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      With His Super PAC in Disarray, DeSantis Aims to Stay on Offense

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      The Florida governor kept his focus trained on his opponents, even as Never Back Down, the group aligned with the governor, lost another key leader.A day after Ron DeSantis’s political operation suffered another major setback — the departure of a chief strategist — the Florida governor ignored the internal turmoil at an event in Iowa and did not take questions from reporters. Perhaps there just wasn’t much left to say.The group, Never Back Down — a super PAC formed to help Mr. DeSantis take on Donald J. Trump and serve as a powerful shadow campaign with a huge war chest and an influential political team — had lost another key player, the sixth senior leader to depart in recent weeks.In the months since it was founded, the super PAC has burned through tens of millions of dollars and changed its mission and strategy without much success. Four weeks before the first nominating contests in Iowa, it now faces questions about whether what remains is enough to have an impact, without much time to refocus or rebuild.So instead, Mr. DeSantis and his allies sought to go on offense against his rivals for the Republican nomination — most notably Mr. Trump, who is cruising in Iowa, and former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who is challenging him most directly — something he has struggled to do on the debate stage.At a packed coffee shop on Sunday in Oskaloosa, Iowa, Mr. DeSantis assured voters that he would bolster the country’s military and said that, in contrast to Mr. Trump, his leadership was “not about entertainment.”While Mr. DeSantis has sought to project strength and competence on the campaign trail, behind-the-scenes infighting at Never Back Down has frequently overshadowed his efforts.The group, which had amassed $130 million to support his candidacy, was supposed to be a difference maker. Instead, it has sometimes been a distraction, even as it works to build a formidable get-out-the-vote operation in the early nominating states.The departure on Saturday of the strategist, Jeff Roe, an influential political consultant who seeded Never Back Down with allies from his firm, Axiom, followed the loss of the group’s first chief executive, Chris Jankowski, just before Thanksgiving. Mr. Jankowski’s replacement, Kristin Davison, was fired in early December, and Never Back Down’s chairman, Adam Laxalt, a longtime friend of Mr. DeSantis, also stepped down this month, as two other senior staff members were fired.Never Back Down is now in an uncertain place. The group has quickly burned through cash and its new chairman and interim chief executive, Scott Wagner, is a Miami lawyer and close college friend of Mr. DeSantis, rather than a seasoned political operative, although he has been a member of the group’s board. In a post on X, Mr. Roe seemed to place the blame for his resignation on negative comments Mr. Wagner made in a Washington Post article about the fired employees.Meanwhile, another group of DeSantis loyalists has created a new super PAC, Fight Right, that has been running advertisements against Ms. Haley, who has caught up with or surpassed Mr. DeSantis in many polls. The group’s latest ad referred to Ms. Haley as “Tricky Nikki,” accusing her of pushing “the woke corporate agenda” on immigration. The ad was the latest sign that Mr. DeSantis, who has predicted victory in Iowa over Mr. Trump, has instead found himself in a two-front war, battling Ms. Haley for anti-Trump voters while simultaneously trying to wrest Trump supporters from the former president.Never Back Down, or N.B.D., had previously handled advertising, but Mr. DeSantis’s campaign — which is not legally allowed to coordinate with the group — suggested that it would focus on turning out voters.“We have full confidence in the N.B.D. ground game and field operation, which is second to none,” Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement on Sunday. “There is a stellar team in place and we appreciate their independent efforts to fight for Ron DeSantis.”A spokeswoman for Never Back Down did not respond to a request for comment.Instead of addressing the recent tumult, Mr. DeSantis sharpened his criticism of Ms. Haley and continued to attack Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis has recently urged voters to question why Ms. Haley has not given a firm answer about whether she would accept a role as Mr. Trump’s vice president, should he offer it after winning the Republican nomination. The implication is that Ms. Haley is aligning herself with Mr. Trump and attacking Mr. DeSantis on his behalf, rather than seeking the nomination herself. On Saturday, the DeSantis campaign sent out an email proclaiming that the governor was “Not Running to Be Anything Else.”“She owes you an answer to this,” Mr. DeSantis told the audience at a town hall in Concord, N.H., on Friday. It was a line of attack he repeated at another event later that night.Mr. DeSantis also pointed out that Mr. Trump had not ruled out selecting Ms. Haley during a recent radio interview. “Right now I’m not even thinking about that,” the former president had said when asked about the possibility. “I’ve always gotten along well with Nikki,” he added, but cautioned it was “unlikely” he would pick Ms. Haley. (For his part, Mr. DeSantis reiterated in New Hampshire that he would not run on Mr. Trump’s ticket, saying he could accomplish more as governor than vice president.)Ms. Haley has poured cold water on the charge without directly answering it. At a stop this month in Sioux City, Iowa, a voter asked if she would serve as Mr. Trump’s vice president. “I’ve never played for second,” she responded. (A spokeswoman for her campaign, Olivia Perez-Cubas, said Mr. DeSantis would “say anything to try to salvage his sinking ship of a campaign.”)On Sunday in Oskaloosa, Mr. DeSantis did not repeat his criticism. But one of his allies, Mark Chelgren, a former state senator in Iowa, opened the event by excoriating Mr. Trump as “self-serving” for denying his 2020 election loss.“The reality was, the week prior to absentee ballots going out, he had a debate with Joe Biden, and they both looked immature, selfish and petty,” Mr. Chelgren told voters. “That is why Donald Trump lost the last election.”As for Mr. Roe and the turmoil with Never Back Down, most voters said they were more concerned with policy differences between candidates rather than political infighting.Jordan Padgett, an undecided voter, said he had not even heard of Never Back Down. “I know the movie, great movie,” he said, referring to the 2008 action film by the same name.But Shari Dayton, who is supporting Mr. DeSantis, said the fact that the governor’s PAC seemed to be in disarray could affect how she votes in January’s caucuses.Hearing the news of the organization’s travails, her eyes widened. “I will have to look into that,” she said. “That’s interesting.”Shane Goldmacher More

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      Giuliani Was Ordered to Pay $148 Million. What Happens Now?

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      The two election workers who sued Rudolph W. Giuliani for defamation won’t be paid right away, and the judge could change the amount awarded by the jury.A federal jury in Washington ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani last week to pay $148 million in damages to two former Georgia election workers he defamed by spreading baseless claims that they tried to steal votes from Donald J. Trump on Nov. 3, 2020.Mr. Giuliani, who faces a litany of legal and financial troubles, has said he will appeal the verdict.Here’s what happens next:The judge will order a judgment on what Mr. Giuliani must pay.The jury awarded the two former poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, who are Black, $148 million. That was after they gave hours of emotional testimony describing the relentless threats and attacks they received, including from people who said they should be hanged for treason or lynched. The total included a combined $75 million in punitive damages; compensatory damages of $16.2 million to Ms. Freeman and $16.9 million to Ms. Moss; and $20 million to each of them for emotional suffering.Before Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss can collect any money, the judge, Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court in Washington, will need to enter a judgment ordering the amount Mr. Giuliani is required to pay. In civil cases like this one, the judge can change the amount determined by the jury.Once Judge Howell rules on the amount, Mr. Giuliani can appeal the decision.The money will not come immediately.“Defense lawyers can string out these cases for pretty substantial periods of time before payments actually have to be made,” said Robert L. Rabin, a professor at Stanford Law School with expertise on torts and compensations.If Mr. Giuliani appeals the verdict, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss could ask the judge to make him post a bond to secure some of his assets while an appeal is pending, said Christopher M. Mattei, a lawyer who represented the Sandy Hook families in their defamation case against the Infowars founder Alex Jones.The women can also request a special proceeding to look into ways to collect the judgment from him, such as garnishing his wages. Mr. Giuliani, who served as the mayor of New York City and as a federal prosecutor, cannot currently work as a lawyer because of disciplinary actions against him.Mr. Giuliani refused to comply with the court’s requirement to disclose financial documents that would show his net worth, including how much money he makes from media endeavors such as his podcast.And at any point, Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss could agree on a settlement.Mr. Giuliani will still be on the hook, even in bankruptcy.After Friday’s verdict, Mr. Giuliani was likely to file for bankruptcy protection, according to a lawyer familiar with his legal situation.The damages he owes Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss are considered an “intentional tort,” meaning Mr. Giuliani was aware of what he was doing when he defamed the women by spreading baseless lies about election fraud, and bankruptcy would not erase his liability.“It may be that Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss are able to chase Rudy Giuliani to his grave to catch every penny they can out of his pockets,” Barbara L. McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, said recently on MSNBC. Ms. McQuade was a U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017.If Mr. Giuliani, who is 79, dies before Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss receive compensation, they could still collect compensatory and emotional damages against his estate, Mr. Rabin said.Mr. Giuliani faces additional legal challenges.Mr. Giuliani is under indictment in Georgia. A local prosecutor brought racketeering charges against him, Mr. Trump and others for their efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia.He faces a defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems, one of the largest voting machine vendors in the country. The company accused Mr. Giuliani of spreading lies about the company as part of his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office.Mr. Giuliani’s former lawyer, Robert J. Costello, is also suing him for $1.3 million in unpaid legal fees. And a former employee, Noelle Dunphy, filed a lawsuit in May, claiming that Mr. Giuliani harassed and assaulted her beginning in 2019. Mr. Giuliani has denied the allegations. More

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      Jeff Roe, Top Strategist for Star-Crossed DeSantis Super PAC, Resigns

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      Mr. Roe, who helped lead Never Back Down, the super PAC behind the Florida governor’s presidential campaign, resigned Saturday, the latest shake-up in the group.Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for the leading super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential bid, resigned on Saturday night, the latest and perhaps most significant departure from the group, which has been consumed by turmoil in recent weeks.Since the day before Thanksgiving, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, which is called Never Back Down, has seen the resignation of one chief executive and one board chairman; the firing of a second chief executive, along with two other top officials; and now the late-night quitting of Mr. Roe. All have come after intense infighting and finger-pointing as Mr. DeSantis has slipped in the polls.“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Mr. Roe wrote in a statement he posted on X on Saturday night. The news of Mr. Roe’s resignation was first reported by The Washington Post.His decision to quit followed comments from the new chairman of the super PAC’s board, Scott Wagner, a DeSantis loyalist and appointee in Florida. Mr. Wagner had explained to The Washington Post why the previous chief executive and two others — all of whom had worked for Mr. Roe — had been fired.Mr. Wagner accused them of “mismanagement and conduct issues” as well as “numerous unauthorized leaks.” The Post reported that a lawyer for those employees contacted Mr. Wagner, who then revised his statement to add hedges to those accusations.“I cannot in good conscience stay affiliated with Never Back Down given the statements in The Washington Post,” Mr. Roe wrote in a statement. He said he still hoped Mr. DeSantis would be the next president and praised the Never Back Down team as “political warriors.”Mr. Wagner did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.From the start, Never Back Down has been something of a Frankenstein’s monster in its composition, with Mr. Roe and some of his top lieutenants forced to coexist with a decision-making board comprised primarily of longtime friends and loyalists of Mr. DeSantis. The arrangement has raised questions about how closely the campaign and the super PAC have adhered to rules barring coordination.Former President Donald J. Trump, who was in Las Vegas for a U.F.C. match and who has routinely mocked Mr. Roe privately, celebrated the departure in a post on his social-media site, Truth Social. “Jeff Roe is out — GAME OVER for DeSanctimonious,” he wrote.The future of internal operations at Never Back Down, which had raised more than $130 million as of July, is unclear. Mr. Roe’s allies hold many of the most important positions in the group, and his company, Axiom, has helped staff early state efforts for the super PAC. Whether they all remain in place is unclear.Word that Mr. Roe was departing the super PAC began to spread shortly before 8 p.m. on Saturday. But Mr. Roe and several people connected to Never Back Down did not respond to multiple messages seeking confirmation. Mr. Roe ultimately delivered his news to The Washington Post and posted it on X.Mr. Roe had long ago aggravated Mr. DeSantis with unwanted headlines, among them a New York Times story about a memo narrating debate strategy for the candidate before the first primary debate that was posted on his company’s website, and then taken down after The Times learned of it. The campaign found the memo’s existence embarrassing.Later, at the end of August, Mr. Roe was secretly recorded at a meeting with donors pitching them for tens of millions of dollars, as well as saying that Mr. DeSantis needed to beat Mr. Trump over the following 60 days.The Trump campaign has seized on the “60 days” comment, referring to it in an often vicious daily email as Mr. Roe’s “kiss of death.” That 60-day period has passed, with Mr. DeSantis still well behind the former president in the polls.Never Back Down has been hobbled by infighting for weeks, as senior staff members quit or were fired. Mr. DeSantis and his team had been unhappy with the group’s operations, particularly its focus on television advertising, and they had signaled that they wanted it to work more substantially on getting out the vote.Tensions reached a breaking point in November when another super PAC, Fight Right, was formed by a trio of DeSantis loyalists. The board of Never Back Down directed $1 million to that group, and, soon after, the initial chief executive, Chris Jankowski, resigned, followed by the resignation of the board chairman, Adam Laxalt.The person named as Mr. Jankowski’s replacement, Kristin Davison, was then fired, along with two other top officials.Mr. DeSantis has since met with prospective donors for Fight Right, and his campaign manager wrote a memo that embraced the group as the preferred entity to do its political advertising. The new super PAC’s first ad attacked Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina by invoking past comments she had made about Hillary Clinton — a line of attack that the campaign had just prominently featured in its own anti-Haley materials.Although Mr. DeSantis entered the race as the leading challenger to Mr. Trump, his campaign has sputtered in recent months. Ms. Haley has now equaled or surpassed Mr. DeSantis in many early state polls.The constant drama at the super PAC has infuriated some campaign staff members, who see it as a needless, constant distraction. The campaign itself was once the source of that drama, undergoing mass layoffs and seeing the elevation of a campaign manager who had never worked on a campaign. More

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      Giuliani Ordered to Pay $148 Million to Election Workers in Defamation Trial

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      Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, wrongfully accused by Rudolph W. Giuliani of having tried to steal votes from Donald J. Trump in Georgia, were awarded the damages by a federal court in Washington.A jury on Friday ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani to pay $148 million to two former Georgia election workers who said he had destroyed their reputations with lies that they tried to steal the 2020 election from Donald J. Trump.Judge Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court in Washington had already ruled that Mr. Giuliani had defamed the two workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The jury had been asked to decide only on the amount of the damages.The jury awarded Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss a combined $75 million in punitive damages. It also ordered Mr. Giuliani to pay compensatory damages of $16.2 million to Ms. Freeman and $16.9 million to Ms. Moss, as well as $20 million to each of them for emotional suffering.“Today’s a good day,” Ms. Freeman told reporters after the jury delivered its determination. But she added that no amount of money would give her and her daughter back what they lost in the abuse they suffered after Mr. Giuliani falsely accused them of manipulating the vote count.Mr. Giuliani, who helped lead Mr. Trump’s effort to remain in office after his defeat in the 2020 election but has endured a string of legal and financial setbacks since then, was defiant after the proceeding.“I don’t regret a damn thing,” he said outside the courthouse, suggesting that he would appeal and that he stood by his assertions about the two women.He said that the torrent of attacks and threats the women received from Trump supporters were “abominable” and “deplorable,” but that he was not responsible for them.His lawyer, Joseph Sibley IV, had also argued that Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and federal prosecutor, should not be held responsible for abuse directed to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss by others.Mr. Sibley had warned that an award of the scale being sought by the women would be the civil equivalent of the death penalty for his client. Outside the courthouse on Friday, Mr. Giuliani called the amount “absurd.”Mr. Giuliani’s net worth is unknown because he refused to comply with the court’s requirement to provide that information. A lawyer familiar with his legal situation said after the verdict that Mr. Giuliani was likely to file for bankruptcy protection. But because the damages he owes Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss are considered an “intentional tort,” bankruptcy would not erase his liability, lawyers said.The case brought against Mr. Giuliani was one of a series of lawsuits in which plaintiffs have sought to use defamation claims to hold people accountable for lying about the 2020 election.Dominion Voting Systems wrested a $787.5 million settlement out of Fox News earlier this year after suing the media giant for promoting lies that its voting machines were used in a conspiracy to flip votes away from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.In October, a judge in Atlanta ruled that a Georgia man was allowed to continue his defamation claims against the right-wing author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza on claims that he had been wrongly accused of voter fraud in Mr. D’Souza’s book and film, “2000 Mules.”Over hours of emotional testimony during the civil trial in Washington, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss described how their lives had been completely upended after Dec. 3, 2020, when Mr. Giuliani first suggested that they had engaged in election fraud to tilt the result against Mr. Trump in Georgia, a critical swing state.The women, who are Black and are mother and daughter, were soon flooded with expletive-laden phone calls and messages, threats, and racist attacks, they testified. People said they should be hanged for treason or lynched; others told them they fantasized about hearing the sound of their necks snapping.They showed up at Ms. Freeman’s home. They tried to execute a citizen’s arrest of Ms. Moss at her grandmother’s house. They called Ms. Moss’s 14-year-old son’s cellphone so much that it interfered with his virtual classes, and he finished his first year of high school with failing grades.“This all started with one tweet,” Ms. Freeman told the jury, referring to a social media post from Mr. Giuliani saying, “WATCH: Video footage from Georgia shows suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under a table AFTER supervisors told poll workers to leave room and 4 people stayed behind to keep counting votes.”Mr. Giuliani did not testify at the trial. He said afterward that was because “if I made any mistake or did anything wrong,” he thought the judge would hold him in contempt or put him in jail. “And I thought, honestly, it wouldn’t do me any good.”Mr. Giuliani is under indictment in Georgia, where a local prosecutor has brought racketeering charges against him, Mr. Trump and others in connection with their efforts to overturn the former president’s election loss there.Lawyers for Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss had asked the jury to send a message when deciding what Mr. Giuliani should pay.“Send it to Mr. Giuliani,” one of the lawyers, Michael J. Gottlieb, said in his closing argument on Thursday. “Send it to any other powerful figure with a platform and an audience who is considering whether they will take the chance to seek profit and fame by assassinating the moral character of ordinary people.”Ms. Moss said she and her mother would continue to fight for justice.“Our greatest wish is that no election worker or voter or school board member or anyone else ever experiences anything like what we went through,” she said.Alan Feuer More

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      High Housing Prices May Pose a Problem for Biden

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      Buying a home is a less attainable goal for many young people, and rents are expensive. Could that dog Democrats in the 2024 election?Cameron Ambrosy spent the first weekend of December going to 10 open houses — purely for research purposes. The 25-year-old in St. Paul, Minn., has a well-paying job and she and her husband are saving diligently, but she knows that it will be years before they can afford to buy.“It is much more of a long-term goal than for my parents or my grandparents, or even my peers who are slightly older,” said Ms. Ambrosy, adding that for many of her friends, homeownership is even farther away. “There’s a lot of nihilism around long-term goals like home buying.”As many people pay more for rent and some struggle to save for starter homes, political and economic analysts are warning that housing affordability may be adding to economic unhappiness — and is likely to be a more salient issue in the 2024 presidential election than in years past.Many Americans view the economy negatively even though unemployment is low and wage growth has been strong. Younger voters cite housing as a particular source of concern: Among respondents 18 to 34 in a recent Morning Consult survey, it placed second only to inflation overall.Wary of the issue and its political implications, President Biden has directed his economic aides to come up with new and expanded efforts for the federal government to help Americans who are struggling with the costs of buying or renting a home, aides say. The administration is using federal grants to prod local authorities to loosen zoning regulations, for instance, and is considering executive actions that focus on affordability. The White House has also dispatched top officials, including Lael Brainard, who leads the National Economic Council, to give speeches about the administration’s efforts to help people afford homes.“The president is very focused on the affordability of housing because it is the single most important monthly expense for so many families,” Ms. Brainard said in an interview.Housing is “the single most important monthly expense for so many families,” noted Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council. Erin Schaff/The New York TimesHousing has not traditionally been a big factor motivating voters, in part because key market drivers like zoning policies tend to be local. But some political strategists and economists say the rapid run-up in prices since the pandemic could change that.Rents have climbed about 22 percent since late 2019, and a key index of home prices is up by an even heftier 46 percent. Mortgages now hover around 7 percent as the Federal Reserve has raised rates to the highest level in 22 years in a bid to contain inflation. Those factors have combined to make both monthly rent and the dream of first-time homeownership increasingly unattainable for many young families.“This is the singular economic issue of our time, and they need to figure out how to talk about that with voters in a way that resonates,” said Tara Raghuveer, director of KC Tenants, a tenant union in Kansas City, Mo., referring to the White House. The housing affordability crush comes at a time when many consumers are facing higher prices in general. A bout of rapid inflation that started in 2021 has left households paying more for everyday necessities like milk, bread, gas and many services. Even though costs are no longer increasing so quickly, those higher prices continue to weigh on consumer sentiment, eroding Mr. Biden’s approval ratings.While incomes have recently kept up with price increases, that inflationary period has left many young households devoting a bigger chunk of their budgets to rental costs. That is making it more difficult for many to save toward now-heftier down payments. The situation has spurred a bout of viral social media content about the difficulty of buying a home, which has long been a steppingstone into the middle class and a key component of wealth-building in the United States.That’s why some analysts think that housing concerns could morph into an important political issue, particularly for hard-hit demographics like younger people. While about two-thirds of American adults overall are homeowners, that share drops to less than 40 percent for those under 35.“The housing market has been incredibly volatile over the last four years in a way that has made it very salient,” said Igor Popov, the chief economist at Apartment List. “I think housing is going to be a big topic in the 2024 election.”Yet there are reasons that presidential candidates have rarely emphasized housing as an election issue: It is both a long-term problem and a tough one for the White House to tackle on its own.“Housing is sort of the problem child in economic policy,” said Jim Parrott, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and former Obama administration economic and housing adviser. America has a housing supply shortfall that has been years in the making. Builders pulled back on construction after the 2007 housing market meltdown, and years of insufficient building have left too few properties on the market to meet recent strong demand. The shortage has recently been exacerbated as higher interest rates deter home-owning families who locked in low mortgage rates from moving.Some analysts think concerns about housing affordability could morph into an important political issue, particularly for hard-hit demographics like younger people.Mikayla Whitmore for The New York TimesConditions could ease slightly in 2024. The Federal Reserve is expected to begin cutting borrowing costs next year as inflation eases, which could help to make mortgages slightly cheaper. A new supply of apartments are expected to be finished, which could keep a lid on rents.And even voters who feel bad about housing might still support Democrats for other reasons. Ms. Ambrosy, the would-be buyer in St. Paul, said that she had voted for President Biden in 2020 and she planned to vote for the Democratic nominee in this election purely on the basis of social issues, for instance.But housing affordability is enough of a pain point for young voters and renters — who tend to lean heavily Democrat — that it has left the Biden administration scrambling to emphasize possible solutions.After including emergency rental assistance in his 2021 economic stimulus bill, Mr. Biden has devoted less attention to housing than to other inflation-related issues, like reducing the cost of prescription drugs. His most aggressive housing proposals, like an expansion of federal housing vouchers, were dropped from last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.Still, his administration has pushed several efforts to liberalize local housing laws and expand affordable housing. It released a “Housing Supply Action” plan that aims to step up the pace of development by using federal grants and other funds to encourage state and local governments to liberalize their zoning and land use rules to make housing faster and easier to build. The plan also gives governments more leeway to use transportation and infrastructure funds to more directly produce housing (such as with a new program that supports the conversion of offices to apartments).The administration has also floated a number of ideas to help renters, such as a blueprint for future renters’ legislation and a new Federal Trade Commission proposal to prohibit “junk fees” for things like roommates, applications and utilities that hide the true cost of rent.Some affordable housing advocates say the administration could do more. One possibility they have raised in the past would be to have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which help create a more robust market for mortgages by buying them from financial institutions, invest directly in moderately priced rental housing developments. Ms. Raghuveer, the tenant organizer, has argued that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, could unilaterally impose a cap on annual rent increases for landlords whose mortgages are backed by the agencies.But several experts said that White House efforts would only help on the margins. “Without Congress, the administration is really limited in what they can do to reduce supply barriers,” said Emily Hamilton, an economist at the Mercatus Center who studies housing.Republicans control the House and have opposed nearly all of Mr. Biden’s plans to increase government spending, including for housing. But aides say Mr. Biden will press the case and seek new executive actions to help with housing costs.While it could be valuable to start talking about solutions, “nothing is going to solve the problem in one year,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and a frequent adviser to Democrats.“This problem has been developing for 15 years, since the financial crisis, and it’s going to take another 15 years to get out of it.” More

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      Defeating Trump Is Just a Start

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      The easy and obvious way to understand the various Republican power grabs underway in states across the country is to look at them as attempts to secure as much unaccountable political power as possible and to curtail the expression of identities and beliefs Republicans find objectionable. That’s how we get the “Don’t Say Gay” laws and attacks on gender-affirming care and aggressive efforts to gerrymander entire state legislatures.But there is another angle you can take on the Republican use of state power to limit political representation for their opponents or limit the bodily autonomy of women or impose traditional and hierarchical gender relations on those who would prefer to live free of them. You could say the point is the cultivation of political despair.Now, it is too much to say that this is premeditated, although you do not have to look hard to find Republican officeholders expressing the belief that political participation should be made more onerous.At the same time, it is hard not to miss the degree to which attempts to nullify popular referendums or redistrict opponents into irrelevance can also work to inculcate a sense of hopelessness in those who might otherwise seek political change. Yes, it is true that many people will push back when faced with a sustained challenge to their right to participate in political life or exercise other fundamental rights. But many people will resign themselves to the new status quo, persuading themselves that nothing has fundamentally changed or concluding that it is not worth the time or effort involved to pick up the fight.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?  More

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      Republicans Tap Mazi Melesa Pilip to Run for Santos’s Seat

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      Party leaders believe Mazi Melesa Pilip has the potential to be a breakout star. But she has little political experience and her policy views are largely unknown.Republicans battling to hold onto the New York House seat vacated by George Santos chose on Thursday another relatively unknown candidate with a remarkable biography but a thin political résumé to run in a special election next year.After extensive vetting, Republican leaders selected Mazi Melesa Pilip, a local legislator who was born in Ethiopia, served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces and first ran for office in 2021 vowing to fight antisemitism.It was a bold gamble by Long Island Republicans, a group better known for nominating older, white establishment figures. Republicans believe Ms. Pilip, a 44-year-old mother of seven, has the potential to become a breakout star before the Feb. 13 special election, particularly at a moment when Israel’s war with Hamas is reordering American politics.“She is the American success story,” said Peter King, a former New York Republican congressman involved in the nomination. “Some people have superstar capacity. She walks into the room, people notice her, they listen to her.”Ms. Pilip, however, lacks many of the credentials typically prized in a competitive congressional race. She has almost no experience raising money, lacks relationships with key party figures outside her affluent New York City suburb and has never faced the kind of scrutiny that comes with being a candidate for high office.In fact, beyond fierce advocacy for Israel and support for the police, she has taken no known public positions on major issues that have shaped recent House contests. That includes abortion rights, gun laws and the criminal charges against former President Donald J. 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?  More

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      Attention! There’s Life Beyond the Digital.

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      More from our inbox:A Party Pooper’s View of the New Climate DealThe Biden Impeachment Inquiry: ‘Republicans, Have You No Shame?’The 1968 and 2024 ElectionsThe A.I. StakesVeterans’ Suicides by Firearm Harry WrightTo the Editor:Re “Fight the Powerful Forces Stealing Our Attention,” by D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 27):In 2010, frustrated that I had to admonish the students in my large sophomore lecture course to turn off their cellphones at the start of each class, only to see them return to them immediately at the end, I told them a story.When I went to college, I explained, there were no cellphones. After class, we thought about what we had just learned, often discussing it with our friends. Why not try an experiment: for one week, no cellphones for 10 minutes after every class? Only three of the 80 students accepted the challenge, and not surprisingly, they reported back that they were thrilled to find themselves learning more and enjoying it more thoroughly.So, hats off to the authors of this essay who are teaching attentiveness. I fear, though, that they are trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. Would that they prove me wrong.Richard EtlinNew YorkThe writer is distinguished university professor emeritus at the School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, University of Maryland, College Park.To the Editor:Of course, we have lost a good deal of our ability to focus and concentrate with the persistence of digital information gnawing at our attention spans. While this is not a new problem, it has been grossly intensified.The answer in the past, and the answer now, is libraries: places of quiet reading, contemplation, study, thinking, even daydreaming.To put away electronic media for a time and enjoy the silence of a library is a gift for personal balance and tranquillity.Bonnie CollierBranford, Conn.The writer is a retired associate director for administration, Yale Law Library.To the Editor:Some years ago I returned to the tiny Greek island my family left in 1910. “There’s nothing there,” everybody said. But the nothing that was there was the absolute antidote to most of the malaise of modern life, or, as my daughter calls it, “the digital hellscape.”The effect was immediate. No credit cards, no taxi apps, no alarm systems, none of it. Just the sounds of the goat bells on the hills and people drinking coffee and staring at the water and talking to each other. And it wasn’t boring at all.Jane WardenMalibu, Calif.A Party Pooper’s View of the New Climate Deal Fadel Dawod/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “In Climate First, Pact Seeks Shift on Fossil Fuels” (front page, Dec. 14):I hate to be a climate summit party pooper, but the bottom line is that the new deal being celebrated is not legally binding and can’t, on its own, force any country to act. History has shown that if a country isn’t forced to act, it usually won’t.How do I know that? We just had the hottest year on record, with global fossil-fuel emissions soaring to record highs. We had agreed not to go there. Here we are.Douglas G. WilliamsMinneapolisThe Biden Impeachment Inquiry: ‘Republicans, Have You No Shame?’Representative James Comer, left, and Representative Jim Jordan have led the Republican impeachment inquiry.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Impeachment Inquiry Approved, Despite No Proof of Biden Crime” (front page, Dec. 14):This is a sad day for our country. Republicans voted to have an impeachment inquiry into President Biden without having any basis on which to proceed. Why did they take this unprecedented step? They were responding to the wishes of Donald Trump.The constitutional power of the House of Representatives to impeach is a solemn duty reserved for instances where a president has committed “high crimes or misdemeanors.” In this case, there is not a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing, only a father’s love for his surviving son.Republicans, have you no shame? You will rue the day you voted in such an unethical manner. To use impeachment as a political tool in the 2024 election is an embarrassment for the whole world to see.I am afraid that we have reached the point where retribution is one party’s focus instead of the myriad needs of the people of this nation.Ellen Silverman PopperQueensThe 1968 and 2024 Elections Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Reading about how President Biden is losing support among young pro-Palestinian college kids takes me back to my youth. I’m a baby boomer, and this reminds me of the 1968 presidential election between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey.So many of my generation were so angry about the Vietnam War and how Vice President Humphrey had backed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s handling of the war that many of us refused to vote for Humphrey. Nixon was elected, and the war continued.As President Biden often says, an election is a choice. However, one can also choose not to vote. Those of us who refused to vote for Humphrey may well have tipped the election to Nixon, and with it all of the consequences that followed.It is a cliché that the perfect is the enemy of the good, but there is a lot of truth to it. I fervently hope we don’t make that mistake in 2024.Stuart MathNew YorkThe A.I. StakesTo the Editor:Re “How Money, Ego and Fear Lit A.I.’s Fuse” (“The A.I. Race” series, front page, Dec. 4):Although the history of artificial intelligence may read like a struggle between those favoring cautious development and those intent on advancing the technology rapidly with fewer restrictions, it was inevitable that the latter would come out on top.Given the resources required to scale the technology, it could be developed only with the support of parties with enormous computing power and very deep pockets (in other words, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta).And in return for their investments of billions of dollars, it is hardly surprising that those competing parties would demand rapid advancement with fewer restrictions in the hope of controlling the future of an industry that holds the promise of spectacular profit.In retrospect, the proponents of a cautious approach to the development of A.I. never stood a chance.Michael SilkLaguna Woods, Calif.Veterans’ Suicides by FirearmPhotos of people who died by suicide were displayed during an awareness event in Los Angeles last month.Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “U.S. Rate of Suicide by Firearm Reaches Record Level, Report Says” (news article, Dec. 2):The increasing use of firearms in suicides is particularly concerning among veterans. Suicide rates among veterans are twice as high as among civilians, and veterans are twice as likely as civilians to use a firearm in a suicide attempt. Younger veterans are at especially high risk; those under the age of 55 have the highest rates of suicide by firearm.New data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers a glimmer of hope: New York State is bucking the trend. It saw a 13 percent decrease in firearm-related suicides by veterans in 2021. That conforms with research findings that states with stricter gun control policies experience fewer firearm-related suicides.Saving lives means reducing access to lethal means.Derek CoyNew YorkThe writer, an Iraq veteran, is senior program officer for veterans’ health at the New York Health Foundation. More