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      Biden Promised to Stay Above the Fray, but Democrats Want a Fighter

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      President Biden’s measured approach at a time of political tumult has left him struggling to inspire his supporters and allies to action.WASHINGTON — Forty-eight hours after a horrific mass shooting on the Fourth of July, President Biden flew to Ohio on Wednesday for a speech on pension plans.With inflation soaring and Democrats still fuming about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Mr. Biden’s public schedule included no events or announcements on either topic.And in response to last week’s blockbuster testimony about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Mr. Biden has said almost nothing, pledging deference to the congressional committee investigating the violent assault on American democracy.At a moment of broad political tumult and economic distress, Mr. Biden has appeared far less engaged than many of his supporters had hoped. While many Democrats are pleading for a fighter who gives voice to their anger, Mr. Biden has chosen a more passive path — blaming Congress, urging people to vote and avoiding heated rhetorical battles.“The economy seems to be running out of control. Fundamental rights are being stripped away. And the White House just isn’t coming with anything,” said Bill Neidhardt, a former spokesman for Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont.Inside the White House, administration officials say Mr. Biden has been quick to respond to the country’s crises, even if he doesn’t get the credit they believe he deserves.The president came into office promising competence and deliberative action after four years in which his predecessor governed by angry Twitter posts and frequent tirades. By contrast, Mr. Biden touted his sober experience as a legislator, saying it would help him bridge ideological divides. And he campaigned on knowing how to wield the authority of the presidency after serving eight years as vice president.Early in the president’s term, Mr. Biden aggressively campaigned for a trillion-dollar economic stimulus by promising $2,000 checks for every American, a robust political effort that helped energize his supporters and aided Democratic victories in Georgia to capture control of the Senate. Mr. Neidhardt said few Democrats see the same kind of energy or passion from the president now.“I’m not saying you have to, you know, always have a $2,000 check to wave around,” he said. “But you’ve got to do something. Some sort of action. That I think is the crux of it.”On the big issues of the day, the president in recent months has often cited the limits of his power.Understand Inflation and How It Impacts YouInflation 101: What’s driving inflation in the United States? What can slow the rapid price gains? Here’s what to know.Inflation Calculator: How you experience inflation can vary greatly depending on your spending habits. Answer these seven questions to estimate your personal inflation rate.Managing Your Finances: With interest rates rising, now is a good time to pay down credit card balances and bolster emergency savings.Changing Behaviors: From driving fewer miles to downgrading vacations, Americans are making changes to their spending because of inflation. Here’s how five households are coping.He notes that the Federal Reserve has “a primary responsibility” to fight inflation. On guns, he insists that Congress must do more. When it comes to college tuition, voting rights, the border, competition with China and more, Mr. Biden’s usual answer is that it is up to lawmakers.The Supreme Court’s action on abortion, he said, was a “tragic error” — but not one that he can fix.Still fuming about the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, abortion proponents have urged action from Democrats and the White House.Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times“The only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose and the balance that existed is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law,” Mr. Biden said. “No executive action from the president can do that.”Legal experts say Mr. Biden’s assessment of the constraints is accurate. But critics say his measured approach simply does not meet the moment, leaving him struggling to inspire his supporters and allies to action.Activists, elected leaders, and everyday Democratic voters say they are eager for Mr. Biden to push the legal limits. Among the ideas: Establish abortion clinics on federal lands; demand an expansion of the Supreme Court; call for the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump; push harder for tougher climate change regulations and legislation.“I don’t want always-mad-trigger-happy leaders,” Amanda Litman, a progressive activist said on Twitter on Wednesday. “But staying calm & barely responding when the crises in front of us are massive — on abortion, guns, climate, democracy, etc — makes us feel like *we’re* the crazy ones for thinking things are bad!”The president’s White House aides and closest allies reject the Democratic criticism as little more than misinformed or misdirected complaints.“It’s nice for Democratic leaders to come up with ideas,” said Cedric Richmond, a former top White House adviser who is now working for Mr. Biden at the Democratic National Committee. “But if the ideas are illegal or if they don’t work or if they place people in more harm, he’s not going to do it.”Mr. Richmond, a former member of Congress from Louisiana, lashed out at Democrats for engaging in what he called a “circular firing squad” and said they are buying in to Republican claims that the president’s party is destined to lose the midterm elections.“To those Democrats that are nervous, anxious, scared, whatever you call it,” he said, “go out, knock some doors, win some elections.”In Europe last week, Mr. Biden pushed world leaders to embrace a proposal to try to bring gas prices down. After months of study, Mr. Biden proposed a federal gas-tax holiday to reduce prices at the pump — an idea popular with Democrats. When the court struck down Roe v. Wade, he issued a series of executive orders aimed at ensuring some access to health services. And last month, he helped push through the first bipartisan gun safety legislation in decades.White House officials noted that Mr. Biden delivered a forceful speech just hours after the court’s Roe decision, calling it a “terrible, extreme decision.” On guns, they said the president has been blunt and passionate, saying after the shootings at a Texas elementary school: “I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, has called for more urgency from the White House, especially on economic issues. But he said Wednesday that the sniping about Mr. Biden from members of his own party is counterproductive and will only help Republicans win congressional elections this fall and the presidential contest in 2024.“The Democratic Party needs to rally around President Biden heading into the midterms and heading into the president’s re-election,” he said. “If people have constructive ideas, they should share them. But they should do it in a spirit of strengthening this president’s hand.”Mr. Khanna said Democrats need to find constructive ways to channel their anger and frustration about abortion, gas prices and other issues into action. He said the party’s leaders should not hesitate to take actions like imposing more regulations on guns, restoring a woman’s right to an abortion or making it easier for Americans to afford everyday goods.“I guess my view of it is that we will have a lot more success doing that with constructive dialogue with the White House than taking potshots at the president,” he said.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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      How Can We Still Be Talking About Trump?

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      Gail Collins: Happy Independence Day, Bret! Want to celebrate by talking about the Supreme Court?Bret Stephens: I was sorta thinking of a cookout on the patio with a nice bottle of rosé, but fire away.Gail: We were in such accord, gnashing our teeth over the decisions on abortion and guns. How about their deep-sixing environmental regulation? You still gnashing with me?Bret: You are referring to the ruling that says the Environmental Protection Agency can’t unilaterally reinvent the entire energy economy with an expansive interpretation of the Clean Air Act that Congress did not intend when it wrote the bill? I’d say the decision was the best thing the court did this term.Guessing you … don’t see it quite the same way.Gail: Well, um … no.Congress gave the E.P.A. extensive power when it comes to regulating carbon emissions. That’s because carbon emissions are a threat to the environment and a trigger for global warming.If Congress feels the E.P.A. is going too far, it has the power to override said regulations at any time. That hasn’t happened because — gee, I guess the Congressional majority feels global warming is a big deal.Bret: The case hinges on an interpretation of the word “system.” The Clean Air Act requires power plants to adopt “the best system of emission reductions.” The court’s conservatives took “system” to mean emission-controlling technologies at the plants themselves, not a vast regulatory mechanism that puts the entire American coal industry on a swift path to extinction.Gail: I think I told you that my father worked for a utility company, and I remember the agony he went through trying to deal with both the government regulators and the folks we called “the coal barons” in West Virginia. I have sympathy for the folks in the middle here, but not so much for the barons.Bret: I grew up listening to my father’s complaints about the way the Mexican government did business with the private sector. In case you ever wonder about my worship of the works of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Gary Becker and Ronald Coase.Gail: We obviously need to keep directing help to the working people in the mining industry, but the government’s top job is to protect the nation and future generations from global warming.Bret: If Congressional Democrats — whose majority happens to hinge on a certain senator from West Virginia — want to make a case that global warming is the country’s No. 1 priority, they should do so openly rather than sneak regulatory actions that they can’t get through Congress through the E.P.A. bureaucracy. I hold no particular brief for the coal industry per se. But Democrats need to figure out a set of climate-change policies that don’t threaten people’s wallets, jobs or businesses. Trying to put coal out of business is just a big fat political gift to Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.Aside from the court, Gail, last week’s big news enchilada was Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the House committee investigating Jan. 6. Did we just have a “this changes everything” moment?Gail: Well, we certainly had some “Holy cow — did you hear what Donald Trump did?” moments. But I’ve sadly gotten used to the idea that he can do almost anything and still keep his very, very large fan club of voters.Bret: Truest words ever spoken by Trump: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”Gail: Yeah, sigh. And I just don’t think there’s an appetite for trying to prosecute a former president for stuff he did while he was still in office. Am I being too cynical?Bret: Until last week, no. But, to quote from “Only Murders in the Building,” Hutchinson’s testimony “sends the investigation in a whole new direction.”I don’t mean the stuff about Trump trying to grab the steering wheel of his limo, which Hutchinson acknowledges she heard secondhand. I mean her overhearing Trump at the Jan. 6 rally yelling that he didn’t care if people were armed because they weren’t there to hurt him. And also her report that Trump instructed Mark Meadows to get in touch with Roger Stone and Mike Flynn, who in turn were apparently in touch with some of the most violent protesters on Jan. 5. If it’s true, that just seems like a textbook case of seditious conspiracy.There’s still a big question of the overall wisdom of a prosecution, however well-justified. If, God forbid, Trump runs and wins in 2024, the first thing he’ll do is find any pretext to prosecute Joe Biden, and then it’s off to the races. If you were in Merrick Garland’s shoes, what would you do? More

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      Why on Earth Is Pelosi Supporting the Trumpists?

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      The Democratic Party is behaving recklessly and unpatriotically. So far, Democrats have spent tens of millions to help Trumpist candidates in Republican primaries.In Illinois alone, the Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker spent at least $30 million to attack a Trumpist’s moderate gubernatorial opponent. In Pennsylvania, a Democratic campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads intended to help a Trumpist candidate win the G.O.P. gubernatorial primary. A political action committee affiliated with Nancy Pelosi worked to boost far-right Republican House candidates in California and Colorado.They are doing it because they think far-right Trumpist candidates will be easier to beat in the general elections than more moderate candidates.What the Democrats are doing is sleazy in the best of circumstances. If you love your country more than your party, you should want the best candidates to advance in either party. And in these circumstances, what they are doing is insane: The far-right candidates whom Democrats are supporting could easily wind up winning.Many Democrats, living in their own information bubble and apparently having learned nothing from 2016, do not seem to understand the horrific electoral landscape they are facing. They do not seem to understand how much their business-as-usual approach could lead to a full Republican takeover in 2025 — which as this week’s Jan. 6 insurrection hearing reminded us yet again, would be a disaster for our democracy.Many Democrats hope that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision will mobilize their voters for the coming midterms, and that seems to have happened, at least in the short term. But I’m convinced this election will primarily be about the economy and the existential state of the country. Things look extremely grim for the ruling party.A staggering 83 percent of Americans believe the economy is poor or not so good, according to a May Wall Street Journal-NORC poll. And an equally staggering 83 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, according to a Gallup poll.Parties get punished when they make mistakes. Recently, Democrats have made the kind of mistakes that make voters furious.Liberal economists underestimated the inflation threat, and Democratic fiscal policy, ignoring that threat, seems to have escalated it. The Democratic Party as a whole became associated with progressives who saw policing simply through a racial injustice lens. That’s an important lens, but progressives ignored the public safety lens and were unprepared for the widespread public anger over the increase in crime.Similarly, many progressives argued that cancel culture wasn’t a thing or was being severely exaggerated. Americans who are afraid to think out loud think the left has become too censorious, and the Democratic Party once again is held guilty by association. Progressives have also largely failed to address the shortcomings of their governing model. The rampant inequality, homelessness and other social ills plaguing San Francisco and other cities are there for all to see.We are living in an age of menace, an age when people feel unsafe on a variety of fronts. These are ages when voters tend to flock to conservative parties, which they associate with law and order.And then there is the underlying problem, which has gone unaddressed since Donald Trump surged to his unexpected victory in 2016, which is that while Democrats support many popular policies, progressives are associated with a series of social and cultural values that are unpopular with most Americans. According to a new More in Common survey, 69 percent of Americans believe that America is a country where if you get a good education, develop your talents and are open to innovation, you can do anything. Only 36 percent of progressive activists agree with this.That’s just a basic difference in how people see the country, and time and time again Democratic politicians have been punished for the messages that come out of progressive educational and cultural institutions.The Republican Party has grown pretty extreme over the past few years. But it’s important to remember Americans believe that the Democratic Party has grown extreme, too. According to a CNN survey, 46 percent of Americans believe the G.O.P. is “too extreme” and 48 percent believe the Democratic Party is “too extreme.” My guess is that this is not about Democratic domestic policies, many of which are popular, but about progressive cultural and social stances. It’s about people feeling alienated from metropolitan elites.I’ve had a recurring mystification over the past six years: How is it possible that Democrats are not crushing these guys? The G.O.P. has worked full time to disgrace itself over these years. And yet experts expect the Republicans to easily retake the House and perhaps the Senate. That’s kind of amazing when you stop to think about it.And this is all going to get catastrophically worse for Democrats if the economy further deteriorates and if a recession comes.In 2020 Biden was the candidate who didn’t seem to be pinioned to the coastal elites. But Democrats are still being battered because of that association. And what are they doing to fix the problem? Spending money to support Trumpists.Those crazies could be running the country in a few years.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in Elections

      Mike Pence Was of Two Minds

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      Gail Collins: Bret, I never did like Mike Pence at all — his far-right social values would have turned me off even if he didn’t call his wife “Mother.”Bret Stephens: Well, it beats “Cousin.” Sorry, continue.Gail: And I’ve never forgotten the moment when Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” asked Pence if he ever thought he’d be able to tell Donald Trump he needed to apologize for having “crossed the line.” Pence just kinda babbled without answering until Trump interrupted. “Absolutely. I might not apologize,” Trump said. “But I would absolutely want him to come in.”But now, the worm has turned! Except I guess I shouldn’t be calling Pence a worm any more.Bret: I’m having a hard time joining the “Mike Pence the Hero” bandwagon that some of my old friends on the right have jumped aboard.Where was Pence in November when Trump started lying about the election the moment their defeat became clear? Where was he when the president enlisted the likes of Sidney Powell and John Eastman to peddle insane conspiracy theories about voting machines and preposterous interpretations of the Electoral Count Act? Where was he on invoking the 25th Amendment after the assault on the Capitol, or at least on supporting impeachment? Pence was a worm who, for a few hours on Jan. 6, turned into a glowworm.Gail: OK, I can’t top that.Still, I keep imagining what chaos the country would have fallen into if Pence had panicked and refused to count the election results back to the states instead of just certifying Joe Biden as president.Bret: Nancy Pelosi would have beaten him to a pulp with that giant gavel of hers before he could have done it.Gail: That’s an image I plan to carry around with me for a long time.Bret: Also, can I fume a bit about the so-called sane right’s position on all this? They’re busy trying to switch the subject to left-wing rioting, as if trashing a courthouse in Portland, bad as that is, is somehow an equivalent event to a sitting president inciting a violent mob to trash the Capitol in order to overturn a national election.Gail: Feel free to fume for both of us.Bret: OK, end of rant. What conclusions do you draw from the Jan. 6 committee hearings?Gail: Well, we certainly were reminded that Trump was totally complicit in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.Bret: Not complicit. Guilty.Gail: Yeah, thanks for the better word. And apparently when he insisted he won the election he was ignoring virtually everybody giving him advice except Rudy Giuliani.Wow, just imagine a defiant Trump telling his expert counselors: “That might be all your opinion — but Rudy was making some very good points before he passed out over there.”Bret: Some of our younger readers may not remember that Giuliani was Time’s Person of the Year in 2001 for his leadership after the attacks of Sept. 11. His fall from grace has been like a bungee jump minus the bungee.Gail: Giuliani’s role during Sept. 11 was … not what you imagine. He wouldn’t, for instance, have been dramatically marching around the streets after the attack if he hadn’t moved the critically important emergency command center into the World Trade Center, a well-identified terrorist target, because he wanted it within walking distance of his office.Could go on, but for me Rudy’s fall from heroic grace goes back a trillion years.Bret: I’m beginning to think you’re right. Never did like the way he went after Michael Milken.Gail: As for Trump, even if nothing we learned at the hearings has been a big surprise, it’s so, so very important to get all this stuff on the record in as public and evenhanded a way as possible.And again, I’ve gotta say: Good work, Mike Pence. You’re a terrible person, but you had a moment. If the vice president had panicked and gone to hide in a relative’s basement when it was time to certify the election, can’t imagine where we’d be now.Bret: Pass the peyote. Gail Collins has a better impression of Mike Pence than I do.Gail: Well, I’m giving him one good day.And what’s your prediction for what happens next to Trump? Presidential election bid in 2024 or the slammer?Bret: In a just world? I’d want one jury to indict him, another to convict him and a warden to lock him up — to borrow a phrase.What I don’t know is whether that’s the smart thing to do. On one hand, prosecuting him would be a good reminder that we’re a nation of laws. On the other, it would radicalize the right even further, turn him into a national martyr to about a third of the country if he goes to prison and make him a clear and present danger to everyone else if he doesn’t. And it would be the only thing the country could talk about for years while we have a few other problems to deal with.What say you?Gail: Prosecuting Trump would be righteous, but you’re right — it would leave him subject of still more right-wing hero-worship. My real dream is to see him go completely bankrupt.Bret: Once again.Gail: Permanently this time. First we have to get past 2024 and any chance he returns to the presidency, God help us. Then all the civil lawsuits and public investigations into his business dealings in New York come to fruition — and then he’s down to a basement apartment in Staten Island.Bret: Even Staten Island doesn’t deserve that. But I doubt Trump will be convicted or fined for all of his dodgy business deals. His crime is treason, in the Constitution’s precise definition: levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies and giving them aid and comfort.Gail: I agree about what he deserves, but I’m still worried the long and unprecedented attempt to send him to jail would fail while splitting the country way more.And I’d love to dwell on my vision of Trump holding out an empty coffee cup on some corner, begging for change. Maybe not realistic, but so … sweet.Now we ought to talk some about Biden and the state of the economy. Feel free to vent.Bret: Many of our readers have fond feelings toward Jimmy Carter as a person, but the Biden administration increasingly feels like a rerun of the Carter years, complete with stagflation, an energy crisis and Moscow invading a neighboring country. The smartest thing Biden can do, politically and economically, is to stop blaming others — even genuine villains like Vladimir Putin — so that his administration doesn’t project an air of being at the mercy of events.Gail: Go on …Bret: As I was saying last week, he should fire Janet Yellen, preferably this week, and replace her with Larry Summers. It will create a sense of accountability and put energy in the executive, as Alexander Hamilton might have said. Work with Canada to import more oil, whether by rail or pipeline or truck: It beats getting our oil from Venezuela. Give Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo or the infrastructure czar Mitch Landrieu the job of anticipating and preventing consumer-goods shortages, from baby formula to tampons to whatever is next.If all this sounds extreme, consider what will happen if we just drift along until President DeSantis takes the reins in 2025. Or President Trump. But I’m always happy to hear of a better way.Gail: I don’t blame Yellen for our economic mess, although I’d sadly sacrifice her if it would move us forward. Your other ideas don’t sound extremely extreme — although if we’re going to start piping oil from Canada the plan needs to be married to the battle against global warming.Bret: Step One: Subsidize an accelerated transition to a hybrid- and electric-car vehicle fleet. Step Two: Build safer next-generation nuclear reactors to power more of the grid. Step Three: Blame Canada for any and all remaining issues.Gail: Well, giving you half a step for the electric cars.Back to the economy: If Biden had any prayer of getting Congressional support, I’d want him to return to his early-administration dreams. Invest in quality child care options to bring women back into the work force and reduce the labor shortage. Give lower- and middle-income workers a jolt of extra cash through tax rebates. Install his program to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. In a perfect world, fund a federal program to cut back on student debt.Bret: Nice to be reminded that in some post-Trump universe, there’s a lot we still disagree about.Gail: Of course, all this would cost money, and that’s why we’d need — yes! — tax hikes on the rich. Many of whom are making out like bandits in the current economy.Bret: Let’s fight about that later. In the meantime, our readers shouldn’t miss our former opinion-page colleague Clay Risen’s wonderful “Overlooked No More” obituary for William B. Gould, who in 1862 escaped slavery in North Carolina by commandeering a sailboat, joined the crew of a Union blockade ship, kept a meticulous diary, went on to prosperity in Massachusetts and lived to be 85. Next year Dedham, Mass., will unveil a statue in his honor on the centenary of his death. A great reminder of all that’s worth celebrating this Juneteenth.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      A Recession Would Hurt Democrats. Some Warn It’d Also Hurt Democracy.

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      By trying to tame inflation, some commentators say, the Federal Reserve could bring about a recession — just as an unrepentant Donald Trump appears to be eyeing another White House bid.Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, made the understatement of the year on Wednesday when he noted offhandedly to reporters, “Clearly, people do not like inflation.”And how.According to Fox News’s latest national poll, 41 percent of registered voters said that “inflation and higher prices” represented the most important issue influencing their ballot decision in November. Just 12 percent of voters called guns their top priority, the second-place issue. Seventy-one percent disapproved of the job President Biden is doing on inflation.This is not exactly a vote of confidence in the federal government. In the past, this level of public dissatisfaction has typically led to major political upheaval.Inflation ran at a rate of 8.6 percent in May, the fastest annual pace in four decades. Voters do not seem to be buying the White House’s argument, backed up by the Fed and places like the World Bank, that global factors beyond Biden’s control like the pandemic, supply-chain crises and the war in Ukraine are driving the increase in prices.Nor do they seem to be giving the administration much credit for an unemployment rate that is down to 3.6 percent, just a tick above its prepandemic level.The Fed might be Biden’s best hope. After the Federal Open Market Committee announced on Wednesday that it would raise short-term interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, Powell said the Fed’s goal was to bring inflation closer to its 2 percent target while keeping the labor market “strong.”He hastened to add: “We’re not trying to induce a recession now. Let’s be clear about that.”‘A democracy-wrecking election’Yet some commentators, notably David Frum of The Atlantic, have begun to fret that in trying to tame inflation, the Fed will do exactly that — start a recession, just in time to doom Biden or whomever Democrats nominate in his stead in 2024.Understand Inflation and How It Impacts YouInflation 101: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? Our guide explains it all.Greedflation: Some experts contend that big corporations are supercharging inflation by jacking up prices. We take a closer look at the issue. Inflation Calculator: How you experience inflation can vary greatly depending on your spending habits. Answer these seven questions to estimate your personal inflation rate.For Investors: At last, interest rates for money market funds have started to rise. But inflation means that in real terms, you’re still losing money.Frum noted the historically tight link between economic growth and a president’s chances of re-election. Citing the possibility that an unrepentant Donald Trump will run again, he argued that a downturn this year or next could result in “a democracy-wrecking election the next year.”He concluded: “So the Federal Reserve has a more than usual obligation this week to measure its policy appropriately. A miscalculation in monetary policy in 2022 could reverberate through long ages of American history ahead.”Others have criticized Biden’s decision last fall to nominate Powell for a second term, leaving the president handcuffed in blaming the Fed chair for the parlous state of the economy. Powell was, after all, Trump’s pick for Fed chair — and Biden, the thinking goes, could have thrown him overboard and started afresh.That would have been a very Trump-like move. Powell resisted months of intense pressure from the 45th president to lower interest rates, including comments describing the low-key Fed chairman as an “enemy” of the United States. Central bankers prize their distance from politics, mindful that their credibility with financial institutions around the world is crucial to their effectiveness.So in renominating Powell, Biden made sure to emphasize his respect for his institutional prerogatives. “My plan is to address inflation,” the president said. “It starts with a simple proposition: Respect the Fed and respect the Fed’s independence.”Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, with President Biden last month. Some Democrats had urged Biden to choose a Fed chair of his own.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe Fed’s relationship with politicsLet’s set aside the fraught question of whether Trump’s re-election could bring about the end of American democracy. Does the Fed, in fact, have an “obligation” to consider how its actions might affect the U.S. political system?On a simple reading of the law, not really. The Federal Reserve Act gives the Fed the authority to regulate the nation’s money supply, to foster the “long-run potential” of the U.S. economy and to promote the goals of “maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates.”Frederic Mishkin, a former member of the Fed’s board of governors, no doubt spoke for many in the finance world when he wrote in an email, “I most strongly disagree with the view that the Federal Reserve should adjust its policy to favor or harm any politician.”He added, “The Fed should be as apolitical as possible, and its policy focus should be on stabilizing both inflation and output fluctuations, as is mandated by congressional legislation.”But it’s hard to divorce the Fed from its historical roots, founded as it was in an era of great political turmoil driven by frequent financial panics.The Fed was successfully established in 1913 because President Woodrow Wilson won the assent of William Jennings Bryan, the most influential populist leader of the time, by guaranteeing that government officials appointed by the president, not private sector bankers, would run the board.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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      Will Nevada Turn Red in the November Midterms?

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      If a red wave arrives in November, as many expect, it will likely wash ashore in landlocked Nevada, a state whose recent history of Democratic victories masks just how hard-fought those triumphs have been.In presidential elections, Republicans have not won Nevada since 2004, when President George W. Bush carried the state narrowly over John Kerry. Races for statewide office have been more contested, but still dominated by Democrats on the whole.This year could be different. Nevadans will cast their final ballots on Tuesday in primary elections that will decide what sorts of candidates will be carrying the G.O.P. banner in November. And as of now, it looks as if many of those Republicans might very well be elected.Much has been written about the woes of Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat who is up for re-election this year. Whenever her name appears in national news coverage, it’s invariably accompanied by some version of the phrase “one of Democrats’ most endangered incumbents.”Her likely opponent is Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general whose father, Pete Domenici, was a senator in New Mexico — a fact that was a closely held family secret until 2013. Laxalt’s grandfather was Paul Laxalt, who served as both governor and senator in Nevada.Heading into Election Day, Laxalt looks to be comfortably ahead of his top primary opponent, Sam Brown, a retired Army captain. Laxalt helped lead Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the presidential election results in Nevada in 2020.House seats on fireLess well understood than the Senate stakes is the fact that all three of Democrats’ House seats in Nevada are also at risk in November.The Cook Political Report rates all three districts as Democratic tossups. House Majority PAC, the main outside spending arm of House Democrats, has reserved more dollars in ad spending in Las Vegas than in any other media market in the country.There’s Representative Susie Lee, who squeaked by her Republican opponent by fewer than 13,000 votes in 2020. Lee’s likely opponent is April Becker, a lawyer who has the backing of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House.Representative Steven Horsford, whose district stretches from northern Las Vegas to the middle of the state, could also be in trouble. In March, his wife, Sonya Douglass, popped up on Twitter to say she would “not be silent” about the decade-long affair he has admitted to having with Gabriela Linder, a former intern for Senator Harry Reid.Douglass criticized his choice to “file for re-election and force us to endure yet another season of living through the sordid details of the #horsfordaffair with #mistressforcongress rather than granting us the time and space to heal as a family.”Linder hosted an “audio memoir” of the affair under a pseudonym, Love Jones, called “Mistress for Congress.”After Horsford responded to her first series of tweets, Douglass wrote: “This statement is worse than the first from May 2020. The lies never end. Let’s pray @stevenhorsford comes to grips with reality and gets the help he needs.”Horsford’s likely opponent is Annie Black, a state lawmaker who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Last week, Black sent out a fund-raising appeal to supporters with the subject line, “The Real ‘Big Lie’ is that Biden Won ‘Fair and Square.’”The Democratic primary to watchThen there’s Representative Dina Titus, whose historically safe Las Vegas seat is now decidedly unsafe thanks to a decision by Nevada Democrats to spread some of the voters in her old district across the two others.That move prompted a vulgar complaint by Titus, who blasted the redistricting move as “terrible” during remarks at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. town hall event in December.“They could have created two safe seats for themselves and one swing,” Titus said. “That would have been smart.” She added: “No, no, we have to have three that are very likely going down.”Titus, in an interview, noted that she had represented parts of her new district when she was in the Nevada Legislature. “It’s like coming home,” she said. “Been gone awhile, but I’m back.”But first, Titus faces a primary challenge from Amy Vilela, an activist who last week secured the backing of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Vilela was a co-chair of the Sanders presidential campaign in 2020. She previously ran in a primary against Horsford in 2018, losing by a large margin.This time, Vilela is running a progressive insurgent campaign against what she called “complacency” by Titus and the Democratic establishment, which she said was causing low enthusiasm among voters.“We definitely have to start delivering on our promises and start addressing the needs of the working class instead of the donor base,” Vilela said in an interview.“Well, let’s put it in perspective,” Titus responded, pointing to her record of bringing federal dollars to Nevada. “When Amy tries to portray herself as the progressive and me as the establishment, look at all the endorsements I have. She’s a Democratic Socialist, and I’m the progressive Democrat.”Tourists and traffic have returned to Las Vegas since the start of the pandemic, but gas prices and rents have climbed.Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times‘We fell off the skyscraper and quickly hit bottom’If Nevada flips to red in November, the state’s economic struggles will be a powerful reason.Nevada’s unemployment rate surged to 28.5 percent in April 2020, just after the coronavirus pandemic throttled the tourism industry, which makes up a huge portion of the state’s economy. The unemployment rate is now 5 percent, still not quite at prepandemic levels.Democrats say that without their help, the economic suffering would have been worse. And Mike Noble, a pollster who works in Nevada, said that while a Republican sweep was a possibility, “a lot of things would need to go right for the G.O.P. to make that come to fruition since the Democrats have the advantage of incumbency.”Inflation is posing a potent new threat. As of Monday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in Nevada was $5.66, well above the $5 national average. That’s in a state with an anemic public transit system, where you need a car to get most places. And rents in Las Vegas, a place with a famously transient population, are rising faster than in nearly any other city in the country.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      If You Must Point Fingers on Inflation, Here’s Where to Point Them

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      As the midterm elections draw nearer, a central conservative narrative is coming into sharp focus: President Joe Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress have a made a mess of the American economy. Republicans see pure political gold in this year’s slow-motion stock market crash, which seems to be accelerating at the perfect time for a party seeking to regain control of Congress in the fall.The National Republican Congressional Committee in a tweet last month quipped that the Democratic House agenda includes a “tanking stock market.” Conservatives have been highlighting a video clip from 2020 when then-president Donald Trump warned about a Joe Biden presidency: “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash.” Right wing pundit Sean Hannity’s blog featured the clip under the headline: “TRUMP WAS RIGHT.”But the narrative pinning blame for the economy’s woes squarely on Democrats’ shoulders elides the true culprit: the Federal Reserve. The financial earthquakes of 2022 trace their origin to underground pressures the Fed has been steadily creating for a over a decade.It started back in 2010, when the Fed embarked on the unprecedented and experimental path of using its power to create money as a primary engine of American economic growth. To put it simply, the Fed created years of super-easy money, with short-term interest rates held near zero while it pumped trillions of dollars into the banking system. One way to understand the scale of these programs is to measure the size of the Fed’s balance sheet. The balance sheet was about $900 billion in mid-2008, before the financial market crash. It rose to $4.5 trillion in 2015 and is just short of $9 trillion today.All of this easy money had a distinct impact on our financial system — it incentivized investors to push their money into ever riskier bets. Wall Street-types coined a term for this effect: “search for yield.” What that means is the Fed pushed a lot of money into a system that was searching for assets to buy that might, in return, provide a decent profit, or yield. So money poured into relatively risky assets like technology stocks, corporate junk debt, commercial real estate bonds, and even cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, known as NFTs. This drove the prices of those risky assets higher, drawing in yet more investment.The Fed has steadily inflated stock prices over the last decade by keeping interest rates extremely low and buying up bonds — through a program called quantitative easing — which has the effect of pushing new cash into asset markets and driving up prices. The Fed then supercharged those stock prices after the pandemic meltdown of 2020 by pumping trillions into the banking system. It was the Fed that primarily dropped the ball on addressing inflation in 2021, missing the opportunity to act quickly and effectively as the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, reassured the public that inflation was likely to be merely transitory even as it gained steam. And it’s the Fed that is playing a frantic game of financial catch-up, hiking rates quickly and precipitating a wrenching market correction.So, now the bill is coming due. Unexpectedly high inflation — running at the hottest levels in four decades — is forcing the Fed to do what it has avoided doing for years: tighten the money supply quickly and forcefully. Last month, the Fed raised short-term rates by half-a-percentage point, the single largest rate hike since 2000. The aggressiveness of the move signaled that the Fed could take similarly dramatic measures again this year.A sobering realization is now unfolding on Wall Street. The decade of super-easy money is likely over. Because of inflation’s impact, the Fed likely won’t be able to turn on the money spigots at will if asset prices collapse. This is the driving force behind falling stock prices, and why the end of the collapse is probably not yet in sight. The reality of a higher-interest-rate world is working its way through the corridors of Wall Street and will likely topple more fragile structures before it’s all over.After the stock and bond markets adjust downward, for example, investors must evaluate the true value of other fragile towers of risky assets, like corporate junk debt. The enormous market for corporate debt began to collapse in 2020, but the Fed stopped the carnage by directly bailing out junk debt for the first time. This didn’t just save the corporate debt market, but added fuel to it, helping since 2021 to inflate bond prices. Now those bonds will have to be re-priced in light of higher interest rates, and history indicates that their prices will not go up.And while the Fed is a prime driver of this year’s volatility, the central bank continues to evade public accountability for it.Just last month, for instance, the Senate confirmed Mr. Powell to serve another four-year term as Fed chairman. The vote — more than four to one in favor — reflects the amazingly high level of bipartisan support that Mr. Powell enjoys. The president, at a White House meeting in May, presented Mr. Powell as an ally in the fight against inflation rather than the culprit for much of this year’s financial market volatility. “My plan is to address inflation. It starts with a simple proposition: Respect the Fed and respect the Fed’s independence,” the president said.This leaves the field open for the Republican Party to pin the blame for Wall Street’s woes on the Democratic Party’s inaction. As Jim Jordan, the Republican congressman from Ohio, phrased it on Twitter recently, “Your 401k misses President Trump.” This almost certainly presages a Republican line of attack over the summer and fall. It won’t matter that this rhetoric is the opposite of Mr. Trump’s back in 2018 and 2019, when the Fed was tightening and causing markets to teeter. Back then, Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Powell on Twitter and pressured the Fed chairman to cut interest rates even though the economy was growing. (The Fed complied in the summer of 2019.) But things are different now. Mr. Biden is in office, and the Fed’s tightening paves a clear pathway for the Republican Party to claim majorities in the House and Senate.Republicans have also honed in on Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, meant to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, as a cause for runaway inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen rejected that, noting in testimony before members of Congress: “We’re seeing high inflation in almost all of the developed countries around the world. And they have very different fiscal policies. So it can’t be the case that the bulk of the inflation that we’re experiencing reflects the impact” of the American Rescue Plan.Democrats would be wise to point to the source of the problem: a decade of easy money policies at the Fed, not from anything done at the White House or in Congress over the past year and a half.The real tragedy is that this fall’s election might reinforce the very dynamics that created the problem in the first place. During the 2010s, Congress fell into a state of dysfunction and paralysis at the very moment when its economic policymaking power was needed most. It should be viewed as no coincidence that the Fed announced that it would intensify its experiments in quantitative easing on Nov. 3, 2010, the day after members of the Tea Party movement were swept into power in the House. The Fed was seen as the only federal agency equipped to forcefully drive economic growth as Congress relegated itself to the sidelines.With prices for gas, food and other goods still on the rise and the stock market in a state of flux, there may still be considerable pain ahead for consumers. But Americans shouldn’t fall for simplistic rhetoric that blames this all on Mr. Biden. More than a decade of monetary policy brought us to this moment, not 17 months of Democratic control in Washington. Voters should be clear-eyed about the cause of this economic chaos, and vote for the party they think can best lead us out of it.Christopher Leonard (@CLeonardNews) is the author, most recently, of “The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy” and executive director of the Watchdog Writers Group at the Missouri School of Journalism.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      High California Gas Prices Rattle Democrats Ahead of Midterms

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      SANTA ANA, Calif. — Orange County, Calif., symbolized Republican struggles in America’s diverse and highly educated suburbs during Donald J. Trump’s presidency, as a backlash to Mr. Trump transformed center-right strongholds into increasingly Democratic territory.But at a Chevron station in Santa Ana near John Wayne Airport on Friday afternoon, the anger was aimed at President Biden and his party, as Californians grappled with gas prices registering that day at $6.59 a gallon.“I’m really unhappy,” Carmen Vega, 47, of Anaheim, said, adding that she voted for Mr. Biden but was now considering backing Republicans in the midterm elections. “The economy sucks right now, everything’s too expensive.”And as Simona Sabo, 38, of Irvine, waxed nostalgic for Mr. Trump while filling up her S.U.V. — “What I liked was that gas prices weren’t this high” — another woman poked her head around the pump and offered a silent thumbs up before driving away.Five months before the midterm elections, Democrats are straining to defend their narrow House majority in a brutal political environment shaped by high inflation, Mr. Biden’s low approval ratings and a strong sense among many Americans that the country is on the wrong track. But they have held out hope that a handful of California congressional contests will emerge as bright spots, thanks to the redistricting process that made some seats more hospitable to Democrats, and the importance of issues including abortion rights and gun control to many coastal voters.A station in Los Angeles last week with even higher prices.Zeng Hui/Xinhua via Getty ImagesYet in California, home to the highest average price for regular gasoline in the nation — $6.326 on Sunday, according to the motor club AAA, compared with the nation’s average of $4.848 — anger over the cost of living is threatening Democrats’ ambitions. (California gas prices are typically the highest in the nation, owing in part to state taxes and regulations on emissions that require a more expensive blend of gasoline, but recent numbers have been eye-popping.)On the cusp of Tuesday’s primary elections that will determine California’s general election matchups, there are signs that the cost of living is overshadowing virtually every other issue in some of the state’s battleground areas, according to elected officials, party strategists and polling.“They’re beyond furious — it’s called desperation,” said Representative Lou Correa, a Democrat from Santa Ana, whose district is considered safely Democratic but neighbors more competitive Orange County seats. “I don’t hear anything about the other national issues we’re focusing on in Washington. The thing I hear about is gasoline. What are you going to do to bring down the gas prices?”An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that most Americans called the economy, inflation and rising gas prices the most important issues in determining their midterm votes. Just 28 percent of those surveyed approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of inflation, and 27 percent approved of his handling of gas prices.Understand the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarAfter key races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states, here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Invincibility in Doubt: With many of Donald J. Trump’s endorsed candidates failing to win, some Republicans see an opening for a post-Trump candidate in 2024.G.O.P. Governors Emboldened: Many Republican governors are in strong political shape. And some are openly opposing Mr. Trump.Voter Fraud Claims Fade: Republicans have been accepting their primary victories with little concern about the voter fraud they once falsely claimed caused Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss.The Politics of Guns: Republicans have been far more likely than Democrats to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms. Here’s why.“The problem for the Democrats here will be that all of the contributing economic factors, particularly inflation, that’s hurting them nationally is on steroids in California,” said Rob Stutzman, a veteran California Republican strategist who is assisting some independent statewide candidates this year. “Seats that, when the maps got drawn, that they didn’t think would be competitive very well could be,” he added.The contours of those House races will come into clearer focus after Tuesday’s primaries, which have so far appeared to be low-turnout affairs. In California primaries, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, then move on to the general election.The races against Representatives David Valadao and Mike Garcia, two Republicans, are expected to be highly competitive in general elections, given the Democratic tilt of both their new districts.Mr. Valadao, of the Central Valley, is one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and he also faces primary challenges.Mr. Garcia, of Santa Clarita, who won his last election by just 333 votes, voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election. Democrats are locked in a primary to challenge him.There are also primary contests for a newly redrawn open seat in California’s 13th Congressional District near Fresno, which leans Democratic, according to the Cook Political Report, though the race may well be highly competitive.Several Republican primary contests may determine how close a number of Southern California seats become. National Republicans see a chance to defeat Representative Mike Levin, a Democrat, but there is also a competitive primary to challenge him.There has also been something of a Republican rescue mission for Representative Young Kim. Her primary contest this year grew unexpectedly competitive, and her newly redrawn district would become far more tightly contested in November should she lose.Two other high-profile House races are unfolding in Orange County, a place once strongly associated with Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, staunchly conservative former presidents, but now a prominent political battleground. Representative Michelle Steel, who like Ms. Kim is a Korean American Republican who flipped a seat in 2020, is running in a new, heavily Asian American district in what is expected to be a close race against Jay Chen, a small-business owner and lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve. The newly drawn district somewhat favors Democrats.Representative Katie Porter speaking at an event against gun violence on Saturday in Seal Beach, Calif.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesAnd Representative Katie Porter, a Democrat with a national platform and a huge war chest, is running in a redrawn seat that is roughly evenly politically divided.She and many other Democrats argue that their party is trying to bring down gas prices — which have spiked for reasons including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — while charging that Republicans embrace the issue as a political cudgel. And certainly, there is still time for gas prices and other costs to come down before the midterms, amid other positive economic indicators, and for the political environment to improve for Democrats in competitive races.“My minivan is almost out of gas today and I thought, you know what, I’m not in the mood to fill it up today. Right? It’s frustrating,” Ms. Porter said, arguing that Democrats grasp voters’ pain on this issue. “There is a solution to this, and it starts by being willing to stand up to corporate abuse.”Representative Michelle Steel with Irene Schweitzer, 99, of Anaheim, on Saturday at a campaign event in Buena Park, Calif.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesRepublicans argue that Democrats have pursued a range of inflationary measures, and some are pushing for practices like more drilling.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More