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      Biden Courts Democrats and Republican Leaders on Infrastructure

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      The meeting produced little progress, underscoring the political challenge for President Biden as he seeks to exploit the narrowest of majorities in Congress to revive the country’s economy.WASHINGTON — To hear the participants tell it, President Biden’s first-ever meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders from both houses of Congress was 90 minutes of productive conversation. It was cordial. There were no explosions of anger. More

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      Senate Panel Deadlocks on Voting Rights as Bill Faces Major Obstacles

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      Democrats now face the task of overcoming their own differences on the measure, and deciding whether they will use it as a vehicle to try to curb the filibuster.WASHINGTON — A key Senate committee deadlocked on Tuesday over Democrats’ sweeping proposed elections overhaul, previewing a partisan showdown on the Senate floor in the coming months that could determine the future of voting rights and campaign rules across the country.The tie vote in the Senate Rules Committee — with nine Democrats in favor and nine Republicans opposed — does not prevent Democrats from moving forward with the 800-page legislation, known as the For the People Act. Proponents hailed the vote as an important step toward adopting far-reaching federal changes to blunt the restrictive new voting laws emerging in Republican-led battleground states like Georgia and Florida.But the action confronted Democrats with a set of thorny questions about how to push forward on a bill that they view as a civil rights imperative with sweeping implications for democracy and their party. The bill as written faces near-impossible odds in the evenly divided Senate, where Republicans are expected to block it using a filibuster and at least one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, remains opposed.With their control in Washington potentially fleeting and Republican states racing ahead with laws to curtail ballot access, Democrats must reach consensus among themselves on the measure, and decide whether to attempt to destroy or significantly alter the Senate’s filibuster rules — which set a 60-vote threshold to overcome any objection to advancing legislation — to salvage its chances of becoming law.“Here in the 21st century, we are witnessing an attempt at the greatest contraction of voting rights since the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said at the session’s outset.He cited a new law in Iowa restricting early and mail-in voting, another in Florida cutting back on the use of drop boxes and making it harder to vote by mail, and one in Georgia, where Democrats have attacked the decision to bar third parties from giving water or snacks to voters waiting in long lines.“These laws carry the stench of oppression, the smell of bigotry,” Mr. Schumer said, telling Republicans they faced a “legacy-defining choice.” “Are you going to stamp it out, or are you going to spread it?”Among other changes, Democrats’ bill would essentially overwrite such changes by setting a nationwide floor on ballot access. Each state would be required to implement 15 days of early voting, no-excuse vote by mail programs like the ones many states expanded during the pandemic and automatic and same-day voter registration. Voting rights would be restored to those who had served prison sentences for felonies, and states would have to accept a workaround neutering voter identification laws that Democrats say can make it harder for minorities to vote.Over eight hours of debate, the clash only served to highlight how vast philosophical differences over elections have come to divide the two parties in the shadow of former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about fraud and theft in the 2020 contest.Republicans gave no indication they were willing to cede any ground to Democrats in a fight that stretches from the Capitol in Washington to state houses across the country. Instead, with Mr. Schumer’s Republican counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, taking the lead, they argued that Democrats were merely using state laws as a fig leaf to justify an unnecessary and self-serving federal power grab “cooked up at the Democratic National Committee.”“Our democracy is not in crisis, and we’re not going to let one party take over our democracy under the false pretense of saving it,” Mr. McConnell said.He and other Republicans on the committee were careful to sidestep many of Mr. Trump’s outlandish claims of fraud, which have taken deep root in the party, fueling the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and prompting state lawmakers to adjust their election laws. But in a late-afternoon statement, Mr. Trump, who still towers over the party, made clear the connection between those lies and the push to curb ballot access, calling for every state to adopt restrictive voting laws, including voter-identification requirements, “so we never again have an election rigged and stolen from us.”“The people are demanding real reform!” Mr. Trump wrote.While the Rules Committee vote fulfilled Democrats’ pledge to thoroughly consider the bill before it reached the floor, it left an enormous challenge for Mr. Schumer. Progressive activists are spending millions of dollars to ramp up pressure on Democrats to quickly scrap the filibuster or miss a chance to implement the changes before 2022. The bill already passed the House with only Democratic votes.“What is intense pressure now is only going to grow,” said Eli Zupnick, a former Senate leadership aide and a spokesman for Fix Our Senate, a coalition of liberal groups pushing to eliminate the filibuster. “There is no way out. There is no third option. It is either the filibuster or the For the People Act.”But Mr. Manchin and a small group of others remain uncomfortable both with changing Senate rules and with provisions of the underlying bill, which also includes a public financing system for congressional candidates, far-reaching new ethics requirements for Congress and the White House, an end to gerrymandering congressional districts and dozens of other significant changes.Demonstrators protesting Georgia’s voting legislation in Atlanta in March.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesDemocratic senators plan to meet privately Thursday afternoon to begin deliberations over how to move forward, according to two Democratic officials who discussed the scheduled private session on the condition of anonymity.At least some senators appear ready to make wholesale changes if necessary to win the support of Mr. Manchin and other hesitant Democrats. One of them, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, said the stakes were “existential” if Democrats failed.“If we can’t unify behind it, I think there are going to be some tough decisions to maybe set pieces of it aside,” Mr. Kaine said in an interview.Democrats proposed only modest changes during Thursday’s marathon session in the Rules Committee.Republicans rejected a large package of changes meant to address concerns raised primarily by state elections administrators who have complained that some voting provisions would be expensive or onerous to implement.Republicans also rejected a proposal by Senator Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, to strike down bans, like one included in Georgia’s new law, on providing water to voters stuck in long lines to cast ballots..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media 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(min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}When the time came to offer their own amendments, Republicans were far more ambitious, submitting 150 proposals to kill various pieces of the bill. Ultimately, they demanded votes on only a couple of dozen, many of which forced Democrats to defend positions Republicans believe are politically unpopular.Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the top Republican on the committee, tried to strip the provision creating a public financing system that would match small donations to congressional candidates with federal funds. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, argued the case against it most vividly, calculating how much each member of the committee might receive in matching funds, including $24 million for himself.Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the top Republican on the Senate panel considering the measure, tried to strip the bill of a public financing system that would match small donations to congressional candidates with federal funds.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times“Your constituents in every one of your states, I would venture, do not want to give your campaigns or my campaign millions of dollars in federal funds,” he said. “We do not need welfare for politicians.”Democrats pointed out that the public financing would be optional, but defended it as far preferable to the current system, in which politicians largely rely on a small number of wealthy donors and special interests to bankroll their campaigns. The amendment failed.“If people want to pay for their campaigns with big-money donors instead, I guess that’s what they’ll do,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the committee chairwoman.In a sign of the how seriously both parties took the debate, Mr. McConnell, who rarely attends hearings as party leader, remained glued to the dais for much of the day, sparring vigorously with Democrats. He was most animated in opposition to proposed changes to campaign finance laws, reprising his role as the Senate’s pre-eminent champion of undisclosed, unlimited political spending.“Regardless of who has a partisan advantage here — let’s just put that aside — is it the business of the government to supervise political speech, to decide what you can say about an issue that may be in proximity to an election?” he said.Mr. McConnell called unsuccessfully for dropping language that would require super PACs to disclose the identities of their big donors and a proposed restructuring of the Federal Election Commission to make it more partisan.Mr. Ossoff pushed back. Arguing that there was often no difference between the objectives of super PACs and traditional campaigns, he said, “The public should have the right to know who is putting significant resources into influencing the views of the voters.” More

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      Sin redes sociales y con baja aprobación, Trump sigue mandando en el Partido Republicano

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      La difamación de Liz Cheney y un extraño recuento de votos en Arizona mostraron el daño de su asalto a la base de la democracia: la integridad electoral.Suspendido de Facebook, aislado en Mar-a-Lago y objeto de burlas por su nueva red social no profesional, Donald Trump estuvo gran parte de la semana pasada fuera de la vista del público. Sin embargo, tanto la capitulación del Partido Republicano ante el expresidente como el daño a la política estadounidense que provocó con su mentira de que le robaron las elecciones fueron más evidentes que nunca.En Washington, los republicanos le retiraron su puesto de liderazgo en la Cámara Baja a la representante Liz Cheney como castigo por considerar que las falsas aseveraciones de fraude electoral hechas por Trump eran una amenaza a la democracia. Los legisladores de Florida y Texas adelantaron nuevas medidas radicales para restringir las votaciones, lo cual respalda la narrativa ficticia de Trump y sus aliados de que el sistema electoral fue manipulado en su contra. Y en Arizona, el Partido Republicano estatal dio inicio a una extraña revisión de los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre al buscar rastros de bambú en las boletas electorales del año pasado.Estos agitados melodramas ponen de relieve hasta qué grado, seis meses después de las elecciones, Estados Unidos sigue enfrentando las consecuencias del ataque sin precedentes —por parte de un candidato a la presidencia que estaba perdiendo— al principio fundamental de la democracia estadounidense: la legitimidad de las elecciones.También ofrecen sólidas evidencias de que el expresidente no solo ha logrado sofocar cualquier oposición dentro de su partido, sino que también ha convencido a la mayor parte de esa agrupación política para que haga una enorme apuesta: que la manera más segura de volver a lograr el poder es adoptando su estilo pugilístico, el divisionismo racial y las inaceptables teorías conspirativas, en vez de atraer a los electores suburbanos indecisos que le quitaron la Casa Blanca al partido y que quizás estén buscando políticas de fondo para la pandemia, la economía, la atención médica y otros temas.La lealtad al expresidente continúa a pesar de que haya azuzado a sus partidarios antes del asalto del 6 de enero al Capitolio y sus seguidores ignoran, redefinen o, en algunos casos, aprueban de manera tácita el letal ataque al Congreso.“Nos hemos alejado demasiado de cualquier interpretación sensata”, dijo Barbara Comstock, una veterana funcionaria del partido a quien le arrebataron su escaño suburbano de Virginia cuando los electores castigaron a Trump en las elecciones intermedias de 2018. “Es una verdadera enfermedad la que está atacando al partido en todos los niveles. Ahora simplemente vamos a decir que lo blanco es negro”.No obstante, mientras los republicanos se refugian en la fantasía de unas elecciones robadas, los demócratas están concentrados en el trabajo cotidiano de gobernar un país que sigue teniendo dificultades para salir de una mortífera pandemia.Los estrategas de ambos partidos afirman que es probable que la dinámica discordante —dos partidos que funcionan en realidades diferentes— defina la política del país en los años venideros.Al mismo tiempo, el presidente Joe Biden enfrenta un reto más general: qué hacer con respecto al amplio segmento de la población que duda de su legitimidad y un Partido Republicano que busca el apoyo de ese segmento al promover proyectos de ley que restrinjan las votaciones y tal vez debiliten más la confianza en las elecciones futuras.En una encuesta de CNN publicada la semana pasada, se descubrió que casi una tercera parte de los estadounidenses, incluyendo el 70 por ciento de los republicanos, decían que Biden no había ganado de manera legítima los votos para obtener la presidencia.Se espera que la representante Liz Cheney, la tercera republicana de alto rango en la Cámara, sea destituida de su cargo después de expresarse en contra de Trump.Stefani Reynolds para The New York TimesLos colaboradores de la Casa Blanca afirman que Biden cree que la mejor manera de recuperar la confianza en el proceso democrático es demostrar que el gobierno puede otorgarles beneficios tangibles a los electores (ya sean vacunas o cheques de estímulo económico).Dan Sena, un estratega demócrata que supervisó las acciones del Comité de Campaña del Congreso Demócrata para ganar la Cámara durante las últimas elecciones de mitad de periodo, dijo que el enfoque republicano en cuestiones culturales, como la prohibición de los atletas transgénero, era beneficioso para su partido. Muchos demócratas solo enfrentarán ataques dispersos en su agenda mientras continúan oponiéndose a la retórica polarizadora de Trump, que ayudó a que su partido se impusiera en distritos suburbanos en 2018 y 2020.“Preferiría tener un historial de estar del lado de los estadounidenses en la recuperación”, dijo Sena. “¿Qué historia quiere escuchar el público estadounidense: lo que han hecho los demócratas para que el país vuelva a reactivarse o Donald Trump y su guerra cultural?”.Durante su campaña, Biden predijo que los republicanos tendrían una “revelación” cuando ya se hubiera ido Trump y que volverían a ser el partido que él conoció durante las décadas que estuvo en el Senado. Cuando la semana pasada le preguntaron sobre los republicanos, Biden se quejó de que ya no los entendía y parecía un poco desconcertado por la “minirrevolución” dentro de sus filas.“Creo que los republicanos están más lejos de lo que pensé de determinar quiénes son y qué representan en este momento”, comentó.Sin embargo, durante gran parte de la semana pasada, los republicanos mostraron de manera muy elocuente qué es exactamente lo que representan: el trumpismo. Muchos de ellos han adoptado su estrategia de inducir las quejas de los blancos con enunciados racistas, y las legislaturas controladas por republicanos en todo el país están promoviendo restricciones que limiten el acceso al voto de tal forma que los electores de color se vean afectados de una manera desproporcionada.También existen consideraciones electorales donde hay mucho en juego. Con su estilo tan polarizador, Trump incitó tanto a sus bases como a sus detractores y presionó a ambos partidos a registrar la participación de los votantes en las elecciones de 2020. El total que obtuvo de 74 millones de votos fue el segundo más alto de toda la historia, solo detrás del total de 81 millones de votos para Biden, y Trump ha demostrado su capacidad para poner a sus partidarios políticos en contra de cualquier republicano que lo contradiga.Eso ha hecho que los republicanos sientan que deben mostrar una lealtad inquebrantable al expresidente con el fin de conservar los electores que ganó.“Solo les diría esto a mis colegas republicanos: ¿podemos seguir adelante sin el presidente Trump? La respuesta es no”, comentó esta semana en una entrevista de Fox News el senador por Carolina del Sur, Lindsey Graham. “Estoy convencido de que no podemos crecer sin él”.En algunas formas, el expresidente está más debilitado que nunca. Tras haber sido derrotado en las urnas, pasa su tiempo jugando golf y recibiendo visitas en su desarrollo turístico de Florida. Le hace falta la tribuna de la presidencia, lo han bloqueado de Twitter y no logró recuperar el acceso a su cuenta de Facebook la semana pasada. Dejó el cargo con un índice de aprobación de menos del 40 por ciento, el menor porcentaje al final de un primer periodo de cualquier presidente desde Jimmy Carter.Sin embargo, su dominio se ve reflejado desde el Congreso hasta las legislaturas estatales. Los legisladores locales y federales que han presionado para que su partido acepte los resultados de las elecciones, y por tanto la derrota de Trump, han enfrentado una condena constante y disputas de sus escaños por parte de miembros de su propio partido en las elecciones primarias. Parece que esas amenazas están teniendo impacto: el pequeño número de funcionarios republicanos que han criticado a Trump en el pasado, incluyendo diez que votaron a favor de su enjuiciamiento político en febrero, guardaron silencio, se rehusaron a dar entrevistas y le brindaron poco respaldo público a Cheney.La representante Elise Stefanik, quien probablemente la sustituya, se promovió públicamente para ese puesto y, en entrevistas con partidarios de extrema derecha del expresidente, mostró la buena fe que le tiene a Trump al darle credibilidad a sus infundadas aseveraciones de fraude electoral.El Partido Republicano llevó a cabo una revisión quijotesca de los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre, en Arizona.Foto de consorcio de Matt YorkEl enfoque en las elecciones ha desplazado casi cualquier discusión sobre política u ortodoxia partidaria. Heritage Action, una organización que califica a los legisladores según sus registros de votación conservadores, le otorgó a Cheney una calificación del 82 por ciento. Stefanik, quien tiene un historial de votación más moderado pero es una defensora mucho más vocal del expresidente, obtuvo un 52 por ciento.Stefanik y muchos otros líderes republicanos están apostando a que el camino para mantener los logros electorales de la era Trump radica en avivar su base con las políticas populistas que son fundamentales para la marca del presidente, incluso si repelen a los votantes indecisos.Después de varios meses en que los medios de comunicación conservadores han dicho mentiras sobre las elecciones, una buena parte de los republicanos han llegado a aceptarlas como verdaderas.Sarah Longwell, una estratega republicana que durante años ha estado conduciendo grupos de debate de los partidarios de Trump, mencionó que desde las elecciones había descubierto una mayor apertura a lo que ella llama “una curiosidad por QAnon”, que es la disposición a considerar teorías conspirativas sobre el robo de las elecciones y un Estado profundo. “Muchos de estos electores de las bases están viviendo en una negación de la verdad en la que no creen en nada y piensan que todo podría ser mentira”, comentó Longwell, quien impugnó a Trump.Algunos estrategas republicanos están preocupados por la posibilidad de que el partido esté perdiendo oportunidades para atacar a Biden, quien ha propuesto los planes de gastos e impuestos más radicales en generaciones.“Los republicanos deben volver a los temas que realmente les interesan a los votantes, rociar algunos comentarios sobre la guerra cultural aquí y allá, pero no dejarse llevar”, dijo Scott Reed, un estratega republicano veterano que ayudó a aplastar a los populistas de derecha en elecciones pasadas. “Pero algunos están haciendo una industria basada en dejarse llevar”.Aunque aferrarse a Trump podría ayudar a que el partido aumente la participación de sus bases, los republicanos como Comstock sostienen que esa estrategia dañará al partido con una población esencial que incluye a los electores jóvenes, los de color, a las mujeres y a los residentes de los suburbios. Ya están surgiendo luchas interpartidistas en las elecciones primarias emergentes debido a que los candidatos se acusan unos a otros de deslealtad al expresidente. Muchos líderes del partido temen que eso dé como resultado que salgan victoriosos los candidatos de extrema derecha y que al final pierdan las elecciones generales en los estados conservadores donde los republicanos deberían dominar, como Misuri y Ohio.“No queremos llegar a declarar a Trump ganador de una minoría menguante”, afirmó Comstock. “El futuro del partido no será un hombre de 70 años hablándole al espejo en Mar-a-Lago y todos estos aduladores haciendo maromas para obtener su aprobación”.Sin embargo, quienes se han opuesto a Trump —y pagado el precio— afirman que hay pocos incentivos políticos para ir contra la corriente. Criticar a Trump, e incluso defender a quienes lo hacen, puede hacer que los funcionarios electos se queden en una especie de tierra de nadie política, que sean considerados traidores a los electores republicanos, pero también demasiado conservadores en otros temas como para ser aceptados por los demócratas y los independientes.“Parece que se está volviendo cada vez más difícil que la gente salga a hacer campaña y defienda a alguien como Liz Cheney o Mitt Romney”, afirmó esta semana durante una presentación en un panel de la Universidad de Harvard el exsenador Jeff Flake, quien respaldó a Biden y obtuvo el repudio del Partido Republicano de Arizona. “Es posible que cerca del 70 por ciento de los republicanos realmente crean que les robaron las elecciones y eso es incapacitante. En verdad lo es”.Lisa Lerer es una periodista que vive en Washington, donde cubre campañas electorales, votaciones y poder político. Antes de unirse al Times, cubrió la política nacional estadounidense y la campaña presidencial de 2016 para The Associated Press. @llerer More

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      Trump Still Has Iron Grip on Republicans

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      The vilification of Liz Cheney and a bizarre vote recount in Arizona showed the damage from his assault on a bedrock of democracy: election integrity.Locked out of Facebook, marooned in Mar-a-Lago and mocked for an amateurish new website, Donald J. Trump remained largely out of public sight this week. Yet the Republican Party’s capitulation to the former president became clearer than ever, as did the damage to American politics he has caused with his lie that the election was stolen from him.In Washington, Republicans moved to strip Representative Liz Cheney of her House leadership position, a punishment for denouncing Mr. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud as a threat to democracy. Lawmakers in Florida and Texas advanced sweeping new measures that would curtail voting, echoing the fictional narrative from Mr. Trump and his allies that the electoral system was rigged against him. And in Arizona, the state Republican Party started a bizarre re-examination of the November election results that involved searching for traces of bamboo in last year’s ballots.The churning dramas cast into sharp relief the extent to which the nation, six months after the election, is still struggling with the consequences of an assault by a losing presidential candidate on a bedrock principle of American democracy: that the nation’s elections are legitimate.They also provided stark evidence that the former president has not only managed to squelch any dissent within his party but has also persuaded most of the G.O.P. to make a gigantic bet: that the surest way to regain power is to embrace his pugilistic style, racial divisiveness and beyond-the-pale conspiracy theories rather than to court the suburban swing voters who cost the party the White House and who might be looking for substantive policies on the pandemic, the economy and other issues. The loyalty to the former president persists despite his role in inciting his supporters ahead of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, with his adherents either ignoring, redefining or in some cases tacitly accepting the deadly attack on Congress.“We’ve just gotten so far afield from any sane construction,” said Barbara Comstock, a longtime party official who was swept out of her suburban Virginia congressional seat in the 2018 midterm backlash to Mr. Trump. “It’s a real sickness that is infecting the party at every level. We’re just going to say that black is white now.”Yet as Republicans wrap themselves in the fantasy of a stolen election, Democrats are anchored in the day-to-day business of governing a nation that is still struggling to emerge from a deadly pandemic.Strategists from both parties say that discordant dynamic — two parties operating in two different realities — is likely to define the country’s politics for years to come.At the same time, President Biden faces a broader challenge: what to do about the large segment of the public that doubts his legitimacy and a Republican Party courting the support of that segment by pushing bills that would restrict voting and perhaps further undermine faith in future elections. A CNN poll released last week found that nearly a third of Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, said Biden had not legitimately won enough votes to win the presidency.Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House, is expected to be removed from her leadership post next week after speaking out against Mr. Trump.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesWhite House aides say Mr. Biden believes that the best way to restore some faith in the democratic process is demonstrating that government can deliver tangible benefits — whether vaccines or economic stimulus checks — to voters.Dan Sena, a Democratic strategist who oversaw the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s strategy to win the House during the last midterm elections, said the Republican focus on cultural issues, like bans on transgender athletes, was a “win-win” for his party. Many Democrats will face only scattershot attacks on their agenda while continuing to run against the polarizing rhetoric of Mr. Trump, which helped the party flip suburban swing districts in 2018 and 2020.“I would much rather have a record of siding with Americans on recovery,” Mr. Sena said. “Which tale do the American public want to listen to — what Democrats have done to get the country moving again or Donald Trump and his culture war?”Mr. Biden predicted during the campaign that Republicans would have an “epiphany” once Mr. Trump was gone and would revert to being the party he knew during his decades in the Senate. When asked about Republicans this week, Mr. Biden lamented that he didn’t understand them anymore and appeared slightly flummoxed about the “mini-revolution” in their ranks.“I think the Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point,” he said.But for much of the past week, Republicans put on vivid display exactly what they now stand for: Trumpism. Many have adopted his approach of courting white grievance with racist statements, and Republican-led legislatures across the country are pushing through restrictions that would curtail voting access in ways that disproportionally impact voters of color. There are also high-stakes electoral considerations. With his deeply polarizing style, Mr. Trump motivated his base and his detractors alike, pushing both parties to record voter turnout in the 2020 election. His total of 74 million votes was the second-highest ever, behind only Mr. Biden’s 81 million, and Mr. Trump has shown an ability to turn his political supporters against any Republican who opposes him.That has left Republicans convinced that they must display unwavering fealty to a departed president to retain the voters he won over. “I would just say to my Republican colleagues: Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no,” Senator Lindsey Graham said in an interview on Fox News this week. “I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.”In some ways, the former president is more diminished than ever. Defeated at the polls, he spends his time at his Florida resort playing golf and entertaining visitors. He lacks the bully pulpit of the presidency, has been banished from Twitter and failed this week to have his account restored by Facebook. He left office with his approval rating below 40 percent, the lowest final first-term rating for any president since Jimmy Carter in 1979.Still, his dominance over Republicans is reflected from Congress to statehouses. Local and federal lawmakers who have pushed their party to accept the results of the election, and thus Mr. Trump’s loss, have faced a steady drumbeat of censure and primary challenges. Those threats appear to be having an impact: The small number of Republican officials who have been critical of Mr. Trump in the past, including the 10 who voted for his impeachment in February, remained largely silent this week, refusing interview requests and offering little public support for Ms. Cheney.Her likely replacement, Representative Elise Stefanik, publicly promoted herself for the post and moved to establish her Trump bona fides by lending credence to his baseless voter fraud claims in interviews with hard-right supporters of the former president.The state Republican Party in Arizona undertook a quixotic re-examination of the November election results.Pool photo by Matt YorkThe focus on the election has crowded out nearly any discussion of policy or party orthodoxy. The Heritage Action scorecard, which rates lawmakers on their conservative voting records, awarded Ms. Cheney a lifetime score of 82 percent. Ms. Stefanik, who has a more moderate voting record but is a far more vocal supporter of the former president, scored 52 percent.Ms. Stefanik and many other Republican leaders are betting that the path to keeping the electoral gains of the Trump era lies in stoking their base with the populist politics that are central to the president’s brand, even if they repel swing voters.After months of being fed lies about the election by the conservative news media, much of the party has come to embrace them as true. Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has been conducting focus groups of Trump voters for years, said that since the election she had found an increased openness to what she calls “QAnon curious,” a willingness to entertain conspiracy theories about stolen elections and a deep state. “A lot of these base voters are living in a post-truth nihilism where you believe in nothing and think that everything might be untrue,” said Ms. Longwell, who opposed Mr. Trump. Some Republican strategists worry that the party is missing opportunities to attack Mr. Biden, who has proposed the most sweeping spending and tax plans in generations.“Republicans need to go back to kitchen-table issues that voters really care about, sprinkle in a little culture here and there but not get carried away,” said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist who helped crush right-wing populists in past elections. “And some of them are making an industry out of getting carried away.”While clinging to Mr. Trump could help the party increase turnout among its base, Republicans like Ms. Comstock argue that such a strategy will damage the party with crucial demographics, including younger voters, voters of color, women and suburbanites. Already, intraparty fights are emerging in nascent primaries as candidates accuse each other of disloyalty to the former president. Many party leaders fear that could result in hard-right candidates’ emerging victorious and eventually losing general elections in conservative states where Republicans should prevail, like Missouri and Ohio.“To declare Trump the winner of a shrinking minority, that’s not a territory you want to head up,” Ms. Comstock said. “The future of the party is not going to be some 70-year-old man talking in the mirror at Mar-a-Lago and having all these sycophants come down and do the limbo to get his approval.”Yet those who have objected to Mr. Trump — and paid the price — say there’s little political incentive to pushing against the tide. Criticizing Mr. Trump, or even defending those who do, can leave elected officials in a kind of political no man’s land: seen as traitorous to Republican voters but still too conservative on other issues to be accepted by Democrats and independents.“It’s becoming increasingly difficult, it seems, for people to go out on the stump and defend somebody like Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney,” former Senator Jeff Flake, who endorsed Mr. Biden and was censured by the Arizona Republican Party this year, said during a panel appearance at Harvard this week. “About 70 percent of Republicans probably genuinely believe that the election was stolen, and that’s debilitating. It really is.” More

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      Republicans Attack Democrats as Liberal Extremists to Regain Power

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      As Democrats prepare to run on an ambitious economic agenda, Republicans are working to caricature them as liberal extremists out of touch with voters’ values.WASHINGTON — Minutes after a group of congressional Democrats unveiled a bill recently to add seats to the Supreme Court, the Iowa Republican Party slammed Representative Cindy Axne, a Democrat and potential Senate candidate, over the issue.“Will Axne Pack the Court?” was the headline on a statement the party rushed out, saying the move to expand the court “puts our democracy at risk.”The attack vividly illustrated the emerging Republican strategy for an intensive drive to try to take back the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans are mostly steering clear of Democrats’ economic initiatives that have proved popular, such as an infrastructure package and a stimulus law that coupled pandemic relief with major expansions of safety-net programs, and are focusing instead on polarizing issues that stoke conservative outrage.In doing so, they are seizing on measures like the court-expansion bill and calls to defund the police — which many Democrats oppose — as well as efforts to provide legal status to undocumented immigrants and grant statehood to the District of Columbia to caricature the party as extreme and out of touch with mainstream America.Republicans are also hammering at issues of race and sexual orientation, seeking to use Democrats’ push to confront systemic racism and safeguard transgender rights as attack lines.The approach comes as President Biden and Democrats, eager to capitalize on their unified control of Congress and the White House, have become increasingly bold about speaking about such issues and promoting a wide array of party priorities that languished during years of Republican rule. It has given Republicans ample fodder for attacks that have proved potent in the past.“They are putting the ball on the tee, handing me the club and putting the wind at my back,” said Jeff Kaufmann, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party.Democrats argue that Republicans are focusing on side issues and twisting their positions because the G.O.P. has nothing else to campaign on, as Democrats line up accomplishments to show to voters, including the pandemic aid bill that passed without a single Republican vote.“That was very popular, and I can understand why Republicans don’t want to talk about it,” said Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the new chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “But we’re going to keep reminding folks who was there when they needed them.”The contrast is likely to define the 2022 races. Democrats will sell the ambitious agenda they are pursuing with Mr. Biden, take credit for what they hope will continue to be a surging economy and portray Republicans as an increasingly extreme party pushing Donald J. Trump’s lies about a stolen election. Republicans, who have embraced the false claims of election fraud and plan to use them to energize their conservative base, will complain of “radical” Democratic overreach and try to amplify culture-war issues they think will propel more voters into their party’s arms.A release from the National Republican Senatorial Committee highlighted what it called the “three pillars” of the Democratic agenda: “The Green New Deal, court packing and defund the police,” even though the first two are far from the front-burner issues for Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders and the third is a nonstarter with the bulk of the party’s rank and file.President Biden and Democrats have promoted a wide array of party priorities that languished during years of Republican rule.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesLast week Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, sought to thrust a new issue into the mix, leading Republicans in protest of a proposed Biden administration rule promoting education programs that address systemic racism and the nation’s legacy of slavery. He has taken particular aim at the 1619 Project, a journalism initiative by The New York Times that identifies the year when slaves were first brought to America as a key moment in history.“There are a lot of exotic notions about what are the most important points in American history,” Mr. McConnell said on Monday during an appearance in Louisville. “I simply disagree with the notion that The New York Times laid out there that year 1619 was one of those years.”Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the Republicans’ Senate campaign arm, has been explicit about his strategy.“Now what I talk about every day is do we want open borders? No. Do we want to shut down our schools? No. Do we want men playing in women’s sports? No,” Mr. Scott said during a recent radio interview with the conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt.“Do we want to shut down the Keystone pipeline? No. Do we want voter ID? Yes,” he continued. “And the Democrats are on the opposite side of all those issues, and I’m going to make sure every American knows about it.”Democrats who have fallen victim to the Republican cultural assault concede that it can take a toll and that their party needs to be ready.“It was all these different attacks that were spread all over mainstream media, Spanish-language media, Facebook, WhatsApp,” said Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former Democratic House member from South Florida who was defeated last year after Republicans portrayed her as a socialist who was anti-police. “A lot of it was misinformation, false attacks.”She said Democrats must begin taking steps now to combat Republican misdirection, warning that their legislative victories might not be enough to appeal to voters.“We can have a great policy record,” she said, “but we need to be present in our communities right now, reaching out to all of our constituencies to tell them we are working for them, that their health and their jobs are our priorities.”On the Supreme Court issue, progressive groups began pushing the idea of an expansion after Mr. Trump was able to appoint three justices, including one to a vacancy that Republicans blocked Barack Obama from filling in the last year of his presidency and another who was fast-tracked right before last year’s election.Hoping to neutralize the issue, some Senate Democrats who will be on the ballot next year have made it clear that they would oppose expanding the court, and the bill seems to be going nowhere at the moment. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would not bring any court bill to the floor until at least after a commission named by Mr. Biden to study the matter issued its report, which is due in six months. The president has been cool to the expansion idea as well.The office of Ms. Axne, the only Democrat in Congress from Iowa, did not respond to requests for reaction to the Republican attacks on her over the court plan. In an interview with MSNBC, Ms. Axne said that she, like Ms. Pelosi, would await the findings of the commission.But Republicans are not waiting to try to score political points. They say more moderate Republican voters and independents who broke with the party during the Trump years have been alienated by the call to enlarge the court and other initiatives being pushed by progressives.One key for Republicans next year will be winning back suburban voters while running campaigns that also energize the significant segment of their supporters who are fiercely loyal to Mr. Trump and want the party to represent his values. That may be a difficult balance to achieve, as evidenced this week when Republican leaders moved to strip Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming of the party’s No. 3 leadership post for calling out the former president’s false election claims.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said it would matter less what Republicans said about Democrats than what his party was able to accomplish.“The one thing that will win people over, no matter what they do, is whether we can deliver,” he said. “They are doing what appeals to their base, but the voters in the middle, including a good chunk of Republican voters, actually care about getting things done.”Instead of focusing on Democrats’ economic initiatives that have proved popular, Republicans are seizing on measures like a bill to expand the Supreme Court.Al Drago for The New York TimesMr. Peters said Democrats would be better positioned to rebut attacks such as those that falsely portray them as pressing to defund the police after voters had experienced two years of the party holding power.“President Biden and the caucus have been very clear that we are not about defunding the police, we are about making sure police have the resources they need to do their jobs,” he said. “Ultimately, it is about how it is impacting people’s lives.”Mr. Kaufmann, the Republican leader in Iowa, begged to differ. He said he believed the hot-button issues Republicans were homing in on would drive voters more than “the nuance of tax policy and who gets credit for the vaccine.” He is eager to get started.“Some of this stuff is really controversial,” he said. “These are all very bold and clearly delineated issues. I can use this to expand the base and get crossover voters.” More

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      Constitutional Challenges Loom Over Proposed Voting Bill

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      The sprawling legislation, known as H.R. 1, could result in lawsuits leading to a dozen Supreme Court cases, legal experts said.WASHINGTON — If the sweeping voting rights bill that the House passed in March overcomes substantial hurdles in the Senate to become law, it would reshape American elections and represent a triumph for Democrats eager to combat the wave of election restrictions moving through Republican-controlled state legislatures.But passage of the bill, known as H.R. 1, would end a legislative fight and start a legal war that could dwarf the court challenges aimed at the Affordable Care Act over the past decade.“I have no doubt that if H.R. 1 passes, we’re going to have a dozen major Supreme Court cases on different pieces of it,” said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard.The potential for the bill to set off a sprawling constitutional battle is largely a function of its ambitions. It would end felon disenfranchisement, require independent commissions to draw congressional districts, establish public financing for congressional candidates, order presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, address dark money in political advertising and restructure the Federal Election Commission.The bill’s opponents say that it is, in the words of an editorial in The National Review, “a frontal assault on the Constitution” and “the most comprehensively unconstitutional bill in modern American history.”More measured critics take issue with specific provisions even as they acknowledge that the very nature of the bill — a grab bag of largely unrelated measures — would make it difficult to attack in a systematic way. In that respect, the anticipated challenges differ from those aimed at the Affordable Care Act, some of which sought to destroy the entire law.John O. McGinnis, a law professor at Northwestern University, said the bill went too far, partly because it was first proposed as an aspirational document rather than a practical one in 2019, when Republicans controlled the Senate and it had no hope of becoming law.“It seems very willing to brush past, at least in some cases, some relatively clear constitutional provisions,” he said, citing parts of the bill that require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns and force advocacy groups to disclose their contributors.In March, 20 Republican state attorneys general said they were ready to litigate. “Should the act become law,” they wrote in a letter to congressional leaders, “we will seek legal remedies to protect the Constitution, the sovereignty of all states, our elections and the rights of our citizens.”Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland and one of the lead authors of the package, said drafters had written it with a fusillade of Republican legal challenges in mind and were confident that it would “survive the great majority of them” in the Supreme Court.“I’m extremely comfortable that we built this to last,” Mr. Sarbanes said. “We think that the components are ones that are well girded against constitutional challenge — even by a court that we can imagine will probably start from a place of favorability to some of these challenges.”Democrats have made the bill a top legislative priority. But with Republicans united in opposition in the Senate, its path forward is rocky.Before a key committee vote this month, proponents of the overhaul are expected to introduce a slew of technical changes meant to address concerns raised by state elections administrators. But pushing it through the full chamber and to President Biden’s desk would require all 50 Senate Democrats to agree to suspend the filibuster rule and pass it on a simple party-line vote, a maneuver that at least two Democrats have so far rejected.Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke at a news conference promoting H.R. 1 in March. Democrats have made the bill a top legislative priority.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesSome scholars have urged congressional Democrats to concentrate their efforts on narrower legislation, notably the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which seeks to restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court effectively eliminated by a 5-to-4 vote in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder.The provision, the law’s Section 5, required states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing voting procedures. In the Shelby County decision, the court ruled that the formula for deciding which states were covered violated the Constitution because it was based on outdated data.“Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the civil rights leader who served in the House for more than three decades until his death last year, responds to that invitation by updating the coverage formula. Whether the Supreme Court — which has become more conservative since 2013 — would uphold the new formula and allow Section 5 to be restored is an open question, but the Shelby County decision at least allows Congress to try.Similarly, the court’s precedents suggest that not all of the anticipated challenges to the much broader H.R. 1 would succeed.As a general matter, few doubt that Congress has broad authority to regulate congressional elections because of the elections clause of the Constitution.To be sure, the clause specifies that “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”The clause’s next phrase, though, allows federal lawmakers to override most of the power granted to state legislatures: “But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators.”The elections clause, supplemented by other constitutional provisions, Professor Stephanopoulos wrote in an article to be published in the journal Constitutional Commentary, means that “even the bill’s most controversial elements lie within Congress’s electoral authority, and Congress could actually reach considerably further, if it were so inclined.”But he acknowledged that there was controversy over the sweep of the provision. In a majority opinion in 2013, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in an aside that the clause “empowers Congress to regulate how federal elections are held, but not who may vote in them.” That statement was in tension with the controlling opinion in a 1970 decision that allowed Congress to lower the minimum voting age in congressional elections to 18 from 21.The Supreme Court justices last month. The court has become more conservative since 2013, when it effectively eliminated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf the statement from Justice Scalia is followed, it would raise questions about language in H.R. 1 that seeks to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions who have completed their sentences in states that would otherwise disenfranchise them.Several scholars said the provision might be vulnerable to a legal challenge. “That’s probably the most obvious red flag,” said Franita Tolson, a law professor at the University of Southern California.The Constitution grants Congress considerably less authority over presidential elections than congressional ones, allowing it to set only the timing. But some Supreme Court opinions have said the two kinds of authority are comparable.The bill’s requirement that states create independent commissions to draw congressional districts could also lead to litigation. Such commissions were upheld by a 5-to-4 vote in 2015 in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said Arizona voters were entitled “to address the problem of partisan gerrymandering — the drawing of legislative district lines to subordinate adherents of one political party and entrench a rival party in power.”With changes in the makeup of the Supreme Court since then, the Arizona precedent might be vulnerable, said Travis Crum, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.“In litigation over the 2020 election, several justices — including Justice Brett Kavanaugh — questioned the validity of that precedent,” Professor Crum said. “Given the possibility that the court might overturn that decision in the near future, it is even more imperative that Congress step in and mandate the use of independent redistricting commissions for congressional districts.”In dissent in the Arizona case, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the Constitution specified that only state legislatures had the power to draw congressional maps. Four years later, though, writing for the majority in rejecting a role for federal courts in addressing partisan gerrymandering, he wrote about independent commissions created by ballot measures with seeming approval and said Congress also had a role to play, citing an earlier version of H.R. 1.Representative John Lewis of Georgia outside the Supreme Court in 2013. A voting bill named for him seeks to restore enforcement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, after the court effectively eliminated it.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesThe provision in H.R. 1 establishing a public financing system appears to be consistent with current Supreme Court precedentsIn 2011, by a 5-to-4 vote, the court struck down a different Arizona law, which provided escalating matching funds to participating candidates based on their opponents’ spending. But Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in the case, Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, indicated that more routine public financing systems remained a valid constitutional option.“We do not today call into question the wisdom of public financing as a means of funding political candidacy,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “That is not our business.”Some of the disclosure requirements in H.R. 1 have drawn objections from across the ideological spectrum. The American Civil Liberties Union has said that it supports disclosures tied to “express advocacy” of a candidate’s election or defeat. The bill goes further, though, requiring disclosures in connection with policy debates that refer to candidates.That measure, two A.C.L.U. lawyers wrote in The Washington Post in March, “could directly interfere with the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that they care about and that impact their lives by imposing new and onerous disclosure requirements on nonprofits committed to advancing those causes.”“When a group is advocating policy changes outside the mainstream,” they continued, “they need privacy protections to be able to speak freely and without fear of reprisal.”The Citizens United decision in 2010 upheld the disclosure requirements before it by an 8-to-1 vote, but a pending Supreme Court case, American for Prosperity v. Bonta, might alter the constitutional calculus.Professor McGinnis said he also questioned a provision in the bill that required leaders of organizations to say they stood by the messages in political advertisements. “This seems to me to be eating up airtime without any real justification and subjecting people to harassment,” he said.He also took issue with the bill’s requirement that presidential candidates disclose their tax returns, saying Congress cannot add qualifications to who can run for president beyond those set out in the Constitution: that candidates be natural-born citizens, residents for 14 years and at least 35 years old.A 1995 Supreme Court decision rejecting an attempt by Arkansas to impose term limits on its congressional representatives appears to support the view that lawmakers cannot alter the constitutional requirements.Even if every one of the objections to the bill discussed in this article were to prevail in court, most of the law would survive. “Part of why the attack on H.R. 1 is unlikely to be successful in the end is that the law is not a single coherent structure the way Obamacare was,” Professor Stephanopoulos said. “It’s a hundred different proposals, all packaged together.”“The Roberts court would dislike on policy grounds almost the entire law,” he added. “But I think even this court would end up upholding most — big, big swaths — of the law. It would still leave the most important election bill in American history intact even after the court took its pound of flesh.”Nicholas Fandos More

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      How Chuck Schumer Plans to Win Over Trump Voters

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      In his 100 days address this week, Joe Biden outlined his plans for a big, bold legislative agenda to come. He previewed a two-pronged economic package: the $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan and the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan. He spoke about the need to pass universal background checks for firearms, comprehensive immigration reform, and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.The success of that agenda hinges on whether 50 Senate Democrats — ranging from Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin — can come together and pass legislation. They don’t have a single vote to spare. And the person responsible for making that happens is the New York senator and Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.Schumer has a theory of politics that he believes can hold or even win Democrats seats in 2022. It’s not a complicated theory: For Democrats to win over middle-of-the-road voters — including those who voted for Donald Trump — they need to prove that government is actually helping them. But to do that, the government needs to actually help those voters, in clear and visible ways. That means passing big, bold legislation. And the institution Schumer leads — the Senate — is the primary obstacle to that happening.So I invited Schumer on the show to talk about how exactly he plans on doing that. How do you win over Trump voters? What kinds of economic policies can help deliver Democrats victory in 2022? How should the party approach topics like race and gender? How will he pass bills, like the For The People Act, that can’t go through budget reconciliation? And, of course, what do you do about the filibuster?(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday.)Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Roge Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld. More

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      Police Told to Hold Back on Capitol Riot Response, Report Finds

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      Despite being tipped that “Congress itself is the target” on Jan. 6, Capitol Police were ordered not to use their most powerful crowd-control weapons, according to a scathing new watchdog report.WASHINGTON — The Capitol Police had clearer advance warnings about the Jan. 6 attack than were previously known, including the potential for violence in which “Congress itself is the target.” But officers were instructed by their leaders not to use their most aggressive tactics to hold off the mob, according to a scathing new report by the agency’s internal investigator.In a 104-page document, the inspector general, Michael A. Bolton, criticized the way the Capitol Police prepared for and responded to the mob violence on Jan. 6. The report was reviewed by The New York Times and will be the subject of a Capitol Hill hearing on Thursday.Mr. Bolton found that the agency’s leaders failed to adequately prepare despite explicit warnings that pro-Trump extremists posed a threat to law enforcement and civilians and that the police used defective protective equipment. He also found that the leaders ordered their Civil Disturbance Unit to refrain from using its most powerful crowd-control tools — like stun grenades — to put down the onslaught.The report offers the most devastating account to date of the lapses and miscalculations around the most violent attack on the Capitol in two centuries.Three days before the siege, a Capitol Police intelligence assessment warned of violence from supporters of President Donald J. Trump who believed his false claims that the election had been stolen. Some had even posted a map of the Capitol complex’s tunnel system on pro-Trump message boards.“Unlike previous postelection protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counterprotesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th,” the threat assessment said, according to the inspector general’s report. “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike.”How a Presidential Rally Turned Into a Capitol RampageWe analyzed the alternating perspectives of President Trump at the podium, the lawmakers inside the Capitol and a growing mob’s destruction and violence.But on Jan. 5, the agency wrote in a plan for the protest that there were “no specific known threats related to the joint session of Congress.” And the former chief of the Capitol Police has testified that the force had determined that the likelihood of violence was “improbable.”Mr. Bolton concluded such intelligence breakdowns stemmed from dysfunction within the agency and called for “guidance that clearly documents channels for efficiently and effectively disseminating intelligence information to all of its personnel.”That failure conspired with other lapses inside the Capitol Police force to create a dangerous situation on Jan. 6, according to his account. The agency’s Civil Disturbance Unit, which specializes in handling large groups of protesters, was not allowed to use some of its most powerful tools and techniques against the crowd, on the orders of supervisors.“Heavier, less-lethal weapons,” including stun grenades, “were not used that day because of orders from leadership,” Mr. Bolton wrote. Officials on duty on Jan. 6 told him that such equipment could have helped the police to “push back the rioters.”Mr. Bolton’s findings are scheduled to be discussed on Thursday afternoon, when he is set to testify before the House Administration Committee. He has issued two investigative reports — both classified as “law enforcement sensitive” and not publicly released — about the agency’s shortcomings on Jan. 6. He is also planning a third report.CNN first reported on a summary of the latest findings.The report — titled, “Review of the Events Surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Takeover of the U.S. Capitol” — reserves some of its harshest criticism for the management of the agency’s Civil Disturbance Unit, which exists to prevent tragedies like Jan. 6. Instead, nearly 140 officers were injured, and one, Officer Brian D. Sicknick, later collapsed and died after being assaulted by rioters.The Civil Disturbance Unit, Mr. Bolton wrote, was “operating at a decreased level of readiness as a result of a lack of standards for equipment.” In particular, Mr. Bolton focused in on an embarrassing lack of functional shields for Capitol Police officers during the riot.Some of the shields that officers were equipped with during the riot “shattered upon impact” because they had been improperly stored in a trailer that was not climate-controlled, Mr. Bolton found. Others could not be used by officers in desperate need of protection because the shields were locked on a bus.“When the crowd became unruly, the C.D.U. platoon attempted to access the bus to distribute the shields but were unable because the door was locked,” the report said, using an abbreviation for the Civil Disturbance Unit. The platoon “was consequently required to respond to the crowd without the protection of their riot shields.”Mr. Bolton also said that the agency had an out-of-date roster and staffing issues.“It is my hope that the recommendations will result in more effective, efficient, and/or economical operations,” he wrote.Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Administration Committee, called the inspector general’s findings “disturbing” but said he had provided Congress with “important recommendations” for an overhaul.Since the Jan. 6 attack, Congress has undertaken a series of security reviews about what went wrong. The three top security officials in charge that day resigned in disgrace, and they have since deflected responsibility for the intelligence failures, blaming other agencies, each other and at one point even a subordinate for the breakdowns that allowed hundreds of Trump supporters to storm the Capitol.“None of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred,” the former Capitol Police chief, Steven A. Sund, testified in February before the Senate. “These criminals came prepared for war.”But the inspector general report makes clear that the agency had received some warnings about how Mr. Trump’s extremist supporters were growing increasingly desperate as he promoted lies about election theft.“Supporters of the current president see Jan. 6, 2021, as the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election,” said the assessment three days before the riot. “This sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent.”The Department of Homeland Security warned the Capitol Police on Dec. 21 of comments on a pro-Trump website promoting attacks on members of Congress with a map of the tunnel system, according to the inspector general’s findings.“Several comments promote confronting members of Congress and carrying firearms during the protest,” a Capitol Police analyst wrote.Among the comments reported to the Capitol Police: “Bring guns. It’s now or never,” and, “We can’t give them a choice. Overwhelming armed numbers is our only chance.”On Jan. 5, the F.B.I.’s Norfolk field office, in Virginia, relayed another threat from an anonymous social media thread that warned of a looming war at the Capitol.“Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled,” the message read. “Get violent … stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”Last month, Mr. Sund testified that the F.B.I. report reached the Capitol Police the day before the attack, but not him directly. He said that an officer assigned to a law enforcement joint terrorism task force received the document and sent it to an unnamed intelligence division official on the force.Nevertheless, Mr. Bolton said, Capitol Police fell short in several other ways in preventing a mob attack.The agency did not train its recent recruits with the required 40 hours of civil disturbance training, citing concerns about the coronavirus, and failed to ensure its officers completed their 16 to 24 hours of annual training over “the past few years.”Munitions stocked in the police armory were beyond their expiration date, and the agency repeatedly failed to adequately complete required quarterly audits of the unit, the inspector general said.Moreover, within the agency, the Civil Disturbance Unit “has a reputation as an undesired assignment” and that fostered a “culture” that decreased “operational readiness,” the inspector general found.Nicholas Fandos More