. DeSantis.The meeting — which took place in Hollywood, Fla., according to one of the people briefed on the meeting — was the result of a weekslong effort by a longtime friend of Mr. Trump, the real-estate investor Steve Witkoff, who also has a relationship with Mr. DeSantis. The three men met alone in a private room at Shell Bay, Mr. Witkoff’s development and golf club, according to the person briefed on the meeting.Mr. Trump is looking to bolster his fund-raising, an ability Mr. DeSantis demonstrated during the primary by tapping into a network of well-funded donors. And Mr. DeSantis — who has made clear he is interested in running for president again in 2028 — is seeking to shed the negative weight of his disappointing campaign. The meeting was reported earlier by The Washington Post.A spokesman for Mr. Trump didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis declined to comment.Mr. DeSantis is not seen as a contender to join a Republican ticket with Mr. Trump, who is both the presumptive Republican nominee and on trial in Manhattan on charges he falsified business records to conceal hush-money payments to a porn star in the 2016 election. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have made clear that such a pairing doesn’t interest either of them, and they also live in the same state, which would make it an unconstitutional pairing unless one of them were to move out of Florida, which is unlikely to happen, especially since Mr. DeSantis is currently the governor.Mr. DeSantis had been seen as Mr. Trump’s chief intraparty competition, and he was the target the Trump team focused on for months. The tensions between the two men — and their aides — often boiled over during the primary race. Mr. Trump excoriated Mr. DeSantis during the campaign, nicknaming him “Ron DeSanctimonious,” and criticizing him as being disloyal. Mr. DeSantis also claimed that Mr. Trump was unelectable at various points during his primary campaign, which was plagued by missteps and accusations of mismanagement.Recently, Mr. DeSantis held a donor event the same weekend that Mr. Trump held a large fund-raiser for his campaign. During the fund-raiser, Mr. Trump revived the “DeSanctimonious” nickname, according to an attendee.Still, allies of both men say it is politically beneficial for them to come together for the 2024 campaign and beyond. More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Americans Are ‘Voting Out of Fear’

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought to make the case on Sunday that he can do something no third-party or independent candidate has come close to doing in modern U.S. history: win a presidential election. Although polls show him far behind, both major-party campaigns, those of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, view Mr. Kennedy as a potential spoiler.Speaking at a rally on Long Island outside New York City, Mr. Kennedy cited polls that he said his campaign had conducted, showing him winning in two scenarios: one in which he faced only Mr. Biden without Mr. Trump in the race, and one in which he faced Mr. Trump without Mr. Biden.The reason he is behind in a three-way race, he maintained, is that “so many Americans are voting out of fear.”“Their only strategy is to try to keep me off the ballot and then to make everybody terrified of Donald Trump,” he said of Democrats, “and on the other side, they do the same thing,” he added of Republicans. “When somebody is telling you to vote out of fear, they are trying to manipulate you into abandoning your values,” he said.Mr. Kennedy acknowledged to the crowd in Holbrook, N.Y., that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump differed in numerous ways.“If you look at their personalities, their dispositions, their presentation, their ideology, their approach to life, their interactions with other people, there’s a huge, huge difference,” he said.But he argued that issues on which Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump held starkly different positions — like abortion, border security, guns and transgender rights — were “culture war issues” that “are used to divide us all.” He said that on the national debt and chronic disease — issues he called “existential for our country” — their positions weren’t materially different.In discussing the prevalence of chronic disease, Mr. Kennedy lamented the United States’ disproportionately high death rate from the coronavirus compared with the death rate experienced by other developed countries, a disparity attributable in part to the comparatively low uptake of vaccines that Mr. Kennedy has campaigned against.He suggested — in contradiction of scientific evidence of the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines, and data showing higher death rates in states with lower vaccination rates — that the nation’s poor Covid performance was a mark against vaccines.“Whatever we’re doing, whatever we did, it was wrong,” Mr. Kennedy said, referring to vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other pandemic responses. More

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      College Protests Over Gaza Deepen Democratic Rifts

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      Scenes of chaos unfolding on campuses across the country are stoking internal divisions and carry political risk as a major election year unfolds.Nearly seven months after the Israel-Hamas war began, the demonstrations convulsing college campuses nationwide are exposing fresh tensions within the Democratic Party over how to balance free speech protections and support for Gazans with concerns that some Jewish Americans are raising about antisemitism.From New York and Los Angeles to Atlanta and Austin, a surge in student activism has manifested in protest encampments and other demonstrations, drawing significant police crackdowns and sometimes appearing to attract outside agitators. The protests also have emerged as the latest flashpoint in the internal Democratic debate over the war.As scenes of campus turmoil play out across the country in the final days of the school year, the moment also carries political risk for a party that has harnessed promises of stability and normalcy to win critical recent elections, and faces a challenging battle for control of the government in the fall.“The real question is, can the Democrats again portray themselves as the steady hand at the helm?” said Dan Sena, a veteran Democratic strategist. “Things that create national chaos like this make that harder to do.”Mr. Sena and other Democrats have argued that Americans have good reason to associate their opponents with chaos: Former President Donald J. Trump faces multiple criminal cases; the narrow, fractious House Republican majority has its own divisions concerning Israel and free speech; some Republicans have urged National Guard deployments to college campuses; and for years, Republicans have faced criticism over antisemitism in their own ranks.But since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and the Israeli military response that has killed more than 30,000 people, according to local authorities, the fight over American policy toward Israel has been especially pronounced on the left.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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      Maximizing Profits at the Patients’ Expense

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      More from our inbox:The Brave Trump JurorsBlack Voters ‘Want to Be Courted’ by DemocratsBetter Than Debates NATo the Editor:Re “Patients Hit With Big Bills While Insurers Reap Fees” (front page, April 7):Chris Hamby’s investigation uncovers the hard truth for patients who receive care from providers outside their insurance network. While most of us try to save out-of-pocket costs by using in-network health professionals and hospitals, it’s not always possible. And there’s no way to determine what we’ll owe until after we get that care — when it’s too late to reconsider based on the costs we’ve incurred.So, it’s more important than ever for the government to swiftly implement an essential element of the No Surprises Act: Providers should have to give patients an advance explanation of benefits so patients can estimate their financial burden before they get treatment, in or out of network.Health price transparency is improving, but it’s outrageous that even two years after the No Surprises Act passed, everyone except the patient knows the price of a procedure or doctor’s visit in advance, leaving patients unpleasantly surprised.Patricia KelmarAlexandria, Va.The writer is senior director of Health Care Campaigns for U.S. PIRG.To the Editor:This is just the latest example of the schemes deployed by insurers to maximize profits by cutting reimbursements to physicians and shifting medically necessary health care costs onto patients.Whether it’s through third-party entities like MultiPlan or using tactics such as narrowing provider networks and restrictive prior authorization policies, insurers have the perverse incentive to boost revenue over offering adequate payment for quality patient care under the guise of “controlling costs.”More and more patients are being forced to decide whether they should forgo treatment because their insurer won’t pay the bill.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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      Colin Jost Falls Flat at White House Correspondents Dinner

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      The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has occasionally featured some great stand-up comedy. This “S.N.L.” veteran’s set will not join that list.People in the media have long worried about the impact of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on journalism. The concern is that it makes the press look too chummy with politicians it’s covering. But what is the impact on comedy?A high-ceilinged hotel ballroom filled with television anchors and network executives is a tough room for stand-up, but no more so than an awards show. Trevor Noah was funnier two years ago at the dinner than he was at this year’s Grammys.A murderer’s row (George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Conan O’Brien, Wanda Sykes) has taken this assignment because it’s one of the most high-profile live comedy sets of the year. And there has been one truly great performance (Stephen Colbert), some very good ones (Seth Meyers, Larry Wilmore) and one so thrillingly biting (Michelle Wolf) that the next year they replaced the comic with a historian.Colin Jost’s set this year does not belong in that pantheon. Without his Weekend Update partner Michael Che next to him, he came off muted, vanilla, less assured than usual. With long pauses between jokes, eyes darting side to side, he occasionally took a drink of water and at least once acknowledged the lack of laughter in the room. His jokes leaned on wordplay more than a specific or novel perspective. “Some incredible news organizations here,” began one of his pricklier jokes, finished by: “Also, some credible ones.”He focused much fire on former President Donald J. Trump. “Now that O.J.’s dead, who is the front-runner for V.P.?” he asked. “Diddy?” Like Biden, Jost has always benefited from low expectations. No one that handsome could be funny, right? But he has grown into his role at “Saturday Night Live,” proving to be an especially strong straight man adept at the comedy of embarrassment. You could see his timing in one of the odder moments when he said Robert Kennedy Jr. could be the third Catholic president and the C-SPAN camera cut to President Biden (the second) clapping. Jost retreated on Kennedy’s chances one beat later: “Like his vaccine card says, he doesn’t have a shot.”For the third year in a row, President’s Biden’s age played a big role in the comedy (“Technology wasn’t invented when he was in high school” Jost said of Biden), even in the president’s own set. Two years ago, Biden joked that he was friends with Calvin Coolidge. Last year, he referred to his “pal Jimmy Madison.” The president took a slightly different and more confrontational approach this time. “Age is an issue,” he said early. “I’m a grown man running against a 6-year-old.”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 Turns on R.F.K. Jr. Amid Concerns He Could Attract Republican Voters

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      Former President Donald J. Trump is sharpening his attacks on the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as new polls show an overlap between their core supporters.In a series of posts on his Truth Social media platform on Friday night, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, took aim at both Mr. Kennedy and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer and investor.“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected,” Mr. Trump wrote.Mr. Trump, who had privately discussed the idea of Mr. Kennedy as a running mate, echoed what Democrats have been saying for months about Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy — that it could swing the election. He also appeared to be adopting a new derisive nickname for him.“A Vote for Junior’ would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him,” he said.Mr. Kennedy fired back on Saturday in his own social media post.“When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged,” he wrote on X. “President Trump’s rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate.”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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      Justice Alito Is Holding Trump to a Different Standard

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      I mentioned it in passing in my Friday column, but I was struck — disturbed, really — by one specific point made by Justice Samuel Alito during Thursday’s oral arguments in Trump v. United States.Alito began innocuously enough: “I’m sure you would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully if that candidate is the incumbent.”“Of course,” answered Michael Dreeben, the lawyer arguing the case for the Department of Justice.“Now,” Alito continued, “if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?”The implication of Alito’s question is that presidential immunity for all official acts may be a necessary concession to the possibility of a politically motivated investigation and prosecution: Presidents need to be above the law to raise the odds that they follow the law and leave office without incident.If this sounds backward, that’s because it is.There have been, in the nearly 236 years since Americans ratified the Constitution, 45 presidents. Of those, 10 sought but did not win re-election. In every case but one, the defeated incumbents left office without incident. There was no fear that they would try to overturn the results or subvert the process, nor was there any fear that their successors would turn the power of the state against them. Thomas Jefferson did not try to jail John Adams after the close-fought 1800 election; he assured the American people that “we are all republicans, we are all federalists.” Jimmy Carter did not sic the F.B.I. on Gerald Ford in the wake of his narrow victory; he thanked him for “all he has done to heal our land.”By Alito’s lights, this should not have been possible. Why would a president leave if he could be prosecuted as a private citizen? The answer is that the other nine people who lost had a commitment to American democracy that transcended their narrow, personal or partisan interests.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