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    Ronna McDaniel and NBC Saga: The Perks and Perils of Partisan Talk on TV

    Why are television news networks so enamored with paid Beltway analysts?Trying to juice ratings in an election year, a major TV network hired a pair of provocative commentators from the political establishment to inject some spiky opinion into its otherwise-staid campaign coverage.The result — the Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. debates of 1968 — was a hit with viewers and an unexpected success for ABC News. It also inspired television news divisions to bring more partisan voices into their coverage, a trend that intensified at the dawn of the 24-hour cable news era in the early 1980s.These days, the role of the “paid contributor” — a commentator on contract, to bloviate on demand — is fully baked into the TV news ecosystem. Typically, the role is occupied by a political veteran who can offer an insider perspective on the news of the day, drawing on experience as, say, an elected official, Beltway strategist or West Wing aide.Or, in the case of Ronna McDaniel, as the former chairwoman of the Republican Party.Ms. McDaniel’s tenure as a paid contributor at NBC News was less successful than those of many of her peers. (Her two immediate predecessors as Republican leader, Michael Steele and Reince Priebus, work for MSNBC and ABC News.) Her hiring led to an open revolt by NBC and MSNBC stars, who said it was disqualifying that Ms. McDaniel had been involved in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election results.She was ousted by NBC on Tuesday, four days after she started. Ms. McDaniel, whose deal was worth $300,000 annually, is now seeking to be paid at least $600,000 for the two years she signed up for, according to a person familiar with her plans.The episode prompted angst inside NBC News, where journalists and producers on Wednesday were still puzzling over their bosses’ handling of the situation, according to several people who requested anonymity to discuss private discussions.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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    Is There a Political Divide in Your Family?

    We want to hear from readers about how they approach different opinions over various social issues.As the 2024 election nears, parents and their teenage children and young adults are sometimes finding themselves divided on how they think about social issues, even if they identify with the same political party.In some cases, immediate families are split in their views across age and gender lines. According to a recent Gallup poll, fewer men in each age group today identify as liberal than do their female counterparts — but the gap is widest among those ages 18 to 29.The New York Times is looking to hear from readers about how they are approaching family conflicts over questions of gender, climate, equality, abortion and gun control, among other topics. If you are a young adult, do you share your parents’ political values or the values of your partner?We will not publish any part of your response without talking with you first. We will not share your contact information outside of the Times newsroom, and we will use it only to reach out to you.Your Family Dynamic More

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    Biden’s Challenges in Reaching Young Voters on TikTok Include Anger Over Gaza

    For his campaign, navigating the platform has meant encountering over and over some of the thorniest issues plaguing Mr. Biden’s re-election bid.President Biden’s campaign is working to reach across the generation gap to the tens of millions of predominantly younger voters on TikTok, where the challenges are daunting and the rewards difficult to track.The obstacles range from anger over the war in Gaza to what social media experts describe as the unavoidably uncool nature of supporting the administration in power.Mr. Biden, 81, joined the app owned by a Chinese company last month, in what was widely seen as an effort to communicate with voters under 30, among whom he has polled poorly for months. In interviews and surveys, those voters indicated an unawareness about his administration’s accomplishments, something a word of mouth campaign on TikTok could alleviate.But navigating the platform and its more than 150 million users in the U.S. has involved confronting, usually in the comments sections of his own posts, some of the thorniest issues plaguing Mr. Biden’s re-election bid: disillusioned voters averse to politics, concerns about his age, outrage over the death toll in Gaza. Former President Donald J. Trump isn’t on the app, but his supporters are active. Adding to the puzzle, Mr. Biden’s aides are trying to sell his record on a platform his administration has argued poses a national security threat.President Joe Biden sits with attendees while listening to an opening speaker, during a campaign event at the El Portal restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 19, 2024.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesA bill to force TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese owner or otherwise face a ban in the U.S. is stalled in the Senate, but the president has said he’ll sign it if it passes — a position that has rankled even his staunchest young supporters.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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    How One Hour Encapsulated the Chaos of Trump’s Coming Trial

    One court offered Donald J. Trump a financial lifeline. Another set him on a path to prosecution. It was a taste of what America will experience until the November election.At 11 a.m. Monday, a New York appeals court made Donald J. Trump’s day, rescuing him from financial devastation in a civil fraud case.By noon, the New York judge overseeing his criminal case had nearly ruined it, setting Mr. Trump’s trial for next month and all but ensuring he will hold the dubious distinction of becoming the first former American president to be criminally prosecuted.The contrasting outcomes of Mr. Trump’s twin New York legal crises — a triumph in the civil case and a setback in the criminal one — set the former president on a winding path as he seeks to navigate around an array of legal troubles to recapture the White House.Unfolding in rapid succession in his hometown courts, the day’s events captured the disorienting reality of having a candidate who is also a defendant. And they showed that nothing about the months until Election Day will be easy, linear or normal — for Mr. Trump or the nation.Rather than mount a traditional cross-country campaign in the lead-up to the Republican National Convention in July, Mr. Trump, the presumptive nominee, is preparing to work around the criminal trial that will begin April 15 and last for at least six weeks.His schedule will be built around the four days each week that the trial is expected to take place in court, with Wednesdays expected to be an off day. One person familiar with his preliminary plans described weekend events held in strategically important states near New York, like Pennsylvania, or in hospitable areas outside Manhattan.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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    Lisa Murkowski Says She Won’t Vote for Trump

    Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said in an interview released on Sunday that she would not vote for former President Donald J. Trump. She also did not rule out the possibility of leaving the Republican Party.In the interview, which Ms. Murkowski gave to CNN, she said that she would “absolutely” not support Mr. Trump in the general election in November. She said that she wished Republicans had nominated someone whom she could vote for, but that she “certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”Asked whether she might leave the party and become an independent, she said that she considered herself “very independent-minded” and added, “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.” But she did not give a yes-or-no answer, saying: “I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let’s just leave it at that.”If Ms. Murkowski left the Republican Party, it would be welcome news for Democrats facing a brutally difficult map in the Senate elections in November. Three of their current seats are up for election in red states, and several more are up for election in swing states. There are almost no opportunities to pick up seats currently held by Republicans, and there’s no room for error, given their very narrow majority.Ms. Murkowski, who has served in the Senate for more than 20 years, has long been more moderate than many Republicans. Among other positions that are rare in her party, she supports abortion rights, and she has long been critical of Mr. Trump, including in voting to convict him in his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.But most elected Republicans, even those who denounced Mr. Trump after Jan. 6, have fallen back in line behind him as it has become clear that he will be the party’s nominee for president.Ms. Murkowski’s declaration that she will not vote for Mr. Trump puts her in the company of a small number of prominent anti-Trump Republicans, among them Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.“No, no, no, absolutely not,” Mr. Romney said last month when asked by CNN whether he would vote for Mr. Trump. More

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    In Fund-Raising Blitz, Trump Warns Democrats: Hands Off Trump Tower

    Former President Donald J. Trump, with a deadline fast approaching to secure a roughly half-billion-dollar bond in his civil fraud case in New York or risk seizure of his assets and flagship properties, sent an email on Saturday morning to his campaign’s supporters.The subject line — “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower” — was repeated at the start of the email in bold, italics and all caps, even as the message was clearly intended not for his backers but for New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who brought the case.Mr. Trump told his supporters that Ms. James “wants to SEIZE my properties in New York,” adding, “THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!” He then exhorted them to donate money to his presidential campaign as a show of strength against the web of legal troubles he faces, which he has broadly cast as a political witch hunt.With the deadline for Mr. Trump to post an appeals bond on Monday, the Trump campaign has sent at least 10 similar fund-raising solicitations since Wednesday accusing Ms. James and Democrats of trying to seize Mr. Trump’s marquee property, Trump Tower.Last month, a New York judge imposed a $454 million penalty on Mr. Trump in the civil fraud case after concluding that the former president had fraudulently inflated the value of his company’s properties and his net worth to obtain favorable loans and other benefits from banks.Mr. Trump has appealed the judgment, and was given until Monday to either write a check to the state court system for the full amount or obtain an appeal bond. But his lawyers said last week that he had been unable to secure the bond, raising the prospect that Ms. James could move to collect the money and try to seize some of the properties involved in the case.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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    Insurance Companies and the Prior Authorization Maze

    More from our inbox:Elect the U.S. Attorney GeneralFriendship MemoriesA Leadership GapInsurance companies have weaponized a seemingly benign process to protect their profits, and it’s putting patients at risk.To the Editor:Re “‘What’s My Life Worth?’ The Big Business of Denying Medical Care,” by Alexander Stockton (Opinion video, March 14), about prior authorization:Mr. Stockton’s video captures a current snapshot of an important truth about medical insurance in our country and in doing so does a service to all citizens by making them aware of this threat to themselves and their families.The immediate truth is that medical insurance companies are inadequately regulated, monitored and punished for their greed. In their current iteration they are bastions of greed, power and money. They need to be reined in.But there are other truths as well. Some physicians, just like some pharmaceutical companies, are unable to contain their greed and allow avarice to cloud their judgment, compromise their ethics and in some cases cross the line to Medicare fraud or other illegal activity.Medical care in our country is very big business involving billions of dollars. Without proper controls, regulation and monitoring, malfeasance follows. The challenge in such a complex and multifaceted context is how to implement such controls and monitoring without making things worse.Ross A. AbramsJerusalemThe writer, a retired radiation oncologist, is professor emeritus at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.To the Editor:The Times’s video exploits tragic outcomes and does not mention basic important facts about the limited yet key role of prior authorization in ensuring that patients receive evidence-based, affordable care.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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    Louisiana Democratic Presidential Primary Election Results 2024

    Source: Election results are from The Associated Press.Produced by Michael Andre, Camille Baker, Neil Berg, Michael Beswetherick, Matthew Bloch, Irineo Cabreros, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Leo Dominguez, Andrew Fischer, Martín González Gómez, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Jasmine C. Lee, Alex Lemonides, Ilana Marcus, Alicia Parlapiano, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang. Additional reporting by Patrick Hays; production by Amanda Cordero and Jessica White.
    Editing by Wilson Andrews, Lindsey Rogers Cook, William P. Davis, Amy Hughes, Ben Koski and Allison McCartney. More