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      Macron’s Win Is Also a Blow to Orban’s Nationalist Crusade in Europe

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      The Hungarian leader had cast his own victory as the start of a nationalist wave in Europe — one that Marine Le Pen would have joined. Instead, Mr. Macron’s victory in France is a win for the European Union’s approach.BRUSSELS — There were sighs of relief throughout the European Union after President Emmanuel Macron beat back a serious challenge in France from the populist far-right champion Marine Le Pen.Then another populist went down, in Slovenia, where the country’s three-time prime minister, Janez Jansa, lost to a loose coalition of centrist rivals in parliamentary elections on Sunday.Those two defeats were widely seen as a reprieve for the European Union and its fundamental principles, including judicial independence, shared sovereignty and the supremacy of European law. That is because they dealt a blow to the ambitions and worldview of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, who avidly supported both Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Jansa in an effort to create a coalition of more nationalist, religious and anti-immigration politics that could undermine the authority of the European Union itself.“Europe can breathe,” said Jean-Dominique Giuliani, chairman of the Robert Schuman Foundation, a pro-European research center.After his own electoral victory earlier this month, Mr. Orban declared: “The whole world has seen tonight in Budapest that Christian democratic politics, conservative civic politics and patriotic politics have won. We are telling Europe that this is not the past: This is the future. This will be our common European future.”Not yet, it seems.With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Orban, who has been close to both former President Donald J. Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president, is more isolated in Europe than in many years. He has been a model for the Polish government of the Law and Justice party, which has also challenged what it considers the liberal politics and the overbearing bureaucratic and judicial influence of Brussels. But Law and Justice is deeply anti-Putin, a mood sharpened by the war.Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary in Szekesfehervar during his party’s final rally before the election this month.Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times“The international environment for Orban has never been so dire,” said Peter Kreko, director of Political Capital, a Budapest-based research institution.Mr. Orban found support from Mr. Trump, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and from the Italian populist leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. But they are all gone, as Mr. Jansa is expected to be, and now Mr. Orban “has fewer friends in the world,” Mr. Kreko said.Ms. Le Pen’s party was given a 10.7 million euro loan in March to help fund her campaign from Hungary’s MKB bank, whose major shareholders are considered close to Mr. Orban. And Hungarian media and social media openly supported both Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Jansa.Ms. Le Pen’s strong showing was a reminder that populism — on both the right and the left — remains a vibrant force in a Europe, with high voter dissatisfaction over rising inflation, soaring energy prices, slow growth, immigration and the bureaucracy emanating from E.U. headquarters in Brussels.But now Mr. Macron, as the first French president to be re-elected in 20 years, has new authority to press his ideas for more European responsibility and collective defense.Marine Le Pen conceding to Mr. Macron on Sunday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesAfter the retirement late last year of Angela Merkel, the former chancellor of Germany, Mr. Macron will inevitably be seen as the de facto leader of the European Union, with a stronger voice and standing to push issues he cares about. Those include a more robust European pillar in defense and security, economic reform and fighting climate change.“He is going to want to go further and faster,” said Georgina Wright, an analyst at the Institut Montaigne in Paris.But Ms. Wright and other analysts say he must also learn lessons from his first term and try to consult more widely. His penchant for announcing proposals rather than building coalitions at times annoyed his European counterparts, leaving him portrayed as a vanguard of one, leading with no followers.“Europe is central to his policy and will be in his second term, too,” said Jeremy Shapiro, research director for the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. “In the first term, he underachieved relative to his expectations on Europe — he had a lot of grand plans but failed to create the coalitions he needed, with Germany and the Central European states, to implement them.”The Dutch, too, as the Netherlands and Germany together lead Europe’s “frugal” nations, are skeptical about Mr. Macron’s penchant to spend more of their money on European projects.Mr. Macron “knows that lesson and is making some efforts in the context of the Russian war against Ukraine,” Mr. Shapiro said. “But he’s still Emmanuel Macron.”In his second term, Mr. Macron “will double down” on the ideas for Europe that he presented in his speech to the Sorbonne in 2017, “especially the idea of European sovereignty,” said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund.But in his second term, she predicted, he will be more pragmatic, building “coalitions of the willing and able” even if he cannot find unanimity among the other 26 Union members.Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia on Sunday, hours before the announcement that his party had lost to a centrist coalition.Jure Makovec/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFrance holds the rotating presidency of the bloc until the end of June, and one of Mr. Macron’s priorities will be to push forward an oil embargo on Russia, Ms. de Hoop Scheffer said, a move that has been complicated by the fact that many in the bloc are dependent on Moscow for energy.The climate agenda is important for him, especially if he wants to reach out to the angry left and the Greens in France. And to get much done in Europe, he will need to restore and strengthen the Franco-German relationship with a new, very different and divided German government.“That relationship is not easy, and when you look at the Franco-German couple, not a lot keeps us together,” Ms. de Hoop Scheffer said.There are differences over Mr. Macron’s desire for more collective debt for another European recovery plan, given the effects of war. There is also a lack of consensus over how to manage the response to Russia’s aggression, she said — how much to keep lines open to Mr. Putin, and what kinds of military support should be provided to Ukraine in the face of German hesitancy to supply heavy weapons.Germany is much happier to work in wartime within NATO under American leadership than to spend much time on Mr. Macron’s concept of European strategic autonomy, she noted. And Poland and the other frontline states bordering Russia have never had much confidence in Mr. Macron’s goal of strategic autonomy or his promise to do nothing to undermine NATO, a feeling underscored by the current war.If Mr. Macron is clever, “French leadership in Europe will not be followership by the other E.U. countries, but their empowerment, by their commitment to a new European vision,” said Nicholas Dungan, a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council. “Macron can do this.”Campaign posters for the presidential runoff candidates in Paris last week.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times More

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      In France, a Victory and a Warning

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      More from our inbox:Church Support of the ‘Big Lie’When Tragedy Strikes, Grandma and Grandpa Are ThereReturning to AustraliaRussian Disinformation, Then and NowHandwritten Archives, to Capture HistoryCampaign posters featuring Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, in the French town of Roye, where two out of three voters backed Ms. Le Pen.James Hill for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “In France, Macron Defeats Le Pen for Presidency” (front page, April 25):That the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen came as close as she did to defeating Emmanuel Macron in France is further confirmation that extremists are successfully normalizing autocrat-friendly nationalist messaging.Ms. Le Pen, a longtime sympathizer of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, said in her concession speech, “The ideas we stand for are reaching new heights,” Le Monde reported.As chilling as that sounds, she’s correct, and the world should pay closer attention. But for now, those in the West who embrace free thinking, democracy and even just a scintilla of globalism can breathe a very brief sigh of relief.Cody LyonBrooklynTo the Editor:My dear French friends, you may have won a battle by re-electing Emmanuel Macron, but you are losing the war. So long as the reach of the bigoted right wing grows, France is losing.When in the midst of a gunfight, and with the other side getting stronger, dodging one bullet is no reason to celebrate.Peter MailleLa Grande, Ore.To the Editor:Has anyone noticed that Marine Le Pen, the loser, has actually accepted the results of the election and conceded? What a novel idea!And Vive la France!Irene Bernstein-PechmèzeQueensTo the Editor:I recall an earlier election when another Le Pen made it to the second round. In 2002, Marine’s father, Jean-Marie, was crushed 82 percent to 18 percent by the conservative Jacques Chirac. Leftist voters did their republican duty, voting against those who would put an end to democracy itself.The French do not like Emmanuel Macron. But they remember fascism. Perhaps if Americans had such memories, they would better defend the democracy that they are losing, bit by bit, every day.Bob NelsonYuma, Ariz.Church Support of the ‘Big Lie’ Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Stolen-Election Falsehood Goes to Church” (front page, April 25):You report that some evangelical pastors are hosting events dedicated to Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen and promoting the cause to their congregations.To the extent that such a charge is true, do these churches still retain any semblance of a religious exemption from federal and state taxes, which prohibits political campaign activity? Just wondering.Michael PeskoeMiami BeachTo the Editor:How do church leaders who preach from the new King James Version of the Bible — “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” John 8:32 — perpetuate a lie?Talk about cognitive dissonance.Harriet VinesChapel Hill, N.C.To the Editor:Of all the scary articles in The Times about Ukraine, Russia, wildfires, climate change, Marine Le Pen, Ron DeSantis and more, I found the one about evangelical pastors by far the scariest.Ellen SchafferPalm Coast, Fla.When Tragedy Strikes, Grandma and Grandpa Are ThereMia Scala, 6, hugs her grandfather Angelo Conti, 74, while waiting for a Girl Scouts meeting to start.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesTo the Editor:“When Parents Are Lost to Covid, Grandparents Step In,” by Paula Span (news article, April 14), not only recognizes the role that grandparents are playing in the wake of Covid, it also acknowledges that “extended family has always been the first line of defense in the wake of such tragedies.”For my book on the history of American grandmothers, many of the 75 women I interviewed told about a 1950s grandmother who stepped up — took the grandchildren into her home or went to live in the grandchild’s home — when things fell apart because of parents’ death, divorce or illness.None of the grandmothers had anticipated this refilling of their empty nests, all of them struggled with the responsibility, and all of their granddaughters-turned-grandmothers now look back with awe at what their grandmothers did for them.One notable change from then to now: Grandfathers in the 1950s were not active in their care the way older men are today, another example of how feminism has improved family life.Engagement with grandchildren is not just a delightful extra in family life, it is also a serious form of insurance. Should a tragedy mean that grandchildren must live with grandparents, that painful transition is eased if the elders and the kids have experience with one another aside from holidays and have built trust over time.No grandparent wants the custodial job, but every grandparent should consider time with grandchildren as an investment in their security.Victoria Bissell BrownHavertown, Pa.The writer, a retired professor of American history at Grinnell College, is working on a book titled “The Nana Project.”Returning to AustraliaFamilies reuniting at the Sydney International Airport.To the Editor:Re “A Post-Lockout Reunion of Yearning and Dread,” by Isabella Kwai (Sydney Dispatch, April 10):The last time I had been home to Australia to see my entire family was in May 2019. At one point, over Zoom, my sister told me that it was as if I had flown to the moon and never returned.The plane home in January was completely full of anxious expats and earnest American grandparents eager to see newly minted Aussie grandbabies. All the arrival hugs were tighter and longer than they had ever been. The smiles were wider and the welcomes longer — even from the custom officials! And maybe the accents were even broader!And … yes … if I could have bottled the dawn laughter from the troop of cheeky kookaburras camped outside my Brisbane window just days before I returned to the U.S., I would have.Patricia RyanWest Lafayette, Ind.Russian Disinformation, Then and NowTo the Editor:The state-sponsored disinformation spread to the Russian people is an old game. In the 1930s my father traveled to Russia. As was required, he had an Intourist guide with him at all times. As they became more friendly, she started to ask him about life in the U.S.“You live in New York,” she said. “Tell me about the skyscrapers that fall down.” He could not convince her that such things were not happening. She told him that all Russians knew about the frequently falling skyscrapers and was disappointed that he couldn’t be more candid with her about it.The acceptance of such nonsense appears to be embedded by a long history, though the current pernicious version is surprising in an era of greater access to outside information.Ty DillardSanta Fe, N.M.Handwritten Archives, to Capture HistoryTo the Editor:Re “Preserving a Couple’s ’60s Insights,” by Douglas Brinkley (Arts pages, April 19):Doris Kearns Goodwin sums up the special role of archives in the last lines of this excellent and informative article:“Oh, how I love old handwritten letters and diaries. I feel as if I’m looking over the shoulder of the writer. History comes alive!”How sad that in today’s world of computers and “no paper,” the progression from draft to final speech or report will no longer exist in many cases. The “delete” key has replaced crossing out, rewriting by hand and literally cutting and pasting.Some of us fear that using only the computer means that there will be no file of marked-up notes or previous drafts for historians to see and then give us that looking-over-the-shoulder feeling. That will keep history from coming alive.Sally DorstNew YorkThe writer is a retired magazine editor. More

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      Merrick Garland Finds His Footing as Attorney General

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      During a recent swing through the South, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland chatted up participants in a police program in Georgia aimed at redirecting youth who had sold bottled water on interstate highways into less dangerous work. He announced funding to address policing problems like the use of excessive force. He talked about mental health support, an issue he has thought about since he saw firsthand how officers who responded to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing struggled to process the horror.For all of the attention on the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, the trip was focused on the everyday work of being the attorney general, fighting crime and serving as a steward of law enforcement. Over two days in Georgia and Louisiana, Mr. Garland, in interviews with The New York Times on his plane and later in Baton Rouge, would say only that the assault on the Capitol “completely wiped out” any doubts he had about taking the post.“I felt that this was exactly why I had agreed to be attorney general in the first place,” he said. “Jan. 6 is a date that showed what happens if the rule of law breaks down.”By most accounts, becoming attorney general was a tough adjustment for a former appeals judge who had last worked at the Justice Department in the late 1990s. But more than a year into his tenure, colleagues say that a cautious leader has found some footing, more a prosecutor now than a deliberator.In interviews, a dozen administration officials and federal prosecutors, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, said Mr. Garland, 69, initially ran his office like a judge’s chambers, peppering even Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta with the kind of granular questions that clerks might expect while writing his opinions.But the slow pace that characterized Mr. Garland’s early months has somewhat quickened. Decisions that took weeks at the outset can now take a day. And with more top officials confirmed, he can be less directly involved in the department’s day-to-day work.Mr. Garland has said that the department must remain independent from improper influence if it is to deliver on its top priorities: to uphold the rule of law, keep the nation safe and protect civil rights.Mr. Garland and his chief of staff, Matt Klapper, in Atlanta. Career employees at the Justice Department say they no longer feel the political pressure they did during the Trump administration.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesHe has notched victories. Many career employees say they no longer feel pressure to satisfy blatantly political demands, as they did under the previous administration. The department created a unit dedicated to fighting domestic terrorism and charged important cybercrime cases. Prosecutors won high-profile convictions in the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger, and George Floyd, a Black motorist.But in a significant setback, prosecutors failed to win convictions against four men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. The Bureau of Prisons remains plagued by violence, sexual abuse and corruption. And Democrats still castigate Mr. Garland for not moving more aggressively to indict former President Donald J. Trump for trying to undo his election loss. Republican critics accuse him of using the department to improperly wade into culture wars, including fights over school curriculums and the pandemic response.A Challenging First YearSeated on a sofa in the U.S. attorney’s office in Baton Rouge, Mr. Garland detailed the chaos he encountered when he took the reins in March 2021. Colleagues said that if the typical transition between parties is like relay racers passing a baton, this was a runner searching for a stick dropped on the track.Trump administration officials who expected to spend their final weeks preparing briefing binders for the incoming administration instead parried false cries of voter fraud and absorbed the horror of the Capitol attack. Mr. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat shortened the transition process. The Biden team would not be up to speed on every issue that awaited them.The first order of business was the nine-week-old Jan. 6 investigation, which entailed a nationwide manhunt and hundreds of criminal cases.Mr. Garland and his top officials, Ms. Monaco and Ms. Gupta, issued policy memos, filed lawsuits and secured indictments related to federal executions, hate crimes, domestic extremism and voter suppression, among other concerns.Vanita Gupta, the associate attorney general, speaking with Mr. Garland in Baton Rouge. Mr. Garland initially ran the Justice Department in a deliberative style, but the pace has quickened.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesMs. Gupta scrutinized corporate mergers and initiated reviews of police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky. Ms. Monaco’s office, which oversees the Jan. 6 inquiry, eased tensions between prosecutors and officials on the case. She closed the federal prison in Manhattan to address subpar conditions, and is pushing for more Bureau of Prisons reforms.Soft-spoken and slight, Mr. Garland has an understated manner that makes him easy to underestimate, associates said. But they insisted that his questions were always probing, and that he seemed to remember every answer.Some aides said he was slow to shift the department away from postures that had hardened during the Trump era. He took four months to reaffirm a longstanding policy that strictly limits the president’s contact with the department and to curb the seizure of reporters’ records. The department sued Georgia three months after the state passed a restrictive voting law, frustrating the White House.Prosecutors were told over a year ago to expect a new memo allowing them to forgo harsh mandatory minimum sentences, such as those for nonviolent drug dealers who had sold crack rather than cocaine. They are still waiting.In a move that some aides believe reflected the unusually high level of detail he needed to feel prepared, Mr. Garland often dispatched Ms. Monaco to attend White House meetings in his place. This year, he has attended nearly all of them.Ms. Monaco’s office overcame hiccups, too. It did not play its traditional management role under its predecessor, and she had to ease information bottlenecks. Exceedingly wary about cybercrime, she used a pseudonymous email address. That precaution, normally taken by attorneys general, gave those outside her staff the impression that she was difficult to reach.“I’m delegating more,” Mr. Garland said in the interview. “It’s easier to deal with crises every day, and new decisions, if you’re not still working on the old ones.” With Covid risks easing, he has held more meetings of the kind he attended in Georgia and Louisiana, and has met in person more frequently with his leadership team.Mr. Garland meeting with local law enforcement officers at the Justice Department’s office in Atlanta. Mr. Garland has held more in-person meetings as Covid risks have eased.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesHe will not say when he intends to step down, but administration officials believe that he would willingly serve beyond the midterm election.Protecting the Rule of LawFor most of a 90-minute flight to Atlanta on a 12-seat government plane, Mr. Garland sat near the front, editing speeches, conferring with his chief of staff and juggling updates from Washington. In a quiet moment in the interview, he spoke with seeming relish about his prior life as a prosecutor. He recalled uncovering a State Department record that proved a witness had lied, and shining a flashlight behind a document to show a judge and jury that a defendant had doctored it with correction fluid.As a special assistant to Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti in 1979, Mr. Garland helped codify reforms that stemmed from President Nixon’s abuses of power. After a stint in private practice, he became a top department official under Attorney General Janet Reno. He supervised the investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing, that era’s most serious domestic terrorism attack, before joining the federal appeals court in Washington.Mr. Garland, then an associate deputy attorney general, speaking to the news media in 1995 about the trial of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressMr. Biden asked Mr. Garland to lead the department the day before Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed Congress. At home on Jan. 6 writing his acceptance speech, Mr. Garland watched the attack unfold on television.“Failure to make clear by words and deed that our law is not the instrument of partisan purpose” would imperil the country, Mr. Garland said the next day, when his nomination was announced.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 6Numerous inquiries. More

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      Kemp and Perdue Debate, Looking Back at 2020 and Ahead to Abrams

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      Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and his Republican primary opponent, former Senator David Perdue, bickered over the previous election — and over who would be more likely to defeat Stacey Abrams in November. ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and former Senator David Perdue, a former ally who is challenging him in the Republican primary next month, met in an explosive first debate on Sunday night that was marked by a lengthy rehashing of the 2020 election’s outcome and testy attacks each other’s veracity.During the hourlong exchange, the candidates sparred over their conservative bona fides, a handful of policy issues popular on the right and who would ultimately be the stronger candidate against Stacey Abrams in November.Mr. Perdue, who was defeated in a runoff last year by Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, repeatedly echoed former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election had been “stolen and rigged” against the two of them, though multiple ballot recounts confirmed they had lost fair and square. Mr. Perdue, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump to challenge Mr. Kemp in the May 24 primary, assailed Mr. Kemp for refusing to call a special Georgia legislative session to try to overturn the election’s results.Mr. Perdue insisted he would still be a sitting United States senator if Mr. Kemp hadn’t “caved.”But when Mr. Perdue claimed that he had repeatedly asked Mr. Kemp to call such a special session, the governor pushed back forcefully, reminding voters of the many days he and his family had spent on Mr. Perdue’s campaign bus, trying in vain to help him win a second term. “Folks, he never asked me,” Mr. Kemp said. And when Mr. Perdue repeatedly accused the governor of lying, Mr. Kemp challenged him to produce witnesses to back up his claims.Each man portrayed the other unfavorably in light of 2020: Mr. Perdue said Mr. Kemp had betrayed Republican voters by failing to overturn the election, and Mr. Kemp pointed to Mr. Perdue’s loss to Mr. Ossoff as proof that he is too weak to defeat Ms. Abrams, the Democrat who narrowly lost to Mr. Kemp in 2018 and is making a second run for governor this year.Ms. Abrams’s candidacy loomed large over the entire evening, as both men underlined the danger they said she posed to Georgia if she wound up in the governor’s mansion. While Mr. Kemp holds a double-digit lead over Mr. Perdue in several polls, Mr. Perdue sought to remind voters of Mr. Kemp’s 1.4-percentage-point victory margin in 2018.“He barely beat Stacey Abrams in ’18, when I helped him secure President Trump’s endorsement, which he still today doesn’t think helped him at all,” Mr. Perdue said. The slugfest never let up, as a focus on Georgia policy issues in the debate’s second half-hour devolved into a fight over who was more authentically conservative, each candidate seeking to outflank the other from the right on education, public safety and jobs. Mr. Kemp doubled down on his support for a bill that prohibits teaching of “divisive concepts” on race and history, saying that Republicans in the state “passed this piece of legislation to make sure that our kids are not going to be indoctrinated in our schools,” and that curriculums should focus on “the facts, not somebody’s ideology.”But Mr. Perdue accused Mr. Kemp of abrogating his responsibility to protect students, parents and teachers alike. “They need to make sure that the woke mob’s not taking over the schools, and you’ve left them high and dry,” he said, asserting that the Atlanta schools were “teaching kids that voter ID is racist.”Answering a question about Latino voters, Mr. Perdue criticized Mr. Kemp’s record on immigration, recalling a 2018 campaign ad in which Mr. Kemp promised to use his own pickup truck to “round up illegals.” “Governor, what happened? Your pickup break down?” Mr. Perdue asked.Mr. Kemp said that the Covid-19 pandemic had intervened, saying that “picking up” people would only have helped spread infection in the state — and then reminded voters, for the umpteenth time, of Mr. Perdue’s defeat last year.“The fact is, if you hadn’t lost your race to Jon Ossoff, we wouldn’t have lost control of the Senate, and we wouldn’t have the disaster that we have in Washington right now,” Mr. Kemp said.A few clear-cut policy rifts did come into view over Georgia-specific issues.The two took opposite views of a new factory to produce electric trucks that is being built by Rivian Automotive in the state. Mr. Kemp exalted the project for the thousands of jobs it is expected to create, while Mr. Perdue cited an investment by the Democratic megadonor George Soros to dismiss Rivian as a “woke company,” saying that the project would redirect Georgians’ tax dollars into Mr. Soros’s pocket.Mr. Perdue attacked Mr. Kemp from several angles over rising crime in Atlanta, saying the governor had shrunk the size of the Georgia State Patrol and faulting him for failing to get behind an effort by some residents of Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead neighborhood, alarmed about the surge in violent crime, to secede from the city. He accused the governor of staying out of the fray over the Buckhead secession movement for the sake of the “big company cronies downtown that are his big donors, that are desperate to not let that happen.”Mr. Kemp said he had raised troopers’ salaries, enhanced their training, created a crime suppression unit and deployed more troopers in metro Atlanta. And he pointed to his signing this month of a law allowing Georgians to carry concealed firearms without a permit.That was another way of fighting crime, he said.“The bad people already have the guns,” Mr. Kemp said. “We’re trying to give law-abiding citizens the ability to protect themselves, their family and their property.”Right to the end, both candidates were on message, and the message was largely a dim view of each other.In his closing, Mr. Perdue called Mr. Kemp a “weak governor trying to cover up a bad record.”Mr. Kemp, in his own summation, said Mr. Perdue was attacking his record in office “because he has none of his own, which is why he didn’t win his Senate race.” More

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      Boss Trump, ‘the Sorest Loser of All Time’

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      More from our inbox:Does Our Patent System Need to Be Reformed?Former President Donald J. Trump took the stage at a Save America rally in Michigan earlier this month.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Mar-a-Lago Machine: Trump as a Modern-Day Party Boss” (front page, April 18):This disturbing and prescient article makes for painful reading. Everything that the hopeful pundits of 2020 predicted — that Donald Trump would fade away after his defeat, that he would run out of money, that his legal troubles would overwhelm him, that he would be exposed as a cheap, huckstering demagogue — has proved wrong.Instead he has emerged stronger than ever, with his legal troubles melting away, money pouring in and vast numbers of Americans fervently supporting him.Since 2020, those same hopeful pundits have been predicting that Mr. Trump won’t run in 2024 and that other Republicans somehow have a chance. But of course he will; why wouldn’t he? And when he does, he will be hard to beat.There is a kind of awful inevitability about Mr. Trump and his gang of Mar-a-Lago sycophants. It will be a dark day for our country if he once again becomes president.Tim ShawCambridge, Mass.To the Editor:“Trump’s Allies Keep Up Fight to Nullify Vote” (front page, April 19) is disturbing. But this never-ending effort to reverse the 2020 election keeps reminding everyone that Donald Trump is a loser — the sorest loser of all time.And one thing we know that Donald Trump detests is a loser.So as the months go by and turn into years, as the court cases and investigations proceed, Mr. Trump continues to remind us he is a loser. No matter how much he and his friends try, while defying facts, logic and the law, no matter how many tantrums he throws or lies he tells, he not only reminds us he’s a loser. He also reminds himself.Rick BeardsleyBoca Raton, Fla.Does Our Patent System Need to Be Reformed? Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times; photographs by Yevgen Romanenko, moi/amanaimagesRF, Westend61 and Marie Hickman, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Save America’s Patent System” (editorial, Sunday Review, April 17):I commend The Times’s editorial board for making a compelling case for reform of our patent system. I have an incurable cancer. The drugs keeping me alive — which carry a list price of more than $900,000 annually — will one day stop working, so I care deeply about innovation and new drug development. But drugs don’t work if people can’t afford them.When a drug company makes a truly inventive discovery, it should be rewarded with a patent and receive a fair return. But the drug industry would have you believe that every patent granted is an indicator of innovative achievement. That couldn’t be further from the truth.In fact, the industry’s anti-competitive practices actually inhibit innovation. Neither new patents nor new drugs necessarily equal real innovation. Worse, in too many cases manufacturers are gaming America’s patent system to prevent competition and block affordable generic and biosimilar drugs from coming to market.We can — and should — bring down monopoly prices by empowering Medicare to negotiate, but we must also reform our patent system to address the drivers that lead to unjustified monopolies in the first place.David MitchellBethesda, Md.The writer is the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now.To the Editor:America’s biopharmaceutical research companies support solutions that will lower health care costs, while some of the policies outlined in the editorial would simply harm patients.Biopharmaceutical innovation is difficult and risky, with only 12 percent of medicines in the pipeline entering clinical trials ever achieving F.D.A. approval. Patents play an essential role in encouraging innovation by helping fuel the investments that result in new treatments and cures.Patents do not establish a monopoly on treating a condition. Instead, they propel progress. A new patent on a product provides protection only for the invention it protects — it does not provide additional exclusivity for underlying products. Contrary to the editorial board’s assertion, the Patent and Trademark Office is not issuing sham patents.Drugmakers should continue researching ways their medicines can help tackle different diseases, treat new patient populations, like children, and make lifesaving treatments, like chemotherapy, more tolerable for patients. Progress is a good thing, and it should be encouraged, not punished.The Restoring the America Invents Act would benefit big patent infringers, like many big technology companies, and make the legal landscape more uncertain for researchers focused on bringing forward new medical advances for patients.Anne McDonald PritchettWashingtonThe writer is senior vice president, policy, research and membership, for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.To the Editor:It shouldn’t be controversial to expect patented inventions to be new and useful, but it is. That’s because a handful of big companies treat the Patent Office like an A.T.M.: a reliable source of cash for the cost of a small fee. Because the Patent Office depends on those fees, it treats companies applying for protection like customers to be served instead of applicants to be evaluated. What about members of the public who depend on patented technology to earn a living, get an education, or access medical care? We get ignored.The editorial board is absolutely right: The patent system needs to change. But those who benefit from it most will fight tooth and nail to protect it. We need the new director of the Patent Office to prioritize the public’s interest and the patent system’s purpose — promoting scientific and technological progress — no matter how loud the cries of private companies accustomed to five-star service.Alex MossSouth Pasadena, Calif.The writer is executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute.To the Editor:Your editorial wrongly targets our innovative insulin drug, Glargine, as an example of using patents to create a monopoly, ignoring that it has had biosimilar competition since 2016. Focusing on the patents for our delivery device is misleading because they have not prevented the development and sale of biosimilar Glargine products, let alone those with other non-infringing delivery methods.To make its case, the editorial board tied patents to the cost of medicine, which too many Americans struggle to afford. But Sanofi offers a comprehensive insulin safety net, giving uninsured patients ready access to free and low-cost insulin, while commercially insured patients all qualify for co-payment assistance that lowers out-of-pocket costs for most patients to $10 or less. And every Sanofi insulin is included in a Medicare program that caps costs for seniors.We are wary of imperiling a patent system that has put the U.S. first in biomedical innovation and generic drug penetration. We believe that the board would benefit readers by telling the complete story.Adam GluckWashingtonThe writer is senior vice president and head of U.S. corporate affairs at Sanofi. More

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      Filing Provides New Details on Trump White House Planning for Jan. 6

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      Testimony disclosed by the House committee investigating the attack showed that Mark Meadows and Freedom Caucus members discussed directing marchers to the Capitol as Congress certified the election results.WASHINGTON — Before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Trump White House officials and members of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus strategized about a plan to direct thousands of angry marchers to the building, according to newly released testimony obtained by the House committee investigating the riot and former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.On a planning call that included Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff; Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer; Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio; and other Freedom Caucus members, the group discussed the idea of encouraging supporters to march to the Capitol, according to one witness’s account.The idea was endorsed by Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, who now leads the Freedom Caucus, according to testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Mr. Meadows, and no one on the call spoke out against the idea.“I don’t think there’s a participant on the call that had necessarily discouraged the idea,” Ms. Hutchinson told the committee’s investigators.The nearly two-mile march from the president’s “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse to the Capitol, where parts of the crowd became a violent mob, has become a focus of both the House committee and the Justice Department as they investigate who was responsible for the violence.Mr. Meadows and members of the Freedom Caucus, who were deeply involved in Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, have condemned the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and defended their role in spreading the lie of a stolen election.Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony and other materials disclosed by the committee in a 248-page court filing on Friday added new details and texture to what is publicly known about the discussions in Mr. Trump’s inner circle and among his allies in the weeks preceding the Jan. 6 assault.Read the Jan. 6 Committee’s Filing in Its Lawsuit With Mark MeadowsThe committee alleged that Mark Meadows, the final chief of staff for President Donald J. Trump, was told that an effort to try to overturn the 2020 election using so-called alternate electors were not “legally sound” and that Jan. 6 could turn violent, but he pushed forward with plans to hold a rally in Washington anyway.Read Document 248 pagesThe filing is part of the committee’s effort to seek the dismissal of a lawsuit brought against it by Mr. Meadows. It disclosed testimony that Mr. Meadows was told that plans to try to overturn the 2020 election using so-called alternate electors were not “legally sound” and that the events of Jan. 6 could turn violent. Even so, he pushed forward with the rally that led to the march on the Capitol, according to the filing.The filing also disclosed new details of Mr. Meadows’s involvement in attempts to pressure Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, over Mr. Trump’s loss there.At rallies in Washington in November and December of 2020, Mr. Trump’s supporters did not march to the Capitol and mostly refrained from violence. But on Jan. 6, Mr. Trump encouraged a crowd of thousands to march to the building, telling them: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength.” He did so after the White House’s chief of operations had told Mr. Meadows of “intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th,” according to the filing.Two rally organizers, Dustin Stockton and his fiancée, Jennifer L. Lawrence, have also provided the committee with evidence that they were concerned that a march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 would mean “possible danger” and that Mr. Stockton’s “urgent concerns” were escalated to Mr. Meadows, according to the committee.In his book, “The Chief’s Chief,” Mr. Meadows said Mr. Trump “ad-libbed a line that no one had seen before” when he told the crowd to march, adding that the president “knew as well as anyone that we wouldn’t organize a trip like that on such short notice.”Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony contradicts those statements.She said Mr. Meadows had said “in casual conversation”: “Oh, we’re going to have this big rally. People are talking about it on social media. They’re going to go up to the Capitol.”Police officers resisted protesters outside the Capitol on Jan. 6.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesA mob of protesters breaching the building.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAnd, speaking about the planning call involving Mr. Meadows and Freedom Caucus members, a committee investigator asked her whether Mr. Perry supported “the idea of sending people to the Capitol on January the 6th.”“He did,” Ms. Hutchinson replied.A spokesman for Mr. Perry, who has refused to speak to the committee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Justice Department and the committee both have been investigating the question of how the crowd moved from the Ellipse to the Capitol.Committee investigators have, for instance, obtained draft copies of Mr. Trump’s speech. This month, they pressed its author, Stephen Miller, a former top White House adviser, on whether Mr. Trump’s repeated use of the word “we” had been an effort to direct his supporters to join him in moving on the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying his defeat.Rally planners, such as the prominent “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander, also had a hand in getting people to move from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Mr. Alexander, at the request of aides to Mr. Trump, left the speech before it was over and marched near the head of a crowd that was moving toward the building.Joining Mr. Alexander that day was Alex Jones, the founder of the conspiracy-driven media outlet Infowars, who encouraged the crowd by shouting about 1776.On Wednesday, Mr. Jones revealed that he had recently asked the Justice Department for a deal under which he would grant a formal interview to the government about his role in the events of Jan. 6 in exchange for not being prosecuted.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5Signs of progress. More

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      Meadows Was Warned Jan. 6 Could Turn Violent, House Panel Says

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      The committee investigating the attack also said in a filing that the former White House chief of staff proceeded with a plan for “alternate electors” despite being told it wasn’t legally sound.WASHINGTON — Mark Meadows, the final chief of staff for President Donald J. Trump, was told that plans to try to overturn the 2020 election using so-called alternate electors were not “legally sound” and that the events of Jan. 6 could turn violent, but he pushed forward with a rally anyway, the House committee investigating the Capitol attack alleged in a Friday night court filing.In the 248-page filing, lawyers for the committee highlighted the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a White House aide in Mr. Meadows’s office, who revealed new details about the events that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by a pro-Trump mob.“I know that there were concerns brought forward to Mr. Meadows,” Ms. Hutchinson told investigators at a deposition on March 7, adding: “I know that people had brought information forward to him that had indicated that there could be violence on the 6th. But, again, I’m not sure if he — what he did with that information.”Ms. Hutchinson — who testified twice before the panel in closed-door interviews in February and March — said Anthony M. Ornato, the former White House chief of operations, told Mr. Meadows that “we had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th. And Mr. Meadows said: All right. Let’s talk about it.”“But despite this and other warnings, President Trump urged the attendees at the January 6th rally to march to the Capitol to ‘take back your country,’” Douglas N. Letter, the general counsel of the House, wrote in the filing.Read the Jan. 6 Committee’s Filing in Its Lawsuit With Mark MeadowsThe committee alleged that Mark Meadows, the final chief of staff for President Donald J. Trump, was told that an effort to try to overturn the 2020 election using so-called alternate electors were not “legally sound” and that Jan. 6 could turn violent, but he pushed forward with plans to hold a rally in Washington anyway.Read Document 248 pagesThe committee put forward the evidence Friday to try to persuade a federal judge in Washington to throw out Mr. Meadows’s suit against the panel. Mr. Meadows is trying to block the committee’s subpoenas, which he called “overly broad and unduly burdensome,” including one sent to Verizon for his phone and text data.In response, the committee laid out numerous ways its lawyers say Mr. Meadows was deeply involved in the effort to the overturn the 2020 election. Those included his work furthering a scheme to direct certain battleground states to put forward pro-Trump electors even though their voters had chosen Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a pressure campaign in Georgia and other states to try to change the election outcome.Citing Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, the panel said it had evidence “that Mr. Meadows and certain congressmen were advised by White House counsel that efforts to generate false certificates did not comply with the law.”Ms. Hutchinson told investigators that she heard lawyers from the White House Counsel’s Office say the plan for alternate electors was not “legally sound,” according to the filing.“The select committee’s filing today urges the court to reject Mark Meadows’s baseless claims and put an end to his obstruction of our investigation,” the leaders of the committee, Representatives Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, said in a statement. “Mr. Meadows is hiding behind broad claims of executive privilege even though much of the information we’re seeking couldn’t possibly be covered by privilege and courts have rejected similar claims because the committee’s interest in getting to the truth is so compelling.”A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The committee issued a subpoena in November to Ms. Hutchinson, who served as special assistant to the president for legislative affairs and was at the White House on Jan. 6 and with Mr. Trump when he spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally that day. She also reached out directly to Georgia officials about Mr. Meadows’s trip to that state.She was present for key meetings and discussions in the White House in the buildup to Jan. 6.Ms. Hutchinson also told the panel that top White House lawyers had threatened to resign over extreme plans to seize voting machines, and that had helped persuade Mr. Meadows to back off that plan. “Once it became clear that there would be mass resignations, including lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office, including some of the staff that Mr. Meadows worked closely with, you know, I know that did factor into his thinking,” she said.And she said members of Congress had urged a crowd to amass at the Capitol on Jan. 6.One investigator asked her whether Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is now the head of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, supported “the idea of sending people to the Capitol on January the 6th.”“He did,” Ms. Hutchinson replied.The panel also emphasized how personally involved Mr. Meadows was in attempts to pressure Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, over Mr. Trump’s loss there — so much so that Mr. Raffensperger ducked and ignored his phone calls, viewing them as improper.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5Signs of progress. 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      Marjorie Taylor Greene Denies ‘Insurrectionist’ Charge in Court

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      In an extraordinary administrative law hearing, the Georgia representative was forced to defend her actions surrounding the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.WASHINGTON — Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, on Friday repeated false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election as she defended her actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, in an extraordinary hearing that asked whether she should be labeled an “insurrectionist” and barred from office under the Constitution.While under oath at an administrative law hearing in Atlanta, Ms. Greene insisted that “a tremendous amount of fraudulent activity” had robbed former President Donald J. Trump of his re-election, an assertion that has been soundly refuted by multiple courts, Republican-led recounts and Mr. Trump’s own attorney general, William P. Barr.But despite her exhortations on social media to “#FightForTrump,” she said she had possessed no knowledge that protesters intended to invade the Capitol on Jan. 6, or disrupt the congressional joint session called to count the electoral votes and confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. She said she did not recall meeting with any of the instigators.And Ms. Greene said neither she nor members of her staff had offered anyone tours of the Capitol complex before Jan. 6, 2021, nor had they provided anyone with a map of the complex, refuting tales of a conspiracy promoted by some Democrats that she had helped the rioters plan their attack.“I was asking people to come for a peaceful march, which is what everyone is entitled to do under their First Amendment,” Ms. Greene testified. “I was not asking them to actively engage in violence.”The contentious hearing unfolded after a group of constituents from her Northwest Georgia district, supported by liberal lawyers, filed suit to block Ms. Greene, a vigorously right-wing lawmaker, from appearing on the ballot for re-election. They charged that she had exhorted rioters to take up arms to block the certification of Mr. Biden’s election, and helped organize the assembly behind the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, that turned into a violent mob.The legal case appeared to be on shaky ground as the administrative law judge, Charles R. Beaudrot, repeatedly sided with Ms. Greene’s lawyer, the prominent conservative election attorney James Bopp Jr., who maintained that much of the questioning violated his client’s right of free speech. Judge Beaudrot will make a recommendation on whether to bar Ms. Greene from the ballot, but the final decision will fall to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — the same official who resisted pressure from Mr. Trump to change the presidential election results in the state, and who faces a Trump-backed challenger, Representative Jody Hice, in the coming Republican primary.But the proceeding afforded lawyers pressing the case against Ms. Greene to maintain their pressure and keep attention on her role on Jan. 6, and compel her to answer for it. The proceedings were broadcast on C-SPAN, live-streamed on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook and revealed a House Republican that was often peevish and sometimes on the defensive.“This is a solemn occasion,” Ron Fein, the lead lawyer bringing the case against Ms. Greene with the group Free Speech for People, told Judge Beaudrot. “This is not politics. This is not theater. This is a serious case that the voters who we represent have brought in order to offer proof that their United States representative seeking re-election, Marjorie Taylor Greene, having taken the oath to support the Constitution, then broke that oath and engaged in insurrection.”Mr. Bopp dismissed the case as precisely the opposite, asserting that the law was on the side of his client, who, far from engaging in insurrection, had been a victim during the riot — scared, confused, and fearing for her life as Mr. Trump’s supporters swarmed through the Capitol, where she was present just to do her job.He maintained that the entire Free Speech for People effort was designed to deny Georgia voters their rights, because the plaintiffs could not defeat Ms. Greene at the ballot box.“This is not a candidate debate. This is not a place for political hyperbole. This is not a place for political smear. It’s a court of law,” Mr. Bopp said.At the heart of the case against Ms. Greene is the plaintiffs’ claim that the congresswoman is disqualified from seeking re-election because her support of the rioters who attacked the Capitol made her an “insurrectionist” under the Constitution, and therefore barred her under the little-known third section of the 14th Amendment, which was adopted during the Reconstruction years to punish members of the Confederacy.That section declares that “no person shall” hold “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath” to “support the Constitution,” had then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Similar cases have suffered setbacks in North Carolina, where a federal judge blocked a challenge against Representative Madison Cawthorn, another far-right Republican, and in Arizona, where the Superior Court in Maricopa County ruled on Thursday that it did not have the authority to block the re-elections of two other conservative Republicans, Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, and the candidacy for secretary of state of a state representative, Mark Finchem.A separate effort is pending against Republicans, including Senator Ron Johnson, in Wisconsin.But so far, only the case against Ms. Greene has been allowed to proceed. And on Friday, she was forced to answer questions under oath.Ms. Greene denied calling Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “traitor to her country,” though the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Andrew Celli, produced a quotation from her saying just that. She also said she never advocated violence against her political opponents, though her personal Twitter account “liked” a post that advocated “a bullet to the head of Nancy Pelosi.” She said she did “not recall” advocating that Mr. Trump impose martial law.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5Signs of progress. More