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      Charles Koch Says Many in the Country Are ‘Abandoning’ Its Principles

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      In a rare appearance on Thursday to receive an award from the Cato Institute, Mr. Koch made oblique references to President Trump and his tariffs, without mentioning his name.Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and conservative megadonor, made a rare public appearance Thursday evening and called for libertarians to embrace their principles, in comments that seemed obliquely directed at a Republican Party taken over by President Trump.Mr. Koch was at one time among the most powerful forces in Republican politics. In the 2016 election cycle alone, he and his allies spent $750 million to promote the party’s candidates and causes. But his political power has waned significantly since Mr. Trump’s election that year, and he is now seldom seen in Washington. And neither do Republicans worry much about his plans in a party that is much more in Mr. Trump’s image than in Mr. Koch’s.But Mr. Koch, who will turn 90 this November, showed up in Washington to accept an award from the Cato Institute. Almost 50 years ago, Mr. Koch helped found Cato, one of the nation’s prominent libertarian think tanks. By 2012, Mr. Koch and his brother David had given about $30 million to the institute, but the relationship soured and the Kochs ended up suing the nonprofit before settling that June.Accepting a prize named after Milton Friedman, the free-market economist, on Thursday, Mr. Koch made his first public remarks since Mr. Trump was inaugurated in January and enacted a number of policies that are anathema to Mr. Friedman’s and Mr. Koch’s politics, most notably the sweeping tariffs.Mr. Koch dispensed with the cheery rhetoric of most conservatives these days. Speaking about the subsidies and protectionism of the past, he said that “you can see why we’re in the mess we’re in today.” The billionaire often speaks about his core “principles” in business and philanthropy.“With so much change, chaos and conflict, too many people and organizations are abandoning these principles,” Mr. Koch later said, not uttering Mr. Trump’s name. He added, “But we know from history, this just makes the problems worse. And people have forgotten that when principles are lost, so are freedoms.”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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      Senate Rejects Bipartisan Measure to Undo Trump’s Tariffs

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      Only three Republicans joined Democrats in voting to end the national emergency President Trump declared to impose tariffs on most U.S. trading partners, leaving the measure short of the support needed to pass.The Senate on Wednesday rejected an effort to undo President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on most U.S. trading partners, even as a small group of Republicans joined Democrats in delivering a rebuke to a trade policy that many lawmakers fear is causing economic harm.The vote deadlocked at 49 to 49, meaning it failed despite three Republicans joining Democrats in favor of a measure that sought to terminate the national emergency declaration Mr. Trump used this month to impose 10 percent reciprocal tariffs.Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and a cosponsor of the resolution, crossed party lines to support it, as well as Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. But the defections were not enough to make up for the absences of two supporters: Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who backed a similar measure this month.“It’s still a debate worth having,” Mr. Paul said of the failed resolution. He noted that many of his Republican colleagues are privately expressing consternation over Mr. Trump’s trade war but have carefully calibrated their public responses to defer to the president.A subsequent procedural vote on the measure prompted Vice President JD Vance to go to Capitol Hill on Wednesday evening to cast the deciding vote to table it, formally ending the effort to challenge Mr. Trump’s use of the emergency power for wide-ranging tariffs.Even if the resolution had passed the Senate, it had no path to enactment. The White House has threatened a veto, and House Republican leaders moved pre-emptively to prevent any such measure from being forced to the floor until the fall at the earliest. The maneuver was aimed at shielding their members from politically tricky votes on 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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      Elise Stefanik, Cabinet Hopes Dashed, Considers Her Next Move

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      Styrofoam packing peanuts littered an empty office in the Rayburn House Office Building across from the Capitol on Monday morning as two moving men unpacked a plush couch, an upholstered armchair, lamps and a lucite side table.Representative Elise Stefanik of New York was back.This had not been the plan.Ms. Stefanik, the self-proclaimed “ultra MAGA” warrior whom President Trump nominated to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, had expected to sail through her Senate confirmation vote, which was to be scheduled in early April.So she boxed up her office. She sent off her longtime chief of staff, Patrick Hester, to start a new job at the State Department, where he ended up working for seven days. She completed a “farewell tour” of her district, checked out schools for her son in New York City and was looking forward to moving into the $15 million Manhattan penthouse that comes with what is considered a fairly cushy job.Instead, Ms. Stefanik was back here on Capitol Hill amid the peanuts, contemplating her next steps and pinning most of the blame for what happened on Speaker Mike Johnson.To detractors, the president’s decision to pull Ms. Stefanik’s nomination was something akin to karmic comeuppance for a Republican lawmaker who was elected as a moderate but tacked unapologetically to the MAGA right, coming to personify the opportunistic shape-shifting that has gripped her party in the age of Mr. Trump.Ms. Stefanik’s plight seemed to crystallize in one succinct cautionary tale the limits of loyalty in the MAGA universe. Even one of the president’s most stalwart defenders, an effective ally since his first impeachment trial, ultimately did not get what she had long been promised.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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      Rough Night for Republican at Town Hall in N.Y. Swing District

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      Representative Mike Lawler faced shouts, groans and mockery at a high school auditorium in Rockland County.No one was expecting a love fest when Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, faced constituents in his suburban swing district on Sunday night. Still, even he seemed surprised by the night’s first clash — over the Pledge of Allegiance.“Please tell me you’re not objecting to the Pledge of Allegiance,” Mr. Lawler asked incredulously after some members of the audience inside a high school auditorium audibly groaned when he suggested reciting it.They acquiesced, and several hundred attendees labored to their feet to say the pledge, but not without indicating why they believed its words had come to ring hollow.“Authoritarian!” one man yelled, an apparent reference to President Trump.“Support the Constitution!” bellowed another.So it went for nearly two hours as Mr. Lawler, one of the House’s most vulnerable Republicans and a potential candidate for governor of New York, faced a torrent of criticism from liberal constituents over almost everything, from Republicans’ multitrillion-dollar tax cut plan to how brightly the room was lit.It was a scene that has repeated itself across the country over the past two weeks for the small group of Republicans who have defied party leaders’ advice and convened feedback sessions with the people they represent, many of them anxious, angry and primed to vent over a president who they believe is acting with unchecked power.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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      Harvard May Not Be the Hero We Want, but It Is the Hero We Need

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      Like many of its conservative alumni, I have a complicated relationship with Harvard.I grew up in a small town in Kentucky, where I went to public school. I attended college at a small Christian university in Nashville. I never had a thought that I could attend Harvard Law School. But friends urged me to try.When I got in, it was so shocking that it felt miraculous. I knew it would change my life — and it did. It gave me some of my closest friends, it gave me career opportunities I couldn’t previously fathom, and it kindled in me a love for constitutional law.At the same time, the school had profound problems. The student culture was remarkably intolerant and contentious. This was the height of early 1990s political correctness, and I was sometimes shouted down by angry classmates.In 1993, GQ published a long report from the law school called “Beirut on the Charles,” and it described a place that “pitted faculty members against faculty members, faculty members against students” and where students were “waging holy war on one another.”The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. In the 30 years since my graduation, the school has continued to change lives, and it has maintained one of the least tolerant cultures in American higher education.For the second year in a row, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression (where I served as president a number of years ago) has ranked Harvard last in the country in its annual free speech rankings. The environment, FIRE determined, was “abysmal.”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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      Elon Musk Backs Away From Washington, but DOGE Remains

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      As Elon Musk sought to reassure Wall Street analysts on Tuesday that he would soon scale back his work with the federal government, the strain of his situation was audible in his voice.The world’s richest man said that he would continue arguing that the Trump administration should lower tariffs it has imposed on countries across the world. But he acknowledged in a subdued voice that whether President Trump “will listen to my advice is up to him.”He was not quite chastened, but it was a different Mr. Musk than a couple months ago, when the billionaire, at the peak of his power, brandished a chain saw onstage at a pro-Trump conference to dramatize his role as a government slasher.Back then, Mr. Musk was inarguably a force in Washington, driving radical change across the government. To the president, he was a genius; to Democrats, he was Mr. Trump’s “unelected co-president”; to several cabinet secretaries, he was a menace; and to G.O.P. lawmakers, he was the source of anguished calls from constituents whose services and jobs were threatened by cuts from his Department of Government Efficiency.As Mr. Musk moves to spend less time in Washington, it is unclear whether his audacious plan to overhaul the federal bureaucracy will have lasting power. The endeavor has already left an immense imprint on the government, and Mr. Musk has told associates that he believes he has put in place the structure to make DOGE a success. But he has still not come close to cutting the $1 trillion he vowed to find in waste, fraud and abuse.Elon Musk and President Trump looked at new Tesla car models at the White House in March.Doug Mills/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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      House Passes G.O.P. Budget After Conservative Revolt Collapses

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      The House on Thursday narrowly adopted a Republican budget blueprint for slashing taxes and government spending, after hard-line conservatives concerned that it would balloon the nation’s debt ended a revolt that had threatened to derail President Trump’s domestic agenda.Approval of the plan, which was in doubt until nearly the very end, was a victory for Republican leaders and Mr. Trump. It allowed them to move forward with crafting major legislation to enact a huge tax cut, financed with deep reductions in spending on federal programs, and pushing it through Congress over Democratic opposition.“It is time for us to act so that we can get on with the real work,” Representative Kevin Hern, Republican of Oklahoma, said during debate on the floor. “In passing this budget framework, we are unlocking the process to deliver on unleashing American energy production, permanently securing our southern and northern borders, and making tax cuts permanent for small businesses and working families.”But approval came only after a mutiny on the House floor on Tuesday night that underscored the deep divisions Republicans still have to bridge in order to push through what Mr. Trump has called his “big, beautiful bill.” It forced Speaker Mike Johnson to delay a planned vote on the measure after he spent more than an hour Wednesday night huddled with the holdouts, trying without success to persuade them to support it.The vote on Thursday was 216 to 214, with two Republicans opposing the measure. All Democrats present voted against the plan, which they said would pave the way for cuts to Medicaid and other vital safety net programs that would harm Americans, all to pay for large tax cuts for the wealthiest.“You target earned benefits and things that are important to the American people, like Medicaid,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said, addressing Republicans. “And what are you doing it for? What is it in service of? All to pass massive tax breaks for your billionaire donors like Elon Musk.”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’s Tariff Reversal Calms Some G.O.P. Nerves, but Questions Linger

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      President Trump’s whipsawing tariff policy has prompted bipartisan alarm on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are outraged and Republicans are caught between their deep opposition to tariffs and fear of criticizing Mr. Trump.The president’s abrupt announcement on Wednesday that he would halt most of his reciprocal tariffs for 90 days just a week after announcing them allayed the immediate concerns of some G.O.P. lawmakers, many of whom rushed to praise Mr. Trump for what they characterized as deal-making mastery.But behind those statements was a deep well of nervousness among Republican lawmakers who are hearing angst from their constituents and donors about the impact of Mr. Trump’s trade moves on the financial markets and the economy. Some of them have begun signing onto measures that would end the tariffs altogether or claw back Congress’s power to block the president from imposing such levies in the future.“I’m just trying to figure out whose throat I get to choke if it’s wrong, and who I put up on a platform and thank them for the novel approach that was successful if they’re right,” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said of the sweeping tariffs on Tuesday during a hearing with Jamieson Greer, the Trump administration’s top trade official.On Wednesday, after Mr. Trump pulled back most of the tariffs but retained a 10 percent tariff rate for most countries and announced additional penalties on China, Mr. Tillis still sounded anxious. He said the move was likely to “reduce some of the escalation,” but added that there was still considerable work to be done to prevent another market meltdown.“We’ve got to get a deal before we get rid of uncertainty,” he told reporters soon after Mr. Trump announced the change in a social media post.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