United States Politics and Government

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Biden’s Goodbye to Politics Will Begin in Earnest With His Convention Speech

      by

      President Biden’s goodbye to a half century in national politics will begin in earnest on Monday.When he takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that evening, Mr. Biden will establish his time in office and his political legacy as the foundation for the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris, the new Democratic nominee.According to Biden aides who previewed the themes of the president’s remarks, he will say that she is the best person to finish a campaign he started — one that remains rooted in protecting democratic ideals and preventing a second term for former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to detail the plans.It will be a bittersweet moment for Mr. Biden, who left the race and turned the keys of his campaign over to Ms. Harris less than a month ago. Since then, she has headlined packed rallies and delivered forceful campaign speeches, and the president has largely receded from center stage.But Mr. Biden, who is supportive of Ms. Harris and appreciates the momentum around her, the aides said, plans to ramp up his campaign schedule. He has also been focused on sealing up his legacy as a one-term president — but one who pulled the nation out of an economic spiral during the coronavirus pandemic, a point he will make in his speech.On Friday, Mr. Biden left Washington for Camp David for the weekend; he was scheduled to workshop his speech with Mike Donilon, a close adviser, and Vinay Reddy, his chief speechwriter.In his speech, the president will also frame Ms. Harris’s campaign as continuing policies and ideals he has long championed. Mr. Biden’s remarks will make the case that “democracy prevailed” with his election in 2020. A win for Ms. Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, in November will mean that “democracy is preserved.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      How to Watch the 2024 DNC Live

      by

      The Democratic National Convention will begin in Chicago on Monday, about a month after Republicans held their convention in Milwaukee.It runs through Thursday, when Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to take the stage during prime time. While conventions are traditionally used to formally nominate the party’s presidential candidate, Ms. Harris was voted in through a virtual roll call earlier this month. Even so, the party’s gathering will be a high-profile affair as top Democrats make the case for a Harris-Walz administration.Here’s how to watch it (all times are Eastern):How to stream the D.N.C.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

    • 63 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      The Democratic Party’s Money Machine

      by

      The Democratic National Committee is again raising huge sums from donors, but the rise of super PACs has forced it to adapt to a new era of big-money influence.Vice President Kamala Harris heads to next week’s Democratic National Convention on the back of a wave of enthusiasm.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesA political piggy bank The Democratic National Convention starts on Monday in Chicago, capping an extraordinary few weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris became the party’s presidential candidate.In that time, she has generated momentum and enthusiasm among voters. Some longtime political observers, like the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, are calling it unprecedented.Just one indicator: Last month, Harris’s campaign said it had raised $310 million, including $200 million in the seven days after President Biden dropped out.As Democrats gather in the United Center, one focus will be on the Democratic National Committee, the organizational backbone that coordinates the party’s electoral strategy, management and convention. Much of that involves money, and the committee raises millions that it disburses to fight in federal and state elections.DealBook dug into the numbers and spoke to experts to understand where the committee fits into the wider world of campaign finance and to show how its role has evolved.The first Democratic Party convention was in 1832. Sixteen years later, at their convention in Baltimore, party leaders established the Democratic National Committee. In 1856, the Republicans did the same, paving the way for the Republican-Democratic juggernaut that has dominated American politics ever since.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

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Supreme Court, for Now, Blocks Protections for Transgender Students in Some States

      by

      The order maintained halts by lower courts on federal rules prohibiting discrimination against transgender people in schools.The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily continued to block Education Department rules intended to protect transgender students from discrimination based on their gender identity in several Republican states that had mounted challenges.The emergency order allowed rulings by lower courts in Louisiana and Kentucky to remain in effect in about 10 states as litigation moves forward, maintaining a pause on new federal guidelines expanding protections for transgender students that had been enacted in nearly half the country on Aug. 1.The order came in response to a challenge by the Biden administration, which asked the Supreme Court to intervene after a number of Republican-led states sought to overturn the new rules.The decision was unsigned, as is typical in such emergency petitions. But all nine members of the court said that parts of the new rules — including the protections for transgender students — should not go into effect until the legal challenges are resolved.“Importantly,” the unsigned order said, “all members of the court today accept that the plaintiffs were entitled to preliminary injunctive relief as to three provisions of the rule, including the central provision that newly defines sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”The decision handed a victory to the Republican-led states that had challenged the rules. A patchwork of lower court decisions means that the rules are temporarily paused in about 26 states.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Harris and Trump Offer a Clear Contrast on the Economy

      by

      Both candidates embrace expansions of government power to steer economic outcomes — but in vastly different areas.Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump flew to North Carolina this week to deliver what were billed as major speeches on the economy. Neither laid out a comprehensive policy plan — not Ms. Harris in her half-hour focus on housing, groceries and prescription drugs, nor Mr. Trump in 80 minutes of sprinkling various proposals among musings about dangerous immigrants.But in their own ways, both candidates sent voters clear and important messages about their economic visions. Each embraced a vision of a powerful federal government, using its muscle to intervene in markets in pursuit of a stronger and more prosperous economy.They just disagreed, almost entirely, on when and how that power should be used.In Raleigh on Friday, Ms. Harris began to put her own stamp on the brand of progressive economics that has come to dominate Democratic politics over the last decade. That economic thinking embraces the idea that the federal government must act aggressively to foster competition and correct distortions in private markets.The approach seeks large tax increases on corporations and high earners, to fund assistance for low-income and middle-class workers who are struggling to build wealth for themselves and their children. At the same time, it provides big tax breaks to companies engaged in what Ms. Harris and other progressives see as delivering great economic benefit — like manufacturing technologies needed to fight global warming, or building affordable housing.That philosophy animated the policy agenda that Ms. Harris unveiled on Friday. She pledged to send up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance to every first-time home buyer over four years, while directing $40 billion to construction companies that build starter homes. She said she would permanently reinstate an expanded child tax credit that President Biden temporarily established with his 2021 stimulus law, while offering even more assistance to parents of newborns.She called for a federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries and for new federal enforcement tools to punish companies that unfairly push up food prices. “My plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules,” she said, adding: “We will help the food industry become more competitive, because I believe competition is the lifeblood of our economy.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Transition Team to Include Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon

      by

      Former President Donald J. Trump has appointed two of his friends and financial backers to oversee a transition team preparing for his potential return to power.The move comes as polls show that his once-commanding lead evaporated after President Biden dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee.The two co-chairs of a Trump transition, Linda E. McMahon and Howard Lutnick, will oversee efforts to identify and vet potential political appointees and draft executive orders and other plans to implement Mr. Trump’s policy proposals on matters ranging from a sweeping crackdown on immigration to hiking tariffs on imported goods.The selection of the two, which the Trump campaign announced on Friday, was notable for several reasons. As a matter of timing, it came months after presidential campaigns normally start working on contingency planning to ensure a smooth transition should their candidate win the election.It was also striking that neither Ms. McMahon nor Mr. Lutnick has been associated with Project 2025, an effort by a consortium of conservative think tanks to develop personnel and policy transition planning for the next Republican president. While Mr. Trump has close ties to leaders of that effort, he has recently tried to distance himself from it as Democrats have seized on some of its more radical proposals.“I have absolute confidence the Trump-Vance administration will be ready to govern effectively on day one,” Mr. Trump said in a statement accompanying the announcement of his 2024 transition team.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Secret Service Pulls From Biden’s Protective Team to Guard Trump

      by

      In the aftermath of an assassination attempt last month, the agency has shifted members of President Biden’s protective team to the Trump campaign.The Secret Service has bolstered former President Donald J. Trump’s security in a variety of ways since the assassination attempt on him last month, several people familiar with the matter said on Thursday, including by temporarily shifting part of President Biden’s protective team to Mr. Trump.The Secret Service has also secured ballistic glass, which is designed to repel bullets, to provide enhanced protection for Mr. Trump at future outdoor campaign rallies, those people added, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential methods.The reassignment of members of a president’s team to a candidate is unusual, said a Secret Service official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential policy matters. But the increased threat of violence against Mr. Trump, combined with Mr. Biden’s recent reduced travel schedule, made the step both necessary and feasible, the official added.A White House spokesman had no immediate comment, and a Trump campaign spokeswoman declined to comment.The Secret Service has been under a cloud since July 13, when a gunman was able to fire, unimpeded, on Mr. Trump at an outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pa. The attack grazed Mr. Trump’s ear, killed a spectator and seriously wounded two others. The F.B.I. is investigating, and congressional leaders have also opened inquiries.The Secret Service has taken responsibility for the security lapses that made the shooting possible. Kimberly A. Cheatle resigned as the agency’s director and has been replaced. But even as it reels from its worst presidential security breach in more than four decades, the agency has had to continue its mission of protecting three dozen current and former officials, and their families, through what is proving to be a challenging and intense presidential campaign year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Made $300,000 for Endorsing Bible, Financial Disclosure Shows

      by

      Donald J. Trump also listed $100 million in liabilities over judgments he owes in civil cases, and over $1 million in crypto holdings as he courts the industry for his campaign.Donald J. Trump’s latest financial disclosure lists more than $100 million in liabilities stemming from three civil lawsuits he lost in New York that required him to obtain bonds to pay the judgments — but also profits from licensing fees at Trump-branded properties in Dubai and Oman, as well as income that he made from his post-presidential books, including a Trump-endorsed Bible.The former president also holds more than $1 million in cryptocurrency as he courts the industry for financial support in his 2024 campaign. A related industry, NFT collectibles, is also a source of income.The disclosure, filed on Thursday and required annually for federal candidates and officeholders, often describes assets, investments, sources of income and liabilities in broad ranges, though some figures are provided in greater detail.The three new liabilities that appear on Mr. Trump’s form are all related to his legal troubles, including a line item of more than $50 million to cover his bond in a civil fraud case brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James.The two judgments against him in the sexual abuse case involving E. Jean Carroll are listed as “litigation; stayed pending appeal; bonded.” The larger of the two is listed in the largest category for liabilities: $50 million or more. The actual judgment was for $83.3 million.The book “Letters to Trump,” a compendium of personal notes that various celebrities have written to Mr. Trump over many decades, with short blurbs about the people in question, brought in $4.5 million, according to the filing. (The book includes a letter from Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco with whom Mr. Trump claims he was traveling when they experienced an emergency helicopter landing. Mr. Trump included that anecdote in the book, but Mr. Brown says it did not take place, and another Black politician from California, Nate Holden, says it was actually him on that helicopter ride.)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