United States Politics and Government

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Steps Up Threats to Imprison Those He Sees as Foes

      by

      The former president is vowing to prosecute those he sees as working to deny him a victory, while laying the groundwork to claim large-scale voter fraud if he loses.Donald J. Trump has long used strongman-style threats to prosecute people he vilifies as a campaign tactic, dating back to encouraging his 2016 rallygoers to chant “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. And during his term as president, he repeatedly pressed the Justice Department to open investigations into his political adversaries.But as November nears, the former president has escalated his vows to use the raw power of the state to impose and maintain control and to intimidate and punish anyone he perceives as working against him.After Democrats replaced President Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris as their 2024 nominee — and Mr. Trump’s lead in the polls eroded — Mr. Trump’s targets expanded.He has been laying the groundwork to claim that there was large-scale voter fraud if he loses, a familiar tactic from his 2016 and 2020 playbooks, but this time coupled with threats of prosecution. Those who may face criminal scrutiny for purported efforts at election fraud, Mr. Trump has declared, will include election workers, a tech giant, political operatives, lawyers and donors working for his opponent.Over the past month, he has shared a post calling for former President Barack Obama to be subject to “military tribunals” and reposted fake images of well-known Democrats clad in prison garb. He has threatened the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with a life sentence for helping state and local governments fund elections in 2020. He stoked fears of voter intimidation by urging police officers to “watch for the voter fraud” at polling places because some voters may be “afraid of that badge,” and warned that people deemed to have “cheated” in this election “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Mr. Trump wrote on his website Truth Social on Saturday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Se enfría el apoyo a Kamala Harris, según una nueva encuesta

      by

      Es la primera encuesta nacional no partidista en un mes en que Donald Trump aventaja a la vicepresidenta; casi el 30 por ciento de los votantes dijo que necesitaban saber más sobre ella.Kamala Harris iba ligeramente por detrás en la última encuesta nacional de Times/SienaJamie Kelter Davis para The New York Times¿Comienza a menguar el auge de Kamala Harris?Esa es la pregunta que plantea la encuesta de ayer del New York Times y el Siena College, según la cual Donald Trump la aventaja por poco entre los votantes probables de todo el país, 48 por ciento a 47 por ciento.Para mí, el resultado es un poco sorprendente. Es la primera ventaja de Trump en una encuesta nacional no partidista en aproximadamente un mes. Por esa razón, vale la pena ser al menos un poco cauteloso acerca de estos resultados, ya que no hay mucha confirmación de otras encuestas.Dicho esto, no sería difícil de explicar si el apoyo de la vicepresidenta Harris realmente se ha desvanecido un poco en las últimas semanas. Después de todo, se estaba beneficiando de un entorno noticioso ideal: un mes ininterrumpido de cobertura elogiosa desde la salida del presidente Joe Biden de la carrera en julio hasta la convención demócrata en agosto. Es posible que se encontrara en un momento de euforia política; de ser así, tendría sentido que se desinflara en las dos semanas sin incidentes transcurridas desde la convención.También hay una razón plausible por la que la encuesta del Times/Siena sería la primera en captar un giro hacia Trump: simplemente no ha habido muchas encuestas de alta calidad desde la convención, cuando Harris estaba en la cresta de la ola. Esta semana ha habido un puñado de encuestas online, pero no ha habido ninguna encuesta tradicional de alta calidad con entrevistas realizadas después del 28 de agosto.¿Por qué no ha habido más encuestas? Una explicación es el fin de semana del Día del Trabajo, que siempre hace una pausa en las encuestas. También es plausible que muchos encuestadores prefieran esperar hasta después del debate del martes antes de hacer otro sondeo. Cualquiera que sea la explicación, la encuesta del Times/Siena sería una de las primeras oportunidades para recoger una reversión hacia Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Justice Alito Reported $900 Concert Tickets From a German Princess

      by

      Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, a former 1980s party girl and art collector who is now known for her connections to far-right conservatives, told a German news organization the Alitos were “private friends.”On his most recent financial disclosure form, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. reported a single gift: $900 concert tickets from a German princess known for her links to conservative activists.The disclosure does not list the event’s details, including the concert’s name, location or how many tickets the princess provided. But in an interview with a German news organization, the gift provider, Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, described Justice Alito and his wife as “private friends” and said the tickets were for the Regensburg Castle Festival, an annual summer celebration she hosts at her 500-room Bavarian castle.The princess, known in earlier decades as a party-loving, art-collecting aristocrat and who was once christened Princess TNT for her explosive personality, has become known in recent years for her close relationships with several high-profile people who oppose the current pope, as well as with Stephen K. Bannon, the longtime ally of former President Donald J. Trump.The disclosure only heightened the scrutiny around ethics at the Supreme Court, which has been in the spotlight after revelations that some of its members, most notably Justice Clarence Thomas, accepted luxury gifts and travel from wealthy benefactors without disclosing the largess on their mandatory annual financial forms.“No matter the identity of the patron — whether it be a German princess, Queen Bey or the king of Dallas real estate — the justices should not be accepting expensive gifts,” Gabe Roth, who leads Fix the Court, an organization that has been critical of transparency on the court, said in response to Justice Alito’s disclosure. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in 2023.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      De Niro and Pelosi Join ‘Paisans for Kamala’ Call to Raise Money for Harris

      by

      Every presidential election brings with it a technological innovation or two: the Bill Clinton and Bob Dole campaigns’ first-ever campaign websites, Barack Obama’s email list, Donald Trump’s candidacy-by-tweet.For the weeks-old Kamala Harris campaign, it has been a Zoom window.On Sunday night, former Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York was holding forth from one such window, swirling a glass of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo in a restaurant in Baltimore’s Little Italy, trying to draw an Italian family dinner memory out of Robert De Niro at “Paisans for Kamala,” a livestreamed online fund-raiser billed as an Italian Sunday Dinner that was hosted by the Italian American Democrats.“Tell us a story!” Mr. de Blasio implored. “Tell us a memory! Tell us a dish!”“I guess the closest thing I have is Marty Scorsese’s mother,” Mr. De Niro replied from a neighboring Zoom box. “She makes great pizza. She did. She passed away years ago.” He warned Democrats against complacency — “We know what’s coming, we see it coming”— and then excused himself to attend a Harris fund-raiser with Nancy Pelosi, who popped up in her own Zoom window later in the evening.The streamed fund-raiser was the latest of several dozen similar efforts that have raised millions of dollars on behalf of Ms. Harris since the group Win With Black Women hosted the first on July 21. Subsequent events have included “White Dudes for Harris” (featuring the actor Jeff Bridges, in character as the Dude from “The Big Lebowski”), “Cooking for Kamala” (hosted by Padma Lakshmi and featuring celebrity chefs like José Andrés and Giada de Laurentiis), “Deadheads for Kamala” (Ben and Jerry, inevitably), and many more.The events are a very post-pandemic spin on the small-donor fund-raising that powered the campaigns of Mr. Trump and Bernie Sanders in recent cycles, a sort of telethon adapted to the technologies Americans learned to know and tolerate during years of remote work and school. (On Sunday night’s stream, both Leon Panetta, the former secretary of defense and director of the C.I.A., and Steve Buscemi, the actor, struggled briefly with the mute button.)The relative ease of participating, as well as Democrats’ sense of urgency around the election, have meant that even small groups have assembled significant wattage for their calls. Besides Mr. De Niro and Mr. Buscemi, Sunday night’s stream featured Marisa Tomei, John Turturro, Mark Ruffalo and Lorraine Bracco.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Why Teen Voices Matter in the 2024 Election

      by

      For most teenagers, a presidential election year offers a dilemma. Elections have consequences, as the saying goes, and this is especially true for young people, who are at the center of any number of issues dividing the U.S. electorate. Yet most teens can’t vote.All spring and summer, the Headway team has been talking with high school students about this year’s election. Headway is an initiative at The New York Times that covers the world’s challenges through the lens of progress. Since the march of progress will have its longest effects on the youngest of us, that lens has made Headway especially interested in the experiences of the world’s youth.We have been especially curious about youth voter turnout this year, given how youth engagement in presidential elections has changed over the past few cycles. The 2020 election was particularly striking. The spread of the coronavirus meant that going to the voting booth was particularly fraught. The two contenders for the presidency were the oldest in American history. The 2016 election had notably low youth participation. On the eve of the 2020 election, The Times posed the question, “Why don’t young people vote, and what can be done about it?”But then young people defied expectations. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement at Tufts University, Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 voted at higher rates in 2020 than they had in any elections except 1992 and 1972 (which was right after the voting age was lowered to 18). Their votes last election far outstripped the margin of victory in swing states, making them critical to the outcome.In collaboration with Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization that covers education in several American communities, the Headway team has been posing questions about the election to high school students, and asking them what questions they have for their peers about the race. We’ve heard from nearly 1,000 students from red, blue and purple states, all representing diverse backgrounds and schools. Their responses have been illuminating. While some high schoolers don’t consider the election particularly relevant to their interests, many do. Even when they can’t vote, many teenagers in every part of the country are highly interested in the election. They are eager to inform themselves about it, craving more forums to discuss it with peers and others, and yearning to see their voices represented in the outcome.So for the next two months, if you’re a teenager in the United States, we want to ask you all about your experience of the election. Consider this your formal invitation to participate in what we’re calling the Headway Election Challenge.

      We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      G.O.P. Report to Denounce Biden Administration Over Afghanistan Withdrawal

      by

      In an election-season document, Republicans are set to offer few new revelations but instead heap blame on the “Biden-Harris administration” while absolving former President Donald J. Trump.House Republicans are preparing to release an investigative report blaming the Biden administration for what they called the failures of the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, laying out a scathing indictment that appeared timed to tarnish Vice President Kamala Harris in the final weeks before the presidential election.The roughly 350-page document set to be released on Monday is the product of a yearslong inquiry by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It accuses President Biden and his national security team of being so determined to pull out of Afghanistan that they flouted security warnings, refused to plan for an evacuation and lied to the American public throughout the withdrawal about the risks on the ground and missteps that led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members.“The Biden-Harris administration prioritized the optics of the withdrawal over the security of U.S. personnel on the ground,” the report states. The document, a draft of which was reviewed by The New York Times, also contends that the administration’s mismanagement resulted in “exposing U.S. Defense Department and State Department personnel to lethal threats and emotional harm.”Details of the document were reported earlier on Sunday by CBS.The findings are largely a recitation of familiar lines of criticism against Mr. Biden, offering few new insights about what might have been done differently to avoid the Taliban’s swift march into Kabul and the disastrous U.S. evacuation operation in August 2021. But they come at a critical time in the presidential race, when Mr. Trump has been working to persuade voters that Ms. Harris is unfit to be the commander in chief.The authors single out Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, for particular condemnation, charging that he failed to coordinate a viable exit strategy and misrepresented the situation on the ground to the public.They absolve former President Donald J. Trump almost entirely of responsibility for the debacle, even though an inspector general found in 2022 that the deal his administration struck with the Taliban in 2020, known as the Doha Agreement, to orchestrate a rapid U.S. withdrawal, was a major factor in the crisis. The report instead faults Zalmay Khalilzad, then the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, for the shortcomings of that pact.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      A Judge’s Decision to Delay Trump’s Sentencing

      by

      More from our inbox:Risky Covid Behavior‘Glorious’ Outdoor Dining in New York CityA Librarian’s FightDonald J. Trump, the first former American president to become a felon, is seeking to overturn his conviction and win back the White House.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Judge Pushes Sentencing of Trump to After Election” (front page, Sept. 7):I must disagree with the hand-wringing of my liberal colleagues who lament the fact that Donald Trump won’t be sentenced for his conviction in the hush-money case until after the election.Your article notes that the public will not know before they go to the polls “whether the Republican presidential nominee will eventually spend time behind bars.”With all due respect, so what? The former president was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Those who recoil at the idea of their president being a convicted felon won’t vote for him; those who support him will not change their minds based on the severity of the sentence.Other than being used as a talking point on the left (“he got four years in prison!!”) or on the right (“he got probation — I told you it was no big deal”), what could a sentence now possibly achieve?While no one, including Donald Trump, is above the law, this case is unique in our history. The sentence must be viewed as judicially sound, and for that it cannot become a partisan football, especially this close to an election.Eileen WestPleasantville, N.Y.To the Editor:Donald Trump’s lawyers have consistently maintained that his trials should not go forward because it may affect the 2024 election. Their many motions have contributed to delaying three of the four trials he faces. They have now persuaded Justice Juan Merchan in New York to put off sentencing in the fourth, justified by the judge because of the unique circumstances and timing surrounding the event.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      None of Trump’s Economic ‘Solutions’ Hold Any Water

      by

      Ask Donald Trump what he’ll do about any of the nation’s economic problems and he’ll give you one of three answers. He’ll either promise to cut taxes, raise tariffs or deport millions of people. When asked about child care, for example, Trump told the Economic Club of New York that he would raise “trillions” of dollars from new tariffs on virtually every good imported into the United States.This, of course, shows a fundamental ignorance of how tariffs work as well as the probable impact of a high-tariff regime on most American consumers. (The short story is that, if passed into law, Trump’s tariffs would amount to a large tax hike on most working Americans.) It’s also just not an answer. But that’s normal for the former president.On Friday, toward the end of a news conference where he attacked E. Jean Carroll — the former journalist who sued Trump, successfully, for damages relating to sexual abuse — Trump told his audience that he would discuss the latest jobs numbers. What followed was a brief rant about “foreigners coming in illegally” who “took the jobs of native-born Americans.”“And I’ve been telling you that’s what’s going to happen,” said Trump, “because we have millions and millions of people pouring into our country, many from prisons and jails and mental institutions and insane asylums. Traffickers, human traffickers, women traffickers, sex traffickers, which, by the way, that’s the kind of thing that people should be looking at, because it’s horrible.”Here, I’ll note that it is unclear whether Trump understands that “asylum” in immigration refers to seeking refuge or sanctuary and not, as he seems to think, to the kind of institution that you might find in a Batman movie.To the extent that Trump had a solution to this imagined problem, it was mass deportation. In fact, mass deportation is his — and his campaign’s — answer to a whole set of policy questions. What, for example, will Trump do about housing costs? Well, his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, says that they’ll deport 20 million people and that this, somehow, will bring prices down.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More