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      Ron DeSantis Calls for ‘Deadly Force’ Against Suspected Drug Traffickers

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      Campaigning in a Texas border city, the Florida governor laid out a series of hard-right immigration proposals, including some that would face legal roadblocks or test the limits of presidential authority.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida made a campaign stop in the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas.Brent McdonaldGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday proposed a host of hard-right immigration policies, floating the idea of using deadly force against suspected drug traffickers and others breaking through border barriers while “demonstrating hostile intent.”“Of course you use deadly force,” Mr. DeSantis said after a campaign event on a sweltering morning in Eagle Pass, a small Texas border city. “If you drop a couple of these cartel operatives trying to do that, you’re not going to have to worry about that anymore,” he added. He said they would end up “stone-cold dead.”He did not clarify how Border Patrol officers or other law enforcement authorities might determine which people crossing the border were smuggling drugs. He said only that “if someone is breaking through the border wall” while “demonstrating hostile intent or hostile action, you have to be able to meet that with the appropriate use of force.”Mr. DeSantis’s proposal served as an escalation of Republican messaging on the border and was part of a host of plans he unveiled in an effort to match the hard-line immigration stance of former President Donald J. Trump, who privately suggested shooting migrants in the legs during his administration.Mr. DeSantis said that if elected, he would seek to tear down some of the pillars of American immigration law, such as the automatic granting of citizenship to those born in the United States.And he said his administration would “fully deputize” state and local law enforcement officers in states like Texas to arrest and deport migrants back to Mexico — a power now reserved for the federal government — and to detain migrant children indefinitely, despite a court order imposing strict limits on the practice. He also promised to end “phony asylum claims.”“Of course you use deadly force,” Mr. DeSantis said of drug traffickers after the campaign event, held on a sweltering morning in Texas.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesThose policies are sure to appeal to conservative voters in the Republican presidential primary contest, but they would be likely to run into legal roadblocks and could test the limits of presidential authority. The Constitution has been held to guarantee birthright citizenship, and the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states cannot enact their own immigration policy.And while Mr. DeSantis argued that the country needed harsh new immigration rules because the current ones were encouraging dangerous border crossings and the mistreatment of migrant children, some of his proposals could also endanger migrants, including the use of “deadly force” against people cutting through the border wall.“You do it one time and they will never do it again,” he said.His campaign said in a news release that he would follow “appropriate rules of engagement” and that the rules would apply to “those trying to smuggle drugs into the United States.” (The overwhelming majority of drugs are smuggled in commercial vehicles coming across official ports of entry, not carried by migrants, according to U.S. border authorities.)Another plan Mr. DeSantis put forward, which would require certain asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, was previously employed by Mr. Trump, drawing criticism for forcing migrants to live in squalid tent camps where some were reportedly subjected to sexual assault, kidnapping and torture.Mr. DeSantis has made immigration a centerpiece of his campaign, but he has presented few specifics until now. Other policy proposals he released on Monday included:Deploying the military to “assist” Border Patrol agents until a wall is finished.Cracking down on Mexican drug cartel activity, including by blocking precursor chemicals used to manufacture drugs “from entering Mexican ports,” if the Mexican government does not act to stop the cartels.Detaining all migrants who cross the border without authorization until their immigration court hearing date. (Such a policy would most likely require the creation of a vast new prison system.)“These are ideas that have rightly been categorized for a really long time as radical and extremist,” said Aron Thorn, a senior lawyer in the Beyond Borders Program of the Texas Civil Rights Project.The policy rollout on Monday suggested that Mr. DeSantis, who is trailing Mr. Trump by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, was trying to outflank the former president on immigration. Mr. DeSantis — whose “stop the invasion” language is a hallmark of America’s far right — has argued that he is the candidate most likely to enact conservative immigration policies. He has accused Mr. Trump of “running to the left,” saying that “this is a different guy today than when he was running in 2015 and 2016.”But even among voters who came to see Mr. DeSantis on Monday at a cinder-block-and-steel Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Eagle Pass, some said that they remained more inclined to vote for Mr. Trump.“He’s Trump 2.0, but this isn’t his time,” said John Sassano, 60, a retired teacher in Eagle Pass who described himself as a former Democrat. “I’d love to see him as V.P.”Sandy Bradley, 66, a retired government worker, traveled with two friends from Del Rio, a nearby border town, to hear Mr. DeSantis, buying festive cowboy hats at a Walmart on the way. “I think he will catch up,” she said, adding that Mr. DeSantis seemed to share her Christian values.She added that she wanted a candidate who would address illegal immigration and “stop all the influx.”Mr. DeSantis went directly from the event to a news conference at a ranch along the Rio Grande outside town where the state of Texas had recently constructed fencing with concertina wire in an area where migrants often cross.“This is an ongoing problem,” said Ruben Garibay, who owns the ranch. Mr. Garibay, wearing a black cowboy hat and speaking in the shade of a tree as the temperature neared 100 degrees Fahrenheit, said he had agreed to host Mr. DeSantis but had yet to make up his mind about which candidate to support. “It’s a little early in the game,” he said.Mr. Trump first deployed a so-called Remain in Mexico policy, which the Biden administration later reversed. He also proposed ending birthright citizenship during his first campaign, although he failed to do so while in office, and has recently renewed those calls as a candidate. And, of course, he ran in 2016 on building a wall at the southern border, an issue that helped propel him to the White House.On his social media site on Monday, Mr. Trump said that Mr. DeSantis’s “sole purpose in making the trip was to reiterate the fact that he would do all of the things done by me in creating the strongest Border, by far, in U.S. history.”Hundreds of migrants waiting inside a makeshift migrant camp to be loaded onto buses and taken for processing at a Customs and Border Protection substation in El Paso, Texas, in May. Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York TimesAs governor, Mr. DeSantis last month sent hundreds of Florida law enforcement officers and Florida National Guard members to Texas, saying President Biden had failed to secure the border, a repeat of a similar effort in 2021 ahead of Mr. DeSantis’s re-election campaign.This year, Mr. DeSantis also signed a bill cracking down on undocumented immigrants that was seen as one of the harshest such measures in the country. And he announced a national coalition of more than 90 local sheriffs who said they would band together to fight gang activity and illegal drugs that they argue are the result of the Biden administration’s border policies. (Only a few of the sheriffs are from border states.)Some immigration analysts questioned the viability of Mr. DeSantis’s proposals, suggesting they were driven by the political imperatives of a presidential campaign.“The bulk of the proposal is the usual laundry list of Republican talking points that have not been successful, either in Congress or in the court of public opinion,” said Louis DeSipio, a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine, citing the idea to end birthright citizenship, among other proposals. “The purpose is probably not a serious policy debate but instead to focus on an issue that is a weakness for Biden and a sensitive one for Trump.”And Jennie Murray, the president of the National Immigration Forum, a nonprofit group that advocates immigration policies that address economic and national security needs, pointed to the difficulties in actually carrying out Mr. DeSantis’s plans.“Deporting huge numbers of immigrants would be costly and extremely detrimental, especially during these times of historic labor shortages,” she said.Miriam Jordan More

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      Biden Expresses Confidence on the Economy. Voters May Be Skeptical.

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      President Biden believes that focusing on the economy will help his campaign for a second term, despite inflation and high interest rates.President Biden has grown confident enough in the economy he leads — despite continuing inflation and high interest rates — that he is campaigning for re-election by eagerly attaching the name “Bidenomics” to his approach.“Folks, here’s the bottom line,” Mr. Biden said as he began a three-week, administration-wide effort to focus on the economy. “By investing in America, we are delivering results. More than 13 million jobs created since I took office.”In a memo to reporters, two of the president’s top advisers, Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon, credited “Bidenomics” with helping the country bounce back from the pandemic, saying the economy “has recovered more quickly than most experts thought possible.”The pair repeated the phrase “Bidenomics” nine other times in the three-and-a-half-page memo — a sign that the president’s strategists believe that focusing on the economy will help his campaign for a second term.In their memo, Mr. Donilon and Ms. Dunn cited polling that shows Americans broadly support some of the president’s key economic policies. But that analysis ignores some dark signs for the president as the 2024 election begins to heat up.Independent polls show that large majorities of the country do not believe that the president’s economic policies have set the country in the right direction. In an NBC poll released on Sunday, 74 percent of Americans said the nation was on the wrong track.Previous polls have shown that much of the concern centers on the president’s economic policies. One Associated Press survey in May found that only 33 percent of adults approved of his handling of the economy.On Monday, Mr. Biden tried to show that his policies have tangible results. He said more than $40 billion would be distributed nationwide to expand high-speed internet lines — a program he compared to efforts by Franklin D. Roosevelt to bring electricity to rural parts of the country almost 100 years ago.The disconnect between Mr. Biden’s enthusiasm for his accomplishments and the poll numbers about America’s feelings on the subject may prove to be the biggest test for the new White House strategy.Asked on Monday whether the president and his top aides were confident that they could change the public’s perception of the economy — and his handling of it — Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, gave a blunt answer.“We’re going to try,” she told reporters.To that end, Mr. Biden’s team has collected data that focuses squarely on the positive. One chart distributed by the White House on Monday shows significant improvement from before the pandemic: a higher household net worth and disposable income, lower credit card delinquency and fewer bankruptcies, and a decline in the number of uninsured and those with debt in third-party collection.Mr. Biden’s advisers — both inside the White House and at the small but growing campaign operation — are quick to offer examples of how things have gotten better: for manufacturing businesses, people who order insulin regularly and local governments struggling with aging infrastructure.Mr. Biden’s aides are also happy to accept comparisons to “Reaganomics,” which has for decades been used to describe the economic policies of former President Ronald Reagan. The president’s advisers argue that Mr. Biden’s rejection of tax cuts and his focus on policies that help the middle class are a good contrast with Reagan.White House officials said that Vice President Kamala Harris and many of the president’s top cabinet officials would travel across the country over the next three weeks to deliver similar remarks on the president’s economic record. On Wednesday, Mr. Biden will deliver what aides are calling a “cornerstone” speech in Chicago meant to broadly explain his economic approach.Now, the challenge for the president and his team is to find a way for their message to break through with the American people.On the one hand, the president arguably has one of the biggest megaphones in the world, and his advisers intend to use it. But his message is competing with a war raging in Europe and the political and legal chaos surrounding former President Donald J. Trump as the government pursues legal action against him.Will giving his economic approach a catchy name — “Bidenomics” — help? Ms. Jean-Pierre said she believed it would.“I think it’s pretty clever,” she told reporters. More

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      Worrying About the Judge and the Jury for Trump’s Trial

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      More from our inbox:The Revolt in RussiaMigrants and New York’s SuburbsClimate Education: New Jersey’s ExampleThe special counsel, Jack Smith, released an indictment of former President Donald J. Trump this month.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Don’t do it, liberal America! Don’t get caught up in the melodrama of the Florida trial! The former president craves attention. The news media collude by granting him free publicity. Why give this despicable man what he wants?And the trial outcome? Yes, it seems that Jack Smith has an open-and-shut case. Yet there is a reasonable likelihood that we have a shut-and-shut-down judge. This is the bad luck of the draw.Judge Aileen M. Cannon has myriad tactics at her disposal to delay, disrupt and derail the proceedings. She can influence jury selection, undercutting chances of a unanimous guilty verdict. Even if the jury reaches that conclusion, it is the judge who sets the sentence. This could be a slap on the wrist.Why not assume that the chances of conviction and a serious sentence are small and turn your attention to other matters of national significance?If you must follow the legal adventures of the former president, it’s better to focus on the likely trial in Georgia and Mr. Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation.David B. AbernethyPortola Valley, Calif.The writer is professor emeritus of political science at Stanford University.To the Editor:Re “Trial Judge Puts Documents Case on Speedy Path” (front page, June 21):So Judge Aileen M. Cannon has set a trial date for August. I’m suspicious. She will have total power over the sentence as well as the ability to dismiss the case. Is she helping Donald Trump by getting the whole matter resolved quickly in order for it to be done before the election?How dare she ignore calls to recuse herself, given her record? She must be removed.Sandy MileySherrill, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “Leaving Trump’s Fate to 12 Ordinary Citizens Is Genius,” by Deborah Pearlstein (Opinion guest essay, June 16):In ordinary times Professor Pearlstein’s belief in the wisdom of the jury system in trying Donald Trump would be warranted, but these are not ordinary times. Mr. Trump has primed his followers to threaten and intimidate anyone who might oppose him.No matter the strength of the case, I believe that at least some jurors will vote to acquit because they justifiably fear for their safety.David LigareCarmel Valley, Calif.To the Editor:Central to the case against Donald Trump are the details about the highly classified documents he took. And the key problem is that the defense’s right to see the government’s evidence conflicts with the absolute need to keep that material secret.There is then the possibility that the judge might agree to suppress such crucial evidence. Could people with the highest security clearance review the documents and present affidavits and witnesses in court supporting the government’s assertions?This might provide a litmus test for the integrity of the judicial process.Arnold MitchellScarsdale, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “Judge’s Record in Trump Case Raises Concern” (front page, June 15):While I understand that any judge presiding over an unprecedented and historic case like this will receive scrutiny, I am appalled at how easily a Latina woman is denigrated for her inexperience and for bristling when she is questioned.Such descriptions hold no weight for this 49-year-old working mother and small-business owner. I’ve heard it all before ad nauseam.Speaking as a liberal, I hope that Judge Aileen M. Cannon proves all of her naysayers wrong and goes down in history as an amazing jurist.Would a male judge have had the same questions raised about him at the same stage of his career? I highly doubt it. So much of this article reads like water cooler talk about the new female boss.Shantha Krishnamurthy SmithSan Jose, Calif.To the Editor:It was not the Watergate break-in that brought Richard Nixon down; it was the cover-up and obstruction of justice. Similarly, it was not the taking or storage of classified documents that resulted in Donald Trump’s indictment; it was the lying to the F.B.I. and D.O.J. and obstruction of justice.Mike Pence and Joe Biden stored government documents, but promptly cooperated with the government and returned the documents. It’s not complicated.Alan M. GoldbergBrooklynTo the Editor:I already know how I would vote if I were on the jury of the Trump trial.Good luck finding 12 Americans who don’t.Eliot RiskinRiverside, Conn.The Revolt in Russia Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “How Revolt Undermines Putin’s Grip” (news analysis, front page, June 26):An autocrat must always appear strong. An act of treason and rebellion was committed against Russia, and Vladimir Putin blinked. His mentor Stalin is turning over in his grave.A severe crack has now developed in Mr. Putin’s power structure that he may not have enough cement to repair.Ed HoulihanRidgewood, N.J.To the Editor:What kind of world have we come to when we’re rooting for the mercenaries?Elliot ShoenmanLos AngelesMigrants and New York’s SuburbsEd Day, the Rockland County executive, is one of many county leaders who have taken legal steps to try to stop New York City from sending migrants their way.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesTo the Editor:“New York City and Suburbs: A Rift Widens” (front page, June 18) highlighted the opposition of Ed Day, the Rockland County executive, to migrants being housed in hotels in the suburbs.Although some suburban residents oppose migrants coming to our communities, there are others who want to give migrants a chance to have a better life. I have met many Westchester residents who want to donate food and clothing to migrants.And — if the federal government would make it easier for the migrants to work legally — we could try matching employers who can’t find employees to work in their industry with migrants who would like to work legally in the suburbs.Churches and synagogues in the suburbs would welcome the opportunity to have congregants “adopt” individual migrants and to provide them with personal attention and help so they could live a better life.Ed Day does not speak for the suburbs.Paul FeinerGreenburgh, N.Y.The writer is the Greenburgh town supervisor.Climate Education: New Jersey’s Example Desiree Rios for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Schools Encourage 7-Year-Olds to Fix Climate Change, Not Fear It” (front page, June 17):Three cheers to my former home state, New Jersey, for having the guts and the smarts to take on climate change in its education system. The effects of our climate’s unsettling behavior will continue to be felt by all, whether you agree that it’s happening or deny it.The youngest of us will experience its effects longer than my generation of grandparents, so of course it is totally logical to begin with them in their early education years.The great purpose of education is to prepare all ages to live meaningfully in the world as it is and as it changes. Surely, teaching the young how to bend with the arc of change and sway with its seasons could not be more relevant today.I wish New Jerseyans well with this, but even more I wish them insight into what they are doing so they can become ambassadors to the other states and, yes, the federal Department of Education as well.Well done, New Jersey!Bill HoadleySanta Fe, N.M. More

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      While We Wait for the Supreme Court to Make Up Its Mind …

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, I hope your summer is off to a great start. We’re in the season of Supreme Court decisions, waiting any day for the Harvard and U.N.C. ruling to come down. Assuming the court overturns affirmative action for private and public universities, and maybe beyond that, what do you think the effect will be?Gail Collins: Bret, I guess we’ll have to see the how and the why of the much-dreaded decision before it’s possible to tell.Bret: The fine print is what has really mattered in past affirmative action cases, going back to the Bakke decision in 1978, which ruled that explicit racial quotas were unconstitutional, but that race could be considered a plus factor in admissions.Gail: I’m hoping the court will leave some room for schools and employers to continue taking race into account — and also things like economic background, childhood home environment — factors that help produce a diverse America where people who come from impoverished communities and disadvantaged homes can get some breaks.Bret: I’d have a much easier time accepting affirmative action if the principal criterion was class, not race. If universities thought of themselves more as ladders of social mobility and less as curators of racial rebalancing, they could still give a lot of poorer minorities a lift while also opening their doors to larger numbers of low-income white students who might otherwise have been denied a shot at admission.Gail: You can’t leave race out, but yes, it’s important to mix it with other parts of a biography. We have to protect schools’ right to create a diverse freshman class every year — one that will help students learn the joys and struggles and fun and exasperation that comes from living with people who aren’t like you in color, creed or background.Bret: Or viewpoint. Diversity is also about making sure universities don’t become ideological monocultures where people look different but share nearly all the same opinions and assumptions.Gail: To me, diversity is a very, very important goal — you don’t want to be living in a world in which all the folks of one race or class never interact with folks from another.How about you?Bret: Diversity can be a virtue, but it doesn’t have to apply in every conceivable setting or override other considerations, especially academic excellence. I don’t think it’s any secret that students whose families are from East and South Asia outperform many of their peers in high school academics, just as Jewish kids from immigrant backgrounds did a couple of generations ago. If the end of affirmative action means that top-tier universities will be demographically overrepresented with students of Asian background for the simple reason that they worked that much harder to get there, should that be considered a problem?Gail: Of course we have to include, and celebrate, the many fabulous students with East and South Asian backgrounds. And part of the educational opportunities they deserve is a chance to be in school with kids from other backgrounds. So that they graduate with the ability to work with, supervise and take directions from Black, white and Hispanic colleagues.It’s a win-win.Bret: It would be win-win if universities vastly expanded their enrollments, perhaps by doing more of the coursework online, so that every academically qualified student got in. For now it’s zero-sum: At Harvard in 2013, according to the initial lawsuit, the admission rate for Asian American students was 19 percent, even though 43 percent of the admitted class would have been Asians if based on academic performance alone.Gail: Have a feeling this isn’t going to be the last time we debate this issue. But Bret, we’ve had a busy news week and I want to check in on some of the big developments. Starting with … Hunter Biden! Am I right in recalling he’s not your favorite presidential offspring?Bret: He’s running neck-and-neck with Don Jr. and Eric in that contest, though I hear that James Madison’s stepson, Payne Todd, may have been the worst of them all.Gail: Hunter’s legal issues seem to have been pretty much resolved — he’s pleading guilty to two far-from-major tax crimes, getting probation and pledging to remain drug-free for two years.Bret: For which we wish him well.Gail: Two questions: Is this resolution fair? And what political impact will it have? Some Republicans are acting as if this is gonna be a large cloud over the Biden administration. That the president won’t be able to campaign for re-election without being followed by “Huckster Hunter’s Dad” banners.Bret: Hard to judge without seeing all the evidence. The U.S. attorney in the case, David Weiss, was appointed by Donald Trump and kept in his job by Merrick Garland to complete the investigation, so this hardly seems a case of partisan favoritism. And Weiss says the investigation is “ongoing,” which I have to assume means he’s taking a close look at Hunter’s fishy foreign business deals.But the political timing is lousy and plays into Donald Trump’s narrative that the Biden administration is weaponizing the Justice Department against him while letting off Biden’s son with a slap on the wrist.Gail: I’ve always believed that as long as there was no reasonable evidence that Joe was actually involved in any of Hunter’s smarmy let’s-make-a-deal-did-you-happen-to-notice-my-last-name schemes, the whole thing has no political impact whatsoever. Nobody but desperate Republicans cares about Hunter’s misdeeds, and if anything, I think he stirs sympathy for his father.Bret: Well, desperate Republicans means tens of millions of Americans. But since we keep touching on the subject of errant children of famous politicians, your thoughts on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?Gail: I know the polls suggest he might be a problem for Biden. A good chunk of that is just boredom with the current election picture and name recognition for Junior. Once voters take a serious look at him, his anti-vaccine craziness and overall right-wing loopiness, I’m confident those polls will plummet.Bret: I would call it left-wing loopiness, but go on.Gail: Nevertheless, if he runs as a third-party candidate, he always has the potential to screw things up — just a sliver of votes in a swing state could do the trick. Which is why I’m so hostile to third-party presidential candidates.Bret: I don’t see him running, Nader-like, as a third-party candidate. But I think one reason some Democrats are rallying to him is because they are wary of the idea of a second Biden term, even if they think he’s done a decent job in his first.Gail: We were both hoping Biden wouldn’t run again because of the age issue, but here we are. And he’s still a thousand leagues better than Trump, who’s only a few years younger. So Joe’s the one.Bret: They see him as old and faltering, they don’t think Kamala Harris is up to the job if she needs to succeed him, and they worry that any Republican save Trump could defeat him. If Bobby Jr. wins in New Hampshire because Biden isn’t even on the ballot, it could shake things up, and he could wind up being the Eugene McCarthy of this political season: not the nominee, but the catalyst for change. I’ve been saying this for months, and I’m still willing to bet you a good Zinfandel that Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, is the surprise Democratic nominee next summer. Mark Leibovich seems to agree, by the way.Gail: All I will say is that I am looking forward to the Zinfandel.Bret: And speaking of catalysts, how about that Chris Christie?Gail: He’s not going to be elected president, but gosh I would so love to see him in the Republican primary debate this August. Think there’s a chance he’ll raise enough money to qualify?Bret: For sure. He’ll get it because he’s a bring-the-popcorn sort of candidate who will make the debates interesting and because a lot of the big Republican donors long ago soured on Trump and because all the other Republicans in the race look like a bunch of moral midgets auditioning for cabinet-level jobs in the next G.O.P. administration and because the choice of Ron DeSantis or Trump is starting to look about as appetizing as the choice between Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin — scorpions in the proverbial bottle who really deserve each other.Gail: This is the reason you’re my favorite Republican.Bret: Ex-Republican. Still conservative.Christie’s essential theory of the race is that the only way to defeat Trump is the “They pull a knife, you pull a gun” theory that Sean Connery espoused as the best way to defeat Al Capone in “The Untouchables.” Except Christie aims to bring a .44 magnum, a rocket-propelled grenade and maybe even some HIMARS artillery — rhetorically speaking, of course.Gail: Of course.Bret: Which is all another way of saying that he’ll tell the truth about Trump. It will be a joy to watch, however it turns out.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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      Sarah McBride Aims to Be First Openly Transgender House Member With 2024 Campaign

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      Sarah McBride is no stranger to firsts: In 2012, she became the first openly transgender person to work at the White House, during the Obama administration.State Senator Sarah McBride announced on Monday that she would run for Delaware’s at-large U.S. House seat — a bid that, if successful, would make her the first openly transgender member of the U.S. Congress.The seat is currently held by Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat who said on Wednesday that she would pursue the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Thomas R. Carper, who is retiring. Both elections will take place next year.Ms. McBride, 32, is no stranger to firsts: In 2012, she became the first openly transgender person to work at the White House, as an intern in President Barack Obama’s administration. She won her Wilmington-based State Senate seat in 2020 with more than 70 percent of the general election vote, becoming the first openly transgender legislator in that position nationwide, and ran unopposed for a second term last year.Her candidacy comes during an onslaught of Republican-led policies that target L.G.B.T.Q. people.This year, 17 states have passed bills directed at gender-affirming care for transgender youth, a sharp uptick from the three states that had previously approved restrictions. And there are discussions to ban L.G.B.T.Q.-related information for K-12 students in states like Florida, where laws prevent public schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity.Ms. McBride, also a former national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization, is likely to face a primary challenge in her solidly blue district. But she holds ample political capital in the state — helped by her relationship with President Biden, who wrote the foreword for the memoir she wrote in 2018. She also worked on the attorney general campaigns for Beau Biden, his son who died in 2015.Ms. McBride recently spoke with The New York Times about her candidacy. Excerpts from this conversation have been edited for clarity and length.What issues do you hope to prioritize in your campaign?There were so many pieces of the Build Back Better Act that were unfortunately left on the cutting room floor, and it is going to be critical for Congress to pick up those policies, like paid family and medical leave, affordable early childhood education and elder care. Those types of policies will be at the heart of my campaign, as will policies that I fought for in the Delaware General Assembly, like gun safety and reproductive rights. One of the issues where we have to continue to make progress is climate change. We can’t build a fairer, more just world if we also don’t protect our planet.A wave of bills in recent years have affected transgender people, like limiting transitioning procedures for children and restricting which bathrooms transgender people can use. What are your concerns going forward?The policies that you mentioned are wrong and unconstitutional, and they are an attempt by MAGA Republicans to distract from the fact that they have absolutely no agenda for families and for workers in our country. They are solutions in search of a problem. They are cruel, and we know that policies that target young people, that target parents, that target families, that target vulnerable people in our society, they never wear well in history. I truly believe that democracy only works when it includes all of us.What should members of your party do to respond to these laws?I’m incredibly proud that the Democratic Party has been unwavering in its support of L.G.B.T.Q. rights. We have seen Democrats from Montana, to Nebraska, to Virginia, to Delaware, who have made clear that attacks on vulnerable members of our communities, including L.G.B.T.Q. young people, will not stand, and we will do everything we can to stop them.People across this country are eager for politicians to appeal to our better angels and to focus on issues that actually matter to them. I don’t believe that targeting kids and parents for discrimination is a priority for voters in Delaware or across the country.Going into 2024, President Biden is struggling to maintain public approval. In your view, what should he and other Democrats be thinking about?Democrats have a strong record to run on, and there’s obviously unfinished work before us. This president has focused on working families, on recognizing that we all have a responsibility to one another. I think if this president continues to contrast his priorities with the invented problems and the culture wars of the right, that this president will win.There’s a sort of scrutiny that historically has come with being the first of anything. Are you concerned about backlash?There will certainly be attacks, but I’m no stranger to those. What I’ve demonstrated over the last few years is that I’m able to move past those attacks and focus on what matters to the people I represent. Congress is certainly different than the Delaware State Senate, but I am confident that when I get there, by focusing on issues that impact people of every party, of every ideology, and in every part of our state, that I’ll be able to find common ground with people whom I disagree with vehemently. More

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      Trump Campaigns in Michigan, a Battleground That’s Tinted Blue

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      With their party out of power, some Republicans in the state are worried that the former president could cost Michigan its status as a swing state.In front of a sold-out crowd on Sunday evening in Novi, Mich., former President Donald J. Trump lamented the decline of the automobile industry under Democratic rule and said he “stood up to China” to save thousands of manufacturing jobs.It was a speech he might have given in 2020. But then the script changed. In his first campaign visit to the state this year, Mr. Trump paired rants about free trade and manufacturing with culture-war jabs against liberals and criticism of his main Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.The latter remarks received the most raucous applause at the Oakland County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, which was giving Mr. Trump its man of the decade award.Statewide, however, the Republican Party is at a crossroads, with internal disputes among Trump-aligned factions whose candidates have faced a series of losses in recent years and an establishment wing that has all but lost any semblance of power.Mr. Trump’s full-throated embrace of election denialism and a crusade against “wokeism,” echoed by his most ardent supporters, have left some Michigan Republicans wondering about his chances in a general election — and if there is any possibility of stopping his candidacy before then.Though Mr. Trump won Michigan in his 2016 presidential bid, Republicans have struggled to garner statewide voter support since. They lost the governorship to Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in 2018, and then faced another major loss in 2020 when Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the White House.But 2022 may have stung the most: For the first time in 40 years, Michigan Republicans lost control of both State Legislature chambers and failed to recapture the governorship, putting them out of power entirely. That year featured a wide array of candidates backed by Mr. Trump, many of whom embraced false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and subsequently lost their races.Oakland County underscores the party’s tumultuous past few years: Still G.O.P.-controlled in 2016, the region in the Detroit suburbs, home to the state’s largest population of Republicans, is now controlled by Democrats.Establishment Republicans have raised concerns that Mr. Trump himself is to blame for sustained losses, and that Michigan will slowly lose its swing-state status with his loyalists at the helm. Kristina Karamo, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state in 2022 and made voter fraud and election denial central to her campaign, won control of the state party apparatus in February.“Donald Trump decapitated the entire Republican establishment in Michigan,” said Jason Roe, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party who plans to support another candidate in the growing Republican primary field for president.“The reality is that other than Donald Trump’s surprise victory in 2016, all he’s done is lose,” Mr. Roe added. “So at some point, conservative voters in America have to decide if they want to be loyal to Donald Trump or if they care about the future of our country.”Party officials said more than 2,500 people were on hand for the event.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThat perceived choice, however, was a nonstarter in Novi on Sunday, where dinner attendees paid at least $250 for a ticket. Organizers said over 2,500 people packed the Suburban Collection Showplace.In an hourlong speech, Mr. Trump frequently attacked Mr. Biden, looking past the primaries and ahead to a possible general election rematch. He criticized the president for what he called a “maniacal push” for electrical vehicles that would lead to the “decimation” of the state’s auto industry.But he also continued what is now a yearslong tirade about voting security. In attendance was Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer known for carrying out frivolous lawsuits to overturn the 2020 election, who received a standing ovation when acknowledged by Mr. Trump.And the former president received significant crowd approval when he said he would sign an executive order to cut funding from schools that support critical race theory and “transgenderism.”Rather than fault Mr. Trump for recent losses, many pointed the blame back on party officials, if they acknowledged that Republicans had lost their elections at all.“It needs a little bit more leadership. I think they seem to sway sometimes, and I don’t like that,” said Lisa Mackey of Plymouth, Mich. “We all have to work together, regardless of what side of the fence you’re on, but I think sometimes they’re not looking out for our best interests.”Mr. Trump praised Ms. Karamo, saying that she was a “hard worker who’s working very hard to keep this an honest election.” And some attendees, like Monica Job of Armada, Mich., offered their praise as well: “When she lost and then ran for the state party, that showed she’s not a quitter,” Ms. Job said.Doubts that the state party leadership can steer Republicans to victory in 2024 have become increasingly widespread — party activists are discussing how to generate funding outside the party apparatus, said Jamie Roe, a Republican strategist in the state, who is unrelated to Jason Roe.“I don’t think they’re communicating very effectively with the broad base of the party,” he said. “I just think that we have opportunity, and I’m praying that we don’t forgo those opportunities.” More

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      Trump Highlights Abortion Supreme Court Decision at Faith and Freedom Conference

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      Former President Donald J. Trump told an evangelical gathering that no president had done more for Christians than he did.One year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, former President Donald J. Trump reminded a gathering of evangelical activists in the nation’s capital how he had shaped the court’s conservative supermajority that ended nearly 50 years of constitutional protections for abortion.Appearing at a Faith & Freedom Coalition gala in Washington on Saturday night, he cited his appointment of three of the six justices who voted to strike down the law as a capstone of his presidency. And he cast himself as an unflinching crusader for the Christian right in a meandering speech that lasted nearly 90 minutes.“No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have,” he said, adding, “I got it done, and nobody thought it was even a possibility.”It was the eighth appearance by Mr. Trump in front of the group, whose support he is seeking to consolidate in a crowded G.OP. competition for the 2024 nomination, though he is the front-runner in the field. He said that Republican voters were skeptical of claims by some of his rivals that they were stronger opponents of abortion, and suggested that the skepticism had arisen on the campaign trail.“A woman stood up and said, ‘This guy ended Roe v. Wade. How the hell can you go against him?’” Mr. Trump said.A few thousand activists gave Mr. Trump an ovation when he mentioned the ruling, which he said gave conservatives leverage in the ongoing battle over abortion rights. Several hundred more filled an overflow room.“You have power for the first time,” he said.Former Vice President Mike Pence called for the 2024 Republican field to back a 15-week federal abortion ban — an abortion policy more extreme than what Mr. Trump has supported.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesVirtually all of Mr. Trump’s rivals in the crowded G.O.P. field appeared during the group’s three-day Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton. The lineup included Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mr. Trump’s chief rival, and former Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s onetime running mate.At a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial earlier on Saturday commemorating the court’s ruling, Mr. Pence urged anti-abortion activists to continue fighting to place further restrictions on the procedure at the state level.“Save the babies, and we will save America,” he said, adding, “As the old book says, that many more are with us than are with them.”In a speech at the gathering a day earlier, Mr. Pence called on the entire 2024 Republican presidential field to pledge support for a national abortion ban at 15 weeks — a ban more extreme than what Mr. Trump has backed so far.David Porter, 64, a Republican from Newport News, Va., who wore a “Walk With Jesus” hat to the rally, commended Mr. Trump for his imprint on the judiciary.“He’s my guy right now,” he said.Several times in his speech on Saturday night, Mr. Trump sought to align himself with the faith community and said that it was under attack, much like he was.“Together, we’re warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, globalists and the Marxists,” he said.Each indictment, he added, was a “great badge of courage.”“I’m being indicted for you,” he said.Mr. Trump’s alliance with the Christian right is a study in political opportunism, one that has yielded prodigious dividends for both.In 2016, evangelical voters helped propel Mr. Trump to successive Republican primary victories in South Carolina and other key states, giving him a pathway to the nomination and ultimately the presidency.The influential electoral bloc demonstrated its willingness to look beyond the impieties of the twice-divorced Mr. Trump, whose extramarital affairs had long been tabloid fodder and who came with a history of supporting abortion rights in the 1990s. Evangelical voters bought into Mr. Trump’s populist narrative, as well as his pledges to carry out a hard-line reset of the nation’s immigration and trade policies and to appoint “pro-life” justices.The group collected its returns during Mr. Trump’s presidency when he cemented a supermajority on the Supreme Court.Mr. Trump has heralded his remake of the nation’s highest court as he once again seeks the support of evangelical voters, this time beset by a cascade of indictments, including one in a hush-money case involving a porn star.But even as Mr. Trump has highlighted his role in the right’s fight to end abortion rights, he has repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether he would sign a federal abortion ban if Republicans managed to steer one through the divided Congress.Mr. Porter, the anti-abortion activist from Virginia, said Mr. Trump’s evasiveness was concerning.Mr. Trump has suggested that a six-week abortion ban signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was “too harsh,” causing some of his rivals to see an opening on the right of Mr. Trump on the issue.Pete Marovich for The New York Times“Either you stand for what you believe in or you don’t,” he said.Mr. DeSantis, who spoke on Friday at the evangelical conclave, has sought to stake out the right flank against Mr. Trump on abortion policy. He criticized the former president for suggesting that a six-week abortion ban that Mr. DeSantis signed in Florida was “too harsh.”Susan Migliore, an anti-abortion activist from Falls Church, Va., who said she was religious but not evangelical, said at the Lincoln Memorial rally that she was grateful for Mr. Trump’s court picks, but had not decided which candidate she will support in 2024. More

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      It’s Not Too Late for the Republican Party

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      Donald Trump this month became the first former or incumbent American president to be charged with crimes against the nation that he once led and wishes to lead again. He cynically calculated that his indictment would ensure that a riled-up Republican Party base would nominate him as its standard-bearer in 2024, and the last few weeks have proved that his political calculation was probably right.The former president’s behavior may have invited charges, but the Republicans’ spineless support for the past two years convinced Mr. Trump of his political immortality, giving him the assurance that he could purloin some of the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets upon leaving the White House — and preposterously insist that they were his to do with as he wished — all without facing political consequences. Indeed, their fawning support since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol has given Mr. Trump every reason to believe that he can ride these charges and any others not just to the Republican nomination, but also to the White House in 2024.In a word, the Republicans are as responsible as Mr. Trump for this month’s indictment — and will be as responsible for any indictment and prosecution of him for Jan. 6. One would think that, for a party that has prided itself for caring about the Constitution and the rule of law, this would stir some measure of self-reflection among party officials and even voters about their abiding support for the former president. Surely before barreling headlong into the 2024 presidential election season, more Republicans would realize it is time to come to the reckoning with Mr. Trump that they have vainly hoped and naïvely believed would never be necessary.But by all appearances, it certainly hasn’t occurred to them yet that any reckoning is needed. As only the Republicans can do, they are already turning this ignominious moment into an even more ignominious moment — and a self-immolating one at that — by rushing to crown Mr. Trump their nominee before the primary season even begins. Building the Republican campaign around the newly indicted front-runner is a colossal political miscalculation, as comedic as it is tragic for the country. No assemblage of politicians except the Republicans would ever conceive of running for the American presidency by running against the Constitution and the rule of law. But that’s exactly what they’re planning.The stewards of the Republican Party have become so inured to their putative leader, they have managed to convince themselves that an indicted and perhaps even convicted Donald Trump is their party’s best hope for the future. But rushing to model their campaign on Mr. Trump’s breathtakingly inane template is as absurd as it is ill fated. They will be defending the indefensible.On cue, the Republicans kicked their self-defeating political apparatus into high gear this month. Almost as soon as the indictment in the documents case was unsealed, Mr. Trump jump-started his up-to-then languishing campaign, predictably declaring himself an “innocent man” victimized in “the greatest witch hunt of all time” by his “totally corrupt” political nemesis, the Biden administration. On Thursday, he added that it was all part of a plot, hatched at the Justice Department and the F.B.I., to “rig” the 2024 election against him.From his distant second place, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida denounced the Biden administration’s “weaponization of federal law enforcement” against Mr. Trump and the Republicans. Mike Pence dutifully pronounced the indictment political. And both Governor DeSantis and Mr. Pence pledged — in a new Republican litmus test — that on their first day in office they would fire the director of the F.B.I., the Trump appointee Christopher Wray, obviously for his turpitude in investigating Mr. Trump. It fell to Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, to articulate the treacherous overarching Republican strategy: “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”There’s no stopping Republicans now, until they have succeeded in completely politicizing the rule of law in service to their partisan political ends.If the indictment of Mr. Trump on Espionage Act charges — not to mention his now almost certain indictment for conspiring to obstruct Congress from certifying Mr. Biden as the president on Jan. 6 — fails to shake the Republican Party from its moribund political senses, then it is beyond saving itself. Nor ought it be saved.There is no path to the White House for Republicans with Mr. Trump. He would need every single Republican and independent vote, and there are untold numbers of Republicans and independents who will never vote for him, if for no other perfectly legitimate reason than that he has corrupted America’s democracy and is now attempting to corrupt the country’s rule of law. No sane Democrat will vote for Mr. Trump — even over the aging Mr. Biden — when there are so many sane Republicans who will refuse to vote for Mr. Trump. This is all plain to see, which makes it all the more mystifying why more Republicans don’t see it.When Republicans faced an 11th-hour reckoning with another of their presidents over far less serious offenses almost 50 years ago, the elder statesmen of the party marched into the Oval Office and told Richard Nixon the truth. He had lost his Republican support and he would be impeached if he did not resign. The beleaguered Nixon resigned the next day and left the White House the day following.Such is what it means to put country over party. History tends to look favorably upon a party that writes its own history, as Winston Churchill might have said.Republicans have waited in vain for political absolution. It’s finally time for them to put the country before their party and pull back from the brink — for the good of the party, as well as the nation.If not now, then they must forever hold their peace.J. Michael Luttig (@judgeluttig) was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006.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