United States Politics and Government
Subterms
More stories
- in Elections
Trump Attacks Michelle Obama, Days After She Criticized Him
Former President Donald J. Trump said that Michelle Obama had made a “big mistake” by criticizing him, as he responded on Monday for the first time to her recent searing comments about his mental state.“I always tried to be so nice and respectful,” said Mr. Trump, who in 2011 spent weeks spreading the lie that Barack Obama, the country’s first Black president, was actually born in Kenya, with the insinuation being that he was therefore illegitimately in office. He added, “She opened up a little bit of a box.”Mr. Trump made the comments at a rally in Atlanta, in response to what Mrs. Obama, the former first lady, said about him while campaigning on Saturday for Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan. At that event, Mrs. Obama said some voters were ignoring Mr. Trump’s “gross incompetence.” She said Mr. Trump had displayed “erratic behavior” and “obvious mental decline,” and noted that he had been found “liable for sexual abuse” in a civil case and that the former president was now a felon.“She was nasty,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “That was a big mistake that she made.”Michelle Obama spoke on Saturday at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Kalamazoo, Mich. She commented on what she said was Mr. Trump’s “obvious mental decline.”Erin Schaff/The New York TimesNot long after that line, Mr. Trump attacked Ms. Harris as a “hater.” The crowd at the McCamish Pavilion on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta began chanting: “Lock her up! Lock her up!” Those chants have now become more frequent occurrences as both anti-Harris taunts at Trump rallies and as anti-Trump chants at Harris events. They were first used by crowds at Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign events in reference to Hillary Clinton, his Democratic presidential rival at the time.Mr. Trump encouraged those chants back then. But on Monday in Atlanta, Mr. Trump, who has been vowing to prosecute various political foes in recent weeks, listened for a few seconds before telling the crowd, “Be nice.” He said he simply wanted to win the election.An aide to Mrs. Obama did not respond to an email seeking comment.Mr. Trump has repeatedly visited Georgia, where early voting has been robust. Republicans say they believe the state is trending favorably for Mr. Trump. He has repaired a fractured relationship with the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, whom he had repeatedly attacked, and appeared in the state after a recent storm caused widespread damage.But Georgia has a large Black population, and the Obamas, who remain popular figures among Democrats, have been working to boost turnout there.Ms. Harris appeared with Mr. Obama and the rock star Bruce Springsteen at an event in Atlanta last week, and Mr. Obama and Mr. Springsteen appeared in Philadelphia on Monday night to drum up support for Ms. Harris. More
- in Elections
Trump’s Use of Profanity Was Already Growing Before the MSG Rally
In former President Donald J. Trump’s third campaign for the White House, his speeches have grown coarser and coarser.Four-letter words were flying everywhere. One speaker flipped his middle finger at the opposition. Another made what was interpreted as an oral sex joke regarding Vice President Kamala Harris. Another suggested she was a prostitute. Still another discussed the supposed sexual habits of Latinos rather explicitly.All in all, former President Donald J. Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday was a cornucopia of crudeness, punctuated by the kind of language that once would have been unthinkable for a gathering held to promote the candidacy of a would-be president of the United States. But among the many lines that Mr. Trump has obliterated in his time in politics is the invisible boundary between propriety and profanity.Mr. Trump has always been more prone than any of his predecessors in the White House to publicly use what were once called dirty words. But in his third campaign for the presidency, his speeches have grown coarser and coarser. Altogether, according to a computer search, Mr. Trump has used words that would have once gotten a kid’s mouth washed out with soap at least 140 times in public this year. Counting tamer four-letter words like “damn” and “hell,” he has cursed in public at least 1,787 times in 2024.What minimal self-restraint Mr. Trump once showed in his public discourse has evaporated. A recent New York Times analysis of his public comments this year showed that he uses such language 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran for president in 2016. He sometimes acknowledges that he knows he should not but quickly adds that he cannot help himself.The crowd responding during the rally on Sunday night. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesHe often relates that Franklin Graham, the evangelical leader and son of the Rev. Billy Graham, has chided the former president about his language. “I wrote him back,” Mr. Trump said at a rally this month where he discussed the golfer Arnold Palmer’s penis size and invited the crowd to shout out a four-letter word to describe Ms. Harris. “I said, I’m going to try to do that, but actually, the stories won’t be as good. Because you can’t put the same emphasis on it. So tonight, I broke my rule.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
- in Elections
Secret Files in Election Case Show How Judges Limited Trump’s Privilege
The partly unsealed rulings, orders and transcripts open a window on a momentous battle over grand jury testimony that played out in secret, creating important precedents about executive privilege.Court documents unsealed on Monday shed new light on a legal battle over which of former President Donald J. Trump’s White House aides had to testify before a grand jury in Washington that charged him with plotting to overturn the 2020 election, showing how judges carved out limits on executive privilege.The trove — including motions, judicial orders and transcripts of hearings in Federal District Court in Washington — did not reveal significant new details about Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power. But it did open a window on important questions of presidential power and revealed how judges grew frustrated with Mr. Trump’s longstanding strategy of seeking to delay accountability for his attempts to overturn his defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr.The documents also created important — if not binding — precedents about the scope of executive privilege that could influence criminal investigations in which a current or former president instructs subordinates not to testify before a grand jury based on his constitutional authority to keep certain internal executive branch communications secret.Starting in the summer of 2022, and continuing with the appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel later that year, the Justice Department undertook a wide-ranging and extraordinary effort to compel grand jury testimony from several close aides to Mr. Trump. Prosecutors believed the aides had critical information about the former president’s attempts to overturn the results of the election.The effort, which ended in the spring of the following year, was largely intended to obtain firsthand accounts from key figures who had used claims of executive privilege and other legal protections to avoid testifying to investigators on the House committee that examined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the events leading up to it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
- in Elections
Harris Dives Into a Frenetic Final Week With a Swing Through Michigan
Vice President Kamala Harris raced across Michigan on Monday, making three stops in the battleground state to begin a furious final week of her presidential campaign.She and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, capped the day with a joint appearance in Ann Arbor, where they addressed an outdoor crowd on a brisk evening. Both delivered what has evolved into their standard stump speeches, and avoided bringing up the racist remarks delivered by speakers at former President Donald J. Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night.After weeks of explicit appeals to Republicans, Ms. Harris sprinkled her speech near the University of Michigan’s campus with outreach to progressive Democrats. She said health care “should be a right, and not just a privilege for those who can afford it.” When she was interrupted by protesters shouting about American policy toward Israel and Gaza, she told them, “I hear you.”“We all want this war to end as soon as possible and to get the hostages out,” Ms. Harris said. “I will do everything in my power to make it so.”Mr. Walz addressed gun violence, a topic that polls show resonates deeply with young voters who have grown up participating in active-shooter drills in their schools. He first said that freedom includes being “free to send your kids to school without them being shot dead in the halls,” then took a rhetorical jab at Mr. Trump.“I’ll take no crap on this,” Mr. Walz said. “Both members of the Democratic ticket are gun owners. The Republican nominee can’t pass a background check.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
- in Elections
A Trump Rally Speaker Trashed Puerto Ricans. Harris Reached Out to Them.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign moved quickly on Sunday to elevate and denounce racist and inflammatory remarks made by speakers at a rally for former President Donald J. Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York.Before Mr. Trump had even taken the stage, warm-up speakers had called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage,” referred to Ms. Harris as “the devil” and “the Antichrist,” and made racist or derogatory remarks about Latinos generally, African Americans, Palestinians and Jews.The remarks at the rally came as Ms. Harris wrapped up a day in Philadelphia, where she spent time courting Pennsylvania’s significant Puerto Rican population by visiting a local Puerto Rican restaurant. While there, she talked about a new plan she announced on Sunday to bring economic opportunities to Puerto Rico, discussed her visit there after Hurricane Maria, and said that even as a senator she had “felt a need and an obligation” to “make sure Puerto Rico’s needs were met.”“This is not a new area of focus for me,” she said. She received a warm reception from the crowd, with chants of “Sí, se puede.”Before the Trump rally on Sunday, Ms. Harris had already taken aim at her Republican rival in a video message to Puerto Rican voters. She noted that, as president, Mr. Trump had resisted sending aid to the island after back-to-back hurricanes, adding that he had offered nothing but “paper towels and insults.”“I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
- in Elections
Trump Rally Opens With Insults Aimed at Latino, Black, Jewish and Arab American Voters
Former President Donald J. Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday opened with a standup comic who called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage” in a set that also included derogatory remarks about Latinos generally, African Americans, Palestinians and Jews.It was a startling program for a campaign that has been trying to cut into Democrats’ support among Hispanic, Black, Jewish and Arab American voters in an effort to win in several key battleground states.The comic, Tony Hinchcliffe, was the warm-up act ahead of several other speakers whose remarks were laced with vulgar insults, profanity and racist comments.The crowd inside Madison Square Garden was predominantly white, with a significant number of Latinos. Many groaned at Mr. Hinchcliffe’s insult to Puerto Rico. Still, he told a tasteless, vulgar joke about the size of Hispanic families, mentioned watermelons as he called out a Black man in the audience and mocked Palestinians as rock-throwers and Jews as cheapskates.At roughly the same time on Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris was in Philadelphia courting Pennsylvania’s sizable Puerto Rican population with a stop at a local Puerto Rican restaurant, Freddy & Tony’s.But in New York, Mr. Trump’s rally featured a series of speakers whose remarks were far outside of longstanding political boundaries.One, Sid Rosenberg, a conservative radio host, referred to Hillary Clinton with profanity and a sexist epithet. And Grant Cardone, a businessman who spoke early in the program, referred to Ms. Harris as if she were a prostitute. Later in the program, Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, mocked Ms. Harris’s racial identity and intelligence as he jeered the idea that she could win in November. More
- in Elections
Tim Walz and AOC Play Madden and Crazy Taxi and Talk Politics
Wearing a camouflage Vikings hat, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota joined Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, on Sunday to play Madden NFL 25 and talk about the election.“Are we going to play some ball? Are we ready to do it?” Mr. Walz said to the audience watching via the streaming platform Twitch, cautioning that he was prepared to lose. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, played as the Buffalo Bills, while Mr. Walz, a former high school football coach, went with the Vikings.He and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez talked about the politics of Congress, where Mr. Walz served before he became governor and the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee. They compared the House to “public school,” with the Senate being more like “private school.” The House, they agreed, is where policy for the nation is shaped, and Mr. Walz said he would have been proud to have voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a signature achievement of President Biden’s administration.As the talk turned to the Senate and its procedures, Mr. Walz said knowingly to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: “I don’t know where you stand, but I’m going to guess you and I are probably the same on the filibuster.”“Oh yeah, we have got to get rid of that thing,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez responded.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was an early proponent of removing the filibuster several years ago. Vice President Kamala Harris said in September that she would support ending the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade. After the stream ended, a Walz campaign official said that Mr. Walz “shares the vice president’s position.”In their Bills-Vikings Madden matchup on Sunday, which Mr. Walz and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez played for just a scoreless first half, they discussed housing policy and she asked him about voters who might be frustrated by the huge sums of money in politics or by the Biden administration’s positions about the war in Gaza. Twitch showed that about 12,500 people were watching on Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s channel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
