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      At Republican Jewish Coalition Event, Haley Criticizes Trump for Comments on Israel-Hamas War

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      At the annual Republican Jewish Coalition gathering, G.O.P. leaders are seizing political opportunities in the divisions that the conflict has opened up at home.A series of speeches by Republican presidential candidates on Saturday to a large gathering of Jewish donors and activists demonstrated how the escalating conflict in the Middle East has elevated foreign policy into a dominant campaign issue and exposed fresh divides within the primary contest.Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, attacked former President Donald J. Trump as “confused” on the threats facing the United States and Israel. Mr. Trump promised to fight the “jihadists, the terrorists, the Marxists” abroad and at home. And Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida denounced the “false moral equivalency” between Hamas and Israeli deaths.The remarks to the Republican Jewish Coalition, set in a sprawling convention center at the Venetian in Las Vegas, took place as Israel expanded its ground operations in Gaza, and at a critical moment for the primary contest. With Mr. Trump far ahead in the polls, time is growing short for his challengers to distinguish themselves. And Ms. Haley and his other rivals see new opportunities in his clumsy response to attacks in Ukraine and Israel, which threaten to expand into broader regional conflicts.Mr. Trump, who spoke last, ignored the other candidates during his remarks, focusing squarely on attacking President Biden as weak, while arguing that the world would be safer if he were still in the White House.“If I were president, the attack on Israel would never ever have happened,” he told the 1,500 attendees who packed the ballroom. “I think you believe that. Ukraine would never have happened. Inflation would have never happened.”Mr. Trump struck the most militaristic tone of the speakers, warning attendees of threats from “a lot of young strong men” entering the country who are the “same people that attacked Israel.” And he praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the neo-authoritarian leader admired by far-right nationalists in the United States and Europe who has been accused of employing anti-Semitic tropes for political gain.In his remarks, Mr. Trump cast himself in a similar vein as Mr. Orban — a “very strong man,” he said — promising to keep the country safe with threats of force.“If you spill a drop of American blood, we will spill a gallon of yours,” he said, arguing that the world had become less safe under the leadership of Mr. Biden. “I will defend America, and I will defend Western civilization from the barbarians and savages and fascists that you see now trying to do harm to our beautiful Israel.”Mr. Trump did not comment on the departure from the race of his former vice president, Mike Pence, who had announced he was ending his presidential bid before Mr. Trump took the stage. In the final speech of his campaign, Mr. Pence warned his party against adopting an isolationist foreign policy — like the policies put forward by Vivek Ramaswamy, who preceded him on the stage.The annual meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition was perhaps the highest-profile gathering of the fall Republican primary season, taking on greater urgency after Hamas’s attack on Israel three weeks ago. Last week, the organization was added as a sponsor of the third Republican debate, a reflection of how Israel unified a broad coalition of party voters and officials, including foreign policy hawks, business leaders and evangelical Christians.It is also a galvanizing moment for Republican officials: In a last-minute pivot, the event’s schedule changed to accommodate the first national appearance by the newly elected House speaker, Mike Johnson, who will address the group on Saturday night.Ms. Haley used her address to launch some of the most scathing attacks of her 2024 primary race, questioning Mr. Trump’s capacity to manage the foreign affairs of a country facing multiple military entanglements abroad. She highlighted remarks by the former president criticizing Israeli intelligence and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as weak just days after the attack.“As president, I will not compliment Hezbollah. Nor will I criticize Israel’s prime minister in the middle of tragedy and war. We have no time for personal vendettas,” she told the crowd of donors, activists and officials. “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”Ms. Haley, known for her staunch support of Israel as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, has been climbing in the polls after two strong debate performances.“Eight years ago, it was good to have a leader who broke things. But right now, we need a leader who also knows how to put things back together,” she said. “America needs a captain who will steady the ship, not capsize it. And Republicans need a candidate who can actually win.”All eight candidates who appeared offered their strong support for Israel, pledging to back the military operations and fight against rising anti-Semitic threats at home, particularly on college campuses.Of all the candidates, only Mr. Ramaswamy qualified his support, signaling that he would be less inclined to provide military support to Israelis for the escalating conflict. The entrepreneur and author tried to win over the crowd, entering to the music of Matisyahu, an observant Jewish hip-hop artist, reciting a line of a Jewish prayer in Hebrew and quoting liberally from David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel.In his address, which involved a meandering recounting of modern Israeli military history, Mr. Ramaswamy attempted to recast a more isolationist stance as supportive of Israel’s right to self-defense.“If Israel wants to destroy Hamas, is should go ahead and destroy Hamas,” he said. “But these are decisions for Israel to make, not America. I am not running for president of Israel. I am running for president of the United States.”Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who has for months been Mr. Trump’s chief antagonist on the campaign trail, struck a more somber tone in his remarks, saying “this is too serious a moment for pettiness.”Mr. Christie and Mr. Ramaswamy were the only candidates whose speeches were met with resounding boos, though from different corners of the audience: Mr. Christie has been a target of Trump supporters, and Mr. Ramaswamy has been widely criticized for his hesitation to provide military support.Mr. Trump entered Saturday’s event as the crowd favorite, beloved for his record on Israel as president, which included moving the American embassy to Jerusalem and signing the Abraham Accords, an agreement normalizing relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. He also cut aid for Palestinians, and his administration took steps to designate a campaign to boycott Israel as antisemitic.But his criticism of Israeli intelligence and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as weak just days after the attack, and his description of Hezbollah attackers as “very smart,” has invited attacks from his rivals.Amid the expression of concern and solidarity for one of America’s closest allies, Republican politicians saw political opportunities in the divisions that the conflict has opened up at home.Several of the speakers on Saturday disparaged progressive Democratic lawmakers, particularly Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, whose names drew loud boos from the audience. Others spoke about the tensions on college campuses, where students have clashed over the war.“Progressives say they’re all about the safety and feelings of minorities, the oppressed, the marginalized,” said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. “But when it comes to Jewish Americans who are hurting — they are silent.” More

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      Mike Pence Drops Out of 2024 Presidential Race

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      The former vice president said he would end his bid in a surprise announcement at a gathering of Jewish Republican donors. “It’s become clear to me that this is not my time,” he said.Former Vice President Mike Pence, who spent four years dutifully serving President Donald J. Trump but refused to carry out Mr. Trump’s demand that he block the 2020 election results, ended his presidential bid on Saturday, with a final appeal for his party to return to conservative principles and resist the “siren song of populism.”The surprise announcement came at the end of his remarks before a crowd of Jewish Republican donors in Las Vegas, and was met with gasps. Mr. Pence had received a standing ovation, opening his speech with a full-throated endorsement of Israel’s military operations in Gaza.Then he pivoted to a more “personal note,” saying that after much prayer and deliberation, he had decided to drop out of the race.“It’s become clear to me that this is not my time,” he told the crowd of 1,500, promising to “never leave the fight for conservative values.”Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations and a crowd favorite, opened her address to the group with praise for Mr. Pence, adding several lines to her prepared remarks.“He’s been a good man of faith. He’s been a good man of service. He has fought for America and he has fought for Israel,” she said. “We all owe him a debt of gratitude.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      Some Republicans Worry Mike Johnson Can’t Match Kevin McCarthy’s Fund-Raising Prowess

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      The former speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was a prolific fund-raiser for his House colleagues. The new speaker, Mike Johnson, doesn’t yet have the same juice.The decision to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker and replace him with a little-known congressman, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, has left a glaring financial gap for House Republicans headed into 2024 when the party has to defend its narrow and fragile majority.Mr. McCarthy’s political operation brought in more than 100 times the amount of money that Mr. Johnson has collected so far in 2023 — $78 million to roughly $608,000, according to federal records and public disclosures. And in Mr. Johnson’s entire congressional career, dating to his first run in 2016, the Louisiana Republican has raised a total of $6.1 million — less than Mr. McCarthy’s average monthly take this year.The willingness of House Republicans to trade a party rainmaker for a member who has raised less than some more junior colleagues has caused a deep sense of uncertainty at the highest levels of the conference, even as relieved lawmakers united behind Mr. Johnson to end weeks of political paralysis.“Mike Johnson is not known to be a prolific fund-raiser. He’s raised money to meet his needs in a noncompetitive seat in Louisiana,” said Tom Reynolds, a former New York congressman and past chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It remains to be seen: Can he raise money to help the members when it comes time next year?”In the days since he took the gavel, Mr. Johnson called Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main House Republican super PAC, and is expected to play a significant role in that group’s fund-raising going forward. And in a sign of the urgency of the political task ahead — in addition to governing — Mr. Johnson, in a meeting first reported by Punchbowl News, visited the headquarters of the National Republican Congressional Committee within hours of his swearing-in on Wednesday.Mr. Johnson has large financial shoes to fill.Mr. McCarthy has been directly responsible for 10 to 25 percent of all the campaign money raised this year by almost all of the House’s most vulnerable Republicans, according to an analysis of federal records.Mr. McCarthy’s transfers to the party’s House campaign committee amount to more than 25 percent of the $70.1 million raised this year. Then there are the hundreds of millions of dollars that Mr. McCarthy has helped raise in recent years for the House G.O.P.’s main super PAC, which has been closely aligned with him.In a brief interview Friday, Mr. McCarthy pledged to “help the party to bridge the gap” in the coming weeks and months as the new speaker takes over, though it is not yet clear if he will keep up the dizzying pace of travel that his team said had taken him to 22 states and 85 cities this year.“I helped build the majority, and I’m not going to walk away from it,” Mr. McCarthy said.One person who has been in touch with the new speaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation, said Mr. Johnson understood the weight of his new responsibility, not just legislatively but also politically.Adding to the sense of uncertainty among top Republicans is how Mr. Johnson’s hard-line positions on social issues — his opposition to gay marriage and strict anti-abortion stance — will play with some of the party’s key financiers, who tend to be more moderate than the party base.Representative Mike Johnson won the votes of his caucus. Now he’ll have to deliver on the fund-raising front.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesAllies of Mr. Johnson predicted he would quickly take to the money circuit. To some extent, the perpetual money machine that is modern Washington has already begun to adjust to the new Republican order.“The event we do for him will probably be the easiest money I’ve raised all cycle,” said Susan Hirschmann, a Republican lobbyist who leads the firm Williams & Jensen and is already organizing a fund-raiser. “I can tell you my phone has been ringing off the hook with people wanting to help raise money for Speaker Johnson.”Brian Ballard, who runs another major lobbying firm, said that the new speaker’s team had already reached out and they were now organizing an event this fall. “The world turns, and that role requires him to take that on,” Mr. Ballard said. “My clients are very excited to work with him. It’s seamless as far as I’m concerned.”Still, it is not just the prodigious nature of Mr. McCarthy’s fund-raising but also the specific methods he used to raise and distribute money that make his efforts hard to replicate. His political operation built the war chests of his party’s most vulnerable incumbents — a hole that the new speaker is unlikely to be able to fill in the months leading up to next year’s crucial elections.Federal records show that for 21 of the 24 most vulnerable Republican incumbents, Mr. McCarthy was directly responsible for at least 10 percent of their fund-raising in the first nine months of 2023. That is an unusually significant share to have come from a single source, and Mr. McCarthy did so by bundling large numbers of contributions before distributing them to his colleagues.For some members, the McCarthy share was closer to 25 percent of what they raised.Representative Brandon Williams of New York has received about $336,000 from Mr. McCarthy-linked committees this year — roughly one-quarter of the $1.3 million he has raised. Representative John Duarte of California, who won one of the nation’s narrowest contests in 2022, has received roughly $402,000 from the former speaker’s operation — more than 23 percent of the $1.7 million he has raised.The McCarthy team had intended to soon pivot to similarly fill the coffers of the Republican challengers running against Democratic incumbents, according to three people familiar with the plans, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for Mr. McCarthy’s political operation, but the future of those efforts is now unclear.Even with Mr. McCarthy’s efforts, the National Republican Congressional Committee has trailed its Democratic counterpart in fund-raising this year, $70.1 million to $93.2 million, and entered October with about $8 million less in the bank.“Clearly Republicans were extremely dependent on Kevin McCarthy for their fund-raising,” said Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “This does put them in a very difficult position.”Mr. McCarthy spent more than a decade carefully tending to donor relationships as he rose through the ranks of the House. Mr. Johnson is entering the speakership with neither a significant large donor network nor a devoted grass-roots following. His campaign account had brought in less than $300,000 in donations of less than $200 in his congressional career.And while he served as the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, an internal House conservative caucus, he has not been a fixture on the Washington fund-raising circuit and has not chaired a standing committee.Jeff Brooks, a partner at the lobbying firm Adams and Reese who knows Mr. Johnson, said that “he’s got the personality” to succeed. “There is going to be a gap, no question,” he said of replacing Mr. McCarthy’s money. “But Mike is going to close it quickly.”Mr. Johnson’s office declined to comment.For now, Representative Steve Scalise, the majority leader and a fellow Louisiana Republican, is expected to help Mr. Johnson as he builds out his operation.“When someone like Mike gets into this very important role, very suddenly I think it’s fair to say — obviously a person in that position needs to be careful about who’s really loyal and committed to him versus being opportunist,” said David Vitter, a former senator from Louisiana and now a lobbyist who has known Mr. Johnson for years. “I know Mike trusts Steve and Steve’s team in general.”Some in Washington have scoffed that one of Mr. McCarthy’s top money men, Jeff Miller, a lobbyist who has been a prolific fund-raiser for years, said in Politico that he would help Mr. Johnson.“Very selfless of him,” Mr. Vitter said with a laugh. 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      Early Voting Begins in New York: Here’s What to Know

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      Although no citywide offices are being contested this year, the New York City Council is up for election, and voters statewide will consider two ballot questions.Election Day is still several days away, but voters in New York can get a head start on Saturday, when early voting begins.There are some interesting New York City Council races on the ballot. One features two sitting council members who are fighting bitterly over a redrawn district in southern Brooklyn; one of the candidates switched parties and is now running as a Republican. Another face-off pits two newcomers in a nearby district that was recently created to amplify the voices of Asian voters.But for most New Yorkers, it will be a relatively quiet Election Day, with no presidential, governor or mayoral races on the ballot this year.What is on the ballot this year?Your ballot might include races for the City Council, district attorney, judges and two statewide ballot measures.The City Council is led by Democrats, and they are expected to keep control of the legislative body. But some local races have been contentious, and Republicans have been trying to increase their power in a city that has long favored Democrats.There are district attorney races in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island, but only Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, faces a challenger. The two statewide ballot measures involve a debt limit for small city school districts and the construction of sewage facilities.How do I vote?Early voting starts on Oct. 28 and ends Nov. 5. You can find your polling location online.Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and polls are open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m.Absentee ballots are available for people who are out of town, ill or have other reasons they cannot vote in person, though the deadline to apply for an absentee ballot online has passed.Are there any close races?One of the most interesting races is the clash in Brooklyn between Justin Brannan, a Democrat and chair of the Council’s Finance Committee, and Ari Kagan, a council member who recently left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party.Mr. Brannan, a former punk rock guitarist, is running in a swing district against Mr. Kagan, a former radio and TV show host from Belarus. The two have quarreled over the city’s handling of the migrant crisis, abortion and other issues.Another council member, Inna Vernikov, a Republican, is running for re-election after being charged with openly carrying a gun at a pro-Palestinian rally — an event that she opposed and was observing.In Queens, Vickie Paladino, a Republican council member, is facing a challenge from Tony Avella, a Democratic former state senator. In the Bronx, Marjorie Velázquez, a Democratic council member, has had strong union support as she runs against a Republican challenger, Kristy Marmorato, an X-ray technician hoping to replicate her party’s showing in 2021, when Curtis Sliwa, a Republican, narrowly won the district in the mayoral race over Eric Adams, a Democrat.Why is there a new City Council district?The city’s redistricting commission sought to reflect the growth in the city’s Asian population, and created a City Council district in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, which has a majority of Asian residents. The so-called Asian opportunity district has no incumbent.The two main candidates are Chinese American. Susan Zhuang, a Democrat and chief of staff to a state assembly member, is running against Ying Tan, a Republican and community activist.The Republican Party has made inroads with some Asian voters in New York, and Ms. Tan has focused on crime. Her campaign website promises to “bring law and order back!”A third candidate, Vito LaBella, a former police lieutenant, is running on the Conservative line after losing the Republican primary to Ms. Tan.What issues are on voters’ minds?New Yorkers are concerned about many pressing issues: an influx of migrants from the southern border, public safety, the city’s housing and affordability crisis, and the recent attacks in Israel.Roughly 58 percent of New York State voters agree with Mayor Adams that the migrant issue “will destroy New York City,” according to a recent Siena College poll.On Israel, about 50 percent of voters believe that a “large-scale Israeli attack in Gaza is too risky,” but that Israel “must try everything” to rescue hostages taken by Hamas, according to the poll. Nearly one-third of voters said that a “large-scale attack” in Gaza was warranted.Steven Greenberg, a Siena College pollster, also noted that a “Republican came within seven points of being elected governor” last year, when Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, beat Lee Zeldin, then a Republican congressman. With Republicans gaining ground in New York State, Mr. Greenberg said that the poll showed the “worst-ever” approval ratings for President Biden in New York. More

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      Mike Johnson Is a Right-Wing Fever Dream Come to Life

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      Last week, on the eve of his first attempt to become speaker of the House, allies of Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio confidently predicted that his more mainstream and institutionalist opponents would cave rather than resist his ascent.Jordan’s allies were wrong about that particular caving. But they were right that those same moderates and institutionalists would eventually fall in line with the far-right of the House Republican conference because, on Wednesday, they did just that.After three weeks of chaos, the House Republican majority finally chose a speaker. The lucky legislator? Representative Mike Johnson from Louisiana’s Fourth Congressional District. A four-term backbencher with little leadership experience, Johnson was too obscure to have enemies, giving him an easy ride to the top after three previous nominees — Steve Scalise, the House majority leader; Jordan, the first chairman of the House Freedom Caucus; and Tom Emmer, the House majority whip — faltered in the face of opposition. After winning a nearly unanimous vote of the House Republican majority (one member was absent), Johnson became the 56th speaker of the House of Representatives.Mike Johnson is neither a moderate nor an institutionalist. Just the opposite. A protégé of Jordan’s, he comes, as you have doubtless heard, from the far-right, anti-institutionalist wing of the congressional Republican Party. And while he was not a member of the Freedom Caucus, he did lead the Republican Study Committee, a group devoted to the proposition that any dollar spent on social insurance is a dollar too much.When push came to shove, in other words, the supposedly moderate members of the House Republican conference were happy to defer to their most extreme colleagues on substance, if not on style.And what does Johnson believe? He is staunchly against the bodily autonomy of women and transgender people and supports a nationwide ban on abortion and gender-affirming care for trans youth. He is also virulently anti-gay. In a 2003 essay, Johnson defended laws that criminalized homosexual activity between consenting adults. In 2004, he warned that same-sex marriage was a “dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.” Last year, Johnson introduced legislation that has been compared to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, and he continues to push to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.If Johnson is known for anything, however, it is for his tireless advocacy on behalf of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.Johnson wrote one of the briefs purporting to give a legal justification for throwing out the voting results in several swing states. He advanced the conspiracy theory that Venezuela was somehow involved with the nation’s voting machines. On Jan. 6, 2021, he urged his Republican colleagues to block certification of the election on the grounds that state changes to voting in the face of the pandemic were illegitimate and unconstitutional. When questioned, during his first news conference as speaker, whether he stood by his effort to overturn the 2020 election, he ignored the question, and his fellow Republicans shouted down the reporter who asked it.The new speaker is, in short, an election-denying extremist who believes that his allies have the right to nullify election results so that they can impose their vision of government and society on an unwilling public. He is Jim Jordan in substance but not Jim Jordan in style, which was enough for Republicans to come together to make him leader of the House and second in line to succeed the president of the United States in the case of emergency.The fractious House Republican majority cannot agree on how to fund the government. It cannot agree on whether to fund the government. It cannot agree on the scope of federal spending. It cannot even agree on whether it should do anything to govern the nation. But it can agree, it seems, to hand the reins of power to someone who showed no hesitation when asked to help overturn American democracy.During the summer of 2012, President Barack Obama told supporters that if he won the White House again, it would “break the fever” among Republicans. Instead, after Mitt Romney lost to Obama, the party embraced the worst version of itself and nominated Trump in 2016 and 2020. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, he expressed his hope that this time, with Trump’s departure from power, the Republican fever would finally break. Instead, the Republican Party went even deeper into the hole, hailing the former president’s failed attempt to keep himself in office as another lost cause and defending his leadership again and again.It’s not that the fever won’t break. It’s that there is no fever to break. The far-right extremism and open contempt for democracy that marks much of modern Republicanism is not an aberration. It’s not a spell that might fade with time. It is the Republican Party of 2023 and it will be the Republican Party of 2024. And while Trump may, for either legal or political reasons, eventually leave the scene, there’s no reason to think the Republican Party will revert to a state where the Mike Johnsons are back on the sidelines.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Conflicted Legacy of Mitt Romney

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      After factional infighting dominated the G.O.P.’s struggle to elect a House speaker, it feels weirdly quaint to revisit Mitt Romney’s career. He’s served as governor, U.S. senator and presidential nominee for a Republican Party now nearly unrecognizable from what it was when he started out. At the end of his time in public office, Romney has found a new clarity in his identity as the consummate institutionalist in an increasingly anti-constitutionalist party. But as a newly published biography of him shows, that wasn’t always the case.McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic, interviewed Romney dozens of times over the past several years and had access to his private journals, emails, and text messages. In this resulting biography “Romney: A Reckoning,” Coppins pushes Romney to wrestle with his own role — even complicity — in what his party has become.[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]In this conversation, guest host Carlos Lozada and Coppins examine Romney’s legacy at a time when it may seem increasingly out of place with the mainstream G.O.P. They dive deep into the key decisions and events in Romney’s life; discuss the looming influence Mitt Romney’s father, George, also a Republican presidential candidate, had over his life; how Romney rationalized appeasing figures on the campaign trail he found disdainful, including Tea Party populists and an early 2010s Donald Trump; how he failed to articulate just why he wanted to be president; the many grudges he has against members of his own party who acquiesced or embraced Trump; how Romney will be remembered by history; and much more.This episode was hosted by Carlos Lozada, a columnist for The New York Times Opinion, and the author of “What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era.” Lozada is also a host on “Matter of Opinion,” a weekly podcast from New York Times Opinion.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Jessie PierceThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero. More

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      Larry Elder Ends Long-Shot Presidential Bid

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      Mr. Elder, a Los Angeles Republican who bills himself as “the sage from South Central,” endorsed Donald Trump.Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host from California whose run for the Republican presidential nomination never gained traction, ended his campaign on Thursday and endorsed Donald J. Trump, the front-runner in the crowded field.“Throughout my campaign,” Mr. Elder wrote in a message posted online, “I have been steadfast in my belief that the biggest issues facing our nation are the crisis of fatherlessness, the dangerous lie that America is systemically racist, the need for an amendment to the constitution to set federal spending to a fixed percentage of the GDP — otherwise government gets bigger whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, and the need to remove the Soros-backed DAs across the country who refuse to endorse the law.”(George Soros’s indirect donations to a prosecutor’s campaign have animated Mr. Trump’s allies, and Mr. Soros’s name comes up often among conspiracy theorists in attacks frequently viewed as antisemitic.)Mr. Elder added, “I hope my campaign has helped shine a light on these critical issues and sparked important conversations about how we can solve them.”He never surpassed the Republican Party’s donation or polling thresholds to qualify for candidate debates.Mr. Elder, a Los Angeles Republican who bills himself as “the sage from South Central,” was the top vote-getter among challengers to Gov. Gavin Newsom in the state’s attempted recall election in 2021. Voters instead chose to keep Mr. Newsom in office.“Now that I am exiting the race,” Mr. Elder added in his message on Thursday, “I am proud to announce my endorsement of Donald Trump for President of the United States. His leadership has been instrumental in advancing conservative, America-first principles and policies that have benefited our great nation. We must unite behind Donald Trump to beat Joe Biden.”While Mr. Trump is the dominant front-runner for the Republicans’ presidential nomination, he is facing seven major cases in six courthouses in four cities. Two of the cases relate to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, which he still falsely maintains was rigged. More

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      The G.O.P. Goes Full-on Extremist

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      There are no moderate Republicans in the House of Representatives.Oh, no doubt some members are privately appalled by the views of Mike Johnson, the new speaker. But what they think in the privacy of their own minds isn’t important. What matters is what they do — and every single one of them went along with the selection of a radical extremist.In fact, Johnson is more extreme than most people, I think even political reporters, fully realize.Much of the reporting on Johnson has, understandably, focused on his role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Let me say, by the way, that the widely used term “election denial” is a euphemism that softens and blurs what we’re really talking about. Trying to keep your party in power after it lost a free and fair election, without a shred of evidence of significant fraud, isn’t just denial; it’s a betrayal of democracy.There has also been considerable coverage of Johnson’s right-wing social views, but I’m not sure how many people grasp the depth of his intolerance. Johnson isn’t just someone who wants to legalize discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. Americans and ban gay marriage; he’s on record as defending the criminalization of gay sex.But Johnson’s extremism, and that of the party that chose him, goes beyond rejecting democracy and trying to turn back the clock on decades of social progress. He has also espoused a startlingly reactionary economic agenda.Until his sudden elevation to speaker, Johnson was a relatively little-known figure. But he did serve for a time as chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group that devises policy proposals. And now that Johnson has become the face of his party, people really should look at the budget proposal the committee released for 2020 under his chairmanship.For if you read that proposal carefully, getting past the often mealy-mouthed language, you realize that it calls for the evisceration of the U.S. social safety net — not just programs for the poor, but also policies that form the bedrock of financial stability for the American middle class.Start with Social Security, where the budget calls for raising the retirement age — already set to rise to 67 — to 69 or 70, with possible further increases as life expectancy rises.On the surface, this might sound plausible. Until Covid produced a huge drop, average U.S. life expectancy at age 65 was steadily rising over time. But there is a huge and growing gap between the number of years affluent Americans can expect to live and life expectancy for lower-income groups, including not just the poor but also much of the working class. So raising the retirement age would fall hard on less fortunate Americans — precisely the people who depend most on Social Security.Then there’s Medicare, for which the budget proposes increasing the eligibility age “so it is aligned with the normal retirement age for Social Security and then indexing this age to life expectancy.” Translation: Raise the Medicare age from 65 to 70, then keep raising it.Wait, there’s more. Most nonelderly Americans receive health insurance through their employers. But this system depends greatly on policies that the study committee proposed eliminating. You see, benefits don’t count as taxable income — but in order to maintain this tax advantage, companies (roughly speaking) must cover all their employees, as opposed to offering benefits only to highly compensated individuals.The committee budget would eliminate this incentive for broad coverage by limiting the tax deduction for employer benefits and offering the same deduction for insurance purchased by individuals. As a result, some employers would probably just give their top earners cash, which they could use to buy expensive individual plans, while dropping coverage for the rest of their workers.Oh, and it goes almost without saying that the budget would impose savage cuts — $3 trillion over a decade — on Medicaid, children’s health coverage and subsidies that help lower-income Americans afford insurance under the Affordable Care Act.How many Americans would lose health insurance under these proposals? Back in 2017 the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Donald Trump’s attempt to repeal Obamacare would cause 23 million Americans to lose coverage. The Republican Study Committee’s proposals are far more draconian and far-reaching, so the losses would presumably be much bigger.So Mike Johnson is on record advocating policies on retirement, health care and other areas I don’t have space to get into, like food stamps, that would basically end American society as we know it. We would become a vastly crueler and less secure nation, with far more sheer misery.I think it’s safe to say that these proposals would be hugely unpopular — if voters knew about them. But will they?Actually, I’d like to see some focus groups asking what Americans think of Johnson’s policy positions. Here’s my guess, based on previous experience: Many voters will simply refuse to believe that prominent Republicans, let alone the speaker of the House, are really advocating such terrible things.But they are and he is. The G.O.P. has gone full-on extremist, on economic as well as social issues. The question now is whether the American public will notice.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More