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      Biden’s Interview With Hur Confirms What Many Suspected

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      The former president’s halting responses to questions by a special counsel show him exactly as a majority of Americans believed him to be — and as Democrats repeatedly insisted he was not.For much of his time in the White House, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. offered a quick rebuttal to those raising concerns about his age: “Watch me,” he said.Yet, in the end, it may be the sound of Mr. Biden’s own voice that proves what his aides worked furiously, and spent hundreds of millions of campaign dollars, to try to keep the public from seeing with its own eyes.The five-hour-and-10-minute audio recording of a special counsel’s interview with Mr. Biden on Oct. 8 and 9, 2023, shows a president struggling to recall dates and details, whose thoughts seem jumbled as he tries to recreate events that had occurred just a few years earlier.The information in the audio recording, which Axios published on Saturday, is not new. The 258-page transcript of the interview of Mr. Biden by Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents, was released in March 2024. His report set off a political firestorm in the midst of the president’s re-election campaign.But the sound of Mr. Biden’s fragile voice and unsteady responses offers a revelation of its own. The Hur tapes reveal the president exactly as a majority of Americans believed him to be — and as Democrats repeatedly insisted he was not.In the days after Mr. Hur released his report, Democrats fanned out across the news media to vouch for the president, assuring the public of their eyewitness vantage point on his deep knowledge and sure-handed command of the nation and the world. He was “sharp” and at the “top of his game,” they said almost in unison. He was “focused, impressive, formidable and effective,” as Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, one of the youngest leading Democrats, put it memorably. Biden administration officials declined to release the audio recording of his interview, asserting executive privilege.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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      Republican Revolt Reflects a Core Party Divide Over Spending and Debt

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      Whether the ultraconservatives dig in and force big changes to the megabill carrying President Trump’s agenda or capitulate, as they have in the past, will determine the fate of their party’s signature legislation.To a small but crucial group of hard-right House Republicans, the tax and spending cut package produced by their colleagues to deliver what President Trump calls the “big, beautiful bill” was nothing more than a homely cop-out.The handful of lawmakers who blocked their own party’s sprawling domestic policy measure from advancing out of a key committee on Friday acted out of a fundamentally different view of federal spending and debt than the rest of the G.O.P. They are single-mindedly focused on slashing deficits by restructuring the government to dramatically scale back social programs, whatever the political consequences.With their party in control of the House, Senate and White House, they view their fellow Republicans as timid, squandering a golden opportunity to turn the government’s finances around in a long overdue course correction. Instead, they see Republican leaders, catering to swing district members worried about their re-election, delivering a half-measure that, as far as the hard-liners are concerned, falls woefully short on cuts — and the ones it did make were gimmicky.“I’m not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory,” Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas and one of the leading evangelists of deep spending cuts, said on Friday as he tore into his own party’s legislation. “This is the Budget Committee. We are supposed to do something to actually result in balanced budgets, but we’re not doing it.”It remains to be seen whether the anti-deficit fundamentalists are really dug in against the legislation or shopping for concessions that could allow them to claim a partial victory against deficit spending and still ultimately fall in line behind Mr. Trump. They have earned a reputation both for revolting against their own party at crucial moments and for backing down before their intransigence actually kills a top Republican priority — often without achieving what they initially demanded.But for a few days at least, the recalcitrance of Mr. Roy and his fellow deficit hawks, and their willingness to challenge a majority of their own party, has tied down the entire Republican legislative agenda.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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      Investigators See No Criminality by E.P.A. Officials in Case on Biden-Era Grants

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      A contentious investigation that questioned the legality of E.P.A. grants has found very little to suggest government employees violated the law.A politically fraught investigation opened by the Trump administration into a Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency grant program has so far failed to find meaningful evidence of criminality by government officials, according to people familiar with the matter.The criminal investigation, initiated by Ed Martin, then the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, was cheered by Republicans, who have made unsubstantiated claims that the multibillion-dollar program, intended to fund climate and clean energy initiatives, was a political slush fund. The program, part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, was one of President Biden’s most significant actions on the environment.Internal disagreements over the merits of the investigation raised alarms among current and former Justice Department officials, who were concerned that the Trump administration was misusing the vast power of federal law enforcement to discredit people, policies and programs President Trump disliked, such as clean energy projects.While the investigation of some entities that received money through the program is continuing, agents and prosecutors see little evidence of any criminal conduct by E.P.A. officials who oversaw the funding. The vendor portion of the inquiry has yet to yield any strong evidence of criminal conduct, according to people with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.Prosecutors and agents have shared their findings with senior political leaders at the Justice Department, according to people familiar with the matter.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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      Christopher Bond, Former Missouri Governor and U.S. Senator, Dies at 86

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      A Republican known as Kit, he was the state’s youngest governor. When he retired from Congress after four terms, he said he didn’t want to be the state’s oldest senator.Christopher S. Bond, who was Missouri’s youngest governor and the state’s first Republican governor since 1945 when he was elected in 1972, and who went on to serve four terms in the U.S. Senate, died on Tuesday in St. Louis. He was 86.His death was announced by Gov. Mike Kehoe, a fellow Republican. The announcement did not say where in St. Louis he died.Mr. Bond, known as Kit, was 31 in 1970 when he was elected state auditor, defeating a 17-year incumbent. He served from 1971 to 1973, when he became governor, having been elected in November 1972 at age 33. He was the first Republican to hold that position since Forrest C. Donnell left office in 1945.Mr. Bond was defeated for re-election, but he staged a comeback in 1980 by ousting Joseph P. Teasdale, the Democrat who had replaced him. He succeeded Thomas F. Eagleton, a Democrat, in the Senate in 1987 after Mr. Eagleton retired.His election to a fourth term in 2004 was the seventh time that Mr. Bond won statewide office — more than any other candidate in Missouri’s history.In 2009, he announced that he would not seek a fifth term in 2010.Mr. Bond during his second term as governor of Missouri. He served from 1973 to 1977 and again from 1981 to 1985.UPI/Bettmann Archive, via Getty ImagesWe 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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      Interior Department Weighs Less Conservation, More Extraction

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      A leaked version of the department’s five-year strategic planning document favors privatization and economic returns from the nation’s public lands.The Trump administration is proposing a drastic reimagining of how public lands across the United States are used and managed, according to an Interior Department document leaked to the public in late April. The document, a draft of the department’s strategic plan for the next five years, downplays conservation in favor of an approach that seeks to maximize economic returns, namely through the extraction of oil, gas and other natural resources.“That’s a blueprint for industrializing the public lands,” said Taylor McKinnon, who works on preservation of Southwestern lands for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization. “A separate question is whether they’re able to achieve that,” Mr. McKinnon said, vowing lawsuits from his group and others.Sweeping proposals are a species native to Washington, D.C., and many of them stand little chance of being realized. However, Donald J. Trump has begun his second term as president at a blistering pace, remaking or shuttering entire federal agencies with such speed that opponents have only recently found their footing.“I would take it every bit as seriously as I would take what is laid out in Project 2025,” said Jacob Malcom, who until recently headed the Interior Department’s office of policy analysis. Project 2025, a 900-page document issued in 2023 by the Heritage Foundation, has served as a blueprint for the Trump administration on a host of policy fronts — including in its approach to public lands. The section of Project 2025 dealing with the Interior Department was primarily written by William Perry Pendley, a conservative activist.Of the several goals laid out in the draft strategic plan — which was pointedly made public on April 22, when Earth Day is marked — “Restore American Prosperity” earns top billing. To achieve that aim, the Interior Department proposes to “open Alaska and other federal lands for mineral extraction,” “increase revenue from grazing, timber, critical minerals, gravel and other nonenergy sources” and “increase clean coal, oil and gas production through faster and easier permitting.”South Lake Tahoe, Calif.Bridget Bennett 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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      Republican Agenda Hits Familiar Obstacle: State and Local Taxes

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      A small group of Republicans are threatening to torpedo President Trump’s agenda over the state and local tax deduction, long a headache for both parties.It was perhaps inevitable that the Republican effort to pass a vast fiscal package this year would, at some point, get caught up in the thicket of the state and local tax deduction.After all, the deduction, often called SALT, has long had the potential to cause a political standoff. Many G.O.P. lawmakers abhor it and, in 2017, imposed a $10,000 limit on the amount of state and local taxes Americans can write off on their federal returns. But to pass a tax bill this year, the party will need the support of a motivated clutch of Republicans who have made lifting that cap the animating promise of their political careers.Those lawmakers, who represent high-tax states like New York and New Jersey where the deduction is cherished, say they are willing to tank the package over the issue. Representative Nick LaLota, Republican of New York, can already visualize voting against the bill.“There’s a green ‘yes’ button and there’s a red ‘no’ button to press. Come time, if there’s not enough SALT in this bill, I’m pressing the red ‘no’ button,” he said. “It is a hill I am willing to stake my entire congressional career on.”Attempts by House Republican leaders to reach a deal with members like Mr. LaLota yielded little progress this week, leaving the issue unresolved as G.O.P. lawmakers prepare to release the first draft of their tax bill next week. Along with Medicaid, the health care program for the poor that Republicans have targeted for cuts, the state and local tax deduction could determine the fate of the entire G.O.P. legislative agenda.That’s because any change to the current $10,000 limit would be incredibly expensive, threatening to swamp the overall Republican budget for tax cuts. Even a relatively modest change, like doubling the cap for married couples, would cost $230 billion over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. More generous alterations along the lines of what New York Republicans have demanded could surpass $1 trillion.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 Softens on Raising Taxes on the Rich, Saying G.O.P. Probably Shouldn’t

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      Days after he privately encouraged Speaker Mike Johnson to increase tax for the wealthy in a bill to fulfill his agenda, he publicly said it could be a bad idea, one that was ‘OK’ with him.President Trump on Friday publicly softened his private push on House Republicans to raise taxes on wealthy people and scrap a tax break that benefits private equity executives as part of a megabill to carry out his agenda.“The problem with even a ‘TINY’ tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, ‘Read my lips,’ the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media website, Truth Social. “Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!”Mr. Trump on Wednesday had privately urged Speaker Mike Johnson to create a higher tax bracket for those making more than $2.5 million a year. He also said he supported closing what is known as the carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund, private equity and venture capital executives to pay taxes of only about 20 percent on their profits, which is about half the top income tax rate.The request further complicated Republicans’ job as they toil to put together a domestic policy bill they hope to push through Congress this year. Divisions within the party over potential cuts to Medicaid and other popular social programs to pay for it, and which tax reductions to include, have delayed the drafting of the package and threaten to sap support for it. And Mr. Trump’s abrupt and sometimes fleeting demands for the bill have hung over the talks, with G.O.P. lawmakers reluctant to cross him but uncertain of where he will ultimately stand.Mr. Trump is not constitutionally eligible to run for another election, unlike President George H.W. Bush, who was famously accused of breaking his campaign pledge not to impose new taxes.But Republicans are already facing blowback over Mr. Trump’s first four months in office, well ahead of the midterm congressional elections. And many do not want to take a vote that would be used by Democrats as a weapon against them.Mr. Trump did not entirely walk away from his tax demand in the social media post. But he left himself an out should Republicans balk. More

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      Republicans Writing Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Face Risks on Medicaid

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      Representatives from swing districts face tough votes as soon as next week, when key House panels are scheduled to consider legislation that would cut popular programs to pay for President Trump’s agenda.Gabe Evans, then a Republican state lawmaker in Colorado, defeated a Democratic member of Congress in November by less than 1 percentage point — just 2,449 votes — writing his ticket to Washington.Now Mr. Evans, 39, is helping to write legislation that could cement his own ticket back home.The first-term congressman, whose swing district just north of Denver includes 151,749 Medicaid recipients, sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee. The Republican budget resolution that lays the groundwork for sweeping legislation to enact President Trump’s domestic agenda instructs the panel, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid, to slash spending by $880 billion over the next decade to help pay for a large tax cut. That number is impossible to reach without substantially reducing the cost of Medicaid, the government program that provides health insurance for lower-income Americans.As Republicans in Congress struggle to coalesce around the core pieces of what Mr. Trump calls his “one big, beautiful bill,” Mr. Evans and other G.O.P. lawmakers from some of the most competitive districts in the country are facing committee votes next week to approve cuts to popular programs that could come back to haunt them politically.And Democrats are gleeful at the prospect of Republican incumbents going on the record supporting the effort.“These members of Congress won with fewer votes than the number of people in their district on Medicaid,” said Jesse Ferguson, a veteran Democratic strategist and a former spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Voting for this is like being the captain of the Titanic and deciding to intentionally hit the iceberg.”The group includes Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Republican of Iowa, who also sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee and is on even shakier ground than Mr. Evans, despite having warded off a challenger multiple times. Last year, Ms. Miller-Meeks, who represents 132,148 Medicaid recipients, won her seat by 0.2 percent, or 799 votes. Her local office in Davenport has been besieged by demonstrators concerned about spending cuts.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