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      GOP Voters Show Appetite for Calls to Use Military Force Against Mexican Cartels

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      G.O.P. candidates on the trail have used the idea as both an effective applause line and a solution for what many Republicans see as an unchecked border.Iowa is more than 1,000 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico. But Republican primary voters in the Midwestern state have embraced what has become almost orthodoxy among the G.O.P. candidates vying for their votes: deploying military forces to fight drug cartels and secure the border.Just years after former President Donald Trump mused about it in the Oval Office, the idea of using the country’s military might at the border — without the consent of the Mexican government — has made its way into barns, diners and other haunts along the campaign trail. The Times reported Tuesday on Mr. Trump’s plans to make the idea a reality in 2025 should he ultimately win the White House.At a Pizza Ranch restaurant in Orange City, Iowa, last month, Vivek Ramaswamy suggested that the United States should “use our own military to secure our own southern border.” He drew cheers before he finished the line: “and if necessary, our northern border, too.”Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina received claps for his border policy pronouncements at the Iowa State Fair in August, during which he said, “We have to crush the cartels.” He added that the United States had “the available military-grade technology to stop the fentanyl flow across our borders.”And one of the most reliable applause lines for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — who frequently promises military strikes against Mexican drug cartels and deadly force against people crossing the border — has involved a declaration that his administration would leave drug traffickers “stone-cold dead.”A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that around two-thirds of Republicans support the idea of military intervention to take on cartels, though that percentage dropped when respondents were asked whether the United States should do so without Mexico’s permission.Unilaterally sending U.S. troops into Mexico is a nonstarter for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said the move would constitute “an offense to the people of Mexico.” Policy experts and even senior aides in the Trump administration also decried the prospect as an extreme escalation.But that hasn’t stopped G.O.P. presidential candidates from using the threat of taking out cartel members abroad through military force as both an effective rallying cry and a solution for what many Republicans see as an unchecked border and an opioid epidemic, even if promises of military intervention may prove difficult to keep.The line has received a warm welcome in other early voting states, too. Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, often pledges to send special military operations “to take out the cartels in Mexico.”At an event in Hampton, New Hampshire, last month, it really landed. “If Mexico is not going to do it, we will do it,” she told a crowd outside a cozy bed-and-breakfast, who began clapping before she finished her delivery. The small state has been ravaged by fentanyl. Few candidates have offered alternate thoughts. Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who once led the Drug Enforcement Administration, has rebutted the idea of military intervention — a response that might partly explain why Mr. Hutchinson did not even make the G.O.P. debate stage last week.“It doesn’t make sense, as some candidates say, that we ought to start dropping bombs or invade Mexico,” Mr. Hutchinson said at a Republican tailgate for an Iowa-Iowa State football game in September. “Mexico is still a friendly country to the United States and economic partner, and you don’t invade another country.”The crowd didn’t seem convinced: Many resumed chatting or searched for refreshments during his remarks.Nicholas Nehamas More

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      How Trump’s Idea to Use Military Force in Mexico Became Embraced by GOP

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      The Republican push to use military force in Mexico against drug cartels started in the Trump White House. He has plans to make the idea a reality in 2025.The first time Donald Trump talked privately about shooting missiles into Mexico to take out drug labs, as far as his former aides can recall, was in early 2020.And the first time those comments became public was when his second defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, wrote in his memoir that Mr. Trump had raised it with him and asked if the United States could make it look as if some other country was responsible. Mr. Esper portrayed the idea as ludicrous.Yet instead of condemning the idea, some Republicans publicly welcomed word that Mr. Trump had wanted to use military force against the drug cartels on Mexican soil — and without the consent of Mexico’s government. Mr. Trump’s notion of a military intervention south of the border has swiftly evolved from an Oval Office fantasy to something approaching Republican Party doctrine.On the presidential campaign trail and on the G.O.P. debate stage in California last week, nearly every Republican candidate has been advocating versions of a plan to send U.S. Special Operations troops into Mexican territory to kill or capture drug cartel members and destroy their labs and distribution centers.On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers have drafted a broad authorization for the use of military force against cartels — echoing the war powers Congress gave former President George W. Bush before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They have also pushed for designating Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations — a related idea Mr. Trump flirted with as president but backed off after Mexico hotly objected. Now, if Mr. Trump returns to the White House in 2025, he has vowed to push for the designations and to deploy Special Operations troops and naval forces to, as he put it, declare war on the cartels.The Republican Party’s attraction to seeking a military solution to the drug problem is a reminder that the G.O.P. — despite its populist shift toward anti-interventionism in the Trump years and the growth of a faction that opposes arming Ukraine against Russia’s invasion — still reaches for armed force to address some complex and intractable problems. Mr. Trump himself has been something of a walking contradiction when it comes to the use of force abroad, alternately wanting to pull back U.S. involvement overseas and threatening to drop bombs on enemies such as Iran.The plans have angered officials in Mexico. Its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has denounced the proposals as outrageous and unacceptable. It has been more than a century since the United States sent military personnel into Mexico without the Mexican government’s assent.Mexico has a bitter history with American interference: Much of the southwestern United States was part of Mexico before the United States took it by force in the middle of the 19th century. To this day, Mexico generally does not allow U.S. agents with guns to carry out operations on its soil, in contrast to other Latin American countries that have agreed to joint operations with the Drug Enforcement Administration and invited the American government to help train, equip and assist their own security forces.Analysts have also warned about the potential for military action to cause significant economic damage. The plans could rupture the United States’ relationship with Mexico, its largest trading partner, and curtail other types of cooperation, including the arrest and extradition of criminals and Mexico’s efforts to deter migrants from trying to cross illegally into the United States. Some Republicans view the threat of sending the military into Mexico as a negotiating tool to force Mexican officials to get aggressive with the cartels.Generally, international law forbids a country from using military force on the sovereign soil of another nation without its consent, except with the permission of the United Nations Security Council or in cases of self-defense. But the United States has taken the position that it can lawfully use force unilaterally on another nation’s territory if its government is unable or unwilling to suppress a nonstate threat emanating from it, such as a threat from a terrorist group.Republicans have described the Mexican criminal drug-trafficking networks as a national security threat, with some calling fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.Americans spend many billions of dollars a year on cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs. For decades, the black market created by that demand has been heavily supplied by criminal smuggling operations across the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. But the rise of fentanyl — a powerful and fast-acting synthetic opioid that can be made cheaply from chemicals — has created a crisis. Fentanyl has been linked to more than two-thirds of the nearly 110,000 American overdose deaths last year, and lawmakers from both parties have been desperately searching for solutions.Frustration has also mounted with the Mexican government, whose president has advocated a “hugs not bullets” policy to deal with drug crime, after crackdowns on cartel leaders by previous administrations led to widespread violence. The cartels, which resemble high-tech paramilitary organizations, have seized control of large areas in Mexico and have corrupted many officials in Mexico’s government and law enforcement ranks.The Biden administration — like previous administrations of both parties — has sought to partner with Mexico to stem the flow of drugs and has explicitly ruled out military action.Chris Landau, who was Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Mexico from 2019 to 2021, said the idea of using military force in a bordering country was a bad idea that would only make things worse. He warned it could create a new “quagmire,” invoking the aftermath of military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.“I understand the frustration,” Mr. Landau added. “I just think that a ‘shootout at the O.K. Corral’ model is not going to solve it and will cause a lot more problems.”Origins in the Oval OfficeFormer President Donald Trump at the border wall during a commemoration in San Luiz, Ariz., in June 2020. Mr. Trump has had a number of conversations with aides and other members of his administration about targeting Mexican cartels.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe story of how the idea of sending military force into Mexico went from Mr. Trump’s Oval Office to the center of the Republican policy conversation is complex and much more than a simple tale of lawmakers copying Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump’s proposal to shoot missiles at Mexican drug labs was not something he concocted out of thin air. It came up during a meeting and was affirmed by a man in uniform.That man in uniform was not in the military chain of command, however: He was a medical officer and an unlikely person to be advising the president of the United States on military operations anywhere.By late 2019 and early 2020, as the fentanyl crisis was intensifying, large-scale meetings in the Oval Office addressed how to handle the problem. Some participants felt the meetings were of little use because officials tended to perform for Mr. Trump, and he would perform for them.When the idea of military intervention was brought up at one such meeting, Mr. Trump turned to Brett Giroir, who was there in his role as the U.S. assistant secretary for health. Mr. Giroir was also a four-star admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, and he was wearing his dress uniform. His main point was that the United States was unable to combat the crisis with treatment alone, according to a person briefed on his comments.It was clear from the way Mr. Trump singled out Mr. Giroir that he had mistakenly thought he was in the military because of his dress uniform, according to two participants in the meeting. Mr. Giroir, in his response, suggested putting “lead to target,” the two participants recalled. Mr. Trump did not betray what he thought about the idea, and White House officials, troubled by the moment, considered asking Mr. Giroir not to wear his dress uniform to the Oval Office again.Mr. Giroir, in a statement, did not discuss the substance of the meeting, but said that no one had suggested that military action alone would solve the fentanyl crisis. He also insisted that Mr. Trump had not mistaken him for a military officer.“He knew exactly who I was, that I was in the Public Health Service, and I was the opioids lead under the Secretary,” Mr. Giroir said. “We had multiple meetings before that.”Jason Miller, a senior adviser on Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, declined to address the Oval Office meeting or the discussion of sending missiles into Mexico.As president, Mr. Trump had discussions about using military force in Mexico with Brett Giroir, center, the U.S. assistant secretary for health; Attorney General William Barr, left; and the defense secretary, Mark Esper.New York Times photographs by Anna Moneymaker, T.J. Kirkpatrick and Erin SchaffDuring that same time period in late 2019, Attorney General William P. Barr had proposed to Mr. Trump the idea of using force inside Mexico, but he envisioned it as a policy they would pursue in a second term if Mr. Trump won the 2020 election. He thought the threat of unilateral action on the part of the United States would give the administration leverage to press the Mexicans to do more on their end to suppress the cartels.Mr. Barr and Mr. Trump had a number of conversations about the issue. Mr. Barr mentioned a range of options for aggressive action, according to a person familiar with the discussions. But Mr. Barr was not advocating missiles, concerned that the wrong target might get taken out using such ordinance, the person said.At least twice during 2020, Mr. Trump privately asked his defense secretary, Mr. Esper, about the possibility of sending “Patriot missiles” into Mexico to destroy the drug labs, and whether they could blame another country for it. Patriot missiles are not the kind that would be used — they are surface-to-air weapons — but Mr. Trump had a habit of calling all missiles “Patriot missiles,” according to two former senior administration officials. During one of the 2020 discussions, Mr. Trump made the comment quietly to Mr. Esper as they stood near the Resolute Desk, within ear shot of another cabinet official. Mr. Esper, stunned, pushed back on the idea.From Trump’s Mouth to the 2024 TrailIn a sign of how politically potent the idea of sending troops into Mexico has become for Republicans, Nikki Haley, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott have all rushed to offer military solutions to the opioid epidemic.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesAfter leaving office, Mr. Trump didn’t stop talking about attacking the drug cartels. Instead, he turned the idea into an official policy proposal for his 2024 campaign for president.In January, Mr. Trump released a policy video titled “President Donald J. Trump Declares War on Cartels,” in which he explicitly endorsed the idea of treating Mexican drug cartels like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — rather than treating them as transnational criminal organizations to be addressed using law enforcement tools.Mr. Trump promised to “deploy all necessary military assets, including the U.S. Navy” to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels and to “designate the major cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”And he pledged to order the Pentagon “to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations.”As a matter of international law, a crucial question is whether the United States would use military force inside Mexico only with the consent of its government or whether it would do so unilaterally without consent. Mr. Trump downplayed the prospect of war with Mexico in a recent interview with Megyn Kelly, the podcast host and former Fox News star.But in a sign of how politically potent the prospect of sending troops into Mexico has become for Republicans, the campaign of his chief rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, highlighted Mr. Trump’s comments to Ms. Kelly and emphasized that Mr. DeSantis has promised to take aggressive military action against the cartels.Vivek Ramaswamy has promised to “use our military to annihilate the Mexican drug cartels.” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has released a campaign ad vowing to “unleash” the U.S. military against the cartels. And former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina has said that when it comes to drug cartels, “you tell the Mexican president, either you do it or we do it.”Mr. Miller, the Trump adviser, said that Mr. Trump had announced a “detailed plan to eradicate the drug cartels and stop the flow of drugs into our country in the first week of January, and it’s good to see so many others now following his lead.”Operationalizing the IdeaRepresentative Dan Crenshaw has proposed legislation to enact a broad authorization for the use of military force against nine named cartels, a bill more than 20 of his fellow House Republicans have backed as co-sponsors.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThe idea has taken on a life of its own on Capitol Hill.More than 20 House Republicans have signed on to co-sponsor legislation proposed by Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas to enact a broad authorization for the use of military force against nine named cartels. It would also authorize force against any other foreign organization that the president determines meets certain criteria, including organizations related to fentanyl trafficking.The proposed authorization for a war would end after five years unless Congress enacted a new bill to extend it. But its otherwise loose nature resembles the broad war authorizations Congress enacted after the 2001 terrorist attacks and ahead of the 2003 Iraq War, both of which escalated into entanglements beyond what lawmakers originally envisioned.Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is a close ally of Mr. Trump, said he thought a president could bomb fentanyl labs and distribution centers on his own constitutional authority as commander in chief, without congressional authorization. But he also argued that if Mr. Trump became president again, the mere threat that he might do something like that could induce the Mexican government to take more aggressive actions.Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, held a news conference in March about his proposed legislation to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images“As these problems go unmanaged and get bigger in scope, the solutions become more draconian,” he said. “And the one thing about Trump, I think if he does get a second term, I think you’ll see more cooperation by Mexico. I don’t think we’ll ever have to get to bombing labs — Mexico will adjust their policies based on Trump.”‘An Offense to the People of Mexico’President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico has accused Republicans of using “Mexico for their propaganda” and their “electoral and political purposes.”Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesThe Republican rhetoric about attacking drug cartels inside Mexico is ricocheting around the halls of its government. The country’s leftist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has responded furiously and taken the extraordinary step for a world leader of attacking the Republican Party.“This initiative of the Republicans, besides being irresponsible, is an offense to the people of Mexico, a lack of respect to our independence, to our sovereignty,” Mr. López Obrador told reporters in March. “If they do not change their attitude and think that they are going to use Mexico for their propaganda, their electoral and political purposes, we are going to call for not voting for this party, because it is interventionist, inhuman, hypocritical and corrupt.”From a Mexican perspective, it is the United States that is fueling the cartel violence — not only because American demand creates the market for the drug trade, but also because the United States makes it so easy to buy the firearms that end up in Mexico. Those firearms fuel gun violence in Mexico despite its tough gun-control laws.Roberto Velasco Álvarez, the top North American official in Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, specifically invoked the gun comparison as he called out Mr. Ramaswamy for promising U.S. military action inside Mexico.“If Mr. Ramaswamy is so concerned about what’s going on in Mexico, well, the best way he could help us is to take away the guns that are literally being sold to Mexican cartels,” he said in an interview.As Mexico heads to a historic presidential election next year, when voters are expected to choose between two leading candidates who are women, whoever gets elected will most likely need to handle the tensions created by the Republican Party.“Rather than threats, we should work in a smart way,” said Xóchitl Gálvez, a Mexican senator who has been chosen as the opposition’s candidate and has openly rejected Mr. López Obrador’s security strategy, adding that “the hugs have been for the criminals and the bullets for the Mexican citizens.”But Ms. Gálvez also criticized the Republican proposals to invade Mexico and called for shared and responsible cooperation. “We can’t keep blaming each other,” she said. Nicholas Nehamas More

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      General Mark Milley’s Term Had It All

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      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

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      Acusaciones contra DeSantis en Guantánamo: lo que sabemos

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      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

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      Inside the Unfounded Claim That DeSantis Abused Guantánamo Detainees

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      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

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

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      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

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

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      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

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

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      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