United States Defense and Military Forces

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      General Mark Milley’s Term Had It All

      by

      At midnight on Sept. 30, Gen. Mark A. Milley’s turbulent term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will end.He is the last senior official whose tenure spanned both the Trump and the Biden administrations, a time that included just about every kind of crisis.Insurrection. Pandemic. The chaotic ending of the war in Afghanistan. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Shoot-downs of unidentified flying objects.There was that time his boss wanted to deploy American troops on the streets against American citizens. The day U.S. intelligence picked up talk among Russian generals about using a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. And a Republican senator’s blockade of military promotions that delayed his successor’s confirmation.As the senior military adviser to two presidents, General Milley demonstrated loyalty, until he deemed it no longer in the country’s interest, and was often praised for his leadership. But he also made very public mistakes, including an especially egregious one for which he would later apologize.In the end, his chairmanship was shaped by a straightforward loquaciousness, a commander in chief who specialized in chaos and a chain of fast-moving events around the world.“No one was asked to do as difficult a series of things as he had to do,” said Peter Feaver, a Duke University professor who has studied the armed forces.Here is a look at Gen. Mark Alexander Milley’s four years as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, based on interviews with the general, his colleagues and associates, as well as reporting and books about the Donald J. Trump administration.The First CrisisSept. 30, 2019On an Army base field just outside Washington, General Milley takes the oath of office.It is a rainy Monday, and President Trump is there. He has told his aides that General Milley, a barrel-chested Green Beret with bushy eyebrows and a command-a-room personality, looks like a proper general to him.“I have absolute confidence that he will fulfill his duty with the same brilliance and fortitude he has shown throughout his long and very distinguished career,” Mr. Trump says.The honeymoon does not last three days.General Milley, left, was sworn in during a ceremony with Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald J. Trump and other military leaders.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesOct. 4, 2019General Milley’s Turkish counterpart, Gen. Yasar Guler, tells him that Turkey will send thousands of troops over the border into Syria to target American-backed Kurdish forces. The Kurds are the Pentagon’s most reliable partners in the fight against the Islamic State. But Turkey says they are terrorists.General Milley has to take the matter to Mr. Trump, who is mad that U.S. troops are in Syria.Two days later, Mr. Trump announces a de facto endorsement of the Turkish move: He will pull the American troops out of Syria, essentially leaving the Kurds to fend for themselves.“Morally reprehensible and strategically dumb,” opines Senator Angus King, independent of Maine.Oct. 16, 2019An emergency meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader; and members of Mr. Trump’s national security team degenerates into a shouting match over Mr. Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. troops out of Syria.“Nervous Nancy’s unhinged meltdown!” Mr. Trump says after the meeting, tweeting a photo of Ms. Pelosi standing across a table from him, pointing her finger in the air.At the Pentagon, the talk is all about the man seated next to Mr. Trump in the photo: a grim-looking General Milley, with his hands clasped in front of him. He has been on the job for 16 days.Oct. 26, 2019Mr. Trump’s abrupt withdrawal order forces General Milley and Pentagon officials to speed up a plan to take out the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whom they have been monitoring at a compound in Qaeda territory in Syria.They want to carry out the risky nighttime raid while they still have troops, spies and reconnaissance aircraft in the country.The raid is successful, thanks in part to the same Kurdish forces Mr. Trump effectively abandoned.“He died like a dog,” Mr. Trump says of the ISIS leader.Nov. 13, 2019General Milley has figured out a way to turn Mr. Trump around on Syria. He has told the president that American commandos and their Kurdish allies need to stay to guard the oil there.Some 800 troops will remain in northern Syria.“We’re keeping the oil,” Mr. Trump tells reporters. “We left troops behind, only for the oil.”Jan. 3, 2020General Milley and other senior officials have given the president a range of options to deal with attacks by Iranian-backed Shiite militias. Mr. Trump chooses the most extreme: assassinating Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander.Mr. Trump has been fuming over television reports showing Iranian-backed attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.That night, General Suleimani is killed in an American drone strike at Baghdad International Airport.The fallout is immediate. Iranian groups put a price on General Milley’s head. And five days later, just after concluding a barrage of retaliatory airstrikes, Iran mistakenly shoots down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing 176 people on board.General Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander, was killed in an American drone strike.Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA, via ShutterstockWomen mourning General Suleimani during a funeral procession in Baghdad.Ahmed Jalil/EPA, via ShutterstockPandemic and ProtestsMarch 24, 2020At a virtual town hall event, General Milley predicts that the coronavirus will not last long. “You’re looking at probably late May, June, something in that range,” he said. “Could be as late as July.”That same day, the Navy announces that three sailors on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for the virus.May 25, 2020Memorial Day. More than 350 sailors from the Theodore Roosevelt are in quarantine on Guam. The virus has taken the aircraft carrier out of service for weeks, causing an imbroglio that leads to the resignation of the acting secretary of the Navy.Back in Washington, General Milley is heading to Arlington National Cemetery, where he will meet with Gold Star families who had lost loved ones in America’s wars.For General Milley, Memorial Day is a workday. He helps place flags on the graves. “I have soldiers that are buried here that died under my command,” he tells a CBS News crew.That night he sees a report on TV about a Black man in Minneapolis who died at the hands of the police.June 1, 2020“Can’t you just shoot them? Shoot them in the legs or something?” Mr. Trump asks General Milley and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper in the Oval Office.Mr. Trump says that demonstrations in the streets over the killing of George Floyd were making him look “weak.” He wants 10,000 active-duty troops in Washington, D.C., alone to take on the protesters.General Milley and Mr. Esper explain that pitting American soldiers against American protesters could hurt civil-military relations and incite more violence. They talk Mr. Trump out of it.General Milley leans into Mr. Esper, presses his thumb to his forefinger and whispers that he is “this close” to resigning. So was Mr. Esper, the defense secretary recalled in his book, “A Sacred Oath.”It is not even noon yet.Around 6 p.m., General Milley and Mr. Esper are again summoned to the White House. Neither knows why at the time, but they will soon be taking a walk with the president.Mr. Trump has decided to stage a photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church across Lafayette Square near the White House. He holds a Bible, which his daughter Ivanka has pulled out of her bag. General Milley is wearing his camouflage uniform.As Mr. Trump poses, General Milley disappears from view. But the damage is done. General Milley is the most senior officer of a military that at its core is supposed to be above politics.“An egregious display of bad judgment, at best,” says Paul D. Eaton, a retired major general and a veteran of the Iraq war.General Milley spends the rest of the night walking through the streets of Washington, talking to National Guard troops and protesters alike. At 12:24 in the morning, he heads home. Not long after, he is writing a resignation letter.“It is my belief that you are doing great and irreparable harm to my country,” one draft says, according to “The Divider: Trump in the White House,” by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker. He does not send the letter.Protests that sometimes turned violent erupted in Minneapolis and across the country after the police killing of George Floyd.Stephen Maturen/Getty ImagesGeneral Milley joined Mr. Trump and other senior officials in a walk from the White House, through protesters and law enforcement, to a church nearby.Doug Mills/The New York TimesJune 11, 2020General Milley apologizes for the walk in the park. “I should not have been there,” he says in a commencement address at the National Defense University.Mr. Trump is furious. “Why’d you do that?” he asks General Milley later that day.This is the Rubicon that many people in the Trump administration eventually cross: the moment when they change from ally to enemy in the eyes of the president. Mr. Trump never cared much for Mr. Esper, whom he calls “Mr. Yesper.” General Milley, by contrast, the president once favored. No more.Aug. 20, 2020General Milley is in Colorado Springs for a Northern Command ceremony and makes a beeline for Mr. Esper to tell him about an alarming phone call the night before: Robert C. O’Brien, Mr. Trump’s fourth national security adviser, says there is interest in killing another senior Iranian military officer.Why now? General Milley tells Mr. Esper the proposed strike has not gone through the normal bureaucratic discussion that precedes operations of this magnitude. To put Mr. O’Brien off, General Milley goes into what he calls his “hamana hamana,” nonsense talk.For the next five months, General Milley tells people that he will do everything he can to keep the Trump team from launching strikes — potential acts of war — without proper vetting.Oct. 14, 2020General Milley and Mr. Esper huddle over what to do about some military nominations they want to make.They want two women — Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost of the Air Force and Lt. Gen. Laura J. Richardson of the Army — to be promoted, on merit, to elite, four-star commands. But the men are worried that Mr. Trump will not go for it, because promoting women is too “woke” for him.They agree on a strategy. They will hold back the nominations until after the November elections. Maybe Joe Biden will win, the men figure.Oct. 30, 2020General Milley reassures his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, in a phone call that Mr. Trump has no plans to attack China, no matter what intelligence is picking up about the president wanting to create a crisis to help him in the polls.Before the InsurrectionNov. 9, 2020Mr. Trump has lost the election but is not conceding. And he has decided that the transition period is a perfect time to revamp the Pentagon leadership. He takes to his usual medium to announce that he has “terminated” Mr. Esper. Christopher C. Miller, a former Army Green Beret, will take over the Defense Department.General Milley threatens to resign, according to Mr. Esper’s book. Mr. Esper tells him: “You’re the only one left now to hold the line. You have to stay.”Nov. 10, 2020The purge is on. Mr. Trump fires two Defense Department under secretaries and sends in political loyalists: Kash Patel, a former aide to Representative Devin Nunes of California, and Ezra Cohen, an ally of Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser. Anthony Tata, a retired general who once referred to President Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader,” is now in the top Pentagon policy job.General Milley vows that there will be no coup under his watch. “They may try,” but they will not succeed, Milley tells his deputies, according to “I Alone Can Fix It,” by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. We’re the guys with the guns.”Nov. 11, 2020During a meeting, Mr. Patel hands General Milley a sheet of paper that says Mr. Trump is ordering all remaining U.S. troops home from Somalia by Dec. 31 and from Afghanistan by Jan. 15.General Milley heads to the White House. He and other national security aides talk Mr. Trump out of the Afghanistan pullout by reminding him that he has already ordered an Afghanistan withdrawal in the next months. The Somalia withdrawal date is moved to Jan. 15.Nov. 25, 2020Mr. Trump removes Henry Kissinger and Madeleine K. Albright from the Defense Policy Board, replacing them with loyalists. He also pardons Mr. Flynn, the former general and national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.A week later, Mr. Flynn endorses an ad calling for martial law and for a national “re-vote” — to be conducted by the military.“I just want to get to the 20th,” General Milley tells aides, referring to Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.Jan. 6, 2021Mr. Trump summons his supporters to the Capitol. Rioters storm the building to overturn the election.National Guard troops clashed with protesters into the evening on Jan. 6, 2021.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesNational Guard troops were stationed in the Capitol for weeks after the attack.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 8, 2021The Chinese are on high alert, so General Milley makes another call. “Things may look unsteady,” he says. “But that’s the nature of democracy, General Li.”Next, General Milley advises the Navy to postpone planned exercises near China.Ms. Pelosi is on the phone asking what’s to stop Mr. Trump from launching a nuclear weapon.General Milley tells her there are procedures in place.After that call, he summons senior officers to go over those procedures, according to “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. “If you get calls,” he tells the officers, “there’s a procedure.”He adds, “And I’m part of that procedure.”He turns to each officer in the room.“Got it?”“Yes, sir.”“Got it?”“Yes, sir.”A New BossJan. 20, 2021Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes the oath of office.April 6, 2021General Milley is in the Oval Office for the news he knows is coming but does not want to hear. Mr. Biden, like his predecessor, wants all American troops out of Afghanistan. This time, the deadline is Sept. 11, 2021, exactly 20 years after the terrorist attacks that launched two decades of war.General Milley had hoped that Mr. Biden would agree to keep a modest troop presence in the country to prevent it from falling back into the hands of the Taliban and from becoming a launching pad for terrorist attacks. But Mr. Biden is adamant.General Milley and the new defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, tell senior commanders to start packing up. The last thing the men want now is for an American soldier to die in Afghanistan after the president has ordered a withdrawal.A race to the exits begins.General Milley and other leaders meeting with President Biden at the White House in October 2022.Doug Mills/The New York TimesJune 23, 2021General Milley pushes back against criticism that the Pentagon is becoming too “woke.”After a Republican congressman presses Mr. Austin, the first Black man to lead the Pentagon, on whether the Defense Department teaches “critical race theory,” General Milley hits back. “I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin,” he says. “That doesn’t make me a communist.”In a two-minute clip that plays over and over on social media platforms, General Milley defends the military’s right to study what it wants, including topics that some might find uncomfortable.“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it,” he says. “What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building, and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?”Last Days in AfghanistanJuly 2, 2021American troops leave Bagram Air Base, their last hold in Afghanistan. Within hours, the base is ransacked by looters.Aug. 15, 2021The Taliban seize Kabul, the capital. Attention turns to evacuating Americans and their Afghan allies from the country.At the Pentagon, General Milley receives hundreds of phone calls from aid organizations, media companies and lawmakers, all pleading for help evacuating their people. In meetings, he barks at the bureaucratic red tape.Taliban fighters took control of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021.Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesAmerican Air Force troops evacuated scores of people from Kabul.Senior Airman Taylor Crul/U.S. Air Force, via ShutterstockAug. 26, 2021At 5:48 p.m. local time, a suicide attack at Kabul airport kills at least 183 people, including 13 U.S. service members sent to help with evacuations.Sept. 1, 2021General Milley is fielding questions at a news conference about a drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 civilians, including children. Senior officials know that civilians were killed, but they are sticking to the talking points that the strike also targeted terrorists plotting another attack.“Yes, there were others killed,” General Milley says. “Who they are, we don’t know. The procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.”Sixteen days later, the Pentagon acknowledges that the strike was a mistake.“This is a horrible tragedy of war,” General Milley says in a statement.Sept. 28, 2021The general has been talking.A bunch of books are out that describe his actions in the waning days of the Trump presidency: the call to China, the meeting with the nuclear code officers.Some senators at a hearing are angry that General Milley tried to protect the Pentagon from Mr. Trump. Others are angry that he told so many people afterward.In a break from usual military hearings on Capitol Hill, it is the Republicans who are angriest at the military general. General Milley is now a lightning rod for Trump allies across the country, regularly pilloried in right-wing media outlets.War in EuropeJan. 28, 2022General Milley warns that Russia has assembled more than 100,000 troops at Ukraine’s borders, with more coming every day, and enough military hardware to invade the entire country.Given the type of forces that are arrayed, he says at a Pentagon news conference, “if that was unleashed on Ukraine, it would be significant, very significant, and it would result in a significant amount of casualties.”Feb. 24, 2022Russia invades Ukraine.Ukrainian soldiers in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in February 2022.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesRefugees arrived in Hungary after Russia invaded Ukraine.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesOct. 24, 2022For the first time in months, General Milley is on the phone with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, who had been giving him the silent treatment.U.S. intelligence has picked up discussions among senior Russian generals about using a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has been making not-veiled threats about escalation, and General Milley wants to make sure Moscow isn’t about to cross a serious red line.After the call, General Milley’s people say that he and General Gerasimov will keep the lines of communication open.Nov. 9, 2022General Milley tells the Economic Club of New York that neither Russia nor Ukraine, in his opinion, can win the war. Diplomats, he believes, need to start looking for ways to begin negotiations.“When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it,” he says.The remarks cause a furor: Ukrainians worry that the Biden administration is preparing to abandon them, and White House officials scramble to reassure them that U.S. support remains solid.Feb. 11, 2023The text from a reporter comes to General Milley’s phone at 9:27 on a Saturday morning.For the third time in less than a week, NORAD is tracking an unidentified flying object over North America. This one is over the Yukon in Canada. U.S. fighter jets shot down the two others: a Chinese spy balloon, and who knows what.“It’s an alien, isn’t it,?” the text says.The general replies, “Not aliens!”Aug. 21, 2023The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a yearly show where troops clad in full ancient fighting kit including kilts, sporran, drums and bagpipes, put on a show at a centuries-old castle that has turned into a 90-minute farewell salute to America’s senior general.General Milley, in full military dress and white gloves, is in the guest-of-honor seat, in a crowd of thousands. As each group concludes its performance, a single green light in the darkened arena shines on the general, and he stands up, at attention. Each succession of troops stops to salute him. The green light goes off, and he sits back down.Sept. 22, 2023Mr. Trump has his own farewell salute for General Milley.In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump says the general’s retirement “will be a time for all Americans to celebrate!” He calls General Milley a “woke train wreck” and complains about the general’s calls with his Chinese counterpart. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”Mr. Trump concludes, “To be continued!” More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Acusaciones contra DeSantis en Guantánamo: lo que sabemos

      by

      La historia relatada por un exprisionero sobre supuestos maltratos causados por Ron DeSantis llegó a las noticias. Sin embargo, The New York Times no encontró ninguna evidencia que la respalde.Hace casi un año, cuando el potencial político de Ron DeSantis iba en ascenso, un exdetenido de la prisión de la bahía de Guantánamo hizo una acusación sorprendente: antes de convertirse en gobernador de Florida, cuando era un joven abogado de la Marina, DeSantis había participado en el proceso de alimentación forzada de un prisionero que estaba en huelga de hambre en la infame prisión estadounidense, además de supuestamente reírse mientras lo hacía.El detenido, Mansoor Adayfi, relató que lo ataron a una silla y lloró y gritó sin parar mientras le insertaban tubos en la garganta y vertían en su estómago varios recipientes de Ensure, un suplemento alimenticio.Adayfi afirmó que, hacia el final de su calvario, DeSantis se le acercó y le dijo: “‘Deberías comer’. Vomité en su cara. Literalmente en su cara”.Adayfi contó su historia en un pódcast de izquierda, luego en la revista Harper’s y en varios reportajes de medios masivos. Además, localizó a otras personas que estuvieron detenidas y que también dijeron que recordaban a DeSantis y su crueldad. Estas historias se propagaron con rapidez por el ecosistema de los medios liberales hasta aparecer en investigaciones de la oposición demócrata y fusionarse con una narrativa que presentaba al candidato presidencial republicano como partícipe en acciones de tortura.Sin embargo, una revisión de registros militares y entrevistas con los abogados de algunos detenidos y miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas que desempeñaron funciones durante el mismo tiempo que DeSantis no reveló ninguna prueba que respaldara esas acusaciones. The New York Times entrevistó a más de 40 personas que trabajaron con DeSantis o aproximadamente durante el mismo tiempo que él y ninguna de ellas recordó haber visto o siquiera escuchado sobre algún episodio como los descritos por Adayfi.Más bien, casi todos los entrevistados consideraron que la acusación era bastante improbable. DeSantis era un subalterno que solo visitó el lugar por periodos breves y se dedicó a actividades que eran “tareas molestas”, según otro abogado que también las realizaba. No existía la posibilidad de que atestiguara una situación en la que se alimentara a alguien por la fuerza, ni tuvo la autoridad necesaria para autorizar algo así, según el oficial que supervisó a DeSantis en Guantánamo. Incluso los abogados de mayor jerarquía no podían estar cerca cuando se forzaba a alguien a alimentarse, según el comandante de los guardias de la prisión en esa época.“Era de muy bajo rango, le faltaba mucha experiencia y era muy novato como para haber desempeñado cualquier rol importante”, afirmó Morris D. Davis, coronel retirado de la Fuerza Aérea que actuó como fiscal jefe en casos de Guantánamo durante el año en que DeSantis visitó la prisión.Adayfi, a través de su abogado, se negó a hacer comentarios.Cuando algunos reporteros le hicieron preguntas al respecto, DeSantis negó en dos ocasiones las acusaciones. Pero el candidato, que está orgulloso de su postura de desdeño hacia los “medios corporativos”, se ha negado a conceder entrevistas sobre su desempeño en la base. Su equipo de campaña no planea dar a conocer registros, lo que incluye las fechas de su viaje, que podrían contradecir directamente la acusación. Los expedientes personales del gobernador se han censurado con el propósito de ocultar información detallada.Este tipo de confidencialidad forma parte integral de Guantánamo, donde desde hace años incluso la información rutinaria se le ha ocultado al público. Pero las acusaciones de Adayfi resaltan el hecho de que la generación de secretos en el aislado centro de detención de la isla, sumada al clima ferozmente partidista en los medios, puede propiciar que circulen acusaciones engañosas sin ninguna verificación.Una cultura de secreto en la aislada prisión de la isla, sumada a un clima ferozmente partidista en los medios, puede propiciar que circulen acusaciones engañosas sin ninguna verificación.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesTareas molestasDeSantis llegó a la base en 2006, una época turbulenta en la prisión. El año arrancó con huelgas de hambre en protesta por las condiciones. En junio, se descubrió a tres detenidos sin vida colgados en su celda. Tres meses después, la CIA trasladó a los hombres acusados de planear los ataques del 11 de septiembre de 2001 a una prisión secreta de la base.DeSantis, que cumplió 28 años en septiembre de ese año, era teniente en la Abogacía General de la Marina, un puesto equivalente al de un asociado de primer año en un despacho jurídico. Junto con muchos otros abogados, pasó ahí periodos de una y dos semanas, como parte de un programa cuyo objetivo era darles la primera experiencia cercana en una operación militar compleja.El programa se consideraba como un “recorrido para adquirir cierta experiencia militar” y por lo regular consistía en sacar copias, cotejar carpetas y otras responsabilidades administrativas, según un abogado de la Marina que estuvo ahí aproximadamente al mismo tiempo. Otro abogado asignado al programa describió su trabajo como “mensajeros glorificados”.Sus colegas recuerdan a DeSantis por ganarse a los oficiales superiores con una confianza asertiva que a algunas personas les parecía brusca y arrogante. En el trabajo, era conocido como “Ron Possible”, una referencia no siempre elogiosa a su voluntad de emprender cualquier tarea. Fuera de la oficina, era un aficionado al ejercicio físico que a veces corría sin camiseta bajo el calor caribeño.“Teníamos que recordarle constantemente: ‘Oye, ponte una camisa’”, afirmó Joseph Hickman, un exsoldado que estaba designado como guardia en un puesto de control del centro de detención. “Lo notabas cuando llegaba. Era un tipo bien parecido”.El Times se puso en contacto con más de 20 abogados que desempeñaron labores en la época en que DeSantis viajaba entre Guantánamo y la Estación Naval de Mayport en Jacksonville, Florida, donde estaba asignado. La mayoría habló con la condición de mantener su anonimato, porque todavía trabajan para el gobierno y no están autorizados para hablar con los medios o porque no quieren ninguna asociación pública con la prisión.Solo Patrick McCarthy, oficial retirado de la Marina que en esa época era el abogado de mayor rango en la base, conocía las responsabilidades específicas asignadas a DeSantis en el lugar. McCarthy indicó que DeSantis hizo “varias” visitas. Explicó que su interacción con los detenidos se limitaba a tareas discretas, como confirmar que un detenido no quería ver a su abogado defensor.“Ron DeSantis nunca podría haber visto la alimentación por sonda de los detenidos ni pudo participar en el proceso de nutrición enteral”, afirmó McCarthy con respecto a las maniobras para alimentar a la fuerza a los detenidos. “Tampoco podría haber visto ni participado en ningún maltrato contra los detenidos”.En general, ni siquiera los abogados de mayor jerarquía estaban presentes cuando se forzaba a los detenidos a recibir alimentación, pues el personal médico se encargaba del proceso. “De ningún modo podría haber ocurrido algo así”, aseveró Mike Bumgarner, quien ya se retiró del Ejército y supervisaba a los guardias de la prisión en esa época. “Nunca habrían permitido que un abogado estuviera ahí”.Los detalles de la acusación de Adayfi varían en ocasiones. En una versión, vomitó tanto sobre DeSantis como sobre un asesor cultural. Zak Ghuneim, el asesor cultural de la prisión en ese momento, calificó la historia como una ficción absoluta.“Si alguien me vomitara encima, lo recordaría ahora y hasta el día de mi muerte”, afirmó.DeSantis rara vez ha conversado extensamente sobre su papel en la base; habla con más frecuencia sobre su siguiente asignación como asesor legal para un equipo SEAL en Irak. Pero, al menos en una oportunidad, sugirió que tuvo un papel más importante que el que ahora describen sus superiores y colegas.En una entrevista de 2018, mientras se postulaba para gobernador, definió su trabajo en ese momento como “asesor legal”. Cuando se le preguntó qué había implicado el trabajo, afirmó que las huelgas de hambre eran una de las formas en que los detenidos “emprendían la yihad” desde prisión.DeSantis fue uno de los miembros más jóvenes del personal legal en un programa diseñado para brindarles su primera experiencia cercana en una operación militar compleja.U.S. NavyDeSantis procedió a hablar en tercera persona: “El comandante quiere saber cómo combatiría esto. Entonces, uno de los trabajos del asesor legal sería decir algo como: ‘Oye, en realidad podrías forzar la alimentación’”.Surgen las acusacionesTras ser liberado y reasentarse en Serbia en 2016, Adayfi se convirtió como un prolífico activista y cronista de la vida en prisión. Escribió sobre una amistad que tuvo en Guantánamo con “una hermosa joven, una iguana”, para la columna “Modern Love” de The New York Times. En las redes sociales, publicaba selfis con camisetas y gorras de béisbol en un mono naranja.En su autobiografía, Don’t Forget Us Here, escribió extensamente sobre las huelgas de hambre.Los militares respondieron a las huelgas con alimentación forzada: atando a los detenidos a sillas y metiéndoles sondas de alimentación por la nariz y la garganta. Los oficiales sostienen que la práctica se utilizó para salvar la vida de los detenidos. Los investigadores de derechos humanos de las Naciones Unidas han criticado la forma en que el ejército estadounidense trató a los huelguistas de hambre, al considerar que la alimentación forzada “puede equivaler a tortura” si implica violencia o coerción psicológica.En sus memorias de 2021, Adayfi, un ciudadano yemení que fue llevado a prisión en 2002, parece ubicar su episodio de alimentación forzada a fines de 2005, antes de que DeSantis llegara a Guantánamo. No menciona al gobernador ni a nadie que pueda parecerse a él. Sin embargo, ha reconocido que los detalles se volvieron borrosos durante sus años en prisión.En el otoño de 2022, Mike Prysner, antiguo soldado y activista de izquierda que tiene un pódcast contra las guerras llamado “Eyes Left”, decidió investigar el expediente militar del gobernador, a quien consideraba “un tipo algo malévolo”, señaló.Pronto encontró un tuit, que luego fue borrado, en el que Adayfi hacía sus acusaciones después de reconocer a DeSantis en las noticias, aseveró Prysner.Cuando Adayfi relató su historia en el pódcast, indicó que DeSantis fue primero a preguntarles a los prisioneros si habían recibido un trato humano y luego se rio cuando los alimentaron a la fuerza y los golpearon.“Fue una de las personas que supervisaba la tortura, los abusos, las palizas. Todo el tiempo en Guantánamo”, afirmó Adayfi. “Les digo a los estadounidenses que este tipo es un torturador. Es un criminal”.Mansoor Adayfi, un exdetenido de Guantánamo, se ha convertido en un prolífico activista y cronista de la vida en la prisión.Salwan Georges/The Washington Post vía Getty ImagesAdayfi también intentó encontrar a otros detenidos que pudieran ubicar a DeSantis en Guantánamo. Compartió una fotografía del gobernador en un grupo de chat de WhatsApp con otros detenidos.“Todos respondieron con frases como: ‘Odio a ese tipo’”, afirmó Prysner, que vio imágenes de los mensajes. “Así se percataron de que DeSantis era un personaje importante en esto”.Fragmentos del pódcast se volvieron a publicar en el número de marzo de la revista Harper’s. Varias semanas después, las acusaciones de Adayfi aparecieron en artículos del Miami Herald y luego, del Washington Post. Ambos artículos aclararon que las acusaciones no se habían verificado.También incluyeron el relato de otro detenido más, Abdul Ahmed Aziz, que había visto la fotografía del gobernador en el grupo de WhatsApp, según Prysner.Aziz no respondió a varias solicitudes de comentarios.En sus relatos, Aziz no relacionó a DeSantis con la alimentación forzada. Afirmó que el joven teniente fue uno de los investigadores que se presentaron en la prisión la noche en que murieron tres detenidos, en junio de 2006. Esa coincidencia propició teorías sobre la participación de DeSantis en un informe sobre las muertes, que algunos consideran que el Ejército no ha explicado de manera adecuada.Los registros militares censurados de DeSantis no indican si estuvo ahí esa noche. Pero un abogado militar que viajaba entre Florida y la base en esa época dijo estar seguro de que DeSantis no estaba ahí. McCarthy concordó, aunque mencionó que DeSantis “quizá haya participado en actividades relacionadas con la investigación de seguimiento, que duró meses”.Algo que sí revelaron los registros es que DeSantis pasó tan poco tiempo en el centro de detención que no le otorgaron la medalla que se les entregaba a los miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas que pasaban ahí 30 días consecutivos o más de dos meses en varias visitas durante el mismo año.En mayo, Adayfi le entregó a Prysner las grabaciones de un tercer detenido, un hombre bajo condición de anonimato que afirmaba que DeSantis supervisó alimentaciones forzadas y “torturas”.Ese mismo mes, un documental de Vice News que presentaba las afirmaciones de Adayfi y otros exdetenidos fue suspendido por Paramount, que supuestamente lo iba a transmitir en su cadena Showtime. Paramount se negó a comentar sobre la decisión.Mientras estas historias circulaban, DeSantis rechazó la acusación con breves negaciones.En una entrevista con Piers Morgan en Fox Nation en marzo, dijo: “Yo era un oficial subalterno. No tenía autoridad para autorizar nada”.Al mes siguiente, le preguntaron a DeSantis sobre las acusaciones específicas de Adayfi durante una conferencia de prensa y las desestimó de manera similar, esta vez criticando a los medios de comunicación por amplificar lo que él calificó como “mentiras”.“Céntrate en los hechos y deja de preocuparte por la narrativa”, dijo.Matthew Rosenberg formó parte del equipo que ganó un premio Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre Donald Trump y, más recientemente, expuso cómo Cambridge Analytica recopiló información privada de Facebook. Anteriormente pasó 15 años como corresponsal extranjero en Asia, África y Medio Oriente, y fue expulsado de Afganistán en 2014 debido a sus reportajes. Más de Matthew RosenbergCarol Rosenberg ha estado cubriendo la base naval estadounidense en la bahía de Guantánamo, incluidas operaciones de detención y comisiones militares, desde que los primeros prisioneros fueron traídos allí desde Afganistán en enero de 2002. Trabajó como corresponsal en la sección metro, así como en la nacional y extranjera, donde se centró en la cobertura del conflicto en Medio Oriente para The Miami Herald de 1990 a 2019. Más de Carol Rosenberg More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Inside the Unfounded Claim That DeSantis Abused Guantánamo Detainees

      by

      A former prisoner’s story of mistreatment at the hands of Ron DeSantis made headlines. But The New York Times found no evidence to back it up.Nearly a year ago, as Ron DeSantis’s political stock was rising, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee came forward with a stunning claim: Before he was Florida’s governor, as a young Navy lawyer, Mr. DeSantis had taken part in a forced feeding of a hunger striker at the notorious American prison, and laughed as he did so.The detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, said he was tied to a chair, crying and screaming as tubes were shoved down his throat and cases of the dietary supplement Ensure were pumped into his stomach.As the ordeal drew to an end, Mr. Adayfi added, he was approached by Mr. DeSantis and, “he said, ‘You should eat.’ I threw up in his face. Literally on his face.”Mr. Adayfi told his story on a left-wing podcast, then in Harper’s Magazine and then again in mainstream media reports. He found other former detainees who also claimed to remember Mr. DeSantis and his cruelty. The accounts traveled quickly through the liberal media ecosystem, landing in Democratic opposition research and coalescing into a narrative that portrayed the Republican presidential candidate as an accessory to torture.Yet, an examination of military records and interviews with detainees’ lawyers and service members who served at the same time as Mr. DeSantis found no evidence to back up the claims. The New York Times interviewed more than 40 people who served with Mr. DeSantis or around the same time and none recalled witnessing or even hearing of any episodes like the ones Mr. Adayfi described.Instead, nearly all of those interviewed dismissed the story as highly improbable. Mr. DeSantis was a junior officer, who visited only for short stints and was tasked with what one fellow lawyer described as “scut work.” He would have had no reason to witness, and no power to authorize, a force feeding, according to the officer who supervised Mr. DeSantis at Guantánamo. Even senior lawyers were not allowed near force feedings, according to the commandant of the prison guards at the time.“He was just too junior and too inexperienced and too green to have had any substantial role,” said Morris D. Davis, a retired Air Force colonel, who served as chief prosecutor of Guantánamo cases the year that Mr. DeSantis visited the prison.Mr. Adayfi, through his lawyer, declined to comment.When asked by reporters, Mr. DeSantis has twice denied the accusations. But the candidate, who wears his loathing for “corporate media” as a badge of honor, has declined to be interviewed about his service on the base and his campaign has refused to release records — including dates of his travel — that might directly contradict the accusation. The governor’s personnel records have been redacted to hide details.Such secrecy is embedded at Guantánamo, where even routine information has been kept from the public for years. But Mr. Adayfi’s claims highlight how a generation of secrecy at the isolated island prison, coupled with a fiercely partisan media climate, can allow specious accusations to circulate unchecked.A culture of secrecy at the isolated island prison, coupled with a fiercely partisan media climate, can allow specious accusations to circulate unchecked.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesScut WorkMr. DeSantis first arrived at the base in 2006, a turbulent time at the prison. The year began with hunger strikes to protest conditions. In June, three detainees were found dead hanging in their cells. Three months later, the Central Intelligence Agency delivered the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to a secret prison on the base.Mr. DeSantis, who turned 28 in September that year, was a lieutenant in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, in a role akin to that of a first-year associate at a law firm. He and several other lawyers were dispatched there for one- and two-week stints, as part of a program to give them their first up-close look at a complex military operation.The program was considered “sightseeing to get some officer experience,” and regularly involved making copies, collating binders and administrative duties, according to one Navy lawyer who was there around the same time. Another lawyer who served in the program described their role as “glorified runners.”Mr. DeSantis is remembered by his peers for winning over senior officers with an assertive confidence that struck some as brusque and cocky. At work, he was known as “Ron Possible” — a not-always-complimentary reference to his willingness to jump on any task. Outside the office, he was a fitness buff who sometimes ran shirtless in the Caribbean heat.“We would constantly have to remind him, ‘Hey, put a shirt on,’” said Joseph Hickman, a former soldier who served as a guard at a checkpoint to the detention center. “You would notice him coming in. He was a good-looking guy.”The Times contacted over 20 lawyers who served during the period when Mr. DeSantis was traveling between Guantánamo and Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla., where he was stationed. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity either because they continue to serve in government and are not authorized to speak to the media or because they did not want to be publicly associated with the prison.Only Capt. Patrick McCarthy, a retired Navy officer who at the time was the top lawyer at the base, was familiar with Mr. DeSantis’s specific assignments there. Captain McCarthy said Mr. DeSantis made “several” visits. He would have interacted with detainees only for discrete tasks, he said, such as confirming that a detainee did not want to see his defense lawyer.“Ron DeSantis was never in a position to witness the enteral feeding of detainees, or in the position to participate in an enteral feeding,” Captain McCarthy said, referring to force feeding. “Nor was he in the position to witness or participate in the mistreatment of any detainees.”Even more senior lawyers would not, as a rule, have been present at force feedings, which were administered by medical staff. “There is no way in the world that could have occurred,” said Col. Mike Bumgarner, who is now retired from the Army and oversaw all prison guards at the time. “They would have never let a lawyer there.”The details of Mr. Adayfi’s account sometimes vary. In one version, he vomited on both Mr. DeSantis and a cultural adviser. Zak Ghuneim, the prison’s cultural adviser at the time, called the story a complete fiction.“If someone vomited on me, I would remember it now and until the day I died,” he said.Mr. DeSantis has rarely talked at length about his role at the base — he speaks more frequently about his next posting as a legal adviser for a SEAL team in Iraq. But he has at least once suggested he had a bigger role than now described by his superiors and peers.In a 2018 interview, while running for governor, he called himself a “legal adviser.” When asked what the job involved, he said that hunger strikes were among the ways detainees “would wage jihad” from prison.Mr. DeSantis was among the most junior members of the legal staff in a program designed to give them their first up-close look at a complex military operation.U.S. NavyHe then shifted to the third person: “The commander wants to know how do I combat this. So one of the jobs of the legal adviser would be like, ‘Hey, you actually can force feed.’”Allegations SurfaceAfter being released and resettled in Serbia in 2016, Mr. Adayfi emerged as a prolific activist and chronicler of life at the prison. He wrote about a friendship he had at Guantánamo with “a beautiful young lady, an iguana,” for the “Modern Love” column in The New York Times. On social media, he posted selfies wearing T-shirts and baseball caps in jumpsuit orange.In his memoir, “Don’t Forget Us Here,” he wrote at length about the hunger strikes.The military responded to the strikes with forced feeding — strapping detainees to chairs and snaking feeding tubes up their noses and down their throats. Military officials argue the practice was used to save detainees’ lives. United Nations human rights investigators have criticized the way the U.S. military treated hunger strikers, finding that forced feeding “can amount to torture” if it involves violence or psychological coercion.In his 2021 memoir, Mr. Adayfi, a Yemeni national brought to the prison in 2002, appears to place his forced feeding at the end of 2005, before Mr. DeSantis arrived at Guantánamo. He makes no mention of the governor or anyone who might resemble him. However, he acknowledges that details became murky during his years in prison. In the fall of 2022, Mike Prysner, a former soldier and left-wing activist who hosts an antiwar podcast, “Eyes Left,” decided to look into the military record of the governor, who he viewed as “kind of an evil guy,” he said.He soon came across a since-deleted tweet in which Mr. Adayfi raised his accusations after recognizing Mr. DeSantis from news coverage, Mr. Prysner said.When Mr. Adayfi told his story on the podcast, said Mr. DeSantis first came to the prisoners asking if they had been treated humanely and then laughed as they were force-fed and beaten.“He was one of the people that supervised the torture, the abuses, the beatings. All the time at Guantánamo,” Mr. Adayfi said. “I’m telling Americans: this guy is a torturer. He is a criminal.”Mansoor Adayfi, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, has emerged as a prolific activist and chronicler of life at the prison.Salwan Georges/The Washington Post, via Getty ImagesMr. Adayfi also looked to find other detainees who could place Mr. DeSantis at Guantánamo. He posted a picture of the governor to a WhatsApp group chat with other detainees. “Everyone was responding like, ‘I hate this guy,’” said Mr. Prysner, who viewed images of the messages. “That’s how they realized DeSantis was a big figure in this.”Excerpts from the podcast were reprinted in the March issue of Harper’s. Weeks later, Mr. Adayfi’s accusations were featured in articles first in The Miami Herald and then The Washington Post. Both reports noted that the claims were not verified.They also included the account of a second detainee, Abdul Ahmed Aziz, who had seen the governor’s picture in the WhatsApp group, according to Mr. Prysner.Mr. Aziz did not respond to multiple requests for comment.In his accounts, Mr. Aziz did not connect Mr. DeSantis to forced feeding. He claimed the young lieutenant was one of the investigators who showed up at the prison the night three detainees died in June 2006. The timing spawned theories about Mr. DeSantis’s involvement in a report on the deaths, which some believe the military has not properly explained.Mr. DeSantis’s redacted military records do not indicate whether he was there that night. But one military lawyer who was traveling between Florida and the base at the time said he was certain Mr. DeSantis was not. Captain McCarthy concurred, though he said Mr. DeSantis “likely participated in activities related to the follow-up investigation, which lasted for months.”One thing the records did reveal: Mr. DeSantis’s time at the detention center was so limited he was not awarded a medal given to service members who spent 30 consecutive days there or more than two months over multiple visits in a single year.In May, Mr. Adayfi gave Mr. Prysner recordings of a third detainee, an anonymous man who claimed Mr. DeSantis supervised force feedings and “torture.”That same month a Vice News documentary featuring the claims from Mr. Adayfi and other former detainees was shelved by Paramount, which was supposed to have run it on its Showtime network. Paramount declined to comment on the decision.As these stories swirled, Mr. DeSantis shot down the accusation with brief denials.In an interview with Piers Morgan on Fox Nation in March, he said: “I was a junior officer. I didn’t have authority to authorize anything.”The following month, Mr. DeSantis was asked about Mr. Adayfi’s specific allegations during a news conference and similarly dismissed them, this time blasting the news media for amplifying where he called “B.S.”“Focus on the facts and stop worrying about narrative,” he said. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Fact-Checking Ramaswamy’s Claims on Campaign Trail, Including on Climate and Jan. 6

      by

      The upstart Republican candidate has made inaccurate claims about climate change as well as the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, while mischaracterizing his own positions and past comments.Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and author, commanded considerable attention during the first Republican primary debate as his standing was rising in national polls.Railing against “wokeism” and the “climate cult,” Mr. Ramaswamy has staked out unorthodox positions on a number of issues and characterized himself as the candidate most likely to appeal to young and new conservative voters.Here’s a fact check of his recent remarks on the campaign trail and during the debate.Climate change denialWhat Mr. Ramaswamy Said“There was this Obama appointee, climate change activist, who also believes as part of this Gaia-centric worldview of the earth that water rights need to be protected, which led to a five- to six-hour delay in the critical window of getting waters to put out those fires. We will never know, although certain science points out to the fact that we very well could have avoided those catastrophic deaths, many of them, if water had made it to the site of the fires on time.”— at a conservative conference in Atlanta in AugustThis lacks evidence. Mr. Ramaswamy was referring to M. Kaleo Manuel, the deputy director for Hawaii’s Commission on Water Resource Management, and overstating his ties to President Barack Obama as well as the potential effect of the requested water diversion.First, Mr. Manuel is not an “Obama appointee” but rather participated in a leadership development program run by the Obama Foundation in 2019. Mr. Ramaswamy and other conservative personalities have derided comments Mr. Manuel made last year when he said that native Hawaiians like himself used to consider water something to “revere” and something that “gives us life.”On Aug. 8, the day wildfire engulfed a historic town in Hawaii, Mr. Manuel was contacted by the West Maui Land Company, a real estate developer that supplies water to areas southeast of the town of Lahaina on Maui island, The New York Times has reported. Noting high winds and drought, the company requested permission to fill a private reservoir for fire control, though the reservoir was not connected to fire hydrants. No fire was blazing in the area at the time.The water agency asked the company whether the fire department had made the request, received no answer and said that it needed the approval of a farmer who relied on the water for his crops. The company said that it could not reach the farmer, but that the agency approved the request hours later.Asked for evidence of Mr. Ramaswamy’s claim that filling the reservoir when initially requested would have prevented deaths from the fire, a spokeswoman said it was “common sense — if you can put out a fire faster using water, you can save lives.”But state officials have said it is unlikely that the delay would have changed the course of the fire that swallowed Lahaina, as high winds would have prevented firefighters from gaining access to the reservoir. In an Aug. 10 letter to the water agency, an executive at the West Maui Land Company acknowledged that there was no way to know whether “filling our reservoirs” when initially requested would have changed the outcome, but asked the agency to temporarily suspend existing water regulations. The executive, in another letter, also wrote that “we would never imply responsibility” on Mr. Manuel’s part.What Mr. Ramaswamy Said“The reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.”— in the first Republican debate on WednesdayFalse. There is no evidence to support this assertion. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy cited a 2022 column in the libertarian publication “Reason” that argued that limiting the use of fossil fuels would hamper the ability to deliver power, heat homes and pump water during extreme weather events. But the campaign did not provide examples of climate change policies actually causing deaths. The World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, estimated in May that extreme weather events, compounded by climate change, caused nearly 12,000 disasters and a death toll of 2 million between 1970 and 2021. Extreme heat causes about 600 deaths in the United States a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A 2021 study found that a third of heat-related deaths could be attributed to climate change. In campaign appearances and social media posts, Mr. Ramaswamy has also pointed to a decline in the number of disaster-related deaths in the past century, even as emissions have risenThat, experts have said, is largely because of technological advances in weather forecasting and communication, mitigation tools and building codes. The May study by the World Meteorological Organization, for example, noted that 90 percent of extreme weather deaths occur in developing countries — precisely because of the gap in technological advances. Disasters are occurring at increasing frequencies, the organization has said, even as fatalities decrease.Mr. Ramaswamy, a millennial, has described himself as the candidate most likely to appeal to young and new conservative voters.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesJan. 6 and the 2020 electionWhat Mr. Ramaswamy Said“What percentage of the people who were armed were federal law-enforcement officers? I think it was probably high, actually. Right? There’s very little evidence of people being arrested for being armed that day. Most of the people who were armed, I assume the federal officers who were out there were armed.”— in an interview with The Atlantic in JulyFalse. Mr. Ramaswamy has echoed the right-wing talking point that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol did not involve weapons and was largely peaceful. His spokeswoman argued that he was merely asking questions.But as early this month, 104 out of about 1,100 total defendants have been charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon, according to the Justice Department. At least 13 face gun charges.It is impossible to know just how many people in the crowd of 28,000 were armed, as some may have concealed their weapons or chosen to remain outside of magnetometers set up at the Ellipse, a sprawling park near the White House, where Mr. Trump held his rally. Still, through those magnetometers, Secret Service confiscated 242 canisters of pepper spray, 269 knives or blades, 18 brass knuckles, 18 stun guns, 30 batons or blunt instruments, and 17 miscellaneous items like scissors, needles or screwdrivers, according to the final report from the Jan. 6 committee.What was SaidChris Christie, former governor of New Jersey: “In your book, you had much different things to say about Donald Trump than you’re saying here tonight.”Mr. Ramaswamy: “That’s not true.”— in the Republican debateMr. Ramaswamy was wrong. During the debate, Mr. Ramaswamy vigorously defended Mr. Trump, calling him “ the best president of the 21st century.” Mr. Christie was correct that Mr. Ramaswamy was much more critical of Mr. Trump in his books.In his 2022 book, “Nation of Victims,” Mr. Ramaswamy wrote that despite voting for Mr. Trump in 2020, “what he delivered in the end was another tale of grievance, a persecution complex that swallowed much of the Republican Party whole.”Mr. Ramaswamy added that he was “especially disappointed when I saw President Trump take a page from the Stacey Abrams playbook,” referring to the Democratic candidate for Georgia governor who, after her 2018 defeat, sued the state over accusations of voter suppression. Moreover, he wrote, Mr. Trump’s claims of electoral fraud were “weak” and “weren’t grounded in fact.”In his 2021 book, “Woke Inc.,” Mr. Ramaswamy described the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as a “a disgrace, and it was a stain on our history” that made him “ashamed of our nation.”And after the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Ramaswamy wrote on Twitter, “What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple.”Foreign policyWhat Mr. RAMASWAMY said“Much of our military defense spending in the last several decades has not actually gone to national defense.”— in an interview on the Fox Business Network in AugustFalse. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy said he was comparing military aid to foreign countries and “homeland defense.” But the amount the United States has spent on security assistance pales in comparison to general military spending and homeland security spending.According to the federal government’s foreign assistance portal, military aid to other countries ranged from $6 billion to $23 billion annually from the fiscal years 2000 to 2022, peaking in the fiscal years 2011 and 2012 when aid to Afghanistan alone topped $10 billion a year.In the past two decades, the Pentagon’s annual budget ranged from over $400 billion to over $800 billion. Operation and maintenance is the largest category of spending (36 percent) and includes money spent on fuel, supplies, facilities, recruiting and training, followed by compensation for military personnel (23 percent), procurement of new equipment and weapons (19 percent), and research and development (16 percent).The Department of Homeland Security itself has an annual budget that has increased from $40 billion in the 2004 fiscal year, when the agency was created, to over $100 billion in the 2023 fiscal year.Mr. Ramaswamy’s claim reflects a common misconception among American voters, who tend to overestimate the amount spent on foreign aid. Foreign aid of all categories — including military aid as well as assistance for health initiatives, economic development or democratic governance — makes up less than 1 percent of the total federal budget. In comparison, about one-sixth of federal spending goes to national defense, according to the Congressional Budget Office.Outside of official government figures, researchers at Brown University have estimated that since Sept. 11, military spending in the United States has exceeded $8 trillion. By that breakdown, the United States has spent $2.3 trillion in funding for overseas fighting versus $1.1 trillion in homeland security defenses. But that figure also includes spending that cannot be neatly categorized as overseas versus domestic defense spending: $1.3 trillion in general military spending increases and medical care, $1.1 trillion in interest payments and $2.2 trillion for future veterans care.What Was SaidNikki Haley, former United Nations ambassador: “You want to go and defund Israel, you want to give Taiwan to China. You want to go and give Ukraine to Russia.”Mr. Ramaswamy: “Let me address that. I’m glad you brought that up. I’m going to address each of those right now. This is the false lies of a professional politician.”— in the Republican debateBoth exaggerated. Ms. Haley omitted nuance in describing Mr. Ramaswamy’s foreign policy positions, but her characterizations are far from “lies.”In interviews and campaign appearances, Mr. Ramaswamy has said that he views the deal to provide Israel with $38 billion over 10 years for its security as “sacrosanct.” But he has said that by 2028, when the deal expires, he hopes that Israel “will not require and be dependent on that same level of historical aid or commitment from the U.S.”In a nearly hourlong speech at the Nixon Library this month, Mr. Ramaswamy said his administration would “defend Taiwan if China invades Taiwan before we have semiconductor independence in this country,” which he estimated he could achieve by 2028. But, he continued, “thereafter, we will be very clear that after the U.S. achieves semiconductor independence, our commitments to send our sons and daughters to put them in harm’s way will change.”On Russia’s war in Ukraine, Mr. Ramaswamy has said he would “freeze the current lines of control” — which includes several southeastern regions of Ukraine — and pledge to prohibit Ukraine from being admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if Russia ended its “alliance” with China. (The two countries do not have a formal alliance.)Lisa Friedman contributed reporting.We welcome suggestions and tips from readers on what to fact-check on email and Twitter. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      U.S. Seals Security Pact With Japan and South Korea as Threats Loom

      by

      While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the communique issued by three leaders, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.The new three-way security pact sealed by President Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday was forged with threats by China and North Korea in mind. But there was one other possible factor driving the diplomatic breakthrough: Donald J. Trump.While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the “Camp David Principles” that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.Both Japan and South Korea struggled for four years as Mr. Trump threatened to scale back longstanding U.S. security and economic commitments while wooing China, North Korea and Russia. In formalizing a three-way alliance that had long eluded the United States, Mr. Biden and his counterparts hoped to lock in a strategic architecture that will endure regardless of who is in the White House next.“This is not about a day, a week or month,” Mr. Biden said at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. “This is about decades and decades of relationships that we’re building.” The goal, he added, was to “lay in place a long-term structure for a relationship that will last.”Asked by a reporter why Asia should be confident about American assurances given Mr. Trump’s campaign to recapture the presidency on a so-called America First platform, Mr. Biden offered a testimonial to the value of alliances in guaranteeing the nation’s security in dangerous times.“There’s not much, if anything, I agree on with my predecessor on foreign policy,” Mr. Biden said, adding that “walking away from the rest of the world leaves us weaker, not stronger. America is strong with our allies and our alliances and that’s why we will endure.”The meeting at the getaway in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland was a milestone in Mr. Biden’s efforts to stitch together a network of partnerships to counter Chinese aggression in the region. While the United States has long been close to Japan and South Korea individually, the two Asian powers have nursed generations of grievances that kept them at a distance from one another.The alignment at Camp David was made possible by Mr. Yoon’s decision to try to put the past behind the two countries. His rapprochement with Tokyo has not been universally popular at home with a public that harbors long memories of the Japanese occupation in the first half of the 20th century, but both sides made clear they are dedicated to a fresh start.“That’s a long, bitter colonial wound that President Yoon has to jump over, and Kishida as well,” said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. “That I think is a consonant expression of the degree to which China’s rather belligerent, punitive behavior has driven together allies, partners and friends within Asia.”Mr. Biden hoped to capitalize on that by bringing the Japanese and South Korean leaders together for the first stand-alone meeting between the three nations that was not on the sidelines of a larger international summit. He repeatedly praised Mr. Yoon and Mr. Kishida for “the political courage” they were demonstrating.He chose the resonant setting of Camp David for the talks to emphasize the importance he attaches to the initiative, inviting the leaders to the storied retreat that has been the site of momentous events over the decades, including most memorably Jimmy Carter’s 13-day negotiation in 1978 brokering peace between Israel and Egypt.“This is a big deal,” Mr. Biden said, noting that it was the first time he had invited foreign leaders to the camp since taking office. “This is a historic meeting.”The others echoed the sentiments. “Today will be remembered as a historic day,” Mr. Yoon said. Mr. Kishida agreed, saying the fact that the three could get together “means that we are indeed making a new history as of today.”A stronger collaboration with Japan and South Korea could be a significant pillar in Mr. Biden’s strategy to counter China.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe leaders agreed to establish a three-way hotline for crisis communications, enhance ballistic missile cooperation and expand joint military exercises. They issued a written “commitment to consult” in which they resolved “to coordinate our responses to regional challenges, provocations, and threats affecting our collective interests and security.”The commitment is not as far-reaching as NATO’s mutual security pact, which deems an attack on one member to be an attack on all, nor does it go as far as the defense treaties that the United States has separately with Japan and South Korea. But it cements the idea that the three powers share a special bond and expect to coordinate strategies where possible.China has derided the idea of a “mini-NATO” in Asia, accusing Washington of being provocative, but aides to Mr. Biden stressed the difference from the Atlantic alliance. “It’s explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific,” said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.Mr. Biden and his aides maintained that the collaboration sealed at Camp David should not be seen as aimed at China or any other country. “This summit was not about China. This was not the purpose,” the president said. “But obviously China came up.” Instead, he said, “this summit was really about our relationship with each other and defining cooperation across an entire range of issues.”Still, no one had any doubt about the context against which the meeting was taking place. The Camp David Principles issued by the leaders did not directly mention China, but it did “reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” a warning against aggressive military actions by Beijing.The documents released were more explicit about nuclear-armed North Korea and the joint efforts they will take to counter its military, cyber and cryptocurrency money laundering threats.Looming in the backdrop was Mr. Trump, whose mercurial actions and bursts of hostility while president flummoxed Japanese and South Korean leaders accustomed to more stable interactions with Washington.At various points, he threatened to withdraw from the U.S. defense treaty with Japan and to pull all American troops out of South Korea. He abruptly canceled joint military exercises with South Korea at the request of North Korea and told interviewers after leaving office that if he had a second term he would force Seoul to pay billions of dollars to maintain the United States military presence.The summit at Camp David was aimed at ending decades of friction between the two Asian countries.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe Asian leaders hope that the three-way accord fashioned by Mr. Biden will help avoid wild swings in the future. The president and his guests sought to institutionalize their new collaboration by committing to annual three-way meetings in the future by whoever holds their offices.“There’s definitely risk-hedging when it comes to political leadership,” said Shihoko Goto, acting director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.”By deepening the cooperation below the leader level through various new mechanisms, she said, the governments may be able to maintain functional ties even if a volatile president occupies the White House.“If a new U.S. president were to avoid going to international conferences or had no interest in engaging, the trilateral institutionalization of ties should be strong enough so that working relations between the three countries would continue,” she said. “So it won’t matter if a president didn’t show up since the working-level military or economic cooperation would be well-established.”It is not the first time allies have questioned the United States’ commitment to its partners. Despite Mr. Biden’s promise at the NATO summit last month that Washington would “not waver” in its support for Ukraine and western allies, some leaders openly asked whether the U.S. foreign policy agenda would be upended by the outcome of the next election.Ukraine needed to make military progress more or less “by the end of this year” because of the coming elections in the United States, President Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic warned on the first day of the summit.Mr. Biden in Finland was also asked about whether the U.S. support of NATO would endure. “No one can guarantee the future, but this is the best bet anyone could make,” Mr. Biden said then.At Camp David on Friday, neither Mr. Yoon nor Mr. Kishida mentioned Mr. Trump directly in their public comments, but they seemed intent on ensuring that their agreement persists beyond their tenures. Mr. Yoon said the nations were focused on building an alliance that could last for years to come. The three nations will hold a “global leadership youth summit to strengthen ties between our future generations,” he said.Endurance was a running theme throughout the day. “We’re opening a new era,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters shortly before the meetings opened, “and we’re making sure that era has staying power.”Ana Swanson More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      If Mike Pence Is a Big Hero, We’re in Big Trouble

      by

      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I know we’ll get to the latest Trump indictment in a moment, but I wanted to start by raising a subject we haven’t discussed in detail before: capital punishment. Last week, a jury sentenced Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, to death. I sort of assume you’re against the death penalty but wanted to know your reaction to the verdict.Gail Collins: Bret, many folks who are opposed to the death penalty — including me — feel that if there was one time they’d like to see an exception, it’d be the Tree of Life mass murder.Bret: Agreed.Gail: Still, I wish the jury had come back with a life sentence. Tell that miserable excuse of a human being that he’s going to spend the rest of his existence alone, in a cell, being shunned and treated like the pariah he is.The death penalty just doesn’t work for me. On the intellectual side, there isn’t convincing evidence to suggest that the death penalty deters violent crime. And on the moral side, I just can’t see responding to the deliberate taking of life with deliberate taking of life.I assume you disagree?Bret: I always thought the sole purpose of capital punishment was justice, so even if the death penalty did deter violent crime, that argument wouldn’t hold water with me. But my support has softened over the years, mainly because, as I grow older, I think it’s wrong to foreclose the possibility of atonement and redemption in prison, particularly for those who committed crimes when they were young.Gail: Good thought.Bret: And yet there are some crimes that are so premeditated, hateful and cruel that I think society has to respond in the severest way possible. Life in prison with three meals a day, an hour for exercise, friendships with other inmates, answering fan mail (and there will be fan mail) — all that mocks the idea of justice. I don’t for a second doubt that justice was done when the war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged or the serial killer Ted Bundy was executed or the terrorist Timothy McVeigh was killed by lethal injection. Bowers belongs in their company.And, um, speaking of justice, what do we make of Trump indictment No. 3?Gail: We’ve gotten to the real bottom line, Trump-crime-wise. The country can get past a president who breaks the law in his private life, hides official documents and hides the evidence that he hides official documents. But we can’t survive a president who makes a serious attempt to wreck the election system and stay in office after he’s been voted out.That just can’t be overlooked. He has to be punished.Bret: I thought the right remedy for Jan. 6 was political, via immediate impeachment and conviction, as I wrote at the time. I worry that the latest case is going to turn on the question of whether Donald Trump truly believed he had won the election and could have his vice president reject electoral ballots. In other words, it’s going to be about Trump’s state of mind and his First Amendment rights, rather than the disgrace of his behavior, which increases the chances of his ultimate acquittal.Gail: All this drama keeps bringing me back to Mike Pence — and believe me, I never thought I’d be in a world where I wanted to be back with Mike Pence in any way, shape or form. But when the critical moment came, he followed through and declared the actual election winner the actual election winner.Bret: Sorry, but I will never buy the whole “Mike Pence was a hero” business. He was Trump’s faithful enabler for more than four years, his beard with evangelicals, his ever-nodding yes man. He was mute for the eight weeks after the 2020 election when his boss was busy denying the result. He called Kamala Harris to congratulate her only on Jan. 15, more than two months after she and Joe Biden were declared the winners. And if Pence had tried to overturn the election on Jan. 6, he’d now be facing his own federal indictment.Gail: No way I’m going to battle on behalf of the virtues of Mike Pence. You win.Bret: The only Republican I like these days is Chris Christie. I forgive him for endorsing Trump in 2016 because he’s going so hard and so eloquently against his former friend. I also think he has the right theory of the primary race, which is that the only way to beat Trump is to oppose him frontally. Unfortunately, he’s likelier to end up as Liz Cheney’s rival on “Dancing With the Stars” than he is in the White House.Gail: Well, I’d certainly pay good money to watch that season.But right now, I’m just rooting for a Christie smash-down at that Republican debate this month. Looks like he’ll qualify. And I guess Trump will be too chicken to attend, right?Bret: My guess, too. He has such a commanding lead over the other Republicans that a debate can only hurt him, particularly with Christie in the ring.Switching topics: Congress and spending!Gail: My favorite!Bret: I’d like to propose a legislative idea to you and see if we can find common ground. Right now we have serious problems with our defense-industrial infrastructure. Our shipyards don’t have enough resources to build sufficient numbers of submarines, destroyers and frigates to increase the size of the Navy. Many of our existing ships must wait years for necessary repairs even as we face a growing maritime challenge from China. We’re struggling to replace all of the munitions we’ve given to Ukraine, especially artillery shells but also Stingers and Javelins. And inflation has eaten away at the value of our defense dollars. This doesn’t get a lot of mainstream attention, but people close to the problem understand that it borders on an emergency.So my suggestion is that pro-Ukraine Democrats and anti-China Republicans — and vice versa — unite around legislation that would fund a five-year, $250 billion supplemental defense bill to refurbish our defense infrastructure, create thousands of unionized jobs, restock our munitions and help our allies. In honor of Franklin Roosevelt, I would call it the Arsenal of Democracy Bill. Are you on board?Gail: Hmm. Appreciate your concerns about the shortage of military supplies, and I feel pretty supportive of our aid to Ukraine.My big reservation, however, is that the Pentagon doesn’t really need the extra money. It could come up with the funds itself if it would just cut back on waste. The infamous overcharging by suppliers, for instance, and the purchase of way more planes and weapons than we need.Bret: There’s waste in every government program. Progressives mainly seem to notice it when it comes to the one item of government spending they don’t like.Gail: Defense spending tends to get bipartisan support, not so much because it’s worthy as because so many lawmakers see the money going into their districts. Good target for conservative cost cutting.Sorry, F.D.R.Bret: This seems to me an opportunity for a real bipartisan victory that brings the country around the sensible objective of being strong in the face of aggressive autocracies. I’m picturing a bill sponsored by Richard Blumenthal, one of Connecticut’s two Democratic senators, whose state makes many of our nuclear submarines, and Mike Gallagher, the intelligent and sensible Republican congressman from Wisconsin.Gail: Fine lawmakers, but I’m still not buying that one.Bret: OK, enough of my legislative fantasies. Question for you: Considering that the economy is doing relatively well, why aren’t Biden’s poll numbers better — not even on how he handles the economy?Gail: Excellent question. You’d think a guy who passes breakthrough legislation on everything from education to global warming, who has done a terrific job handling a very troubled economy and is respected as a leader around the world would be superpopular. And I truly think if you had an actual election right now, people would turn out in droves to give Biden another term.Bret: I wouldn’t be so sure. The latest New York Times/Siena poll has Trump and Biden in a dead heat. Sixty-five percent of voters think the country is on the wrong track. Food prices keep moving up. The effects of the migration crisis, which have now hit so many places far north of the border, will be felt for years in housing, the school system, even parks. There’s a palpable sense of urban decay in one city after another. Kamala Harris makes a lot of independent voters nervous. Also — and I can’t say this enough, even if it isn’t nice — Biden just seems feeble.Gail: I said if we had an election now, they’d turn out in droves to vote for Biden. Not that they’d be excited about it. The ideal opposition to a crazy, irresponsible former reality TV star isn’t a calm, 80-year-old career politician. I think people are yearning for somebody who’s charismatic and able to get them wildly excited about the future — like the early Barack Obama.We’ll see if anybody pops up.Bret: That person would be Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan. But I guess we’re just going to have to accept the cards we’re dealt. Feeble versus evil. Can’t America do better?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Campaign Anguishes His Storied Family

      by

      The presidential bid by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has tested the bonds of an iconic Democratic clan that does not want him to run and does not know what to do about it.Jack Schlossberg had enough. The only grandson of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Schlossberg had been watching the presidential campaign of his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with increasing dismay.To Mr. Schlossberg, the quixotic challenge to President Biden for the Democratic nomination was just a “vanity project” that was tarnishing the legacy of his grandfather and their storied family. Just days earlier last month, his conspiracy-minded cousin had suggested that the Covid-19 virus had been engineered to protect Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.Sitting in a van in Australia, where he was on vacation, Mr. Schlossberg sketched out a few bullet points, took out his mobile phone and recorded a harsh condemnation of his cousin on Instagram. “He’s trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories and conflict for personal gain and fame,” Mr. Schlossberg said. “I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president. What I do know is his candidacy is an embarrassment.” Then he hit the post button.Mr. Schlossberg’s denunciation underscored the turmoil inside what remains of Camelot. Bobby, as the 69-year-old candidate is called, has become a source of deep anguish among his many siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, one that is testing the bonds of what was once known as the royal family of American politics. His relatives by and large do not want him to run, do not support his campaign, disdain his conspiratorial musings and almost universally admire Mr. Biden, a longtime friend of the family who keeps a bust of Robert F. Kennedy Sr. in the Oval Office.President Joe Biden keeps a bust of Robert F. Kennedy Sr. on display in the Oval Office. Pool photo by Al DragoYet even as some members of the candidate’s family feel compelled to speak out against his campaign, others find themselves profoundly pained by the airing of domestic discord. They do not share Bobby’s views on many issues, particularly his strident anti-vaccine stances, these Kennedys say, but they care for him, do not want to see him hurt and do not think it helps to publicly criticize him.“I love my brother deeply, and while I don’t agree with him on a number of issues, theories, I do not want to knock him,” said Courtney Kennedy Hill, one of the candidate’s sisters. “He has done a lot of good for many, many people,” she added, citing his work as an environmental lawyer who helped clean up the Hudson River and his advocacy for those struggling with drug addiction. “I just don’t want all that to get lost in the maelstrom around his more controversial statements and views.”Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known as Bobby, in the middle row on the right, appears in a portrait with his family in 1964.Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesNever before has the family faced a conundrum quite like this. Through all the tragedies and scandals and campaigns over the years, the traditional Kennedy rule has always been to pull together, to stand by one another no matter what. Family was the rock. Solidarity was the code. But as he polls at around 15 percent against Mr. Biden, Bobby has roiled a family that wants nothing to do with his campaign and telephone lines between Kennedy homes burn with what-to-do agonizing.At left, John F. Kennedy, and in the foreground, Edward M. Kennedy, known as Ted. In a family once considered American royalty, marked by political ambitions and public tragedy, solidarity was long the code.Kennedy Family Collection, Courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, via Associated Press“It must be painful for them,” said Bob Shrum, who for years was one of the leading advisers to Edward M. Kennedy, the senator and patriarch known as Ted. “He’s been through some struggles himself,” Mr. Shrum added of Bobby, “and I think they want to love him. But at the same time, they can’t abide this. It’s very sad at every level.”Robert Kennedy Jr. opted against discussing his relations with his family. “It’s pretty clear that the Times is not going to treat me fairly honestly so I’m going to decline,” he said in a text message. In a statement to CNN in April shortly before kicking off his campaign, he acknowledged that some relatives do not support him. “I bear them no ill will,” he said. “Families can disagree and still love each other.”Still, privately he has reached out to some of his relatives to complain about their public comments and engaged in tense discussions about his campaign and platform. Some family members recall pressing him on why he was running and warning him that he was putting his life up for scrutiny in a way that might be personally devastating.Mr. Kennedy, who was 9 when his uncle was assassinated and 14 when his father was killed, struggled with addiction as a young man and was kicked out of private schools and arrested on marijuana and heroin charges more than once. After checking into a treatment facility in 1983, he says he has been clean ever since and has been an antidrug crusader. Amid reports of infidelity, he separated from his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who also battled addiction and died by suicide in 2012. He is now married to his third wife, the actress Cheryl Hines.Mr. Kennedy and his wife Cheryl Hines in Israel in 2019 as part of a trip with the Waterkeeper Alliance, of which he was board president in his environmental advocacy.Daniel Rolider for The New York TimesIn interviews in recent days, several members of the Kennedy family, some of whom did not want to be named, sounded tortured about the situation. They talked of a brother, cousin, uncle who flashed some of the raw political talent of his famed father, but who has undergone trauma and is headed down a path they do not fully understand.For years, Mr. Kennedy has made himself into a champion of the vaccine resistance movement, promoting spurious assertions about the dangers of inoculations and once calling the Covid-19 vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” He has said Anne Frank had more freedom during the Holocaust than Americans pressured to take the vaccine, a comparison for which he later apologized, and wrote a book attacking Dr. Anthony S. Fauci.He has suggested that mass shootings at schools have increased because of heightened use of antidepressants. And in a particularly sensitive area for his family, he has maintained that the C.I.A. was involved in the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy, and possibly in the assassination of his father.Last month, he declared that the coronavirus was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” He later said he was misinterpreted, writing on Twitter that the disparate effect of the virus “serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons” but “I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.”That proved too much for several family members. Kerry Kennedy, his sister and president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, issued a statement calling his remarks “deplorable and untruthful.” Joseph P. Kennedy II, his brother and a former congressman, called them “morally and factually wrong.” Joseph P. Kennedy III, his nephew and another former congressman now serving as Mr. Biden’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, posted his own response on Twitter: “I unequivocally condemn what he said.”Mr. Kennedy protesting a Covid-19 vaccine mandate in Washington in January 2022. Last month, he declared that the coronavirus was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people.”Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesMr. Schlossberg filmed his video four days later. “I didn’t have a plan,” he said in an interview from Australia, where he traveled after passing the bar exam to visit his mother, Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador, and to tour the country before returning home to begin a legal career. “I just wanted to speak out and felt it was the right time.”Mr. Schlossberg, 30, said he did not consult family members first and added that posting the video was “not an easy thing to do.” But he stressed how much he admires Mr. Biden, who he said “sees America now much the same way as my grandfather did” and in his view is “probably the greatest president of my lifetime.”While the statements were not coordinated, according to family members, the display of disagreement struck close observers of the Kennedys as a pivotal moment. “The Kennedy family has always tried to keep things within the family,” said Jim Manley, a longtime aide to Edward Kennedy. “The fact that some of the members, some of his cousins, are beginning to speak up publicly, it to me indicates how upset they are with what he’s saying and what he’s doing.”Vaccines are not the only source of dispute. The candidate has also spoken out against aid for Ukraine, accused the Biden administration of lying to the public about the war and suggested that American leaders pushed Ukraine into conflict with Russia “as part of their strategic grand plan to destroy any country such as Russia that resists American imperial expansion.”“I do not agree with Bobby on Ukraine, and I’ve had many conversations with him about it and I’m disappointed that he is not more supportive,” Douglas Kennedy, another brother and a Fox News correspondent, said in an interview.Still, he expressed understanding for his brother’s propensity to question conventional wisdom. “Bobby has views that I would say most of the members of my family disagree with,” he said. “But I also believe that particularly our family, our siblings, we were brought up to be skeptical of authority in general.”Mr. Kennedy appeared at a House Judiciary Committee hearing last month organized by Republicans, on the weaponization of the federal government.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesPatrick J. Kennedy, another former congressman and son of Edward Kennedy, said he regrets that the campaign has distracted from priorities the family has long promoted. “It would be nice for the general public who is associating the legacy of my family with my cousin (esp bc he invokes them so much) to know that my family’s historic legacy of fighting for social justice was on display today,” he said by text on the day the Biden administration advanced new rules aimed at increasing access to mental health and substance abuse services.It has not been lost on the family that Robert Kennedy Jr. has drawn support from Republicans affiliated with former President Donald J. Trump. Roughly half of the $10.5 million raised by two super PACs supporting Mr. Kennedy came from a single donor who previously backed Mr. Trump and has contributed $53 million in stock to build a wall on the border with Mexico.Nor is Mr. Kennedy’s target immaterial. Mr. Biden has been close to the Kennedys for half a century, since the days when Edward Kennedy showed up at the Delaware hospital where his sons were recovering from the car accident that killed the future president’s first wife and baby daughter.To this day, Mr. Biden calls the candidate’s mother, Ethel Kennedy, every year on her birthday and for decades, according to Douglas Kennedy, has shown up for family events two or three times a year. The president has dispensed appointments to multiple members of the family, including Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the ambassador to Austria; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a senior Labor Department official; Caroline Kennedy and Joseph Kennedy III.Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Edward M. Kennedy during a Senate hearing with Attorney General Edwin Meese in 1987. The ties between the Biden and Kennedy families go back to the 1970s.Jose R. Lopez/The New York Times“Everybody in our family loves Joe Biden, and Joe Biden has been very good to my mother and I think genuinely loved my father probably as much as anybody who has held that office in the past 50 years,” Douglas Kennedy said. “That’s certainly a factor in everybody’s individual feeling about Bobby running.”Courtney Kennedy Hill recalled how “exceptionally kind, thoughtful and valuable” Mr. Biden was when her daughter, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, died of an overdose in 2019. But so too was Bobby, she noted. He had a close relationship with his niece. “He was special to and for her and I will love him forever for that,” she said.One way or the other, she predicted, the family would get through this. “If you came to the Cape on Thanksgiving, you would see a family full of fun, energy, laughter and, of course, healthy competition,” she said. “A lot of it anyway.” More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Fact-Checking Mike Pence on the Campaign Trail

      by

      The former vice president has made misleading claims about abortion, fiscal policy and military spending.Since beginning his long-shot presidential campaign in June, former Vice President Mike Pence has struggled to gain traction among Republican primary voters.Mr. Pence has consistently polled in the single digits behind the two leading contenders: his onetime running mate, former President Donald J. Trump, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. The former vice president has broken with them most starkly on their approaches to Social Security and Medicare. He has also carved out clear positions supporting a 15-week national abortion ban and wholeheartedly backing American involvement in the war in Ukraine.Mr. Pence has made some inaccurate claims along the way. Here’s a fact check of some of his recent remarks on the campaign trail.AbortionWhat Mr. Pence Said“I did, this week, call on every other candidate for the Republican nomination to support a minimum standard of a 15-week ban on abortion at the national level that would align American law with most of the countries in Europe that literally ban abortion after 12 to 15 weeks. Our laws at the national level today are more aligned with North Korea, China and Iran than with other Western countries in Europe.”— in a June interview on Fox News SundayThis is misleading. Mr. Pence’s comparison is overly simplistic and glosses over how abortion laws in Europe work in practice. It is also worth noting that many European countries are moving toward relaxing abortion restrictions, not imposing additional ones, as The Upshot has reported.Of some four dozen countries in Europe, almost all have legalized elective abortion before 10 to 15 weeks of pregnancy. All of these countries allow abortions after the gestational limit if the mother’s life is in danger and about half do so for cases involving sexual violence — two exceptions that Mr. Pence has said he also supports. But many also allow for broader exceptions, like the socioeconomic circumstances or mental health of the mother, which Mr. Pence’s proposal does not include.In Britain, for example, an abortion must be approved by two doctors, but those requests are generally granted up to 24 weeks. In Denmark and Germany, exceptions for gestational limits of 12 weeks are made for mental and physical health as well as living conditions.At least three countries also have more permissive gestational cutoffs than Mr. Pence’s proposal: Iceland at 22 weeks, the Netherlands at 24 weeks and Sweden at 18 weeks.In contrast, China allows elective abortions without specifying gestational limits in its national laws, according to the World Health Organization. China also has said in recent years that it will aim to reduce the number of “medically unnecessary” abortions, and at least one province has prohibited abortions after 14 weeks.North Korea’s laws on abortion are unclear. In 2015, the authorities issued a directive barring doctors from performing abortions, according to the World Health Organization, but “there are no documents after 2015” on the legality of the procedure.In the United States, after the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion last summer, the legal status of abortion varies widely from state to state. In some, the procedure is banned with no exceptions, and in others it is enshrined as a right with no gestational limits. A spokesman for Mr. Pence cited nine such states as exceptionally nonrestrictive.Fiscal policyWhat Mr. Pence Said“Well, first off, look, Joe Biden’s policy on our national debt is insolvency. And, sadly, my former running mate’s policy is identical to Joe Biden’s. Both of them say they’re not even going to talk about common sense and compassionate reforms to entitlements to spare future generations of a mountain range of debt.”— in the Fox News Sunday interviewThis is exaggerated. Asked about his calls to overhaul Social Security and Medicare, Mr. Pence criticized Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Biden’s approaches to the social programs as irresponsible. While both have said they would not cut benefits, only Mr. Biden has proposed tax increases to shore up both programs. But equating that position to one of accepting total insolvency is overstated.Currently, Social Security and Medicare both face financial shortfalls. The fund that pays for Social Security retirement benefits is projected to be depleted by 2033, and the fund that pays hospitals for Medicare patients will be exhausted in 2031. At those points, the funds will be able to pay for only 77 percent of retirement benefits and 89 percent of scheduled fees to hospitals.During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden proposed increasing taxes on high-income earners to pay for additional Social Security benefits. The extra funding would reduce the program’s financial shortfall, though the revenue would not close the gap entirely. While his latest presidential budget, released in March, does not mention that proposal, it does include a plan to extend the solvency of Medicare by 25 years by imposing higher taxes on the wealthy.Mr. Trump’s position on social safety net programs is a bit harder to pin down. In January 2020, he said he would be willing to consider cuts to the social safety nets “at some point” — though he quickly tried to walk back his comments and vowed to protect Social Security. His last presidential budget proposal, in February 2020, did not cut benefits to either program, but sought Medicare savings through a dozen tweaks like reducing payments to providers and reducing the cost of prescription drugs.More recently, Mr. Trump vowed in a speech in March at the Conservative Political Action Conference that “we are never going back” to proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age or cut Medicare benefits. But Mr. Trump has not yet outlined his stance on either program in more detail or addressed their solvency issues in this campaign cycle.The Pence campaign argued that neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden has a current plan for Social Security, and that Mr. Biden’s plan for Medicare just delays the financial shortfall.Mr. Pence has made misleading claims about abortion, fiscal policy and military spending.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesClassified documentsWhat Mr. Pence Said“I mean, when I informed the Department of Justice that we had classified materials potentially in our home, they were at my home. The F.B.I. was on my front doorstep the next day. And what we found out was that, when Joe Biden apparently alerted the Department of Justice, 80 days later, they showed up at his office.”— in a CNN town hall in JuneThis is exaggerated. Upon the discovery of classified documents in their personal residences, Mr. Pence and Mr. Biden both cooperated with government inquiries. Mr. Pence has a point that the Justice Department’s responses to the discoveries were not identical, but he is overstating the differences.In Mr. Biden’s case, the searches occurred a few weeks — not three months — after the discovery of classified documents. In Mr. Pence’s case, the search occurred about three weeks later.On Nov. 2, lawyers for Mr. Biden discovered classified documents at the offices of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank in Washington. On the same day, according to Biden administration officials, the lawyers alerted the National Archives and Records Administration, which is responsible for securing such documents. The next day, the National Archives retrieved the documents and referred the matter to the Justice Department. The F.B.I. searched the think tank in mid-November.On Dec. 20, Mr. Biden’s aides discovered a second set of classified documents at his home in Wilmington, Del. The same day, they alerted the U.S. attorney leading the investigation about the discovery. A month later, on Jan. 20, the F.B.I. searched the residence and seized additional documents. And on Feb. 1, the F.B.I. searched Mr. Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., but did not find additional classified documents.The discovery of classified documents in Mr. Biden’s possession prompted aides for Mr. Pence to search his home in Indiana out of caution. They found about a dozen documents with classified markings on Jan. 16 and alerted the National Archives to the discovery in a letter dated Jan. 18. The Justice Department, rather than the records agency, then retrieved the documents from Mr. Pence’s home on Jan. 19. Nearly a month later, on Feb. 10, the F.B.I. searched Mr. Pence’s home and found one additional document.The Pence campaign argued that the Justice Department, in directly requesting the documents from Mr. Pence, bypassed the standard procedures, which did not occur in Mr. Biden’s case.Unlike the Biden and Trump cases, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland did not appoint a special counsel to investigate Mr. Pence’s handling of classified materials. The Justice Department has also declined to prosecute Mr. Pence while the inquiry into Mr. Biden remains ongoing.Funding for the militaryWhat Mr. Pence Said“Since Joe Biden took office, he’s been working to cut military spending.”— at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa in JulyThis is false. Mr. Biden’s annual budgets have generally asked for more funding for the military, and actual spending has increased each year.Mr. Biden’s first budget, released in 2021, proposed $715 billion for the Pentagon, essentially keeping funding level. That was a 1.6 percent increase from the previous year and a 0.4 percent decrease when adjusted for inflation. In December of that year, he signed into law a $770 billion defense package.After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Mr. Biden’s proposals and congressional appropriators amped up military spending even more.The budget he released in 2022 requested $773 billion in military spending, a nearly 10 percent increase from the previous year. He eventually signed into law an $858 billion spending policy bill.And Mr. Biden’s latest budget, released in March, asked for $842 billion for the military, a 3.2 percent increase from the previous year, and $886 billion total for national defense. That legislation is currently going through the appropriations process in Congress. The Pence campaign argued that this amounted to a cut, as the rate of inflation outstrips the rate of increase.At the Iowa event, Mr. Pence cited Mr. Biden’s debt ceiling deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as an example of a proposed 1 percent cut to the military. Under that deal, military spending is set at the president’s proposed amount of $886 billion and would rise to $895 billion in 2025. But all spending, for both the military and domestic programs, would be subject to a 1 percent cut if Congress does not pass annual spending bills by January.We welcome suggestions and tips from readers on what to fact-check on email and Twitter. More