filename stringlengths 19 102 | text stringlengths 1.27k 97.8k | input_text stringlengths 438 656 | target_text stringlengths 729 18.1k |
|---|---|---|---|
Israeli Jets Bomb Sites in Yemen Linked to Iran-Backed Houthis.txt | By Aaron Boxerman, Ronen Bergman, Shuaib Almosawa and Eric Schmitt
July 20, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Israel and Yemen? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
Israeli fighter jets bombed a port in Yemen controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militia on Saturday in retaliation for the group’s deadly drone attack in Tel Aviv a day earlier. It was the first time Israel has publicly struck the group following months of escalating Houthi attacks.
The airstrikes targeted a power station as well as gas and oil depots in the area of the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, according to a Houthi spokesman and two regional officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Israel said it had struck sites used for military purposes, although Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said that Israel had attacked some “dual use” targets that have both civilian and military functions.
Admiral Hagari said the operation was “one of the farthest and longest ever conducted by the Israeli air force.” He called the port a major supply stop for Iran to funnel weapons to its Houthi allies in Yemen, who have fired over 200 missiles and drones at Israel over the past several months.
But the Hodeidah port is also a crucial point for all goods, including desperately needed food and oil, to enter northwestern Yemen, much of which is controlled by the Houthis; at least two-thirds of the impoverished country’s population lives under the group’s rule.
The Ministry of Health in Houthi-controlled Sana, Yemen’s capital, said at least 80 people were wounded in the attack, most of them with severe burns, according to The Associated Press.
Yahya Sarea, the Houthi spokesman, said that the strike on the port would not deter the militia from engaging in additional attacks against Israel. The group says it fires munitions at Israel as an expression of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the war between Israel and Hamas is now in its 10th month.
“We will not stop our operations in support of our brothers in Gaza, whatever the consequences,” Mr. Sarea said in a televised statement. “With God’s help, we are preparing for a long war with this enemy until the aggression stops.”
On Friday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for launching a long-range drone that struck Tel Aviv, killing one Israeli and wounding several others. In addition to the hundreds of missiles and drones they have fired at Israel, the Houthis have menaced ships passing through the Red Sea to try to blockade the Israeli port of Eilat.
ImageA large damaged building stands against a mostly clear sky.
Israel is already fighting a war against Hamas on its southern front in Gaza and trading fire incessantly with Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north — two groups also backed by Iran. Its response on Saturday appeared calibrated not to incite a full-blown war on a third front.
The Israeli attack in Yemen was nonetheless a striking moment in a war that has already seen Israel exchange fire with Iran and its allies across the Middle East. But the Israeli military said Saturday that the Israeli public was advised to continue daily activities, indicating it did not expect an imminent escalation.
Since November, Houthi fighters have launched attacks on Red Sea shipping, forcing many commercial vessels to take a costly detour around southern Africa. In response, the United States, Britain and their allies have struck hundreds of Houthi targets in Yemen. In January, the State Department designated the Houthis as a terrorist group.
But the United States was not involved in the strikes on Saturday, nor did it coordinate or assist Israel with the strikes, the National Security Council said.
“We fully recognize and acknowledge Israel’s right to self-defense,” it added in a statement.
An Israeli military official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said Israel had notified its allies in advance of the attack.
Middle East Crisis: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 8:13 a.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Palestinian rivals hail a declaration of unity in Beijing, but the news is met with a shrug at home.
The military used tanks and fighter jets to strike what it said were Hamas facilities.
Israeli raids in West Bank kill at least 3, Palestinian officials say, and other news.
The strike could aggravate an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, which has been devastated by years of civil war and where much of the public depends on aid from abroad to stave off starvation.
Mohammed Albasha, a senior Middle East expert at Navanti Group, a research organization, said that the damage from the airstrikes would likely lead to severe fuel shortages throughout northern Yemen, “impacting essential services such as diesel generators for hospitals.”
“The damage to the Hodeidah power station, combined with the intense summer heat, will further exacerbate the suffering of the local population,” Mr. Albasha added.
A large fire, seen from a distance across water, with a huge plume of black smoke rising into the night sky.
The Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv on Friday — which struck close to an American diplomatic compound — was a rare breach of Israel’s air defenses. Most missiles and drones fired by the Houthis at Israel have been shot down by Israel, the United States and its allies.
The Israeli military said its surveillance apparently had managed to pick up the drone, but officers had failed to identify it as a threat and to shoot it down.
After the Houthis began firing missiles and drones at Israel, the Israeli military realized it lacked an immediate list of targets in Yemen, said a senior Israeli defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Israel’s military intelligence directorate established a team to begin building out a bank of sites to strike should the moment arrive, the official said.
But until Saturday, Israel had not launched a full-on attack against the Houthis in Yemen, which is more than 1,000 miles away. The drone strike in Tel Aviv appeared to tip the scales, and by Saturday afternoon, Israeli fighter jets were spotted flying in broad daylight toward Yemen.
Around 6 p.m. local time, the Israeli attack on the port commenced. The strike ignited an enormous fire across the port area, possibly from burning fuel.
Muneer Ahmed, a resident of Hodeidah, said he had heard about 12 blasts in two barrages and could see smoke rising, even though he was about two miles from the bombing site.
“The strikes were so intense that they reminded us of the early days of war,” said Mr. Ahmed, referring to the Saudi coalition’s bombing of the city that began in 2015.
After the attacks, residents in Hodeidah rushed to gas stations, fearing a shortage, and long lines were forming around the city, Mr. Ahmed said.
Israel’s leaders were quick to hail the attack as a step toward restoring deterrence. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said that the fire burning in Hodeidah was “seen across the Middle East, and the significance is clear.”
“The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them — and we will do this wherever it may be required,” said Mr. Gallant.
Ten men and boys sitting on tiles beneath five banners.
Israel had little choice but to retaliate, but the attack in Yemen was unlikely to put an end to the fighting, said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli intelligence officer and a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
The only way to prevent the Houthis from continuing to fire at Israel would be a cease-fire deal to end the war in Gaza, he said. Hezbollah, the politically powerful Lebanese group, has also said it will keep fighting as long as Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza continues.
Talks between Israel and Hamas on a comprehensive truce have stalled, despite renewed optimism earlier this month.
“We can attack Iran’s axis as much as we want, but without such a cease-fire, we cannot end this war,” said Mr. Citrinowicz. “Even this attack will not cut the Gordian knot with which the Houthis have bound themselves to Hamas.”
| By Aaron Boxerman, Ronen Bergman, Shuaib Almosawa and Eric Schmitt
July 20, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Israel and Yemen? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
Israeli fighter jets bombed a port in Yemen controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militia on Saturday in retaliation for the group’s deadly drone attack in Tel Aviv a day earlier. It was the first time Israel has publicly struck the group following months of escalating Houthi attacks.
The airstrikes targeted | a power station as well as gas and oil depots in the area of the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, according to a Houthi spokesman and two regional officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Israel said it had struck sites used for military purposes, although Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said that Israel had attacked some “dual use” targets that have both civilian and military functions.
Admiral Hagari said the operation was “one of the farthest and longest ever conducted by the Israeli air force.” He called the port a major supply stop for Iran to funnel weapons to its Houthi allies in Yemen, who have fired over 200 missiles and drones at Israel over the past several months.
But the Hodeidah port is also a crucial point for all goods, including desperately needed food and oil, to enter northwestern Yemen, much of which is controlled by the Houthis; at least two-thirds of the impoverished country’s population lives under the group’s rule.
The Ministry of Health in Houthi-controlled Sana, Yemen’s capital, said at least 80 people were wounded in the attack, most of them with severe burns, according to The Associated Press.
Yahya Sarea, the Houthi spokesman, said that the strike on the port would not deter the militia from engaging in additional attacks against Israel. The group says it fires munitions at Israel as an expression of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the war between Israel and Hamas is now in its 10th month.
“We will not stop our operations in support of our brothers in Gaza, whatever the consequences,” Mr. Sarea said in a televised statement. “With God’s help, we are preparing for a long war with this enemy until the aggression stops.”
On Friday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for launching a long-range drone that struck Tel Aviv, killing one Israeli and wounding several others. In addition to the hundreds of missiles and drones they have fired at Israel, the Houthis have menaced ships passing through the Red Sea to try to blockade the Israeli port of Eilat.
ImageA large damaged building stands against a mostly clear sky.
Israel is already fighting a war against Hamas on its southern front in Gaza and trading fire incessantly with Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north — two groups also backed by Iran. Its response on Saturday appeared calibrated not to incite a full-blown war on a third front.
The Israeli attack in Yemen was nonetheless a striking moment in a war that has already seen Israel exchange fire with Iran and its allies across the Middle East. But the Israeli military said Saturday that the Israeli public was advised to continue daily activities, indicating it did not expect an imminent escalation.
Since November, Houthi fighters have launched attacks on Red Sea shipping, forcing many commercial vessels to take a costly detour around southern Africa. In response, the United States, Britain and their allies have struck hundreds of Houthi targets in Yemen. In January, the State Department designated the Houthis as a terrorist group.
But the United States was not involved in the strikes on Saturday, nor did it coordinate or assist Israel with the strikes, the National Security Council said.
“We fully recognize and acknowledge Israel’s right to self-defense,” it added in a statement.
An Israeli military official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said Israel had notified its allies in advance of the attack.
Middle East Crisis: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 8:13 a.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Palestinian rivals hail a declaration of unity in Beijing, but the news is met with a shrug at home.
The military used tanks and fighter jets to strike what it said were Hamas facilities.
Israeli raids in West Bank kill at least 3, Palestinian officials say, and other news.
The strike could aggravate an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, which has been devastated by years of civil war and where much of the public depends on aid from abroad to stave off starvation.
Mohammed Albasha, a senior Middle East expert at Navanti Group, a research organization, said that the damage from the airstrikes would likely lead to severe fuel shortages throughout northern Yemen, “impacting essential services such as diesel generators for hospitals.”
“The damage to the Hodeidah power station, combined with the intense summer heat, will further exacerbate the suffering of the local population,” Mr. Albasha added.
A large fire, seen from a distance across water, with a huge plume of black smoke rising into the night sky.
The Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv on Friday — which struck close to an American diplomatic compound — was a rare breach of Israel’s air defenses. Most missiles and drones fired by the Houthis at Israel have been shot down by Israel, the United States and its allies.
The Israeli military said its surveillance apparently had managed to pick up the drone, but officers had failed to identify it as a threat and to shoot it down.
After the Houthis began firing missiles and drones at Israel, the Israeli military realized it lacked an immediate list of targets in Yemen, said a senior Israeli defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Israel’s military intelligence directorate established a team to begin building out a bank of sites to strike should the moment arrive, the official said.
But until Saturday, Israel had not launched a full-on attack against the Houthis in Yemen, which is more than 1,000 miles away. The drone strike in Tel Aviv appeared to tip the scales, and by Saturday afternoon, Israeli fighter jets were spotted flying in broad daylight toward Yemen.
Around 6 p.m. local time, the Israeli attack on the port commenced. The strike ignited an enormous fire across the port area, possibly from burning fuel.
Muneer Ahmed, a resident of Hodeidah, said he had heard about 12 blasts in two barrages and could see smoke rising, even though he was about two miles from the bombing site.
“The strikes were so intense that they reminded us of the early days of war,” said Mr. Ahmed, referring to the Saudi coalition’s bombing of the city that began in 2015.
After the attacks, residents in Hodeidah rushed to gas stations, fearing a shortage, and long lines were forming around the city, Mr. Ahmed said.
Israel’s leaders were quick to hail the attack as a step toward restoring deterrence. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said that the fire burning in Hodeidah was “seen across the Middle East, and the significance is clear.”
“The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them — and we will do this wherever it may be required,” said Mr. Gallant.
Ten men and boys sitting on tiles beneath five banners.
Israel had little choice but to retaliate, but the attack in Yemen was unlikely to put an end to the fighting, said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli intelligence officer and a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
The only way to prevent the Houthis from continuing to fire at Israel would be a cease-fire deal to end the war in Gaza, he said. Hezbollah, the politically powerful Lebanese group, has also said it will keep fighting as long as Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza continues.
Talks between Israel and Hamas on a comprehensive truce have stalled, despite renewed optimism earlier this month.
“We can attack Iran’s axis as much as we want, but without such a cease-fire, we cannot end this war,” said Mr. Citrinowicz. “Even this attack will not cut the Gordian knot with which the Houthis have bound themselves to Hamas.”
|
The Connections Companion No. 409, July 24, 2024.txt | By New York Times Games
July 23, 2024, 6:00 a.m. ET
Good morning, dear connectors. Welcome to today’s Connections forum, where you can give and receive puzzle — and emotional — support.
Be warned: This article includes hints and comments that may contain spoilers for today’s puzzle. Solve Connections first, or scroll at your own risk.
Connections is released at midnight in your time zone. In order to accommodate all time zones, there will be two Connections Companions live every day, dated based on Eastern Standard Time.
If you find yourself on the wrong companion, check the number of your puzzle, and go to this page to find the corresponding companion.
Post your solve grid in the comments and see how your score compares with the editor’s rating, and one another’s.
Sign up for the Gameplay newsletter. Each week, our puzzle editors share brain teasers, puzzles and Gameplay stories they love. Get it sent to your inbox.
Today’s difficulty
The difficulty of each puzzle is determined by averaging the ratings provided by a panel of testers who are paid to solve each puzzle in advance to help us catch bugs, inconsistencies and other issues. A higher rating means the puzzle is more difficult.
Today’s difficulty is 2.4 out of 5.
Need a hint?
In Connections, each category has a different difficulty level. Yellow is the simplest, and purple is the most difficult. Click or tap each level to reveal one of the words in that category.
🟨 Straightforward
RIB
🟩 ⬇️
THIGH
🟦 ⬇️
CALF
🟪 Tricky
SHOULDER
Further Reading
Want to give us feedback? Email us: crosswordeditors@nytimes.com
Trying to go back to Connections?
Want to learn more about how the game is made?
Leave any thoughts you have in the comments! Please follow community guidelines:
Be kind. Comments are moderated for civility.
Having a technical issue? Use the Help button in the Settings menu of the Games app.
Want to talk about Wordle or Spelling Bee? Check out Wordle Review and the Spelling Bee Forum.
See our Tips and Tricks for more useful information on Connections.
Join us here to solve Crosswords, The Mini, and other games by The New York Times.
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By New York Times Games
July 23, 2024, 6:00 a.m. ET
Good morning, dear connectors. Welcome to today’s Connections forum, where you can give and receive puzzle — and emotional — support.
Be warned: This article includes hints and comments that may contain spoilers for today’s puzzle. Solve Connections first, or scroll at your own risk.
Connections is released at midnight in your time zone. In order to accommodate all time zones, there will be two Connections Companions live every day, dated based on Eastern Standard Time.
If you find yourself | on the wrong companion, check the number of your puzzle, and go to this page to find the corresponding companion.
Post your solve grid in the comments and see how your score compares with the editor’s rating, and one another’s.
Sign up for the Gameplay newsletter. Each week, our puzzle editors share brain teasers, puzzles and Gameplay stories they love. Get it sent to your inbox.
Today’s difficulty
The difficulty of each puzzle is determined by averaging the ratings provided by a panel of testers who are paid to solve each puzzle in advance to help us catch bugs, inconsistencies and other issues. A higher rating means the puzzle is more difficult.
Today’s difficulty is 2.4 out of 5.
Need a hint?
In Connections, each category has a different difficulty level. Yellow is the simplest, and purple is the most difficult. Click or tap each level to reveal one of the words in that category.
🟨 Straightforward
RIB
🟩 ⬇️
THIGH
🟦 ⬇️
CALF
🟪 Tricky
SHOULDER
Further Reading
Want to give us feedback? Email us: crosswordeditors@nytimes.com
Trying to go back to Connections?
Want to learn more about how the game is made?
Leave any thoughts you have in the comments! Please follow community guidelines:
Be kind. Comments are moderated for civility.
Having a technical issue? Use the Help button in the Settings menu of the Games app.
Want to talk about Wordle or Spelling Bee? Check out Wordle Review and the Spelling Bee Forum.
See our Tips and Tricks for more useful information on Connections.
Join us here to solve Crosswords, The Mini, and other games by The New York Times.
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
After Fire Destroys Sanctuary, Landmark Dallas Church Mourns What’s Lost.txt | By Mary Beth Gahan and Kate Selig
July 20, 2024
The red brick outer walls of First Baptist Dallas Church were singed black on Saturday morning, and though they were still intact, along with the steeple at the front of the historic building, there was no sanctuary within. The roof, windows and interior were gone. And the smell of smoke lingered.
Larry Smith and his wife, Rita, two members of the church, drove 20 miles from Arlington, Texas, to see firsthand the destruction of the fire from the previous night. Other members also gathered outside.
Ms. Smith wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue as she talked about the sanctuary, with its dark wood pews and ornate carvings. There was a library in the church, she said, along with a printing shop and the offices of former pastors. “A lot of history in that building,” she said. Mr. Smith began to talk about what was lost when he trailed off, looking at the smoldering remains.
Church members and other residents of the Dallas area mourned on Saturday the severe damage to the sanctuary, a landmark in the heart of Dallas where many of the megachurch’s members have been baptized, married and memorialized.
On Friday night, the blaze, which caused the church’s roof to collapse, grew to a four-alarm fire that sent smoke billowing over the city. More than 60 firefighting units responded to the scene.
No injuries or fatalities have been reported, according to Dallas Fire-Rescue. The fire occurred in the old part of the church’s sprawling complex, where the main Sunday services are no longer held, but which has been in use since its construction in 1890.
Church officials said it was fortunate that the fire began shortly after the end of a summer Bible school event that included 2,000 children. It is too soon to know whether the sanctuary could be rebuilt, church officials said.
“We will have to see about whether we try to recreate it or do something else,” the Rev. Robert Jeffress, the church’s pastor, said in an interview on Friday.
Mr. Jeffress is known as one of the most outspoken evangelical supporters of former President Donald J. Trump. Last Sunday, he attributed Mr. Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania to God’s providence.
Capt. Robert Borse of Dallas Fire-Rescue said on Saturday afternoon that the cause of the fire was still undetermined. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting with the investigation, he said. An official with the A.T.F.’s Dallas Field Division said it is common for the bureau to help with fires that take place at churches and businesses.
First Baptist Dallas was founded in 1868, just a few decades after the founding of Dallas itself. It began with a fellowship of 11 people. Today, it has 16,000 members and a campus that spans multiple blocks of downtown Dallas. On a normal weekend, thousands flock to the church for its services, and millions more watch online, according to church officials.
The brick sanctuary is surrounded by skyscrapers, parking garages and new residential buildings, a testament to how the city has grown up around the building. Less than a mile away, a replica log cabin shows how John Neely Bryan built the first home in the city near that spot in the 1840s.
A large column of thick gray smoke rises above the skyline of Dallas on Friday.
Seven years after the historic sanctuary was built, George Truett became pastor of the church and held the role for nearly 50 years. He was once asked by President Woodrow Wilson to speak to troops overseas during World War I.
Five presidents have visited the church, according to Ben Lovvorn, the executive pastor. Other notable visitors include former Vice President Mike Pence and Billy Graham, who was a member of First Baptist Dallas for 55 years.
Clint Pressley, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest denomination of Protestants, compared the fire in Dallas to the 2019 fire that ravaged the roof and the spire of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
“If the SBC had a Notre Dame it would be” First Baptist, Mr. Pressley wrote on X. “This is heartbreaking.”
Judge Clay Jenkins, the chief executive of Dallas County, recounted giving a speech in the sanctuary after a near-fatal car accident in 1993 at age 29.
“It’s always sad that to see an iconic historic place like that burned,” he said.
In 2013, First Baptist completed a $135 million restoration of its campus that included the construction of a 178,000-square-foot worship center with a stadium-style video screen and enough pews to seat 3,000 people.
Mark Lamster, the architecture critic of The Dallas Morning News and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, said the campus’s design integrates its private space into the public cityscape, in such a way that a passers-by could cross the complex using a walkway that belongs to the church, but which is not clearly private property.
“They’re pushing into public space,” Mr. Lamster said of the architecture, noting a parallel between the design and the church’s “evangelical imperative” to spread Christianity.
Before the fire, the older sanctuary remained in use for weddings, funerals and band-led worship.
“A lot of people have been touched by the Lord in that building,” said Mr. Lovvorn, the executive pastor. He added that his family had been part of the church for five generations, and that he had been raised sitting in the sanctuary.
By Saturday afternoon, light smoke continued to rise from the collapsed interior of the sanctuary, and one fire engine remained on site. But the crowd of onlookers had mostly cleared.
Church officials said they would still hold a Sunday worship service, but that it would take place at the Dallas Convention Center, which is within walking distance of the church.
“Just as we have been for the last 150 years, we’ll be worshiping in downtown Dallas,” Mr. Lovvorn said.
Ruth Graham and Hank Sanders contributed reporting.
Fire Engulfs Landmark Church in Downtown Dallas
0:22
Kate Selig is a Times national reporter and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their career. More about Kate Selig
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: Congregation in Dallas Mourns Loss of Sanctuary. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
See more on: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Southern Baptist Convention, Mike Pence, Donald Trump, Woodrow Wilson
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Mary Beth Gahan and Kate Selig
July 20, 2024
The red brick outer walls of First Baptist Dallas Church were singed black on Saturday morning, and though they were still intact, along with the steeple at the front of the historic building, there was no sanctuary within. The roof, windows and interior were gone. And the smell of smoke lingered.
Larry Smith and his wife, Rita, two members of the church, drove 20 miles from Arlington, Texas, to see firsthand the destruction of the fire from the previous night. Other members also gathered outside.
| Ms. Smith wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue as she talked about the sanctuary, with its dark wood pews and ornate carvings. There was a library in the church, she said, along with a printing shop and the offices of former pastors. “A lot of history in that building,” she said. Mr. Smith began to talk about what was lost when he trailed off, looking at the smoldering remains.
Church members and other residents of the Dallas area mourned on Saturday the severe damage to the sanctuary, a landmark in the heart of Dallas where many of the megachurch’s members have been baptized, married and memorialized.
On Friday night, the blaze, which caused the church’s roof to collapse, grew to a four-alarm fire that sent smoke billowing over the city. More than 60 firefighting units responded to the scene.
No injuries or fatalities have been reported, according to Dallas Fire-Rescue. The fire occurred in the old part of the church’s sprawling complex, where the main Sunday services are no longer held, but which has been in use since its construction in 1890.
Church officials said it was fortunate that the fire began shortly after the end of a summer Bible school event that included 2,000 children. It is too soon to know whether the sanctuary could be rebuilt, church officials said.
“We will have to see about whether we try to recreate it or do something else,” the Rev. Robert Jeffress, the church’s pastor, said in an interview on Friday.
Mr. Jeffress is known as one of the most outspoken evangelical supporters of former President Donald J. Trump. Last Sunday, he attributed Mr. Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania to God’s providence.
Capt. Robert Borse of Dallas Fire-Rescue said on Saturday afternoon that the cause of the fire was still undetermined. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting with the investigation, he said. An official with the A.T.F.’s Dallas Field Division said it is common for the bureau to help with fires that take place at churches and businesses.
First Baptist Dallas was founded in 1868, just a few decades after the founding of Dallas itself. It began with a fellowship of 11 people. Today, it has 16,000 members and a campus that spans multiple blocks of downtown Dallas. On a normal weekend, thousands flock to the church for its services, and millions more watch online, according to church officials.
The brick sanctuary is surrounded by skyscrapers, parking garages and new residential buildings, a testament to how the city has grown up around the building. Less than a mile away, a replica log cabin shows how John Neely Bryan built the first home in the city near that spot in the 1840s.
A large column of thick gray smoke rises above the skyline of Dallas on Friday.
Seven years after the historic sanctuary was built, George Truett became pastor of the church and held the role for nearly 50 years. He was once asked by President Woodrow Wilson to speak to troops overseas during World War I.
Five presidents have visited the church, according to Ben Lovvorn, the executive pastor. Other notable visitors include former Vice President Mike Pence and Billy Graham, who was a member of First Baptist Dallas for 55 years.
Clint Pressley, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest denomination of Protestants, compared the fire in Dallas to the 2019 fire that ravaged the roof and the spire of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
“If the SBC had a Notre Dame it would be” First Baptist, Mr. Pressley wrote on X. “This is heartbreaking.”
Judge Clay Jenkins, the chief executive of Dallas County, recounted giving a speech in the sanctuary after a near-fatal car accident in 1993 at age 29.
“It’s always sad that to see an iconic historic place like that burned,” he said.
In 2013, First Baptist completed a $135 million restoration of its campus that included the construction of a 178,000-square-foot worship center with a stadium-style video screen and enough pews to seat 3,000 people.
Mark Lamster, the architecture critic of The Dallas Morning News and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, said the campus’s design integrates its private space into the public cityscape, in such a way that a passers-by could cross the complex using a walkway that belongs to the church, but which is not clearly private property.
“They’re pushing into public space,” Mr. Lamster said of the architecture, noting a parallel between the design and the church’s “evangelical imperative” to spread Christianity.
Before the fire, the older sanctuary remained in use for weddings, funerals and band-led worship.
“A lot of people have been touched by the Lord in that building,” said Mr. Lovvorn, the executive pastor. He added that his family had been part of the church for five generations, and that he had been raised sitting in the sanctuary.
By Saturday afternoon, light smoke continued to rise from the collapsed interior of the sanctuary, and one fire engine remained on site. But the crowd of onlookers had mostly cleared.
Church officials said they would still hold a Sunday worship service, but that it would take place at the Dallas Convention Center, which is within walking distance of the church.
“Just as we have been for the last 150 years, we’ll be worshiping in downtown Dallas,” Mr. Lovvorn said.
Ruth Graham and Hank Sanders contributed reporting.
Fire Engulfs Landmark Church in Downtown Dallas
0:22
Kate Selig is a Times national reporter and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their career. More about Kate Selig
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: Congregation in Dallas Mourns Loss of Sanctuary. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
See more on: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Southern Baptist Convention, Mike Pence, Donald Trump, Woodrow Wilson
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
How the U.S. Has Played a Role in Venezuela’s Presidential Election.txt | By Frances Robles
Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 21, 2024
Venezuelans will head to the polls on July 28 to choose a new president, an election that could determine if democracy will be restored to the South American nation. It is also a vote that the United States played a role in helping ensure would take place.
Voters will pick between a little-known diplomat named Edmundo González and President Nicolás Maduro, the autocratic leader who has been in office since 2013.
Many analysts are skeptical that Mr. Maduro would accept an electoral loss and, if that happened, it is unclear how the Biden administration would respond to a rejection of the results.
Here’s what to know about an election important to both countries.
What’s going on between the U.S. and Venezuela?
The last three American presidents have been united on one policy: hitting the Venezuelan government with tough sanctions in response to corruption, anti-democratic moves and human rights abuses.
The United States and Venezuela have not had diplomatic relations since 2019.
But while President Donald J. Trump took a hard-line approach, the Biden administration tried a different tactic, meeting privately last year with Venezuelan government officials in Qatar, where they discussed lifting sanctions that had hobbled Venezuela’s vital oil industry.
Some experts said the Biden administration’s new strategy, which many had criticized as being too lenient, helped lay a foundation for the election and energized the opposition.
That, in part, helped spur talks between the Venezuelan government and the opposition that culminated in an agreement late last year meant to pave the way for free and fair elections — though since then the Maduro administration has taken various steps to undermine the vote.
An oil rig with a pool of oil in the foreground.
What leverage does the United States hold over Venezuela?
Using executive orders and a law called the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, the United States has imposed over 350 sanctions against Venezuela in the past seven years. Mr. Trump’s administration froze Venezuelan assets in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged President Maduro with drug trafficking and offered a $15 million reward for information resulting in his arrest.
Did President Biden lift the sanctions?
Last October, the Venezuelan government and a group of opposition parties known as the Unitary Platform signed an agreement intended to institute democratic reforms and create a path for elections.
After that deal, the Biden administration removed a ban on secondary trading on some Venezuelan bonds and eased various sanctions on oil for six months. The administration had promised to release millions of dollars for humanitarian use if the government held up its end of the bargain.
But instead, the Venezuelan government prevented a top opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who has emerged as one of the country’s most popular figures, from running for president. Dozens of opposition activists have been harassed and detained.
In April, the Biden administration allowed the sanctions relief to expire, and millions of dollars have not been released.
A large group of people sitting under a tree.
What is the Venezuelan government’s response?
The Venezuelan government considers U.S. sanctions illegal and blames Washington for the country’s economic crisis and for the exodus of nearly eight million Venezuelans.
“Migration was promoted from Washington,” Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yván Gil Pinto, told The Intercept last month. “Those who created those conditions, they must assume their responsibility, the responsibility of hurting our economy, and of creating a migrant attraction towards the United States.’’
(U.S. data show that since 2021, more than 800,000 Venezuelan migrants entered the United States, including 114,695 in the first six months of this year.)
Mr. Gil also blamed what he called Venezuela’s “far right” opposition for conspiring with the United States and predicted that, as a result, voters would reject the opposition at the polls.
What will the U.S. do if Mr. Maduro tries to manipulate the election?
Two senior U.S. government officials, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters, said it was important to wait and see what happens before discussing any repercussions.
The international community should not render any judgment on the electoral process until there are results, one official said, noting that the administration was closely watching whether the Maduro government engages in any last-minute moves to undermine the democratic process.
The Biden administration is particularly concerned that the Maduro government could claim victory without verifiable results, the official said, adding that the governing party is aware that its political future is pegged to the legitimacy of the vote.
Another U.S. official said that if Mr. Maduro loses — and accepts the loss — there would probably be negotiations over a transition of power, but added that those conversations had yet to take place. Such talks could include issues like amnesties, guarantees for those leaving office and establishing truth commissions.
Edmundo González, the main opposition presidential candidate in Venezuela’s presidential election, sits in a chair.
What has the opposition said about U.S. relations?
Mr. González, the former longtime diplomat running for president, is eager to normalize diplomatic relations.
“I want Venezuela and the United States to recover and go back to the friendly or just natural relationship we’ve had for many years,” he said during a discussion on Thursday sponsored by the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan research center in Washington. “It’s absurd, if not unbelievable,” he added, the number of years that Venezuela has been “without a diplomatic office in Washington.”
Political dialogue and cooperation are a must, Mr. González said.
“That’s something that we have to tackle immediately,” he added.
Frances Robles is a Times investigative reporter covering the United States and Latin America. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years. More about Frances Robles
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: The Biden Administration’s Push-and-Pull Role in the Venezuelan Election. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Frances Robles
Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 21, 2024
Venezuelans will head to the polls on July 28 to choose a new president, an election that could determine if democracy will be restored to the South American nation. It is also a vote that the United States played a role in helping ensure would take place.
Voters will pick between a little-known diplomat named Edmundo González and President Nicolás Maduro, the autocratic leader who has been in office since 2013.
Many | analysts are skeptical that Mr. Maduro would accept an electoral loss and, if that happened, it is unclear how the Biden administration would respond to a rejection of the results.
Here’s what to know about an election important to both countries.
What’s going on between the U.S. and Venezuela?
The last three American presidents have been united on one policy: hitting the Venezuelan government with tough sanctions in response to corruption, anti-democratic moves and human rights abuses.
The United States and Venezuela have not had diplomatic relations since 2019.
But while President Donald J. Trump took a hard-line approach, the Biden administration tried a different tactic, meeting privately last year with Venezuelan government officials in Qatar, where they discussed lifting sanctions that had hobbled Venezuela’s vital oil industry.
Some experts said the Biden administration’s new strategy, which many had criticized as being too lenient, helped lay a foundation for the election and energized the opposition.
That, in part, helped spur talks between the Venezuelan government and the opposition that culminated in an agreement late last year meant to pave the way for free and fair elections — though since then the Maduro administration has taken various steps to undermine the vote.
An oil rig with a pool of oil in the foreground.
What leverage does the United States hold over Venezuela?
Using executive orders and a law called the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, the United States has imposed over 350 sanctions against Venezuela in the past seven years. Mr. Trump’s administration froze Venezuelan assets in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged President Maduro with drug trafficking and offered a $15 million reward for information resulting in his arrest.
Did President Biden lift the sanctions?
Last October, the Venezuelan government and a group of opposition parties known as the Unitary Platform signed an agreement intended to institute democratic reforms and create a path for elections.
After that deal, the Biden administration removed a ban on secondary trading on some Venezuelan bonds and eased various sanctions on oil for six months. The administration had promised to release millions of dollars for humanitarian use if the government held up its end of the bargain.
But instead, the Venezuelan government prevented a top opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who has emerged as one of the country’s most popular figures, from running for president. Dozens of opposition activists have been harassed and detained.
In April, the Biden administration allowed the sanctions relief to expire, and millions of dollars have not been released.
A large group of people sitting under a tree.
What is the Venezuelan government’s response?
The Venezuelan government considers U.S. sanctions illegal and blames Washington for the country’s economic crisis and for the exodus of nearly eight million Venezuelans.
“Migration was promoted from Washington,” Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yván Gil Pinto, told The Intercept last month. “Those who created those conditions, they must assume their responsibility, the responsibility of hurting our economy, and of creating a migrant attraction towards the United States.’’
(U.S. data show that since 2021, more than 800,000 Venezuelan migrants entered the United States, including 114,695 in the first six months of this year.)
Mr. Gil also blamed what he called Venezuela’s “far right” opposition for conspiring with the United States and predicted that, as a result, voters would reject the opposition at the polls.
What will the U.S. do if Mr. Maduro tries to manipulate the election?
Two senior U.S. government officials, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters, said it was important to wait and see what happens before discussing any repercussions.
The international community should not render any judgment on the electoral process until there are results, one official said, noting that the administration was closely watching whether the Maduro government engages in any last-minute moves to undermine the democratic process.
The Biden administration is particularly concerned that the Maduro government could claim victory without verifiable results, the official said, adding that the governing party is aware that its political future is pegged to the legitimacy of the vote.
Another U.S. official said that if Mr. Maduro loses — and accepts the loss — there would probably be negotiations over a transition of power, but added that those conversations had yet to take place. Such talks could include issues like amnesties, guarantees for those leaving office and establishing truth commissions.
Edmundo González, the main opposition presidential candidate in Venezuela’s presidential election, sits in a chair.
What has the opposition said about U.S. relations?
Mr. González, the former longtime diplomat running for president, is eager to normalize diplomatic relations.
“I want Venezuela and the United States to recover and go back to the friendly or just natural relationship we’ve had for many years,” he said during a discussion on Thursday sponsored by the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan research center in Washington. “It’s absurd, if not unbelievable,” he added, the number of years that Venezuela has been “without a diplomatic office in Washington.”
Political dialogue and cooperation are a must, Mr. González said.
“That’s something that we have to tackle immediately,” he added.
Frances Robles is a Times investigative reporter covering the United States and Latin America. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years. More about Frances Robles
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: The Biden Administration’s Push-and-Pull Role in the Venezuelan Election. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Election 2024: Four Takeaways From Biden’s Post-Debate Interview.txt | By Shane Goldmacher
It was a high-stakes interview for Biden. How did he do?
President Biden standing onstage with a crowd of supporters behind him.
He downplayed. He denied. He dismissed.
President Biden’s first television interview since his poor debate performance last week was billed as a prime-time opportunity to reassure the American people that he still has what it takes to run for, win and hold the nation’s highest office.
But Mr. Biden, with more than a hint of hoarseness in his voice, spent much of the 22 minutes resisting a range of questions that George Stephanopoulos of ABC News had posed — about his competence, about taking a cognitive test, about his standing in the polls.
The president on Friday did not struggle to complete his thoughts the way he did at the debate. But at the same time he was not the smooth-talking senator of his youth, or even the same elder statesman whom the party entrusted four years ago to defeat former President Donald J. Trump.
Instead, it was a high-stakes interview with an 81-year-old president whose own party is increasingly doubting him yet who sounded little like a man with any doubts about himself.
Here are four takeaways:
Biden downplays the debate as a one-time flub.
The interview was Mr. Biden’s longest unscripted appearance in public since his faltering debate performance. The delay has had his allies on Capitol Hill and beyond confused about what was keeping the president cloistered behind closed doors — or depending upon teleprompters — for so long.
The eight-day lag has seen the first members of Congress call for him to step aside and donors demand that the party consider switching candidates. It also heightened the scrutiny of every word Mr. Biden said.
He was in a defensive posture throughout, arguing that his past performance should be proof enough about his capacity in the future.
“It was a bad episode,” the president said. “No indication of any serious condition.”
He blamed exhaustion but also being so sick ahead of the debate that his doctors tested him for Covid-19. But what he would not agree to was any kind of neurological examination.
“Look, I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day, I have that test,” Mr. Biden said, suggesting that the job of the presidency was its own type of test. He declined repeatedly to sit for an independent exam.
Mr. Biden’s challenge is that there is little he can say in a single interview to solve the fallout of a stumbling performance that tens of millions of Americans watched live.
George Stephanopoulos sits in a chair across from President Biden, who sits with his legs crossed and his hands folded on his lap.
Biden did better than the debate. But will that be enough?
Some of Mr. Biden’s answers were neither compelling nor cohesive.
He paused for multiple seconds early in the interview after Mr. Stephanopoulos asked what had gone wrong a week earlier.
“The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault mine. Nobody’s fault but mine,” Mr. Biden eventually said. “I, uh, prepared what I usually would do, sitting down as I did, come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail. And I realized about partway through that, you know, I quoted The New York Times had me down 10 points before the debate, 9 now or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is that what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t, I mean, the way the debate ran, not — my fault, no one else’s fault — no one else’s fault.”
The answer was meandering and circular, even if it was not as bad as his worst moments at the debate in Atlanta. But it was hardly a crisp and concise reassurance for members of his party squinting to imagine what a second debate with Mr. Trump might look like in September.
Mr. Biden did make some arguments against Mr. Trump and for himself.
But on the central question at hand — his debate performance and what it projected about the future — Mr. Biden did not have much more to say, other than a brief aside that Mr. Trump was “still shouting” even after his microphone had been turned off and that he had let it distract him.
“I just had a bad night” was about the totality of Mr. Biden’s explanation. “I don’t know why.”
The interview was just the first, and far from the last, of tests.
The reality that some of the president’s allies have come to accept is that nearly every Biden interview, public appearance or utterance for the foreseeable future is going to come under a harsh new spotlight.
Roughly three-quarters of voters now see Mr. Biden as too old to be an effective president, according to a post-debate poll by The New York Times and Siena College.
Mr. Biden, though, is a believer in his own story as a man who takes on adversity — “America’s comeback kid,” Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey called him at a fund-raiser two days after the debate.
Mr. Biden and people close to him still hold a chip on their shoulders about how he won the 2020 presidential nomination after months of being written off.
“Look, I remember them telling me the same thing in 2020,” he said, quoting his critics. “‘I can’t win. The polls show I can’t win.’”
Four years ago, the Democratic Party did rally behind Mr. Biden with remarkable speed when he appeared the strongest candidate to take on Mr. Trump. But polling today paints a murkier picture on that critical question.
What was clear is that Mr. Biden is already thinking about himself in the pantheon of past presidents. He cited the opinion of an unnamed group of economists and foreign policy experts to render this flattering judgment:
“If I stop now, I’d go down in history as a pretty successful president.”
Biden isn’t going anywhere without the ‘Lord Almighty’ intervening.
Mr. Biden set an awfully high bar for what it would take for him to step aside.
“If the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that,” he said.
Mr. Biden repeatedly waved off polling that Mr. Stephanopoulos cited to show Mr. Biden’s weakness, including a 36 percent approval rating. “That’s not what our polls show,” Mr. Biden snapped. He said “all the pollsters” whom he speaks with tell him the race is a “tossup.”
It was not the words of a man ready to exit the stage.
As Mr. Biden said earlier in the day at a rally in Madison, Wis., “They’re trying to push me out of the race. Let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race.”
When Mr. Stephanopoulos pressed him about the burbling discontent among Democratic elected officials, Mr. Biden shrugged it off. “I’ve seen it from the press,” he said.
Perhaps the most revealing answer came when Mr. Biden was asked about how he would feel if Mr. Trump were being sworn in as president in January.
“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” Mr. Biden said. (The original ABC transcript rendered the quote as “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”)
Of course, for a Democratic Party warning that Mr. Trump is an existential threat to the nation, the race is about something much simpler: winning.
The Times revised Mr. Biden’s quote in this article about how he would feel if he loses the election after White House officials and several news organizations contacted ABC on Friday about whether Mr. Biden had said “goodest” or “good as.” ABC’s standards team listened again to the audio and made the change. Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point in the interview were difficult to make out and open to interpretation.
Chris Cameron
July 5, 2024, 11:55 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 11:55 p.m. ET
Chris Cameron
Reporting from Washington
Interview appears to change few Democratic officials’ views on Biden.
President Biden walks up stairs leading into Air Force One.
President Biden had planned to use his first televised interview since his poor debate performance to reassure supporters and quiet the voices within the Democratic Party calling for him to drop out.
But many Democrats who spoke out after the interview, which aired on ABC News on Friday night, signaled that it had done little to shift their stances, regardless of whether they thought Mr. Biden should remain in the race or drop out.
A handful of current and former Democratic officials who had called on Mr. Biden to end his re-election campaign said the interview had done little, or even nothing, to address their concerns. Reliable supporters of the president’s re-election campaign similarly fanned out to television networks, declaring once more that they were sticking with Mr. Biden.
Other Democrats who had raised concerns about the president’s performance, but had not gone as far as to call for Mr. Biden to drop out, said the interview did not significantly change their views of his candidacy.
The president’s critics among the Democrats, including those asking him to step aside, said Mr. Biden appeared to be out of touch or in denial about his prospects for re-election.
Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who was the first House Democrat to call for President Biden to drop out of the race, said in an interview on CNN shortly after the ABC broadcast that “the need for him to step aside is more urgent tonight than when I first called for it on Tuesday.” He added that Mr. Biden “does not want his legacy to be that he’s the one who turned over our country to a tyrant.”
Representative Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, also said Mr. Biden should step aside, telling CNN that he found points in the interview “disturbing” and that it was clear “the president of the United States doesn’t have the vigor necessary to overcome the deficit here.”
“He felt as long as he gave it his best effort, that’s all that really matters,” Mr. Quigley said, recounting Mr. Biden’s description of how he would feel if he lost to former President Donald J. Trump. “With the greatest respect: No.”
A handful of Democratic lawmakers who have consistently supported Mr. Biden said soon after the interview that they would stick with the president. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a chair of the Biden campaign, and Representative Robert Garcia of California said they were ready to help the president win re-election in November.
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has repeatedly sought to rally Democrats behind the president with expletive-laden posts on social media, said, “Democrats need to get a spine or grow a set — one or the other,” adding, “Joe Biden is our guy.”
Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, a longtime ally of Mr. Biden, said on social media on Friday night that “Joe Biden is who our country needs.”
And Representative Nanette Barragán, Democrat of California and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had backed Mr. Biden, told CNN earlier on Friday that Democrats “shouldn’t be talking about” replacing him. Later in the evening, Ms. Barragán continued to defend Mr. Biden.
“Sounds like everyone is looking for concerns — I don’t see them,” she said. “He’s quick to respond. He’s on point. He clearly understands the questions and the topics and responds accordingly. It’s a tough interview, and I think he handled it well.”
Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California and a Biden surrogate, said in a statement that he expected more from Mr. Biden to earn the trust of voters — and “that requires more than one interview.”
“I expect complete transparency from the White House about this issue,” Mr. Khanna said, “and a willingness to answer many legitimate questions from the media and voters about his capabilities.”
Julián Castro, the former Democratic presidential candidate who has called for Mr. Biden to drop out, criticized the president after the interview, telling MSNBC that Mr. Biden had been “steadier” in the interview but was in “denial about the decline that people can clearly see.”
Former Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who also has said that Mr. Biden should step aside, said after the interview, “I don’t think he moved the needle at all.”
“I don’t think he energized anybody,” Mr. Ryan said on MSNBC. “I think there was a level of him being out of touch with reality on the ground.”
“I’m worried,” he continued, with a nervous chuckle. “I’m worried, like, I think a lot of people are, that he is just not the person to be able to get this done for us.”
Mark Buell, a prominent donor for Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party who had raised questions about the president’s performance at the debate, said in a text message that “Biden is on a slide that he is trying to curb. If he isn’t successful, he may soon become a verb.”
Maya C. Miller, Robert Jimison and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting from Washington. Simon J. Levien contributed reporting from Massachusetts.
Robert Jimison
July 5, 2024, 11:05 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 11:05 p.m. ET
Robert Jimison
Representative James E. Clyburn, a Biden campaign co-chair, voiced support for the president late Friday evening. “Joe Biden is who our country needs, and his presidency has laid a foundation upon which we can continue our pursuit of a more perfect union,” he said in a social media post.
Robert Jimison
July 5, 2024, 11:05 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 11:05 p.m. ET
Robert Jimison
Clyburn's endorsement four years ago is often credited with helping Biden win his first term. He caused a lot of handwringing among Democrats earlier this week when he discussed the possibility of a “mini-primary“ to replace Biden before the Democratic National Convention in August.
Michael M. Grynbaum
July 5, 2024, 10:39 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 10:39 p.m. ET
Michael M. Grynbaum
Michael Grynbaum covers the intersection of media and politics.
Media Memo
Respectfully but firmly, Stephanopoulos pressed Biden on his fitness for a second term.
It was, in the end, an interview as personal as it was political, a cross-examination more focused on the psyche and the inescapable reality of aging than on any points of policy or governance.
Respectfully but firmly, the ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday pressed President Biden, again and again, on the basic questions that Americans had asked themselves over the past eight days, since 51 million people saw a diminished Mr. Biden struggle to perform on the debate stage.
“Are you more frail?”
“Have there been more lapses?”
“Have you had a neurologist, a specialist, do an examination?”
And as Mr. Biden dismissed all those concerns one by one — flicking away the cascading worries about his health, his electability, his capacity to serve in his office for four additional years — Mr. Stephanopoulos zeroed in on the matters of pride, dignity and self-worth swirling beneath the surface.
“Are you sure,” the anchor asked, “you’re being honest with yourself?”
At 81, Mr. Biden is 18 years older than his interlocutor. The president arrived at the ABC interview on Friday tanned and tieless, his top two shirt buttons undone, making every effort to project youth and vitality. Yet a viewer could not help but imagine the mop-haired Mr. Stephanopoulos in the role of an adult son, guiding an elderly parent toward a conclusion that may be difficult, and deeply painful, to accept.
It is too soon to say if their 22-minute encounter on Friday, taped in the library of a Wisconsin middle school and broadcast by ABC in prime time, will count among the most consequential interviews in presidential history. But it carried some of the highest stakes.
Democrats’ confidence in Mr. Biden’s ability to defeat his Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, plummeted in the aftermath of last week’s debate. The president’s soft voice, extended pauses and slurred words — once viewed by supporters as an unsettling, if benign, fact of his public appearances — had taken on far darker implications.
Mr. Biden evinced many of those traits again on Friday, his voice turning hoarse and hesitant at times. His answers occasionally meandered. He was much improved from the shaky president who stood across from Mr. Trump last Thursday, but neither was he in the fighting form of his 2020 debates.
When Mr. Stephanopoulos jumped straight to the point — “You and your team have said you had a bad night” — Mr. Biden bared his teeth in a smile.
“Sure did,” he replied, equal parts humility and nonchalance. Hey. It happens.
But then the anchor began to press. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and an ally of the president, wondered if Mr. Biden had more serious health issues. Mr. Biden blamed jet lag, but he had been back from Europe for more than a week. Did he realize, onstage, how badly he was doing?
The president, who has interacted with Mr. Stephanopoulos for decades, including when the anchor served in the Clinton White House, tried to parry with some humor. “You’ve had some bad interviews once in a while,” he teased.
“I’ve had plenty,” Mr. Stephanopoulos replied. But, he pointed out, millions of people watched a debate that seemed to confirm fears about the president’s age.
When Mr. Biden blamed the press for amplifying the concerns of Democratic leaders, the anchor said he had heard from dozens of supporters who “want you to go with grace.” And when Mr. Biden tried to deflect by ticking off achievements of his administration, Mr. Stephanopoulos countered, “What has all that work over the last three and a half years cost you physically, mentally, emotionally?”
As the interview neared its end, Mr. Stephanopoulos pivoted back to realpolitik. “If you stay in, and Trump is elected, and everything you’re warning about comes to pass,” he asked, “how will you feel in January?”
“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” Mr. Biden said. (The original ABC transcript rendered the quote as “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”)
At one point, Mr. Stephanopoulos posed a series of scenarios to Mr. Biden, about how he would react if top Democratic leaders called on him to withdraw. The president smiled and laughed.
“I mean, these hypotheticals, George,” he began.
The anchor interjected.
“It’s not that hypothetical anymore.”
The Times revised Mr. Biden’s quote in this article about how he would feel if he loses the election after White House officials and several news organizations contacted ABC on Friday about whether Mr. Biden had said “goodest” or “good as.” ABC’s standards team listened again to the audio and made the change. Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point in the interview were difficult to make out and open to interpretation.
The New York Times
July 5, 2024, 10:32 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 10:32 p.m. ET
The New York Times
Here is the full transcript of the president’s ABC News interview.
George Stephanopoulos, left, and President Biden facing each other and sitting in chairs.
ABC News taped its interview with President Biden on Friday afternoon and aired it at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Following is ABC’s official transcript of the interview, which lasted about 20 minutes, between George Stephanopoulos and the president.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, thank you for doing this.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you for having me.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s start with the debate. eh, You and your team said, have said you had a bad night. But your —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Sure did.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But your friend Nancy Pelosi actually framed the question that I think is on the minds of millions of Americans. Was this a bad episode or the sign of a more serious condition?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: It was a bad episode. No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn’t listen to my instincts in terms of preparing and — and a bad night.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you say you were exhausted. And — and I know you’ve said that before as well, but you came — and you did have a tough month. But you came home from Europe about 11 or 12 days before the debate, spent six days in Camp David. Why wasn’t that enough rest time, enough recovery time?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Because I was sick. I was feeling terrible. Matter of fact, the docs with me. I asked if they did a COVID test because they’re trying to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see whether or not I had some infection, you know, a virus. I didn’t. I just had a really bad cold.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And — did you ever watch the debate afterwards?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I don’t think I did, no.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, what I’m try — what I want to get at is, what were you experiencing as you were going through the debate? Did you know how badly it was going?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yeah, look. The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault, mine. Nobody’s fault but mine. I, uh — I prepared what I usually would do sittin’ down as I did come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail. And I realized — bout partway through that, you know, all — I get quoted the New York Times had me down, at ten points before the debate, nine now, or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is, what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t — I mean, the way the debate ran, not — my fault, no one else’s fault, no one else’s fault.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But it seemed like you were having trouble from the first question in, even before he spoke.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I just had a bad night. You’ve had some bad interviews once in a while. I — I can’t remember any, but I’m sure you did.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I’ve had plenty. I guess the question of — the problem is here for a lot of Americans watching is, you’ve said going back to 2020, “Watch me,” to people who are concerned about your age. And, you know, 50 million Americans watched that debate. It seemed to confirm fears they already had.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, look. After that debate, I did ten major events in a row, including until 2:00 in the morning after the debate. I did events in North Carolina. I did events in — in in Georgia, did events like this today, large crowds, overwhelming response, no — no — no slipping. And so, I just had a bad night. I don’t know why.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And — how — how quickly did it — did it come to you that you were having that bad night?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, it came to me I was havin’ a bad night when I realized that even when I was answering a question, even though they turned his mic off, he was still shouting. And I— I let it distract me. I— I’m not blaming it on that, but I realized that I just wasn’t in control.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Part of the other concern is that — this seems to fit into a pattern of decline that has been reported on recently. New York Times had a headline on July 2nd, “Biden’s lapses are said to be increasingly common and worrisome.” Here’s what they wrote.
“People who’ve spent time with President Biden over the last few months or so said the lapses appear to have grown more frequent, more pronounced, and after Thursday d— Thursday’s debate, more worrisome. By many accounts, as evidenced by video footage, observation, and interviews, Mr. Biden is not the same today as he was even when he took office three-and-a-half years ago.” Similar reporting in The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Are you the same man today that you were when you took office three-and-a-half years ago?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: In terms of successes, yes. I also was the guy who put together a peace plan for the Middle East that may be comin’ to fruition. I was also the guy that expanded NATO. I was also the guy that grew the economy. All the individual things that were done were ideas I had or I fulfilled. I moved on.
And so, for example, you know, “We-Well, that was true then, what’s Biden done lately?” Di-you-just just see today, just announced 200,000 new jobs. We’re movin’ in the direction that no one’s ever taken on. I know you know this from days in — in — in the — in the government.
I took on big pharma. I beat them. No one said I could beat them. I took on all the things we said we got done, were told we couldn’t get done. And part of it is what I said when I ran was I wanted to do three things: Restore some decency to the office, restore some support for the middle class instead of trickle down economics both from the middle out and the bottom up the way the wealthy still do fine, everyone does better, and unite the country.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But what has all that work over the last three-and-a-half years cost you physically, mentally, emotionally?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I— I— I just think it cost me a really bad night, bad run, but, you know, I— George. I have— I’m optimistic about this country. I don’t think we’re a country of losers that he points out. I don’t think America’s in tough shape. I think America is on the cusp of breaking through in so many incredible opportunities.
In this next term, I’m gonna make sure we gotta — straighten out the tax system. I’m gonna make sure we’re in a situation where we have healthcare for all people, where we’re in a position where we have — have childcare and eldercare, free up — and all these things.
One thing I’m proudest of is, remember when my economic plan was put forward? A lot of the mainstream economists said, “This is not gonna work.” Guess what? We now have 16 Nobel laureates, 16 of ‘em in economics saying that “Biden’s next term would be a sig— enor— based on what he wants to do, enormous success.” Trump’s plan would cause a recession and signif— gi— increase inflation. I’ve made great progress, and that’s what I plan on doin’. And we can do this.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I — I— I understand that, and I’m not disputing that. What I’m asking you is — about your personal situation. Do you dispute that there have been more lapses, especially in the last several months?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Can I run the 100 in 10 flat? No. But I’m still in good shape.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you more frail?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: No.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Come keep my schedule. (LAUGH)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you spoke with your doctor after the debate. What did he say?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: He said he — just looked at me and said, “You’re exhausted.” That’s it. I have medical doctors travel with me everywhere. Every President does, as you know. Medical doctors, some of the best in the world travel with me everywhere I go. I have an ongoing assessment of what I’m doin’, and they don’t hesitate to tell me if they think there’s something wrong.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you said you have an ongoing assessment. Have you had a full neurological and cognitive evaluation?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I’ve had — I get a full neurological test everyday with me. And I’ve had a full physical. I had, you know, I mean, I— I’ve been at Walter Reed for my physicals. I mean — uhm yes, the answer.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I— I know your doctor said he consulted with a neurologist. I— I guess I’m asking — a slightly different question. Have you had the specific cognitive tests, and have you had a neurologist, a specialist, do an examination?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: No. No one said I had to. No one said. They said I’m good.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you be willing to undergo an independent medical evaluation that included neurological and cognit— cognitive tests and release the results to the American people?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Look. I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world. Not — and that’s not hi — sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world ...
Madeleine Albright was right. And every single day, for example, today before I came out here, I’m on the phone with — with the prime minister of— well, anyway, I shouldn’t get into detail, but with Netanyahu. I’m on the phone with the new prime minister of England.
I’m workin’ on what we were doin’ with regard to — in Europe with regard to expansion of NATO and whether it’s gonna stick. I’m takin’ on Putin. I mean, every day there’s no day I go through there not those decisions I have to make every single day.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And you have been doing that and the American people have been watching, yet their concerns about your age and your health are growing. So that’s why I’m asking — to reassure them, would you be willing to have the independent medical evaluation?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Watch me between — there’s a lotta time left in this campaign. There’s over 125 days.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So the answer —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: They’ll make a decision.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Right — the answer right now is, no, you — you don’t want to do that right now.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I’ve already done it.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You talked a lot about your successes in — at the beginning of this interview. And — and I don’t want to dispute that, I don’t want to debate that. But — as you know, elections are about the future, not the past. They’re about tomorrow, not yesterday. And the question on so many people’s minds right now is, “Can you serve effectively for the next four years?”
PRESIDENT BIDEN: George. I’m the guy that put NATO together, the future. No one thought I could expand it. I’m the guy that shut Putin down. No one thought could happen. I’m the guy that put together a South Pacific initiative with AUKUS. I’m the guy that got 50 nations out — not only in Europe, outside of Europe as well to help Ukraine.
I’m the guy that got Japanese to expand their budget. I’m the — so I mean, these — and, for example, when I decided we used to have 40% of computer chips. We invented the chip, the little chip, the computer chip. It’s in everything from cell phone to weapons.
And so, we used to have 40%, and we’re down to virtually nothing. So I get in the plane, against the advice of everybody, and I fly to South Korea. I convince them to invest in the United States billions of dollars. Now we have tens of billions of dollars being invested in the United States making us back in a position we’re gonna own that industry again. We have, I mean, I— I just — anyway. I’m — I don’t wanna take too much credit. I have a great staff.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But hold on. My— I guess my point is, all that takes a toll. Do you have the mental and physical capacity to do it for another four years?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I believes so, I wouldn’t be runnin’ if I didn’t think I did. Look, I’m runnin’ again because I think I understand best what has to be done to take this nation to a completely new new level. We’re on our way. We’re on our way. And, look. The decision recently made by the Supreme Court on immunity, you know, the next President of the United States, it’s not just about whether he or she knows what they’re doin’.
It’s — it’s — it’s not — not about a con — a conglomerate of people making decisions. It’s about the character of the President. The character of the President’s gonna determine whether or not this Constitution is employed the right way.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you a tougher, more personal question. Are you sure you’re being honest with yourself when you say you have the mental and physical capacity to serve another four years?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yes, I am, because, George, the last thing I want to do is not be able to meet that. I think, as some of senior economist and senior foreign policy specialists say, if I stop now, I’d go down in history as a pretty successful President. No one thought I could get done what we got done.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But are you being with honest — with yourself as well about your ability to defeat Donald Trump right now?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You say that, and let me challenge you.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Sure.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Because you were close but behind going into the debate. You’re further behind now by— by any measure. It’s been a two-man race for several months. Inflation has come down. In those last few months, he’s become a convicted felon. Yet, you’re still falling further behind.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: You guys keep saying that. George, do you— look, you know polling better than anybody. Do you think polling data as accurate as it used to be?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I don’t think so, but I think when you look at all the polling data right now, it shows that he’s certainly ahead in the popular vote, probably even more ahead in the battleground states. And one of the other key factors there is, it shows that in many of the battleground states, the Democrats who are running for Senate and the House are doing better than you are.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: That’s not unusual in some states. I carried an awful lotta Democrats last time I ran in 2020. Look, I remember them tellin’ me the same thing in 2020. “I can’t win. The polls show I can’t win.” Remember 2024 — 2020, the red wave was coming.
Before the vote, I said, “That’s not gonna happen. We’re gonna win.” We did better in an off-year than almost any incumbent President ever has done. They said in 2023, (STATIC) all the tough (UNINTEL) we’re not gonna win. I went into all those areas and all those — all those districts, and we won.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: All that is true, but 2020 was a close race. And your approval rating has dropped significantly since then. I think the last poll I saw was at about 36%.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Woah, woah, woah
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: The number of Americans who think you’re too old to serve has doubled since 2020. Wouldn’t a clear-eyed political calculus tell you that it’s gonna be much tougher to win in 2024?.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Not when you’re running against a pathological liar. Not when he hadn’t been challenged in a way that he’s about to be challenged. Not when people —
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve had months to challenge him.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Oh, sure, I had months, but I was also doin’ a hell of a lot of other things, like wars around the world, like keeping NATO together, like working — anyway. But look.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you really believe you’re not behind right now?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I think it’s in — all the pollsters I talk to tell me it’s a tossup. It’s a tossup. And when I’m behind, there’s only one poll I’m really far behind, CBS Poll and NBC, I mean, excuse me. And — uh —
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: New York— New York Times and NBC both have — have you about six points behind in the popular vote.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: That’s exactly right. New York Times had me behind before, anything having to do with this race — had me hind — behind ten points. Ten points they had me behind. Nothing’s changed substantially since the debate in the New York Times poll.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Just when you look at the reality, though, Mr. President, I mean, you won the popular vote — in — in 2020, but it was still deadly close in the electoral college —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: By 7 million votes.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes. But you’re behind now in the popular vote.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I don’t— I don’t buy that.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Is it worth the risk?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be President or win this race than me.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, the heart of your case against Donald Trump is that he’s only out for himself, putting his personal interests ahead of the national interest. How do you respond to critics who say that by staying in the race, you’re doing the same thing?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Oh, come on. Well, I don’t think those critics know what they’re talkin’ about.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: They’re just wrong?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: They’re just wrong. Look, Trump is a pathological liar. Trump is— he is— you ever seen anything Trump did that benefited sa— somebody else and not him? You can’t answer, I know.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I’ve— I’ve questioned him and his allies as persistently as any journalist has.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Oh, I know you have. I’m not being critical. I’m not being critical, but look, I mean, the man is a congenital liar. As I said, they pointed out in that debate, he lied 27— 28 times— times, whatever number, over 20 times. Talk about how good his economy was, how he brought down inflation, how— this is a guy who unlike— only other President oth— other than him is Hoover who lost more jobs than he created.
This is a guy who told us to put bleach in our arms to deal with COVID, with a million— over a million people died. This is a guy who talks about wantin’ to get rid of the healthcare provision we put in place. This is a guy who wants to give the power back to big pharma to be able to charge exorbitant prices for drugs. This is a guy who wants to undo every single thing I’ve done, every single— every single thing.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I understand that. I understand that’s why you want to stay in the race, but have you convinced yourself that only you can defeat him?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I convinced myself of two things. I’m the most qualified person to beat him, and I know how to get things done.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: If you can be convinced that you cannot defeat Donald Trump, will you stand down?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: (LAUGH)- It depends on— on if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, if — I mean, on a more practical level, The Washington Post just reported in the last hour that Senator Mark Warner is — is assembling a group of Senators together to try and convince you to stand down, because they don’t think you can win.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, Mark is a good man. We’ve never had (UNINTEL). He also tried to get the nomination too. Mark’s not — Mark and I have a different perspective. I respect him.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And if Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi come down and say, “We’re worried that if you stay in the race, we’re gonna lose the House and the Senate,” how will you respond?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I— I’d go into detail with them. I’ve speaken (PH) to all of them in detail including Jim Clyburn, every one of ‘em. They all said I should stay in the race — stay in the race. No one said — none of the people said I should leave.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But if they do?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, it’s, like, (LAUGH) they’re not gonna do that.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You’re sure?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, Yeah, I’m sure. Look. I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, “Joe, get outta the race,” I’d get outta the race. The Lord Almighty’s not comin’ down. I mean, these hypotheticals, George, if, I mean, it’s all —
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But — but it’s — it’s — it’s not that hypothetical anymore. I — I — I — I grant that the — they have not k— requested a meeting, but it’s been reported —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: But they — I met with them. I met with a lotta these people. I talk with them regularly. I had an hour conversation with Hakeem. I had more time (UNITEL)with Jim Clyburn. I spent time with many hours off and on in the last little bit with Chuck Schumer. It’s not like— I had all the governors — all the governors.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I agree that the Lord Almighty’s not gonna come down, but if — if — if you are told reliably from your allies, from your friends and supporters in the Democratic Party in the House and the Senate that they’re concerned you’re gonna lose the House and the Senate if you stay in, what will you do?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I’m not gonna answer that question. It’s not gonna happen.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s your plan to turn the campaign around?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: You saw it today. How many — how many people draw crowds like I did today? Find me more enthusiastic than today? Huh?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I mean, have — I don’t think you wanna play the crowd game. Donald Trump can draw big crowds. There’s no question about that.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: He can draw a big crowd, but what does he say? Who — who does he have? I’m the guy supposedly in trouble. We raised $38 million within four days after this. Over — we have over a million individual contributors, individual contributors. That — that’s less than 200 bucks. We have — I mean, I’m not seen what you’re — you’re proposing.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You haven’t seen the — the fall-off in the polls? You haven’t seen the reports of discontent in the Democratic Party, House Democrats, Senate Democrats?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I’ve seen it from the press.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, I’ve heard from dozens of your supporters over the last few days, and a variety of views, I grant you that. But the prevailing sentiment is this. They love you, and they will be forever grateful to you for defeating Donald Trump in 2020.
They think you’ve done a great job as President, a lot of the successes you outlined. But they are worried about you and the country. And they don’t think you can win. They want you to go with grace, and they will cheer you if you do. What do you say to that?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I say the vast majority are not where that — those folks are. I don’t doubt there are some folks there. Have you ever seen a group — ta— time when elected officials running for office aren’t little worried? Have you ever seen that? I’ve not. Same thing happened in 2020. “Oh, Biden, I don’t know. Man, what’s he gonna do? He may bring me down, he may (PH).”
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, I’ve never seen a President 36% approval get reelected.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I don’t believe that’s my approval rating. That’s not what our polls show.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you’re warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about. Look, George. Think of it this way. You’ve heard me say this before. I think the United States and the world is at an inflection point when the things that happen in the next several years are gonna determine what the next six, seven decades are gonna be like.
And who’s gonna be able to hold NATO together like me? Who’s gonna be able to be in a position where I’m able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where we’re — we’re at least checkmating China now? Who’s gonna — who’s gonna do that? Who has that reach? Who has — who knows all these pe…? We’re gonna have, I guess a good way to judge me, is you’re gonna have now the NATO conference here in the United States next week. Come listen. See what they say.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, thanks for your time.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
July 5, 2024, 10:29 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 10:29 p.m. ET
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Biden says he has not had a cognitive test and doesn’t need one.
President Biden said in an interview on Friday that he has not undergone a cognitive exam, but argued that his record as president should be proof enough that he is mentally fit to lead the nation.
He was repeatedly pressed about his cognitive abilities in his first major interview since his disastrous debate performance set off calls for him to drop out of the race. George Stephanopoulos of ABC News asked him pointedly if he would be willing to undergo a neurological and cognitive test.
“I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world,” Mr. Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
The line of questioning came after Mr. Biden was criticized for his debate performance that was often meandering and during which he was faltering in his speech. Several current and former officials have also expressed concern that moments in which Mr. Biden appears confused or listless have become more frequent.
The White House has said Mr. Biden was suffering from a cold on the night of the debate. Mr. Biden has blamed himself and his travel schedule ahead of the debate. But an increasing number of Democrats and voters have expressed concern over whether Mr. Biden has the mental acuity to not only beat Mr. Trump, but to serve for another four years.
“Have you had the specific cognitive tests, and have you had a neurologist, a specialist, do an examination?” Mr. Stephanopoulos asked Mr. Biden.
“No. No one said I had to,” Mr. Biden said. “They said I’m good.”
Mr. Biden added that like every president, a White House doctor does travel with him. His doctor, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said Mr. Biden was “fit for duty” after undergoing a physical earlier this year, adding that he had undergone an “extremely detailed” neurological exam that did not turn up evidence of stroke, neurological disorders or Parkinson’s disease.
After the debate, Mr. Biden said his doctor looked at him and said, “you’re exhausted.”
Mr. Biden also did not commit to taking a cognitive test in the future to assure voters. Instead, he issued a challenge to those concerned about his mental state. “Watch me.”
“There’s a lot of time left in this campaign,” Mr. Biden said.
Jack Healy
July 5, 2024, 10:12 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 10:12 p.m. ET
Jack Healy
Loyal Democratic voters react with relief, and despair.
At least it wasn’t as bad as the debate.
That was the verdict from some devoted Democratic voters who nervously tuned in to watch President Biden’s interview with ABC News on Friday. They were anxious to see the president respond to concerns about his age and cognitive abilities, and show wavering voters that he could serve another four years.
“I think he showed in this interview he’s cognitively there,” said Jayden D’Onofrio, 19, chairman of the Florida Future Leaders PAC, which represents high-school and college Democrats in the state. “He was very straightforward about the fact that, yes, he is older. We have to recognize that.”
But John Avalos, a progressive Democrat and former member of the San Francisco board of supervisors, said the interview made him weep. He was frustrated that Mr. Biden would not submit to a cognitive test, and said Mr. Biden’s doubling down on his refusal to leave the race could spell electoral doom for Democrats.
“Biden is not demonstrating the traits that generate much confidence,” Mr. Avalos said. “There are 300 million people who rely on his cognitive abilities, and he’s unwilling to take a test because of his pride?”
Other Democratic voters said they thought Mr. Biden made clearer and more cogent arguments against former President Donald J. Trump than he had during the debate last week, and said Mr. Biden seemed more at ease.
“I tell you, he looked a whole lot better than the debate,” said William Davis, a precinct delegate in Detroit and retired water treatment plant worker. “I think he did well. I’m a little nervous that he’s not going to be able to keep it up.”
Mr. Davis said he was still unsure whether the president should stay in the race, despite Mr. Biden’s insistence on Friday that only the “Lord almighty” would cause him to leave the campaign.
“I’m 67,” Mr. Davis said. “I’m not the same person I was two years ago. I’m confident in him, but — and there is that but — he should think about the country and the world. I think another Democrat could come in and beat Trump.”
In Nebraska, Mo Neal, 73, who runs a social media page for Lancaster County Democrats, said that Mr. Biden seemed “gentlemanly and sedate” and that his demeanor compared favorably with Mr. Trump’s angry hectoring speeches.
“I’m solidly behind Biden,” she said. “Even now.”
Jazmine Ulloa
July 5, 2024, 10:09 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 10:09 p.m. ET
Jazmine Ulloa
Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on stage at the Essence Festival concert in New Orleans on Friday night. “Let us always celebrate the diversity, the depth and the beauty of our culture,” she said as the audience broke into cheers. She arrived at Caesars Superdome as Busta Rhymes was performing. No word from her team on whether she has watched the Biden interview.
Robert Jimison
July 5, 2024, 9:54 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:54 p.m. ET
Robert Jimison
Normally after the president has a big interview or speech, a flood of Democrats in Congress would be posting messages of support and sending out waves of fund-raising emails. Tonight, so far, only three have expressed full-throated support of Biden: Senators Chris Coons of Delaware and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Representative Robert Garcia of California. Two of them are official members of the Biden re-election campaign.
Simon Levien
July 5, 2024, 9:49 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:49 p.m. ET
Simon Levien
Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania and a staunch supporter of President Biden's, wrote on X that Democrats ought to rally around the president. “Democrats need to get a spine or grow a set — one or the other,” he said. “Joe Biden is our guy.”
Robert Jimison
July 5, 2024, 9:45 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:45 p.m. ET
Robert Jimison
Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a chair of the Biden campaign, continued to voice support for Biden's re-election bid. “President Biden has delivered remarkable progress for the American people, and he has plans to do even more in his next term," Coons wrote in a social media post. “I can’t wait to help him continue to take the fight to Trump and win in November.”
Robert Jimison
July 5, 2024, 9:43 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:43 p.m. ET
Robert Jimison
Representative Robert Garcia, Democrat of California and a Biden campaign surrogate, says he will continue to back the president’s re-election bid. “I’m proud to stand with the most progressive and productive President of the modern era,” Garcia wrote on social media.
Jack Healy
July 5, 2024, 9:40 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:40 p.m. ET
Jack Healy
A few loyal Democrats who nervously tuned in to Biden's interview with ABC News tonight had mixed reviews. John Avalos, a progressive Democrat in San Francisco and a former member of the city’s Board of Supervisors, said, “This interview made me weep,” adding, “Biden appears a man alone.” But in Detroit, William Davis, a retiree and a Democratic precinct delegate, said of Biden: “He looked a whole lot better than the debate.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
July 5, 2024, 9:37 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:37 p.m. ET
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Representative Nanette Barragán, Democrat of California and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, tells me that she believes Biden performed well tonight. “Sounds like everyone is looking for concerns,” she said. “I don’t see them. He’s quick to respond. He’s on point. He clearly understands the questions and the topics and responds accordingly.”
David E. Sanger
July 5, 2024, 9:33 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:33 p.m. ET
David E. Sanger
Biden urges Americans to watch him at a NATO summit next week in Washington.
President Biden walking away from a lectern and waving with an American flag behind him.
At the end of his interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC on Friday, President Biden suggested that Americans and others around the world watch him next week in his element: herding allies against Russia.
“I guess a good way to judge me is you're going to have now the NATO conference here in the United States next week,” Mr. Biden said.
“Come listen. See what they say,” he added, apparently referring to leaders of America’s allies.
It was a striking conclusion to the interview, because it went to the heart of what Mr. Biden believes may be his biggest legacy — and the institution most at risk if former president Donald J. Trump is elected. So while most Americans may not be focused on what is happening in Washington starting next Tuesday, Mr. Biden is.
The NATO session has been planned for more than a year, a celebration of the alliance’s founding 75 years ago. And it will open on Tuesday night with Mr. Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, welcoming the leaders of the other members of the alliance — now including Finland and Sweden, the two most recently admitted — to the Mellon Auditorium in downtown Washington, where the NATO treaty was first signed, when Mr. Biden was six years old.
The events, including a dinner for NATO leaders on Wednesday night at the White House, look like they will extend well beyond 8 p.m. — the cutoff time after which, Mr. Biden indicated a few days ago, he would be wise to avoid events. And on Thursday he plans to give a full news conference, officials say, to mark the end of the summit — one at which he will doubtless be peppered with questions about whether his debate performance, or other examples of cognitive lapses, suggest he should abandon a second run.
Mr. Biden will not be the only leader at the summit under deep pressure. President Emmanuel Macron of France recently suffered a stunning setback at the polls that weaken him. The summit will be a first for Keir Starmer, newly installed as the prime minister of Britain. And of course, Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, facing a deeper threat from invading Russian forces than ever.
But for the American president, it may well pose a particularly intense test. He will have to show, to world leaders and to the American public, that he can navigate the complex politics of maintaining support for Ukraine, juggle the issues and egos of three dozen presidents and prime ministers, and pull off a news conference that could well be the most challenging of his presidency. All with the world weighing his every phrase.
Katie Rogers
July 5, 2024, 9:27 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:27 p.m. ET
Katie Rogers
The outside world will discuss this interview, but within Biden’s circle, the appearance is seen as enough to keep him in the fight for now, according to those inside it who watched it and knew he had limited time to make a case. It is described as a modest turn in his direction with more to do.
Chris Cameron
July 5, 2024, 9:26 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:26 p.m. ET
Chris Cameron
Julián Castro, the onetime Democratic presidential candidate who previously called for Biden to drop out of the race, escalated his criticism of the president after the ABC interview, telling MSNBC that Biden was in “denial about the decline that people can clearly see.” Castro added, “What people want is to have confidence that whoever Democrats put up can win this election.”
Chris Cameron
July 5, 2024, 9:13 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:13 p.m. ET
Chris Cameron
Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who was the first House Democrat to call for Biden to drop out of the race, said of the president after the ABC News interview: “The need for him to step aside is more urgent tonight than when I first called for it on Tuesday.” Doggett added: “We may not be the Lord Almighty,” but “Mr. President, the risk of a Trump presidency, to destroy our democracy, to take over the government and never give it back again, is so great that we have to have our strongest candidate.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
July 5, 2024, 9:07 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:07 p.m. ET
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Mark Buell, a prominent Democratic donor, responds to Biden’s dismissing concerns of his age and condition in his interview with ABC News. “Biden is on a slide that he is trying to curb,” Buell just texted me. “If he isn’t successful, he may soon become a verb.”
Katie Glueck
July 5, 2024, 9:04 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:04 p.m. ET
Katie Glueck
Some Democrats saw this interview as a wash — far from reassuring but not disastrous enough to convince Biden’s family that he should exit the race, leaving those who would like to see him do so in limbo.
Jazmine Ulloa
July 5, 2024, 9:02 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 9:02 p.m. ET
Jazmine Ulloa
Vice President Kamala Harris just stepped off Air Force 2 in New Orleans under a black umbrella to take cover from a thunderstorm. I shouted a question asking what she thought of the Biden interview. She simply smiled and waved as she climbed into a waiting S.U.V.
Annie Karni
July 5, 2024, 8:58 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:58 p.m. ET
Annie Karni
The immediate reaction from the House Democrats I’m talking to is that Biden’s performance was stronger than in the debate but that he appears to still be in a state of denial. The ones I’m texting with are left with the sense that nothing about the interview inspired confidence in those with doubts about his ability to run and beat Trump.
Annie Karni
July 5, 2024, 8:57 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:57 p.m. ET
Annie Karni
Jeffries plans to meet virtually with top House Democrats on Biden’s path ahead.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has scheduled a virtual meeting on Sunday with senior House Democrats to discuss President Biden’s candidacy and the path forward, according to a senior official familiar with the plan.
The session, which is to include the ranking members of congressional committees who make up the top echelons of the party in the House, comes at a time of profound worry among Democrats on Capitol Hill about Mr. Biden’s poor performance at last week’s presidential debate. House Democrats have not met as a group since, even as concerns have mounted about Mr. Biden’s viability as a candidate and the impact he could have on his party’s ability to win back control of the chamber and hold the Senate should he remain in the race.
Mr. Jeffries has been in listening mode all week, refraining from pressuring Democrats to rally around the president but also encouraging them not to be rash in their public pronouncements as Mr. Biden and his team determine the best path forward.
But Democrats have begun to splinter. Four in the House — Representatives Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Mike Quigley of Illinois — have called for the president to withdraw, while others have made public their serious concerns about his ability to prevail in the race.
On Friday, Mr. Quigley said he had had a “hard time” getting to the point of urging the president to get out of the race.
But, he told MSNBC, “clearly, the alternative now is a very bleak scenario with, I would say, almost no hope of succeeding — and it doesn’t just affect the White House. It affects all of Congress and our future.”
Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, has been working to organize a meeting of Democrats in his chamber to discuss their concerns about Mr. Biden’s candidacy and what should be done, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the effort who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity.
Maggie Haberman
July 5, 2024, 8:55 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:55 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
The note that Biden kept striking — that this was about him and his legacy — is not sitting well with some Democrats who are worried about keeping control of legislative seats.
Michael Gold
July 5, 2024, 8:41 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:41 p.m. ET
Michael Gold
The Trump campaign has not put out a formal statement in response to Biden’s interview with ABC News, but some advisers were posting real-time critical reactions on social media as it aired. “Biden is in denial and in decline,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, wrote.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
July 5, 2024, 8:38 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:38 p.m. ET
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
“I don’t think this will settle concerns,” David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, tells me.
Maya Miller
July 5, 2024, 8:37 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:37 p.m. ET
Maya Miller
Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California and a Biden surrogate, said he expected “complete transparency” from the White House and a willingness to answer “many legitimate questions” from the news media and voters about the president’s abilities. “He has to earn that trust, and that requires more than one interview,” Khanna said.
Katie Rogers
July 5, 2024, 8:36 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:36 p.m. ET
Katie Rogers
This interview is only going to widen the rift between Biden’s fiercely defiant camp, which lives increasingly in a trench mentality, and the rest of the establishment.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
July 5, 2024, 8:33 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:33 p.m. ET
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Biden was not just dismissive of concerns about his age and campaign — he questioned the fact that people are concerned. He said he did not believe polls, even though most have shown him with low approval ratings. He questioned whether his own supporters were worried whether he can lead for four more years, even though polling has shown the president’s age is a top concern for voters.
Robert Jimison
July 5, 2024, 8:34 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:34 p.m. ET
Robert Jimison
This has frustrated a number of Democrats in Congress, and Biden did very little tonight to address those concerns. Many of those people have been saying both publicly and privately that tonight’s interview was crucial to keeping the growing sense of frustration from spilling out publicly.
Maggie Haberman
July 5, 2024, 8:31 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 8:31 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Biden repeatedly refused to acknowledge the premise of the questions from Stephanopoulos about the concerns about his chances against Trump, and about his cognition. Biden and his family often see challenges as another obstacle for an underestimated person to surmount. He refuses to see this moment as different.
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
Manage Privacy Preferences
| By Shane Goldmacher
It was a high-stakes interview for Biden. How did he do?
President Biden standing onstage with a crowd of supporters behind him.
He downplayed. He denied. He dismissed.
President Biden’s first television interview since his poor debate performance last week was billed as a prime-time opportunity to reassure the American people that he still has what it takes to run for, win and hold the nation’s highest office.
But Mr. Biden, with more than a hint of hoarseness in his voice, spent much of the 22 minutes resisting a range of questions that George Stephanopoulos of ABC | News had posed — about his competence, about taking a cognitive test, about his standing in the polls.
The president on Friday did not struggle to complete his thoughts the way he did at the debate. But at the same time he was not the smooth-talking senator of his youth, or even the same elder statesman whom the party entrusted four years ago to defeat former President Donald J. Trump.
Instead, it was a high-stakes interview with an 81-year-old president whose own party is increasingly doubting him yet who sounded little like a man with any doubts about himself.
Here are four takeaways:
Biden downplays the debate as a one-time flub.
The interview was Mr. Biden’s longest unscripted appearance in public since his faltering debate performance. The delay has had his allies on Capitol Hill and beyond confused about what was keeping the president cloistered behind closed doors — or depending upon teleprompters — for so long.
The eight-day lag has seen the first members of Congress call for him to step aside and donors demand that the party consider switching candidates. It also heightened the scrutiny of every word Mr. Biden said.
He was in a defensive posture throughout, arguing that his past performance should be proof enough about his capacity in the future.
“It was a bad episode,” the president said. “No indication of any serious condition.”
He blamed exhaustion but also being so sick ahead of the debate that his doctors tested him for Covid-19. But what he would not agree to was any kind of neurological examination.
“Look, I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day, I have that test,” Mr. Biden said, suggesting that the job of the presidency was its own type of test. He declined repeatedly to sit for an independent exam.
Mr. Biden’s challenge is that there is little he can say in a single interview to solve the fallout of a stumbling performance that tens of millions of Americans watched live.
George Stephanopoulos sits in a chair across from President Biden, who sits with his legs crossed and his hands folded on his lap.
Biden did better than the debate. But will that be enough?
Some of Mr. Biden’s answers were neither compelling nor cohesive.
He paused for multiple seconds early in the interview after Mr. Stephanopoulos asked what had gone wrong a week earlier.
“The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault mine. Nobody’s fault but mine,” Mr. Biden eventually said. “I, uh, prepared what I usually would do, sitting down as I did, come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail. And I realized about partway through that, you know, I quoted The New York Times had me down 10 points before the debate, 9 now or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is that what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t, I mean, the way the debate ran, not — my fault, no one else’s fault — no one else’s fault.”
The answer was meandering and circular, even if it was not as bad as his worst moments at the debate in Atlanta. But it was hardly a crisp and concise reassurance for members of his party squinting to imagine what a second debate with Mr. Trump might look like in September.
Mr. Biden did make some arguments against Mr. Trump and for himself.
But on the central question at hand — his debate performance and what it projected about the future — Mr. Biden did not have much more to say, other than a brief aside that Mr. Trump was “still shouting” even after his microphone had been turned off and that he had let it distract him.
“I just had a bad night” was about the totality of Mr. Biden’s explanation. “I don’t know why.”
The interview was just the first, and far from the last, of tests.
The reality that some of the president’s allies have come to accept is that nearly every Biden interview, public appearance or utterance for the foreseeable future is going to come under a harsh new spotlight.
Roughly three-quarters of voters now see Mr. Biden as too old to be an effective president, according to a post-debate poll by The New York Times and Siena College.
Mr. Biden, though, is a believer in his own story as a man who takes on adversity — “America’s comeback kid,” Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey called him at a fund-raiser two days after the debate.
Mr. Biden and people close to him still hold a chip on their shoulders about how he won the 2020 presidential nomination after months of being written off.
“Look, I remember them telling me the same thing in 2020,” he said, quoting his critics. “‘I can’t win. The polls show I can’t win.’”
Four years ago, the Democratic Party did rally behind Mr. Biden with remarkable speed when he appeared the strongest candidate to take on Mr. Trump. But polling today paints a murkier picture on that critical question.
What was clear is that Mr. Biden is already thinking about himself in the pantheon of past presidents. He cited the opinion of an unnamed group of economists and foreign policy experts to render this flattering judgment:
“If I stop now, I’d go down in history as a pretty successful president.”
Biden isn’t going anywhere without the ‘Lord Almighty’ intervening.
Mr. Biden set an awfully high bar for what it would take for him to step aside.
“If the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that,” he said.
Mr. Biden repeatedly waved off polling that Mr. Stephanopoulos cited to show Mr. Biden’s weakness, including a 36 percent approval rating. “That’s not what our polls show,” Mr. Biden snapped. He said “all the pollsters” whom he speaks with tell him the race is a “tossup.”
It was not the words of a man ready to exit the stage.
As Mr. Biden said earlier in the day at a rally in Madison, Wis., “They’re trying to push me out of the race. Let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race.”
When Mr. Stephanopoulos pressed him about the burbling discontent among Democratic elected officials, Mr. Biden shrugged it off. “I’ve seen it from the press,” he said.
Perhaps the most revealing answer came when Mr. Biden was asked about how he would feel if Mr. Trump were being sworn in as president in January.
“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” Mr. Biden said. (The original ABC transcript rendered the quote as “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”)
Of course, for a Democratic Party warning that Mr. Trump is an existential threat to the nation, the race is about something much simpler: winning.
The Times revised Mr. Biden’s quote in this article about how he would feel if he loses the election after White House officials and several news organizations contacted ABC on Friday about whether Mr. Biden had said “goodest” or “good as.” ABC’s standards team listened again to the audio and made the change. Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point in the interview were difficult to make out and open to interpretation.
Chris Cameron
July 5, 2024, 11:55 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 11:55 p.m. ET
Chris Cameron
Reporting from Washington
Interview appears to change few Democratic officials’ views on Biden.
President Biden walks up stairs leading into Air Force One.
President Biden had planned to use his first televised interview since his poor debate performance to reassure supporters and quiet the voices within the Democratic Party calling for him to drop out.
But many Democrats who spoke out after the interview, which aired on ABC News on Friday night, signaled that it had done little to shift their stances, regardless of whether they thought Mr. Biden should remain in the race or drop out.
A handful of current and former Democratic officials who had called on Mr. Biden to end his re-election campaign said the interview had done little, or even nothing, to address their concerns. Reliable supporters of the president’s re-election campaign similarly fanned out to television networks, declaring once more that they were sticking with Mr. Biden.
Other Democrats who had raised concerns about the president’s performance, but had not gone as far as to call for Mr. Biden to drop out, said the interview did not significantly change their views of his candidacy.
The president’s critics among the Democrats, including those asking him to step aside, said Mr. Biden appeared to be out of touch or in denial about his prospects for re-election.
Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who was the first House Democrat to call for President Biden to drop out of the race, said in an interview on CNN shortly after the ABC broadcast that “the need for him to step aside is more urgent tonight than when I first called for it on Tuesday.” He added that Mr. Biden “does not want his legacy to be that he’s the one who turned over our country to a tyrant.”
Representative Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, also said Mr. Biden should step aside, telling CNN that he found points in the interview “disturbing” and that it was clear “the president of the United States doesn’t have the vigor necessary to overcome the deficit here.”
“He felt as long as he gave it his best effort, that’s all that really matters,” Mr. Quigley said, recounting Mr. Biden’s description of how he would feel if he lost to former President Donald J. Trump. “With the greatest respect: No.”
A handful of Democratic lawmakers who have consistently supported Mr. Biden said soon after the interview that they would stick with the president. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a chair of the Biden campaign, and Representative Robert Garcia of California said they were ready to help the president win re-election in November.
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has repeatedly sought to rally Democrats behind the president with expletive-laden posts on social media, said, “Democrats need to get a spine or grow a set — one or the other,” adding, “Joe Biden is our guy.”
Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, a longtime ally of Mr. Biden, said on social media on Friday night that “Joe Biden is who our country needs.”
And Representative Nanette Barragán, Democrat of California and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had backed Mr. Biden, told CNN earlier on Friday that Democrats “shouldn’t be talking about” replacing him. Later in the evening, Ms. Barragán continued to defend Mr. Biden.
“Sounds like everyone is looking for concerns — I don’t see them,” she said. “He’s quick to respond. He’s on point. He clearly understands the questions and the topics and responds accordingly. It’s a tough interview, and I think he handled it well.”
Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California and a Biden surrogate, said in a statement that he expected more from Mr. Biden to earn the trust of voters — and “that requires more than one interview.”
“I expect complete transparency from the White House about this issue,” Mr. Khanna said, “and a willingness to answer many legitimate questions from the media and voters about his capabilities.”
Julián Castro, the former Democratic presidential candidate who has called for Mr. Biden to drop out, criticized the president after the interview, telling MSNBC that Mr. Biden had been “steadier” in the interview but was in “denial about the decline that people can clearly see.”
Former Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who also has said that Mr. Biden should step aside, said after the interview, “I don’t think he moved the needle at all.”
“I don’t think he energized anybody,” Mr. Ryan said on MSNBC. “I think there was a level of him being out of touch with reality on the ground.”
“I’m worried,” he continued, with a nervous chuckle. “I’m worried, like, I think a lot of people are, that he is just not the person to be able to get this done for us.”
Mark Buell, a prominent donor for Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party who had raised questions about the president’s performance at the debate, said in a text message that “Biden is on a slide that he is trying to curb. If he isn’t successful, he may soon become a verb.”
Maya C. Miller, Robert Jimison and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting from Washington. Simon J. Levien contributed reporting from Massachusetts.
Robert Jimison
July 5, 2024, 11:05 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 11:05 p.m. ET
Robert Jimison
Representative James E. Clyburn, a Biden campaign co-chair, voiced support for the president late Friday evening. “Joe Biden is who our country needs, and his presidency has laid a foundation upon which we can continue our pursuit of a more perfect union,” he said in a social media post.
Robert Jimison
July 5, 2024, 11:05 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 11:05 p.m. ET
Robert Jimison
Clyburn's endorsement four years ago is often credited with helping Biden win his first term. He caused a lot of handwringing among Democrats earlier this week when he discussed the possibility of a “mini-primary“ to replace Biden before the Democratic National Convention in August.
Michael M. Grynbaum
July 5, 2024, 10:39 p.m. ETJuly 5, 2024
July 5, 2024, 10:39 p.m. ET
Michael M. Grynbaum
Michael Grynbaum covers the intersection of media and politics.
Media Memo
Respectfully but firmly, Stephanopoulos pressed Biden on his fitness for a second term.
It was, in the end, an interview as personal as it was political, a cross-examination more focused on the psyche and the inescapable reality of aging than on any points of policy or governance.
Respectfully but firmly, the ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday pressed President Biden, again and again, on the basic questions that Americans had asked themselves over the past eight days, since 51 million people saw a diminished Mr. Biden struggle to perform on the debate stage.
“Are you more frail?”
“Have there been more lapses?”
“Have you had a neurologist, a specialist, do an examination?”
And as Mr. Biden dismissed all those concerns one by one — flicking away the cascading worries about his health, his electability, his capacity to serve in his office for four additional years — Mr. Stephanopoulos zeroed in on the matters of pride, dignity and self-worth swirling beneath the surface.
“Are you sure,” the anchor asked, “you’re being honest with yourself?”
At 81, Mr. Biden is 18 years older than his interlocutor. The president arrived at the ABC interview on Friday tanned and tieless, his top two shirt buttons undone, making every effort to project youth and vitality. Yet a viewer could not help but imagine the mop-haired Mr. Stephanopoulos in the role of an adult son, guiding an elderly parent toward a conclusion that may be difficult, and deeply painful, to accept.
It is too soon to say if their 22-minute encounter on Friday, taped in the library of a Wisconsin middle school and broadcast by ABC in prime time, will count among the most consequential interviews in presidential history. But it carried some of the highest stakes.
Democrats’ confidence in Mr. Biden’s ability to defeat his Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, plummeted in the aftermath of last week’s debate. The president’s soft voice, extended pauses and slurred words — once viewed by supporters as an unsettling, if benign, fact of his public appearances — had taken on far darker implications.
Mr. Biden evinced many of those traits again on Friday, his voice turning hoarse and hesitant at times. His answers occasionally meandered. He was much improved from the shaky president who stood across from Mr. Trump last Thursday, but neither was he in the fighting form of his 2020 debates.
When Mr. Stephanopoulos jumped straight to the point — “You and your team have said you had a bad night” — Mr. Biden bared his teeth in a smile.
“Sure did,” he replied, equal parts humility and nonchalance. Hey. It happens.
But then the anchor began to press. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and an ally of the president, wondered if Mr. Biden had more serious health issues. Mr. Biden blamed jet lag, but he had been back from Europe for more than a week. Did he realize, onstage, how badly he was doing?
The president, who has interacted with Mr. Stephanopoulos for decades, including when the anchor served in the Clinton White House, tried to parry with some humor. “You’ve had some bad interviews once in a while,” he teased.
“I’ve had plenty,” Mr. Stephanopoulos replied. But, he pointed out, millions of people watched a debate that seemed to confirm fears about the president’s age.
When Mr. Biden blamed the press for amplifying the concerns of Democratic leaders, the anchor said he had heard from dozens of supporters who “want you to go with grace.” And when Mr. Biden tried to deflect by ticking off achievements of his administration, Mr. Stephanopoulos countered, “What has all that work over the last three and a half years cost you physically, mentally, emotionally?”
As the interview neared its end, Mr. Stephanopoulos pivoted back to realpolitik. “If you stay in, and Trump is elected, and everything you’re warning about comes to pass,” he asked, “how will you feel in January?”
“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” Mr. Biden said. (The original ABC transcript rendered the quote as “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”)
At one point, Mr. Stephanopoulos posed a series of scenarios to |
Takeaways From Day One of the Republican Convention.txt | By Jonathan Weisman
Catch up on what happened on the first day of the convention.
Former President Donald J. Trump holding up a raised fist as he stands alongside Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, who is smiling, as the crowd behind them claps at the Republican National Convention.
An emotional first day of the Republican National Convention ended Monday night with an official ticket for 2024, Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance, but it was Mr. Trump’s triumphal prime-time emergence in the arena, just two days after a failed assassination attempt, that might prove the indelible moment of the whole event.
The opening session signaled how unified and confident the G.O.P. was behind its preternaturally resilient nominee, and set the tone for a four-day conclave that will project Republican strength and conviction that a red wave is in the making.
At 9 p.m., as the country star Lee Greenwood sang the anthem that Mr. Trump has made his own, “God Bless the U.S.A.,” the former president stepped into view at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, a gauze bandage over the ear wounded by his would-be assassin, his eyes seemingly close to tears. It was his first public appearance since the shooting, and the applause was rapturous from the delegates, elected officials and Republican elites, many of whom have doubted his leadership in the past.
transcript
0:00/0:29
We are here tonight in one purpose. And that is to elect Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States.
Video player loading
“You will not take this man down,” Mr. Greenwood said, attributing the former president’s survival to divine intervention. “He has the courage, the strength and he will be the next president of the United States.”
Here are four takeaways from the convention’s first day:
It’s Trump’s party.
There was a time when Mr. Trump did not like to share the spotlight. On Monday, with a fresh bandage on his right ear, he showed no insecurities atop a political party he has molded into his own, despite 34 felony convictions, two impeachments, civil judgments for business fraud, sexual abuse and defamation, and pending indictments tied to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
As Mr. Greenwood sang, Mr. Trump shook hands with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality; Representative Byron Donalds of Florida; his sons Don Jr. and Eric; and his running mate, Mr. Vance. For the final hour of the session, as others took to the podium, the camera repeatedly swung back to the nominee, who sat beaming. He never stepped to a microphone.
After the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, a bipartisan majority of the House voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting an insurrection. Most Republican senators declined to convict him, a verdict that would have ended his political career. They did not think it would be wise or necessary.
On Monday, Mr. Trump’s political comeback reached the necessary milestone of renomination and party unification. He feels tantalizingly close to the final step: returning to the White House.
J.D. Vance smiling and holding his thumb up as Republican attendees cheer at the convention.
J.D. Vance was chosen for legacy, not electoral gain.
Eight years ago, Mr. Vance said he feared Mr. Trump could become “America’s Hitler.” On Monday, Mr. Trump anointed Mr. Vance, a 39-year-old freshman senator from Ohio, the heir apparent of his “America First” movement, trusting that his party control was absolute and his election was secure.
As a vice-presidential nominee from a reliably Republican state, Mr. Vance may not be much help securing any of the battleground states needed to deliver Mr. Trump a second term.
But as the first millennial running mate, Mr. Vance has a long political future ahead of him. And no one can articulate Mr. Trump’s vision of “America First” better than the smooth-talking senator, who viscerally understands a platform ostensibly designed to lift working-class Americans by crushing competition from immigrants, stopping imports through trade protectionism, and ending American entanglements abroad.
Mr. Vance, of course, is not the first Republican who was once harshly critical of Mr. Trump and is now obsequiously respectful. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were at least as brutal. But Mr. Trump passed over those three competitors in 2016 to choose as his running mate Mike Pence, then the governor of Indiana, who was always content to stand in Mr. Trump’s shadow.
This time, Mr. Trump looked beyond the personal and political as he sought to ensure his brand of isolationist nationalism survives long after his departure.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina speaking on Monday as attendees cheer and hold up signs.
Republicans try to chisel away at the Democratic coalition.
Black men dominated the early sessions, a Latina took the stage just after Mr. Trump’s emotional entry, a union leader gave the final speech, and a California lawyer closed the night with a Sikh prayer.
They all hailed from voting blocs core to the Democratic coalition.
The flurry of Black male speakers was particularly striking. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina, Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas and Representative John James of Michigan came one after another, followed later by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Mr. Donalds. Trump campaign officials are determined to peel off a significant chunk of Black male votes from the Democrats in November, but they’d better hope those voters were tuned in Monday.
The closing speech by Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters president, was even more remarkable. He started it by saying that no Teamsters leader had ever addressed a Republican convention, and he acknowledged that his presence had divided his own union.
A significant percentage of the Teamsters’ 1.3 million members is already with Mr. Trump, but the leadership of organized labor has been a bulwark of support for President Biden. If nothing else, the Republicans’ invitation to Mr. O’Brien undermined the image of a united union front backing the Democrats.
President Biden is on defense.
Since a gunman nearly took Mr. Trump’s life, Mr. Biden has been in a difficult political position. He has tried to project statesmanship, addressing the nation with an appeal to unity and a plea to turn down the political heat. He called Mr. Trump to personally express his support, and temporarily pulled down political advertisements.
On Monday night, as one Republican speaker after another castigated Mr. Biden’s leadership, the president was questioned on NBC News about whether he had contributed to the violence of American politics.
Mr. Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt that it had been “a mistake” to tell donors a week ago that he wanted to “put Trump in a bull’s-eye.”
But he added: “How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says? Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody? Look, I’m not engaged in that rhetoric. Now, my opponent is engaged in that rhetoric.”
Republicans have continued to suggest that Mr. Biden’s attacks on Mr. Trump incited the gunman, whose motives in fact are still unknown.
If Mr. Biden was playing defense, Republicans showed no reluctance to lace into the president.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia declared, “The Democrat economy is of, by, and for illegal aliens.” Charlie Kirk, the youthful founder of the pro-Trump group Turning Point U.S.A., said Mr. Biden had embraced a “fake, pathetic, mutilated version of the American dream.”
July 16, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ETJuly 16, 2024
July 16, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET
Campbell Robertson, Kevin Williams and Madeleine Hordinski
Campbell Robertson and Kevin Williams reported from Middletown, Ohio.
The Ohio steel town that shaped J.D. Vance’s life and politics.
Middletown’s downtown, with substantial brick buildings and stores.
Middletown, Ohio, a small city of tree-lined streets surrounding a sprawling steel mill, seems as far from the towering skyscrapers of New York as it gets.
But on Monday, they were suddenly linked: Donald Trump, a real estate heir, tapped Middletown’s most famous son, J.D. Vance, as his running mate.
Millions of people first learned of Middletown from “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Vance’s best-selling memoir, and the Hollywood movie that followed.
Mr. Vance, 39, wrote about his chaotic upbringing there, raised in the intermittent care of a single mother struggling with addiction. In his depiction, Middletown was “little more than a relic of American industrial glory,” a place “hemorrhaging jobs and hope.”
His bleak portrait of the city, just north of Cincinnati, was initially held up as a reference guide for urbanites on the coasts desperate to understand Mr. Trump’s appeal among the struggling white working class.
Mr. Vance’s explanation was a stark one: some of Middletown’s woes were caused by the damaging decisions of government and big business, but the deeper problems lay in the fatalism, indolence and victim mentality of the city’s white working class.
The problems in his community “run far deeper than macroeconomic trends and policy,” Mr. Vance wrote in his book. “There is a lack of agency here — a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself.”
J.D. Vance stands on a brightly lit stage, gesturing and smiling.
Middletown, which has begun to stabilize after decades of decline, was at its lowest point in the years that Mr. Vance chronicled. Some people in the nicer parts of town thought Mr. Vance had been unfair, said Jason Moore, 39, a truck driver who was a year behind Mr. Vance in high school. But, he said, “people in this part of town would say he nailed it.”
When Mr. Vance’s grandparents moved to Middletown from eastern Kentucky in the 1940s, the city was in what most people say were its golden years. A half-dozen paper mills ran alongside the Armco steel mill, and the business owners lived in grand houses in town, bankrolling cultural festivals and a local symphony.
Most of the steelworkers — a mix of first and second-generation European immigrants, Black families who had moved up from the Deep South and white families from Appalachia — were represented by an independent and locally run union.
Middletown was, as Look Magazine declared in 1957, an “All-America City,” and many of its residents thought of it that way.
Mr. Vance’s grandfather, who worked at the mill, had been among those who found a foothold of economic security in Middletown, moving his family into a two-story house across from a neighborhood park. But that stability was fleeting. Mr. Vance’s mother had a child as a teenager, divorced, remarried and in 1984, gave birth to Mr. Vance, just as the city’s prosperity was beginning to founder.
The grounds of the steel mill, with large, older-looking gray buildings.
The steel mill in Middletown.
A mural in downtown Middletown.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. steel industry collapsed across the Midwest. The Middletown steelworks were no exception. In 1985, Armco’s corporate leadership decamped for the East Coast, draining the city of money, while the steel mill went through round after round of layoffs. Those who kept their jobs, some former employees said, found it an ever more miserable and more dangerous place to work.
Middletown struggled. Government-subsidized rentals began proliferating in the empty houses at a rate the city’s social services were not equipped to handle. Shopping centers were boarded up and the city pools were filled with concrete. Many residents turned to drugs, including Mr. Vance’s mother, who became addicted to narcotics. Her life became erratic as she cycled among boyfriends, and Mr. Vance sought refuge with “Mamaw,” his hard-edge but protective grandmother.
This was the Middletown Mr. Vance knew in his childhood.
“That was how most of us lived,” said Rodney Muterspaw, 55, who spent decades on the city’s police force and five years as police chief.
Mr. Muterspaw went on to describe some of the larger context of the city’s distress. He recalled with regret that law enforcement responded to the growing drug epidemic by focusing disproportionately on low-income neighborhoods. And he remembered being sent as a police officer to monitor locked-out workers picketing the steel mill, essentially ordered, he said, to spy on “our dads, our brothers, our uncles.” Once an All-America city, Middletown appeared to have turned against itself.
Rodney Muterspaw sits on a couch with throw pillows, looking out a window.
“I’ve never seen a city that loves to hate itself as much as Middletown does,” Rodney Muterspaw, a former police chief, said.
Various attempts to lift the city’s fortunes failed, reinforcing a pessimism among many residents. In his book, Mr. Vance mentioned that efforts to revive the downtown were “futile,” a cynicism about government intentions that is far from rare.
“I’ve never seen a city that loves to hate itself as much as Middletown does,” Mr. Muterspaw said.
Some of Mr. Vance’s teachers did not recall any signs of Mr. Vance’s struggles at home, though by high school, he wrote in his memoir, he had found some stability living with his grandmother.
At least one teacher remembered his growing political consciousness.
“His grasp and understanding of government and politics was extraordinary,” said Mike Stratton, 79, who taught Mr. Vance’s Advanced Placement English class at Middletown High.
When class discussion turned to politics, Mr. Stratton recalled, Mr. Vance was an outspoken Republican: supporting limited government and then-President George W. Bush. Mr. Vance’s views were fairly standard Republican fare at the time, said Mr. Stratton, a Democrat.
“Middletown was a hotbed of conservative Republicanism back then, but J.D. Vance was a moderate,” he said.
Mr. Stratton said that these days, Mr. Vance’s political rhetoric, with its hard-right populism, seems quite different from what he heard in his classroom more than two decades ago.
But things are improving, with retail opening up in downtown Middletown.
Mr. Vance graduated from high school in 2003, when the city was still at its nadir, and joined the Marines. He built from there — degrees from Ohio State and Yale Law School, a job at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, election to the U.S. Senate and now a place on a presidential ticket.
This rapid rise was fueled in large part by the success of “Hillbilly Elegy,” which attributed his community’s woes in large part on “a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.”
Mr. Vance speaks differently now, blaming the ills of his community on immigration and elites, a far more populist tone.
A two-story tan house, with a front porch sits in a row with other homes.
A former home of Mr. Vance, center, in Middletown.
Last year, after a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and burned in the industrial town of East Palestine, Ohio, Mr. Vance excoriated the “bicoastal elite,” saying that they use places like East Palestine “for cheap propaganda,” while reserving their sympathy for “Ukrainians, extreme sexual minorities, and criminals.”
Elites, Mr. Vance said, ignored the fact that their prosperity was only possible because of “heartland labor, heartland sweat, and heartland peril.”
That labor never stopped in Middletown, even in the grim years that Mr. Vance described in his book.
The steel mill’s current owner, Cleveland-Cliffs, announced this spring that it was investing nearly $2 billion to upgrade the plant, with $500 million of that coming through a grant from the Biden administration. The plan was cheered by the local of the International Association of Machinists, the union that now represents workers at the mill.
Attempts to turn the city’s fortunes around have continued, and some major projects have gotten underway, including Renaissance Pointe, described as a $200 million “epicenter” for stores, restaurants and hotels.
But reversing four decades of declining fortune is hard work. Downtown, there are brew pubs and a wine bar, but also plenty of empty storefronts.
Ami Vitori, 50, left Middletown after high school. But she came back in 2015, and in recent years has renovated an abandoned building downtown, attracting a restaurant, retail and even a boutique hotel. Mr. Vance praised her efforts in a 2017 New York Times opinion piece, which explained his decision to return to Ohio and open a nonprofit.
That nonprofit has since folded; Mr. Vance now lives in Cincinnati.
“Vance left Middletown behind a long time ago,” Ms. Vitori said. To her, his interest in his hometown nowadays seemed limited to using it as symbol of what he has overcome.
George F. Lang, a Republican state senator who represents Middletown, pushed back on that notion. He pointed out that Mr. Vance had announced his 2022 run for Senate in the city and also opened his regional senate office there. “The most important thing he can do for Middletown,” Mr. Lang said, “is be the example that he is.”
Given Mr. Vance’s ongoing rise to prominence, Ms. Vitori said she hoped for more.
“I honestly hope he’s done what he’s had to do to get where he is,” she said. “And once he’s there, he may actually try to do some good for people and places like Middletown.”
Scenes From the Republican National Convention
Shawn McCreesh
July 16, 2024, 12:57 a.m. ETJuly 16, 2024
July 16, 2024, 12:57 a.m. ET
Shawn McCreesh
A bandaged Trump shows a glimpse of vulnerability.
Donald J. Trump claps his hands. A bandage is visible over his ear.
Not since he descended the golden escalator at the start of his first presidential campaign has Donald J. Trump made an entrance as memorable as Monday night’s.
It was the first time he appeared in public since being rushed off a stage in Western Pennsylvania by Secret Service agents 48 hours earlier, bleeding from the ear after being shot at by a would-be assassin. A gauzy bandage covered his ear, and his slow and purposeful walk across the convention hall was filmed in the style of a boxer entering an arena.
Just as he had mouthed “fight” in the moment after the assassination attempt, the delegates on the floor chanted “fight! fight! fight!” But Mr. Trump did not look to be in a fighting mood. He appeared to choke up.
transcript
0:00/0:08
“Fight, fight, fight!”
Video player loading
There was no mischievous smirk, practiced scowl, shimmying to the Village People, or any of the other hallmarks of a typical Trump performance. There was something subdued in the way he pumped his fist and flashed a thumbs-up. Lee Greenwood performed “God Bless the U.S.A.” and the eyes of Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. filled with tears. Mr. Trump took his seat, surrounded by family and next to his newly named running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. Mr. Trump looked overwhelmed by it all.
Was this just a deft bit of convention choreography from the consummate showman, or was everything sinking in? As he’d said in one of his first interviews after the shooting, “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be dead.”
This is not a man known for open displays of vulnerability, or softness. He often mocks such signs of weakness in others. Mr. Trump’s public performances ordinarily range from wrathful to comedic. Those who know him well saw something in the moment.
“I saw a man who knows he got a second lease on life,” Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News after Mr. Trump’s walk-on ended.
When the applause subsided, Mr. Trump settled in for more than an hour. He listened as an entertainer and internet personality, Amber Rose, spoke about how she had found a home in the Republican Party. “These are my people. This is where I belong,” she said.
Mr. Trump beamed.
Adam Nagourney
July 16, 2024, 12:17 a.m. ETJuly 16, 2024
July 16, 2024, 12:17 a.m. ET
Adam Nagourney
Adam Nagourney covers politics for The Times and wrote this article from the upper levels of Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee.
Convention lineup showcases future of G.O.P.
Glenn Youngkin standing at two microphones with his mouth wide open and his arm extended in front of him with his hand in a fist.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina drew loud applause as he invoked religious imagery and the attempted assassination on Donald Trump. “The Devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back on his feet and he roared. He roared!” Mr. Scott told Republican delegates.
Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota was cheered as she recounted resisting demands for shutdowns of schools and businesses at the height of the Covid pandemic. “We never ordered a single church or business to close,” she said.
And Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia noted how he had won election in a Democratic state by presenting himself as a successful business person — and promised that Trump would do the same this November.
Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, are the main acts at this four-day convention of Republicans in Milwaukee. But even in a party that is so devoted to the former president, the gathering is providing a platform for the next generation of Republicans, a glimpse of what the party might be like after 2028. On the first night of the convention, the speakers gave delegates a look at their styles, their passions and, in the case of governors, their records.
“I am the first Black lieutenant governor of North Carolina,” said Mark Robinson, who is running for his state’s top office this November. “And I plan on being the first Black governor of North Carolina.”
They loyally promoted the Trump platform — talking about immigration, tax cuts and what they said was weak foreign policy by the Biden administration — but they were sure to weave in some self-promotion.
“All of the things that conservatives talked about, we just did it and it worked,” Ms. Noem said. “Our economy took off”
Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, who delivered a widely panned response to President Biden’s State of the Union address this year, assailed Democrats. Under the current administration, “prices are high and expectations are low,” she said, adding: “This is pain for millions of Americans.”
transcript
0:00/0:31
Under Biden-Harris, prices are high. And expectations, well, they’re low. Grocery prices are up more than 21 percent. Electricity is up 31 percent. Gas is up 48 percent. Mortgage rates have more than doubled. And rent is skyrocketing. To me, these aren’t just numbers. This is pain for millions of Americans.
Video player loading
Her speech drew a low-key response. By contrast, Mr. Scott, who had been on Trump’s list of potential vice-presidential candidates, commanded the attention of the crowd from the moment he stepped onto the stage.
“Wow,” he said. “Wow!”
“If you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday you better be believing right now,” he said, adding: “Our God still saves. Still delivers. And he still sets free.”
transcript
0:00/0:42
If you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday, you better be believing right now. Thank God Almighty that we live in a country that still believes in the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega. On Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back up on his feet and he roared. Oh yeah, he roared.
Video player loading
Mr. Youngkin’s comparisons between his own political success in Virginia and what he predicted would happen with Trump suggested his own political ambitions. “Eight years ago, there was an outsider, a businessman who stepped out of his career to rebuild a great nation with the strongest economy,” he said. That outsider businessman was Donald J. Trump.
“I believe Virginia will this year elect another outsider businessman as president of the United States,” he said.
Jonathan Weisman
July 16, 2024, 12:11 a.m. ETJuly 16, 2024
July 16, 2024, 12:11 a.m. ET
Jonathan WeismanReporting from Milwaukee
A Teamsters boss delivers a rare speech to the Republican convention.
Sean O’Brien speaks at a lectern. He is wearing a blue suit jacket with a pink tie.
Sean O’Brien closed the first night of the Republican National Convention with an address that was decidedly not the usual Republican fare, which he called attention to by telling the crowd in Milwaukee that he was the first president of the Teamsters union to address such a gathering.
Mr. O’Brien acknowledged at the outset that his presence had roiled his union, angered many on the left and sparked protests from anti-union voices on the right. He had asked for invitations to address the conventions of both parties, and he has not yet received a response from the Democrats, who gather next month.
His praise of former President Donald J. Trump — “In light of what happened to him on Saturday, he has proven to be one tough S.O.B.,” Mr. O’Brien said — will not sit well with some leaders of his 1.3 million-member union. Nor will his praise for some other Republicans, including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York.
But the Teamsters leader also laced into corporate America for having what he called no allegiance to the United States. He lamented that “Americans vote for a union but can’t get a union contract,” and he mourned workers who are fired for labor organizing.
“That is economic terrorism at its worst,” Mr. O’Brien said — rhetoric not usually heard in the halls of a Republican convention.
At first Mr. O’Brien’s remarks were well-received, particularly as he talked about the criticism he would receive from Democrats for speaking at the convention. But as he continued to speak, the audience fell largely quiet, a marked contrast to the enthusiastic applause and cheers for other speakers.
A few moments that were clearly intended as applause lines were greeted with just a few claps or outright silence. And as the speech went on, some in the auditorium turned away from Mr. O’Brien to look instead at Mr. Trump, who was seated on a riser toward the back of the room.
Many in organized labor say Mr. Trump was no friend of labor as president, while President Biden has done pretty much all the unions of asked for, including signing into law a more than $30 billion bailout for the Teamsters’ embattled pension fund.
One rank-and-file Teamster responded to the address on social media: “A true Teamster Leader would not be at the Republican National Convention under any circumstances,” wrote Keith Gleason, a Chicago member. “Biden helped save our pensions, not Trump.”
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 11:29 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 11:29 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Trump, in his first appearance since an assassination attempt, revels in cheers.
transcript
0:00/0:29
Trump Makes R.N.C. Entrance With Bandaged Ear
Former President Donald J. Trump made his first public appearance since the assassination attempt on Saturday at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
We are here tonight in one purpose. And that is to elect Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States.
Video player loading
Former President Donald J. Trump’s entrance into the Republican National Convention on Monday night carried an added emotional weight.
Two days after he was injured in an assassination attempt, he made his first public appearance at about 10 p.m. Eastern, a large square bandage covering his wounded right ear.
A camera trailed him from backstage, where he looked somber as he waited on a red carpet. Then, as Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the U.S.A.,” Mr. Trump strode onto the floor of Fiserv Forum, saw the crowd on its feet and broke out in a wide grin.
He climbed stairs to a box where he was met by his family, top supporters and his newly minted running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.
But it was the crowd that held Mr. Trump’s focus. As he did just moments after being shot at, Mr. Trump pumped his fist. He clapped, waved, and looked genuinely grateful.
As Mr. Greenwood sang his final stanza, Mr. Vance bounced on his heels and patted Mr. Trump on the back. And Mr. Trump seemed briefly overwhelmed, squinting and looking as if he were holding back a tear.
The song over, the crowd filled the silence, Republican delegates pumping their fists and chanting, “Fight! Fight!” — replaying Mr. Trump’s defiant shouts in Butler, Pa., on Saturday — a call that is quickly becoming a rallying cry.
Maya King
July 15, 2024, 11:20 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 11:20 p.m. ET
Maya King
Prominent Black Republicans made a prime-time pitch for Trump.
A wide view of the convention stage, with Byron Donalds standing behind a lectern and crowd members raising fists and holding up signs in front of the stage.
An all-male lineup of Black elected officials addressed the Republican National Convention during its prime-time session on Monday night, showcasing the party’s most prominent Black figures as it aims to make inroads with nonwhite voters.
Five Black conservatives, including Mark Robinson, the North Carolina lieutenant governor and candidate for governor; Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina; and Representatives Byron Donalds of Florida, Wesley Hunt of Texas and John James of Michigan took the convention stage with speeches that focused largely on their personal stories, President Biden’s perceived policy failures in Black communities and their unwavering support for former President Donald Trump.
Most of the men mentioned their families’ experiences with the racial segregation of the Jim Crow era and the low-income single mothers who raised them. But they also celebrated the personal and professional triumphs they have enjoyed — both Mr. Hunt and Mr. James underlined their West Point bona fides, while Mr. Scott spoke of his work in the U.S. Senate.
They also levied thinly veiled criticisms against Democrats.
“Black people were sold on hope,” Mr. James said. “Now our streets are rife with crime, our kids can’t read, and illegals are getting better help from Democrats in four days than we have gotten in 400 years.” He later quipped, “If you don’t vote Donald Trump, you ain’t Black” — an allusion to Mr. Biden’s assertion four years ago that Black voters “ain’t Black” if they were considering voting for Mr. Trump.
And all underlined the need for Mr. Trump to return to the White House, arguing that it would improve Black communities.
Wesley Hunt smiles broadly and rests his hands on a lectern.
“This November, we are not deciding simply the fate for the next four years — we are setting a course for the next 40 years,” said Mr. Scott, the only Black Republican U.S. senator and a onetime vice-presidential contender. He drew the most applause from the audience when he declared, “America is not a racist country!”
The spotlight on Black male conservatives comes as the Republican Party seeks to make inroads with Black communities, particularly Black men. Mr. Trump won more than 12 percent of Black men in 2020, according to exit polls. And current surveys of the presidential race show that growing numbers of Black voters are interested in supporting Mr. Trump this November.
Black conservatives have sought to take advantage of this enthusiasm gap with appeals to Black men, whose support they believe they can build upon to stunt Democrats’ progress at the margins. Mr. Hunt and Mr. Donalds have coordinated a handful of events geared toward Black voter outreach, including events at cigar bars in Philadelphia and Atlanta, the Democratic heartbeats of two battleground states. Black Republicans are also hosting several Black outreach events in the Milwaukee area this week.
Asked about these efforts during a Bloomberg round-table discussion in Milwaukee on Monday, Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia said that “there’s definitely an opportunity” for Republicans to appeal to Black voters this November.
A lot of Mr. Trump’s message “is resonating with people,” he said.
Amber Rose, a mixed-race model and a former partner of the rapper Kanye West, also addressed the crowd on Monday. In her remarks, she said that while she had once been skeptical of Mr. Trump, she had realized she agreed with many of his policies after looking into him herself.
“That’s when it hit me,” she said to cheers from the crowd. “These are my people. This is where I belong. I let go of my fear of judgment, of being misunderstood, of getting attacked by the left, and I put the red hat on, too.”
Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, disagreed with Ms. Rose’s comments: “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to line the pockets of millionaires like Rose at the expense of actual Black communities, and those are the facts.”
Theodore Schleifer
July 15, 2024, 11:18 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 11:18 p.m. ET
Theodore SchleiferReporting from Milwaukee
Here comes the Elon Musk money. Musk tonight donated what looks like $100,000 to the fund to help victims of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. He made two separate $50,000 donations, according to the authorized GoFundMe page. Also making two $50,000 donations: the Citadel chief executive Ken Griffin, who has sometimes been critical of Trump.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:59 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:59 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Donald Trump got another round of cheers as he left the arena, waving to the crowd as he descended the stairs from his box.
Shane Goldmacher
July 15, 2024, 10:55 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:55 p.m. ET
Shane GoldmacherReporting from Milwaukee
Some supporters are holding fists aloft at Trump when he stands.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:55 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:55 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Michael Whatley, the chair of the Republican National Committee, congratulated J.D. Vance on his nomination as vice president. Vance stood, waved and put his hand to his heart in the gesture of gratitude.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:56 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:56 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Whatley then did the same for Trump, who stood, applauded and reached out and took Vance’s hand. And we are now adjourned for the day, until tomorrow’s programming.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:51 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:51 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Before delivering a closing benediction, the Rev. James A. Roemke offered the crowd a Trump impression. “You’re going to be blessed. You’re going to be so tired of being blessed, I guarantee it,” he said. Then he did the little dance and wiggle that Trump sometimes does when he likes the music playing at his events.
Neil Vigdor
July 15, 2024, 10:49 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:49 p.m. ET
Neil VigdorReporting from Milwaukee
Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who was on Donald Trump’s running-mate shortlist, told CNN tonight that Trump’s resolve in the moments after the assassination attempt on Saturday would be etched into history. “That’s going to be in kids’ school books a hundred years from now,” he said. He described his conversation on Monday with Trump about not being chosen as positive. He also said that the former president called him “Mr. Secretary” in jest, possibly hinting at a cabinet opportunity, though Burgum said he remained focused on his final 152 days as governor.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:47 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:47 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
One interesting thing about the seating arrangement in Donald Trump’s box: Because J.D. Vance is on his left, every time Trump turns to talk to his new running mate cameras catch a glimpse of the large bandage covering his right ear.
Shane Goldmacher
July 15, 2024, 10:45 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:45 p.m. ET
Shane GoldmacherReporting from Milwaukee
Inside the convention hall, a fair number of attendees are not facing the stage. They have turned, instead, to stare at Trump.
Jazmine Ulloa
July 15, 2024, 10:45 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:45 p.m. ET
Jazmine UlloaReporting from Milwaukee
The R.N.C. roster of headliners today included no Latino elected leaders, though the economy remains the No. 1 issue for Latino voters in the United States. Latinos, the largest group of multiethnic and multiracial voters in the nation, made up 10 percent of voters in 2020 and are at the center of a tug-of-war in this presidential election between Republicans and Democrats.
Rebecca Davis O’Brien
July 15, 2024, 10:40 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:40 p.m. ET
Rebecca Davis O’BrienReporting from Milwaukee
Tucker Carlson helped broker the meeting on Monday morning between former President Donald J. Trump and the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., two people briefed on the matter said. Carlson, who is with Trump at the R.N.C. in Milwaukee tonight, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shane Goldmacher
July 15, 2024, 10:40 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:40 p.m. ET
Shane GoldmacherReporting from Milwaukee
news Analysis
In J.D. Vance, Donald Trump selects an inheritor.
In a black-and-white photo, two men in suits hold back curtains as J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha, shown from behind, begin to walk into an arena.
For nearly nine years, Donald J. Trump has been the singular face of Republican politics and the undisputed leader of the Make America Great Again movement. On Monday, the former president came as close as he may ever come to anointing a successor.
The choice of J.D. Vance as Mr. Trump’s running mate, a politician nearly 40 years his junior, immediately vaults the first-term senator to the forefront of a G.O.P. future that is not so far away.
If elected in November, Mr. Trump, 78, can serve only a single term — the 22nd Amendment states that no person shall be elected president more than twice — a rarity for a candidate naming a potential vice president. That short tenure has added extra urgency to the question of what comes next for Trumpism, a movement inextricably tethered to one man who has so thoroughly transformed the Republican Party.
Mr. Vance, 39, is the first millennial to make a major presidential ticket, a Marine veteran and a politician who has thoroughly remade himself as a full-throated MAGA enthusiast. In recent months, it was Mr. Vance’s aggressive defense of Trumpism and Mr. Trump, even on mainstream news outlets, that helped him stand out for the former president as a worthy inheritor.
“Trump is going to hold on to the MAGA baton for as long as he can,” said Chip Saltsman, a longtime Republican strategist. But Mr. Vance, he added, is “somebody that’s going to have an inside track, a head start on getting the MAGA baton in four years.”
The changing of the ideological guard was clearly, and at times uncomfortably, apparent on the convention floor on Monday. Mentions of Mr. Vance’s name earned roars of approval. The face of Senator Mitch McConnell, an avatar of the pre-Trump G.O.P., inspired boos when he appeared on the big screens above delegates.
Mr. Trump, whose fame soared from hosting the television show “The Apprentice” for more than a decade, has long been leery of anointing anyone a successor. He made his choice of Mr. Vance after months of deliberations and less than 48 hours after an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania that has rattled the nation.
“President Trump and I have talked about this a great deal and I feel certain J.D. feels the same way,” said Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, a close Republican ally of the former president. “What they’re focused on right now is not some sort of long-term vision, it’s about November.”
Still, as Alex Conant, a veteran Republican strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns, put it, “The next presidential race starts in January 2025.”
Jeff Kaufmann, the chairman of the Republican Party in Iowa, where the nominating contest will begin yet again in 2028, hailed Mr. Vance as representing “a new generation of Donald Trump policies.”
Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa called the choice “inspired.”
“I’m 41 and J.D.’s 39, right? So I think about that next generation of Republican leader — I’m inspired by this pick,” Ms. Hinson said. “I’m sure he’ll be back in Iowa a lot.”
Any succession plan is far from secured.
As Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s vice president, can attest, the balancing act of serving as the No. 2 to Mr. Trump is uniquely perilous. Mr. Pence spent almost the entirety of his four years as a loyal lieutenant. Yet his decision to certify the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021 — as Trump supporters constructed gallows for the vice president outside the Capitol — forever tarnished the Trump-Pence relationship.
Mr. Vance, notably, has said he would not have certified the election.
J.D. Vance raising his fist as he holds a microphone while standing onstage in front of screens bearing the logo for Turning Point Action in shades of pink and blue.
Mr. Vance is not viewed as the politically safe pick. He has been serving in public office for just 18 months. He has never been through a presidential run, unlike the other top contenders, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota.
Mr. Vance has also embraced some more radical and far-reaching ideas aligned with Mr. Trump, including once calling for the firing of “every civil servant in the administrative state” to replace them with “our people.” More recently, in a post on X, he blamed President Biden and the Democrats for rhetoric that “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Not so long ago, Mr. Vance’s acid pen was trained on Mr. Trump.
Back in 2016, Mr. Vance called him “cultural heroin” and even compared him to Hitler. After the election, Mr. Vance’s best-selling book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was almost required reading for liberals seeking to understand how Democrats had fumbled away an election in which working-class white voters turned out in record numbers to elect Mr. Trump.
Now Mr. Trump is betting there is no one more devoted than a convert.
Republicans hope Mr. Vance’s elevation to the ticket will cement the new demographic appeals of the Republican Party to the working class. In his book, Mr. Vance recounted his own hardscrabble upbringing in poor corners of Ohio and Kentucky.
“We’ve seen a movement in the Republican Party to appeal to more blue-collar workers — it’s a continuation of that,” said Gov. Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, who has disagreed sharply with both Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance on some issues, including aid to Ukraine. Mr. DeWine said the pick showed that the former president “wants someone who is closely aligned to him on policy.”
Mr. Biden’s first remarks about Mr. Vance on Monday were to tag him as “a clone of Trump on the issues.”
J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha, standing amid a gaggle of cameras and attendees on the floor of the Republican National Convention arena.
The choice of Mr. Vance was also a victory for the more isolationist forces pressing for an America First ideology. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who is slated to speak at the convention later in the week, was among those who said they were thrilled.
At an event on Monday, Mr. Carlson said the strongest case for the first-term senator was in the enemies he had amassed. “Every bad person I’ve ever met in a lifetime in Washington was aligned against J.D. Vance,” said Mr. Carlson, an outspoken opponent of American military entanglements abroad.
At least in the immediate term, Mr. Vance is expected to amplify rather than reshape Mr. Trump’s vision. But he arrives on the ticket aligned, on both foreign and domestic matters, focused less on slashing spending and more on curbing the administrative state, and with a skepticism of intervening abroad.
“He is somebody who represents what we need more of in politics, which is someone who is smart, independent-minded, energetic,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the Trump-aligned former presidential candidate, said on Monday. “The one negative is that leaves one fewer of those people in the Senate who are already scarce enough to push our America First agenda.”
Mr. Ramaswamy was born and raised in Ohio and signaled his interest in the Senate seat. If Mr. Vance is elected vice president, Mr. DeWine will then appoint an interim senator.
Mr. Vance also has had some key Silicon Valley financiers in his corner, including David Sacks, who spoke at the Republican convention on Monday, the multibillionaire Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who contributed $10 million to a pro-Vance super PAC in 2022.
Blake Masters, who ran for Senate from Arizona in 2022, also with $10 million in Thiel support, praised Mr. Vance’s “unique vision.”
“It’s not just about what conservatism has been in the past, which is obviously an important part of conservatism, but it’s about where do we go in the future,” Mr. Masters said. “I think that is what made Trump so different in 2016. He was actually talking about things in a different way than Republican politicians who had come before.”
Mr. Masters lost his 2022 race. He is running for a House seat this year with Mr. Vance’s backing, while Mr. Trump has endorsed his rival. Mr. Masters mockingly appropriated one of Vice President Kamala Harris’s favorite sayings to sum up the Vance pick.
“J.D. is what can be, unburdened by what has been,” he said.
Jonathan Weisman
July 15, 2024, 10:40 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:40 p.m. ET
Jonathan WeismanReporting from Milwaukee
Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters president, said he was the first leader of his union to address a Republican convention. While he praised Trump as “one tough S.O.B.,” he laced his address with castigations of corporate America — not the usual rhetoric of a Republican gathering.
Theodore Schleifer
July 15, 2024, 10:34 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:34 p.m. ET
Theodore SchleiferReporting from Milwaukee
An interesting moment just now. J.D. Vance clapped at the remark from the head of the Teamsters that the Republican Party “must change” and be less hostile to unions. Trump did not.
Ken Bensinger
July 15, 2024, 10:31 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:31 p.m. ET
Ken Bensinger
“To my beloved Hispanic community, it’s time to wake up and smell the cafecito,” said Linda Fornos, one of the “Everyday American” speakers chosen by the R.N.C. to speak tonight. Fornos, a Nicaraguan immigrant, was introduced as a Latino American. She talked about how she and her two children hold down six jobs among them to make ends meet, blaming Biden’s economy for their struggles. Under Trump, she said, “we prospered.” Fornos said that she made a “mistake” in 2020 by voting for Biden, but that this time she was supporting Trump.
Ken Bensinger
July 15, 2024, 10:24 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:24 p.m. ET
Ken Bensinger
Amber Rose, the model and entertainment figure who once dated Kanye West, told the R.N.C. crowd about her journey to becoming a Republican, relating how her father, a veteran, convinced her that Trump wasn’t racist. “These are my people,” she said to cheers in the arena. “This is where I belong.”
transcript
0:00/0:23
I realized Donald Trump and his supporters don’t care if you’re Black, white, gay or straight. It’s all love. And that’s when it hit me. These are my people. This is where I belong.
Video player loading
Linda Qiu
July 15, 2024, 10:12 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:12 p.m. ET
Linda Qiu
“They hired 85,000 new I.R.S. agents to harass hard-working Americans.”
— Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee
This is misleading.
The 85,000 figure refers to a May 2021 estimate from the Treasury Department of the total number of employees — not just auditors — the I.R.S. proposes to hire over the next 10 years with additional funding requested. And while the I.R.S. plans to conduct more audits, wealthy Americans and businesses will bear the brunt of that scrutiny, not, as Republicans have suggested, working families.
Read the full fact check.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:08 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:08 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Members of the crowd began pumping their fists and shouting “fight,” a nod to the gesture Trump made after he was hit by a bullet in the ear. The moment has become a rallying cry for his supporters and delegates.
transcript
0:00/0:08
“Fight, fight, fight!”
Video player loading
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:06 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:06 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Vance has been bouncing on his heels throughout all this. Trump appeared to get tears in his eyes watching Lee Greenwood, who called his presence here an act of defiance against a gunman who tried to kill him.
Video player loading
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:05 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:05 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Trump is now standing next to Vance, his running mate. It’s the first time the two have appeared together since Vance was selected.
Shane Goldmacher
July 15, 2024, 10:04 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:04 p.m. ET
Shane GoldmacherReporting from Milwaukee
Trump has long entered events and rallies to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” But one line hits differently after Saturday’s attempted assassination: “I’d thank my lucky stars to be living here today.”
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:04 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:04 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Trump shook a few hands before moving to J.D. Vance, who patted him on the back.
transcript
0:00/0:29
We are here tonight in one purpose. And that is to elect Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States.
Video player loading
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:03 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:03 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
The audience jumped to its feet as Trump started walking in. It’s an entrance akin to pro wrestling: He was walking down a hallway as a camera tracked his mood.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:04 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:04 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Trump started to smile as he entered the arena. He climbed the stairs into his box, then pumped his fist and clapped as he acknowledged the crowd.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:03 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:03 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
Lee Greenwood is here singing the song Trump uses as his rally entrance music — “God Bless the USA” — as he enters.
Michael Gold
July 15, 2024, 10:01 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 10:01 p.m. ET
Michael GoldReporting from Milwaukee
The crowd here has grown sleepy after hearing the same talking points on the economy for more than two hours. Trump’s appearance has energized them.
Linda Qiu
July 15, 2024, 9:57 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 9:57 p.m. ET
Linda Qiu
“When Donald Trump was president, I helped him spread economic prosperity with the largest tax cut in American history.”
— Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee
This is false.
The $1.5 trillion tax cut, enacted in December 2017, ranks below at least half a dozen others by several metrics. The 1981 tax cut enacted under President Ronald Reagan is the largest as a percentage of the economy and by its reduction to federal revenue. The 2012 cut enacted under President Barack Obama amounted to the largest cut in inflation-adjusted dollars: $321 billion a year.
Jazmine Ulloa
Hamed Aleaziz
July 15, 2024, 6:52 p.m. ETJuly 15, 2024
July 15, 2024, 6:52 p.m. ET
Jazmine Ulloa and Hamed Aleaziz
Jazmine Ulloa reported from Milwaukee, and Hamed Aleaziz from Healdsburg, Calif.
Former Trump officials defend his immigration policies and vow to ‘take back the narrative.’
Thomas Homan wearing a dark suit, standing at a lectern and holding a microphone.
Onstage inside a dimly lit baroque concert hall on Monday, Thomas D. Homan and Mark Morgan, top immigration officials in former President Donald J. Trump’s administration, made it clear that there was one issue on which Republicans would be unlikely to tone down their rhetoric: immigration.
In an hourlong panel discussion at the Republican National Convention, the two leaders angrily condemned people they described as criminals, murderers and rapists pouring over the border; highlighted the deaths of young women killed by undocumented immigrants; and unapologetically defended Mr. Trump’s most controversial immigration policies. Those included a 2017 initiative that stirred international outcry when thousands of families were separated at the nation’s southern border.
“It was zero tolerance — the reason it was done is to try to save some lives,” Mr. Homan said at the event, which was hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Mr. Homan, who served as Mr. Trump’s acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, went on to denounce President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for policies he said had led to rises in human trafficking cases and deaths of migrants in the desert, where much of the border lies. “Don’t tell me this administration’s policy is humane,” he added. “Hate me all you want — I am doing all the right things for the right reasons.”
Mr. Morgan, the former acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, urged attendees “to take back the narrative on immigration.” He contended that he was not against deterring legal migration but rather that he supported enhancing border security.
The panelists echoed the vitriolic, hard-line approach the Republican Party has assumed toward the nation’s borders since Mr. Trump won his first presidential nomination, in 2016. The Heritage Foundation, which has helped shape Republican administrations since the Reagan presidency, spearheaded Project 2025, a set of policy proposals from conservative groups.
Although there are some areas of disagreement between the Trump campaign and Project 2025, immigration is one issue on which they align.
Voters have continued to cite immigration as among their top issues in the 2024 presidential election. The Biden administration has struggled with the increasing number of migrants crossing the southern border. In December alone, border agents made nearly 250,000 apprehensions, and there were days when they made a record 5,000 arrests. Since then, border numbers have plummeted.
The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit based in Washington, found that the Biden administration had gone to great lengths in focusing its resources on deporting and returning migrants to their home countries.
“Combining deportations with expulsions and other actions to block migrants without permission to enter the United States, the Biden administration’s nearly 4.4 million repatriations are already more than any single presidential term since the George W. Bush administration,” the group wrote in a report. In Mr. Bush’s second term, it found, that number stood at five million.
On Monday, Mr. Homan and Mr. Morgan sought to cast Democrats as hypocritical for denigrating Mr. Trump’s hard-line approach as racist and immoral. The two men also downplayed the sweep of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and campaign promise to begin the largest mass-scale deportation effort in the nation’s history.
Mr. Homan argued that a second Trump administration would not be sweeping neighborhoods looking for immigrants or building “concentration camps” to hold them.
“Let me be clear — none of that is going to happen,” Mr. Homan said.
He said that a second Trump administration would prioritize criminals for deportation, but also said that immigrants who are in the country illegally had broken the law and should be looking over their shoulder. “Bottom line is, under President Trump, he’s still going to prioritize national security threats and criminals,” he said.
Mr. Morgan pointed his finger at the audience as he listed the names of young women “who have died at the hands of” migrants. “Say her name, say her name,” he said. “I feel myself getting fired up and pissed off right now.”
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Jonathan Weisman
Catch up on what happened on the first day of the convention.
Former President Donald J. Trump holding up a raised fist as he stands alongside Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, who is smiling, as the crowd behind them claps at the Republican National Convention.
An emotional first day of the Republican National Convention ended Monday night with an official ticket for 2024, Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance, but it was Mr. Trump’s triumphal prime-time emergence in the arena, just two days after a failed assassination attempt, that might prove the indelible moment of the whole | event.
The opening session signaled how unified and confident the G.O.P. was behind its preternaturally resilient nominee, and set the tone for a four-day conclave that will project Republican strength and conviction that a red wave is in the making.
At 9 p.m., as the country star Lee Greenwood sang the anthem that Mr. Trump has made his own, “God Bless the U.S.A.,” the former president stepped into view at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, a gauze bandage over the ear wounded by his would-be assassin, his eyes seemingly close to tears. It was his first public appearance since the shooting, and the applause was rapturous from the delegates, elected officials and Republican elites, many of whom have doubted his leadership in the past.
transcript
0:00/0:29
We are here tonight in one purpose. And that is to elect Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States.
Video player loading
“You will not take this man down,” Mr. Greenwood said, attributing the former president’s survival to divine intervention. “He has the courage, the strength and he will be the next president of the United States.”
Here are four takeaways from the convention’s first day:
It’s Trump’s party.
There was a time when Mr. Trump did not like to share the spotlight. On Monday, with a fresh bandage on his right ear, he showed no insecurities atop a political party he has molded into his own, despite 34 felony convictions, two impeachments, civil judgments for business fraud, sexual abuse and defamation, and pending indictments tied to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
As Mr. Greenwood sang, Mr. Trump shook hands with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality; Representative Byron Donalds of Florida; his sons Don Jr. and Eric; and his running mate, Mr. Vance. For the final hour of the session, as others took to the podium, the camera repeatedly swung back to the nominee, who sat beaming. He never stepped to a microphone.
After the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, a bipartisan majority of the House voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting an insurrection. Most Republican senators declined to convict him, a verdict that would have ended his political career. They did not think it would be wise or necessary.
On Monday, Mr. Trump’s political comeback reached the necessary milestone of renomination and party unification. He feels tantalizingly close to the final step: returning to the White House.
J.D. Vance smiling and holding his thumb up as Republican attendees cheer at the convention.
J.D. Vance was chosen for legacy, not electoral gain.
Eight years ago, Mr. Vance said he feared Mr. Trump could become “America’s Hitler.” On Monday, Mr. Trump anointed Mr. Vance, a 39-year-old freshman senator from Ohio, the heir apparent of his “America First” movement, trusting that his party control was absolute and his election was secure.
As a vice-presidential nominee from a reliably Republican state, Mr. Vance may not be much help securing any of the battleground states needed to deliver Mr. Trump a second term.
But as the first millennial running mate, Mr. Vance has a long political future ahead of him. And no one can articulate Mr. Trump’s vision of “America First” better than the smooth-talking senator, who viscerally understands a platform ostensibly designed to lift working-class Americans by crushing competition from immigrants, stopping imports through trade protectionism, and ending American entanglements abroad.
Mr. Vance, of course, is not the first Republican who was once harshly critical of Mr. Trump and is now obsequiously respectful. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were at least as brutal. But Mr. Trump passed over those three competitors in 2016 to choose as his running mate Mike Pence, then the governor of Indiana, who was always content to stand in Mr. Trump’s shadow.
This time, Mr. Trump looked beyond the personal and political as he sought to ensure his brand of isolationist nationalism survives long after his departure.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina speaking on Monday as attendees cheer and hold up signs.
Republicans try to chisel away at the Democratic coalition.
Black men dominated the early sessions, a Latina took the stage just after Mr. Trump’s emotional entry, a union leader gave the final speech, and a California lawyer closed the night with a Sikh prayer.
They all hailed from voting blocs core to the Democratic coalition.
The flurry of Black male speakers was particularly striking. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina, Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas and Representative John James of Michigan came one after another, followed later by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Mr. Donalds. Trump campaign officials are determined to peel off a significant chunk of Black male votes from the Democrats in November, but they’d better hope those voters were tuned in Monday.
The closing speech by Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters president, was even more remarkable. He started it by saying that no Teamsters leader had ever addressed a Republican convention, and he acknowledged that his presence had divided his own union.
A significant percentage of the Teamsters’ 1.3 million members is already with Mr. Trump, but the leadership of organized labor has been a bulwark of support for President Biden. If nothing else, the Republicans’ invitation to Mr. O’Brien undermined the image of a united union front backing the Democrats.
President Biden is on defense.
Since a gunman nearly took Mr. Trump’s life, Mr. Biden has been in a difficult political position. He has tried to project statesmanship, addressing the nation with an appeal to unity and a plea to turn down the political heat. He called Mr. Trump to personally express his support, and temporarily pulled down political advertisements.
On Monday night, as one Republican speaker after another castigated Mr. Biden’s leadership, the president was questioned on NBC News about whether he had contributed to the violence of American politics.
Mr. Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt that it had been “a mistake” to tell donors a week ago that he wanted to “put Trump in a bull’s-eye.”
But he added: “How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says? Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody? Look, I’m not engaged in that rhetoric. Now, my opponent is engaged in that rhetoric.”
Republicans have continued to suggest that Mr. Biden’s attacks on Mr. Trump incited the gunman, whose motives in fact are still unknown.
If Mr. Biden was playing defense, Republicans showed no reluctance to lace into the president.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia declared, “The Democrat economy is of, by, and for illegal aliens.” Charlie Kirk, the youthful founder of the pro-Trump group Turning Point U.S.A., said Mr. Biden had embraced a “fake, pathetic, mutilated version of the American dream.”
July 16, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ETJuly 16, 2024
July 16, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET
Campbell Robertson, Kevin Williams and Madeleine Hordinski
Campbell Robertson and Kevin Williams reported from Middletown, Ohio.
The Ohio steel town that shaped J.D. Vance’s life and politics.
Middletown’s downtown, with substantial brick buildings and stores.
Middletown, Ohio, a small city of tree-lined streets surrounding a sprawling steel mill, seems as far from the towering skyscrapers of New York as it gets.
But on Monday, they were suddenly linked: Donald Trump, a real estate heir, tapped Middletown’s most famous son, J.D. Vance, as his running mate.
Millions of people first learned of Middletown from “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Vance’s best-selling memoir, and the Hollywood movie that followed.
Mr. Vance, 39, wrote about his chaotic upbringing there, raised in the intermittent care of a single mother struggling with addiction. In his depiction, Middletown was “little more than a relic of American industrial glory,” a place “hemorrhaging jobs and hope.”
His bleak portrait of the city, just north of Cincinnati, was initially held up as a reference guide for urbanites on the coasts desperate to understand Mr. Trump’s appeal among the struggling white working class.
Mr. Vance’s explanation was a stark one: some of Middletown’s woes were caused by the damaging decisions of government and big business, but the deeper problems lay in the fatalism, indolence and victim mentality of the city’s white working class.
The problems in his community “run far deeper than macroeconomic trends and policy,” Mr. Vance wrote in his book. “There is a lack of agency here — a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself.”
J.D. Vance stands on a brightly lit stage, gesturing and smiling.
Middletown, which has begun to stabilize after decades of decline, was at its lowest point in the years that Mr. Vance chronicled. Some people in the nicer parts of town thought Mr. Vance had been unfair, said Jason Moore, 39, a truck driver who was a year behind Mr. Vance in high school. But, he said, “people in this part of town would say he nailed it.”
When Mr. Vance’s grandparents moved to Middletown from eastern Kentucky in the 1940s, the city was in what most people say were its golden years. A half-dozen paper mills ran alongside the Armco steel mill, and the business owners lived in grand houses in town, bankrolling cultural festivals and a local symphony.
Most of the steelworkers — a mix of first and second-generation European immigrants, Black families who had moved up from the Deep South and white families from Appalachia — were represented by an independent and locally run union.
Middletown was, as Look Magazine declared in 1957, an “All-America City,” and many of its residents thought of it that way.
Mr. Vance’s grandfather, who worked at the mill, had been among those who found a foothold of economic security in Middletown, moving his family into a two-story house across from a neighborhood park. But that stability was fleeting. Mr. Vance’s mother had a child as a teenager, divorced, remarried and in 1984, gave birth to Mr. Vance, just as the city’s prosperity was beginning to founder.
The grounds of the steel mill, with large, older-looking gray buildings.
The steel mill in Middletown.
A mural in downtown Middletown.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. steel industry collapsed across the Midwest. The Middletown steelworks were no exception. In 1985, Armco’s corporate leadership decamped for the East Coast, draining the city of money, while the steel mill went through round after round of layoffs. Those who kept their jobs, some former employees said, found it an ever more miserable and more dangerous place to work.
Middletown struggled. Government-subsidized rentals began proliferating in the empty houses at a rate the city’s social services were not equipped to handle. Shopping centers were boarded up and the city pools were filled with concrete. Many residents turned to drugs, including Mr. Vance’s mother, who became addicted to narcotics. Her life became erratic as she cycled among boyfriends, and Mr. Vance sought refuge with “Mamaw,” his hard-edge but protective grandmother.
This was the Middletown Mr. Vance knew in his childhood.
“That was how most of us lived,” said Rodney Muterspaw, 55, who spent decades on the city’s police force and five years as police chief.
Mr. Muterspaw went on to describe some of the larger context of the city’s distress. He recalled with regret that law enforcement responded to the growing drug epidemic by focusing disproportionately on low-income neighborhoods. And he remembered being sent as a police officer to monitor locked-out workers picketing the steel mill, essentially ordered, he said, to spy on “our dads, our brothers, our uncles.” Once an All-America city, Middletown appeared to have turned against itself.
Rodney Muterspaw sits on a couch with throw pillows, looking out a window.
“I’ve never seen a city that loves to hate itself as much as Middletown does,” Rodney Muterspaw, a former police chief, said.
Various attempts to lift the city’s fortunes failed, reinforcing a pessimism among many residents. In his book, Mr. Vance mentioned that efforts to revive the downtown were “futile,” a cynicism about government intentions that is far from rare.
“I’ve never seen a city that loves to hate itself as much as Middletown does,” Mr. Muterspaw said.
Some of Mr. Vance’s teachers did not recall any signs of Mr. Vance’s struggles at home, though by high school, he wrote in his memoir, he had found some stability living with his grandmother.
At least one teacher remembered his growing political consciousness.
“His grasp and understanding of government and politics was extraordinary,” said Mike Stratton, 79, who taught Mr. Vance’s Advanced Placement English class at Middletown High.
When class discussion turned to politics, Mr. Stratton recalled, Mr. Vance was an outspoken Republican: supporting limited government and then-President George W. Bush. Mr. Vance’s views were fairly standard Republican fare at the time, said Mr. Stratton, a Democrat.
“Middletown was a hotbed of conservative Republicanism back then, but J.D. Vance was a moderate,” he said.
Mr. Stratton said that these days, Mr. Vance’s political rhetoric, with its hard-right populism, seems quite different from what he heard in his classroom more than two decades ago.
But things are improving, with retail opening up in downtown Middletown.
Mr. Vance graduated from high school in 2003, when the city was still at its nadir, and joined the Marines. He built from there — degrees from Ohio State and Yale Law School, a job at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, election to the U.S. Senate and now a place on a presidential ticket.
This rapid rise was fueled in large part by the success of “Hillbilly Elegy,” which attributed his community’s woes in large part on “a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.”
Mr. Vance speaks differently now, blaming the ills of his community on immigration and elites, a far more populist tone.
A two-story tan house, with a front porch sits in a row with other homes.
A former home of Mr. Vance, center, in Middletown.
Last year, after a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and burned in the industrial town of East Palestine, Ohio, Mr. Vance excoriated the “bicoastal elite,” saying that they use places like East Palestine “for cheap propaganda,” while reserving their sympathy for “Ukrainians, extreme sexual minorities, and criminals.”
Elites, Mr. Vance said, ignored the fact that their prosperity was only possible because of “heartland labor, heartland sweat, and heartland peril.”
That labor never stopped in Middletown, even in the grim years that Mr. Vance described in his book.
The steel mill’s current owner, Cleveland-Cliffs, announced this spring that it was investing nearly $2 billion to upgrade the plant, with $500 million of that coming through a grant from the Biden administration. The plan was cheered by the local of the International Association of Machinists, the union that now represents workers at the mill.
Attempts to turn the city’s fortunes around have continued, and some major projects have gotten underway, including Renaissance Pointe, described as a $200 million “epicenter” for stores, restaurants and hotels.
But reversing four decades of declining fortune is hard work. Downtown, there are brew pubs and a wine bar, but also plenty of empty storefronts.
Ami Vitori, 50, left Middletown after high school. But she came back in 2015, and in recent years has renovated an abandoned building downtown, attracting a restaurant, retail and even a boutique hotel. Mr. Vance praised her efforts in a 2017 New York Times opinion piece, which explained his decision to return to Ohio and open a nonprofit.
That nonprofit has since folded; Mr. Vance now lives in Cincinnati.
“Vance left Middletown behind a long time ago,” Ms. Vitori said. To her, his interest in his hometown nowadays seemed limited to using it as symbol of what he has overcome.
George F. Lang, a Republican state senator who represents Middletown, pushed back on that notion. He pointed out that Mr. Vance had announced his 2022 run for Senate in the city and also opened his regional senate office there. “The most important thing he can do for Middletown,” Mr. Lang said, “is be the example that he is.”
Given Mr. Vance’s ongoing rise to prominence, Ms. Vitori said she hoped for more.
“I honestly hope he’s done what he’s had to do to get where he is,” she said. “And once he’s there, he may actually try to do some good for people and places like Middletown.”
Scenes From the Republican National Convention
Shawn McCreesh
July 16, 2024, 12:57 a.m. ETJuly 16, 2024
July 16, 2024, 12:57 a.m. ET
Shawn McCreesh
A bandaged Trump shows a glimpse of vulnerability.
Donald J. Trump claps his hands. A bandage is visible over his ear.
Not since he descended the golden escalator at the start of his first presidential campaign has Donald J. Trump made an entrance as memorable as Monday night’s.
It was the first time he appeared in public since being rushed off a stage in Western Pennsylvania by Secret Service agents 48 hours earlier, bleeding from the ear after being shot at by a would-be assassin. A gauzy bandage covered his ear, and his slow and purposeful walk across the convention hall was filmed in the style of a boxer entering an arena.
Just as he had mouthed “fight |
A Lot Has Changed for Women Since 2016. What Does That Mean for Kamala Harris?.txt | By Patricia Mazzei, Jenna Russell, Richard Fausset and Christina Morales
July 22, 2024
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
In the eight years since Hillary Clinton failed to win the American presidency, the work force for the first time grew to include more college-educated women than college-educated men. The #MeToo movement exposed sexual harassment and toppled powerful men. The Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.
Will any — or all — of it make a difference for Vice President Kamala Harris?
Ms. Harris seems almost certain to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee after President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election. As such, she faces, fairly or not, some of the same electability questions that Mrs. Clinton confronted in a nation that, unlike many of its peers around the globe, has yet to pick a woman as its leader.
A presidential contest pitting Ms. Harris against former President Donald J. Trump would represent a rematch of sorts: Mr. Trump would again have to run against a woman who held a top administration position and served in the Senate. He defeated Mrs. Clinton in 2016 in spite of her winning the popular vote by a wide margin.
But the dynamics would be unquestionably different. Ms. Harris has neither the political legacy nor the baggage of Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump, having served a turbulent term in office, is now a known quantity. Ms. Harris is Black and of South Asian descent.
And the country is not the same as it was eight long years ago.
“Women are angrier, and that could be motivating,” said Karen Crowley, 64, an independent voter and retired nurse in Concord, N.H., who would not vote for Mr. Trump, did not feel like she could support Mr. Biden and now planned to back Ms. Harris.
Among the motivations Ms. Crowley cited were the demise of Roe v. Wade and comments and actions by Mr. Trump that many women see as sexist and misogynistic. “A woman president might be more possible now,” she said.
Hillary Clinton looks toward Donald Trump as he speaks into a microphone on a debate stage.
But for female voters and activists eager to break that elusive glass ceiling, there was also fear that sexism would remain difficult for Ms. Harris to overcome.
“It’s a patriarchy out there,” Ms. Crowley said. “She’s smart and she’s a prosecutor, but there are a lot of old white men who will want to stop her. The only thing wrong with her is that she’s a woman.”
Discussing the gender of a politician can feel reductive and regressive, especially when it does not seem as relevant in other countries. The United Kingdom has had three female prime ministers. Mexico elected its first female president this year.
Yet when a woman runs for office in the United States, many voters still mention her gender unprompted in interviews, identifying it as a concern — often not for themselves, they say, but for the wider electorate.
Julia Blake, 80, of La Jolla, Calif., said she had spent a lot of time arguing with her book club friends about whether a woman could be elected president. One after the next — professional women, with doctorates and master’s degrees — they said they thought the answer was no. Ms. Blake was indignant with them.
“I said, ‘If women think a woman can’t win, and they repeat that year after year, we will never get a female president,’” said Ms. Blake, who supported Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and also donated to Ms. Harris during the Democratic primary in 2020. “I don’t think they’re giving women enough credit.”
To be sure, party affiliation, not gender, remains most important for many voters. “I would not vote for her,” said Naomi Villalba, 74, a Republican from Dallas who supports Mr. Trump but thinks Ms. Harris a better choice for Democrats than Mr. Biden.
Kamala Harris smiles at a man who is clapping as she walks through an office.
Mr. Biden won 55 percent of the female vote in 2020, compared with Mrs. Clinton’s 54 percent in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. Mr. Trump’s support among women grew slightly to 44 percent in 2020, up from 39 percent in 2016.
The prospect of having Ms. Harris atop the Democratic ticket energized some voters looking to elect a female president. But it also resurfaced old fears about the fact that Mr. Trump had lost to a man (Mr. Biden) but defeated a woman (Mrs. Clinton).
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 7:02 a.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
Trump’s new rival may bring out his harshest instincts.
If ultimately not successful, Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy did change the idea of what was possible, said Christina Wolbrecht, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame who studies women’s voting patterns. Ms. Klobuchar and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts were taken seriously as candidates during the 2020 election, as was Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who challenged Mr. Trump this year.
“That suggests to me that post-Hillary Clinton, people are increasingly comfortable with the idea of a woman president,” Dr. Wolbrecht said.
Forty-two percent of women felt it was at least somewhat important to elect a woman as president in their lifetime, according to a Pew Research Center report last year. In the poll, 39 percent of respondents, both male and female, said a female president would be better at working out compromises and 37 percent said a woman would be better at maintaining a respectful tone in politics. (More than half said that gender did not matter on those measures.)
Ms. Harris appears to have a special bond with Black women in particular, who comprise a key part of the Democratic base and have been especially enthusiastic in their past support for her.
Elizabeth Warren speaks onstage at a town hall event.
Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, director for the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said that much had changed for women since 2016. Concerns over Mr. Trump’s positions on issues like abortion transformed from remote possibility to concrete reality after he took office, she said.
“When he was elected, we were disappointed, we were upset — there were marches, demonstrations, all kinds of things — and we had a good idea what was going to happen,” Dr. Nsiah-Jefferson said. “But now we know what happened.”
Mr. Trump has already signaled that he considers his gender worth highlighting: At one point during the Republican National Convention last week, he walked out to “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” by James Brown.
But Dr. Nsiah-Jefferson thinks that Ms. Harris will also lean in to the fact that she is a woman. “She’s going to talk about the way in which politics and policy impacts on women,” she said.
Some voters would like to lose the gender talk altogether.
“We have to take the emphasis off the gender identification stuff and put it on the person themselves and their own abilities,” said Marilyn McDole of Oregon, Wis., who attended a weekend re-election rally in Stoughton, Wis., for Senator Tammy Baldwin. “Because that’s so stigmatizing and damaging to women. That’s not fair.”
Ms. Harris, Ms. McDole added, has “got experience up the wazoo.”
Several Democratic voters, however, said that a female nominee would help amplify perhaps the party’s strongest issue: abortion access.
Katy Sorenson, 69, a former commissioner in Miami-Dade County, Fla., said the overturning of Roe had been a “galvanizing phenomenon.” “It’s not just abortion; it’s problem pregnancies that have so many women concerned about what they’re going to do, and can they get the health care they need,” she said.
Protesters stand outside the Supreme Court, holding signs with slogans like “Liberate abortion.”
In Raleigh, N.C., Mary Lucas, 36, said that Ms. Harris gave her new motivation to campaign. “My immediate reaction is, ‘How do I get involved?’” Ms. Lucas said.
Women also pointed to societal shifts that might make Ms. Harris’s run different. Dr. Liz Bradt, 64, a retired veterinarian and the chairwoman of the Salem Democratic City Committee in Salem, Mass., said younger people seemed less likely to make judgments based on rigid definitions of male and female.
“Where my generation is like, ‘Male or female, where’s the check box?’ I think the younger generation is more accepting of different genders,” Dr. Bradt said. “That will make a difference.”
Still, Dr. Bradt, who campaigned for Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire, expects a tough road ahead for Ms. Harris. “It’s going to be hard to see what she has to go through,” she said. “I fear for her, like I feared for Hillary.”
Though Mrs. Clinton won the most votes in 2016, some voters said they found her off-putting. Among them was Dr. Maria E. Laurencio, 73, a retired anesthesiologist in Coral Gables, Fla., who was a lifelong Republican until she pinched her nose and voted for Mrs. Clinton.
“Women were not sympathetic to Hillary because a lot of them said she stood by the president,” Dr. Laurencio said about former President Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs. “Hillary tended to be a little arrogant and not so likable, even though she was so prepared.”
Hillary Clinton stands on a stage surrounded by a large crowd.
In 2020, Dr. Laurencio changed her registration to vote for Mr. Biden. Now, she intends to support Ms. Harris. “For me, anything that prevents Mr. Trump from getting to the presidency again, I will go along with,” she said.
And more women are now veterans of political campaigns.
Luisa Wakeman, 57, a flight attendant in suburban Cobb County, Ga., said women like her were relatively new to politics when they campaigned against Mr. Trump in 2016. Now, their informal and largely female-led networks in the area have matured into durable, battle-tested electoral machines.
“I think like many people, I’m feeling invigorated,” she said.
And she said she was impressed by Ms. Harris’s qualifications. “It’s not just because she’s a woman,” she said, “but I’m excited that she will make history.”
Reporting was contributed by Catie Edmondson in Stoughton, Wis., Eduardo Medina in Durham, N.C., and Amy Harmon and Jeremy W. Peters in New York. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
A correction was made on July 22, 2024
:
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified the location of Hillary Clinton’s campaign rally in 2016. It was in Philadelphia, not Washington.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico. More about Patricia Mazzei
Jenna Russell is the lead reporter covering New England for The Times. She is based near Boston. More about Jenna Russell
Richard Fausset, based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice. More about Richard Fausset
Christina Morales is a reporter covering food for The Times. More about Christina Morales
See more on: 2024 Elections, Kamala Harris, Democratic Party
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Patricia Mazzei, Jenna Russell, Richard Fausset and Christina Morales
July 22, 2024
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
In the eight years since Hillary Clinton failed to win the American presidency, the work force for the first time grew to include more college-educated women than college-educated men. The #MeToo movement exposed sexual harassment and toppled powerful men. The Supreme | Court overturned the federal right to abortion.
Will any — or all — of it make a difference for Vice President Kamala Harris?
Ms. Harris seems almost certain to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee after President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election. As such, she faces, fairly or not, some of the same electability questions that Mrs. Clinton confronted in a nation that, unlike many of its peers around the globe, has yet to pick a woman as its leader.
A presidential contest pitting Ms. Harris against former President Donald J. Trump would represent a rematch of sorts: Mr. Trump would again have to run against a woman who held a top administration position and served in the Senate. He defeated Mrs. Clinton in 2016 in spite of her winning the popular vote by a wide margin.
But the dynamics would be unquestionably different. Ms. Harris has neither the political legacy nor the baggage of Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump, having served a turbulent term in office, is now a known quantity. Ms. Harris is Black and of South Asian descent.
And the country is not the same as it was eight long years ago.
“Women are angrier, and that could be motivating,” said Karen Crowley, 64, an independent voter and retired nurse in Concord, N.H., who would not vote for Mr. Trump, did not feel like she could support Mr. Biden and now planned to back Ms. Harris.
Among the motivations Ms. Crowley cited were the demise of Roe v. Wade and comments and actions by Mr. Trump that many women see as sexist and misogynistic. “A woman president might be more possible now,” she said.
Hillary Clinton looks toward Donald Trump as he speaks into a microphone on a debate stage.
But for female voters and activists eager to break that elusive glass ceiling, there was also fear that sexism would remain difficult for Ms. Harris to overcome.
“It’s a patriarchy out there,” Ms. Crowley said. “She’s smart and she’s a prosecutor, but there are a lot of old white men who will want to stop her. The only thing wrong with her is that she’s a woman.”
Discussing the gender of a politician can feel reductive and regressive, especially when it does not seem as relevant in other countries. The United Kingdom has had three female prime ministers. Mexico elected its first female president this year.
Yet when a woman runs for office in the United States, many voters still mention her gender unprompted in interviews, identifying it as a concern — often not for themselves, they say, but for the wider electorate.
Julia Blake, 80, of La Jolla, Calif., said she had spent a lot of time arguing with her book club friends about whether a woman could be elected president. One after the next — professional women, with doctorates and master’s degrees — they said they thought the answer was no. Ms. Blake was indignant with them.
“I said, ‘If women think a woman can’t win, and they repeat that year after year, we will never get a female president,’” said Ms. Blake, who supported Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and also donated to Ms. Harris during the Democratic primary in 2020. “I don’t think they’re giving women enough credit.”
To be sure, party affiliation, not gender, remains most important for many voters. “I would not vote for her,” said Naomi Villalba, 74, a Republican from Dallas who supports Mr. Trump but thinks Ms. Harris a better choice for Democrats than Mr. Biden.
Kamala Harris smiles at a man who is clapping as she walks through an office.
Mr. Biden won 55 percent of the female vote in 2020, compared with Mrs. Clinton’s 54 percent in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. Mr. Trump’s support among women grew slightly to 44 percent in 2020, up from 39 percent in 2016.
The prospect of having Ms. Harris atop the Democratic ticket energized some voters looking to elect a female president. But it also resurfaced old fears about the fact that Mr. Trump had lost to a man (Mr. Biden) but defeated a woman (Mrs. Clinton).
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 7:02 a.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
Trump’s new rival may bring out his harshest instincts.
If ultimately not successful, Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy did change the idea of what was possible, said Christina Wolbrecht, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame who studies women’s voting patterns. Ms. Klobuchar and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts were taken seriously as candidates during the 2020 election, as was Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who challenged Mr. Trump this year.
“That suggests to me that post-Hillary Clinton, people are increasingly comfortable with the idea of a woman president,” Dr. Wolbrecht said.
Forty-two percent of women felt it was at least somewhat important to elect a woman as president in their lifetime, according to a Pew Research Center report last year. In the poll, 39 percent of respondents, both male and female, said a female president would be better at working out compromises and 37 percent said a woman would be better at maintaining a respectful tone in politics. (More than half said that gender did not matter on those measures.)
Ms. Harris appears to have a special bond with Black women in particular, who comprise a key part of the Democratic base and have been especially enthusiastic in their past support for her.
Elizabeth Warren speaks onstage at a town hall event.
Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, director for the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said that much had changed for women since 2016. Concerns over Mr. Trump’s positions on issues like abortion transformed from remote possibility to concrete reality after he took office, she said.
“When he was elected, we were disappointed, we were upset — there were marches, demonstrations, all kinds of things — and we had a good idea what was going to happen,” Dr. Nsiah-Jefferson said. “But now we know what happened.”
Mr. Trump has already signaled that he considers his gender worth highlighting: At one point during the Republican National Convention last week, he walked out to “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” by James Brown.
But Dr. Nsiah-Jefferson thinks that Ms. Harris will also lean in to the fact that she is a woman. “She’s going to talk about the way in which politics and policy impacts on women,” she said.
Some voters would like to lose the gender talk altogether.
“We have to take the emphasis off the gender identification stuff and put it on the person themselves and their own abilities,” said Marilyn McDole of Oregon, Wis., who attended a weekend re-election rally in Stoughton, Wis., for Senator Tammy Baldwin. “Because that’s so stigmatizing and damaging to women. That’s not fair.”
Ms. Harris, Ms. McDole added, has “got experience up the wazoo.”
Several Democratic voters, however, said that a female nominee would help amplify perhaps the party’s strongest issue: abortion access.
Katy Sorenson, 69, a former commissioner in Miami-Dade County, Fla., said the overturning of Roe had been a “galvanizing phenomenon.” “It’s not just abortion; it’s problem pregnancies that have so many women concerned about what they’re going to do, and can they get the health care they need,” she said.
Protesters stand outside the Supreme Court, holding signs with slogans like “Liberate abortion.”
In Raleigh, N.C., Mary Lucas, 36, said that Ms. Harris gave her new motivation to campaign. “My immediate reaction is, ‘How do I get involved?’” Ms. Lucas said.
Women also pointed to societal shifts that might make Ms. Harris’s run different. Dr. Liz Bradt, 64, a retired veterinarian and the chairwoman of the Salem Democratic City Committee in Salem, Mass., said younger people seemed less likely to make judgments based on rigid definitions of male and female.
“Where my generation is like, ‘Male or female, where’s the check box?’ I think the younger generation is more accepting of different genders,” Dr. Bradt said. “That will make a difference.”
Still, Dr. Bradt, who campaigned for Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire, expects a tough road ahead for Ms. Harris. “It’s going to be hard to see what she has to go through,” she said. “I fear for her, like I feared for Hillary.”
Though Mrs. Clinton won the most votes in 2016, some voters said they found her off-putting. Among them was Dr. Maria E. Laurencio, 73, a retired anesthesiologist in Coral Gables, Fla., who was a lifelong Republican until she pinched her nose and voted for Mrs. Clinton.
“Women were not sympathetic to Hillary because a lot of them said she stood by the president,” Dr. Laurencio said about former President Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs. “Hillary tended to be a little arrogant and not so likable, even though she was so prepared.”
Hillary Clinton stands on a stage surrounded by a large crowd.
In 2020, Dr. Laurencio changed her registration to vote for Mr. Biden. Now, she intends to support Ms. Harris. “For me, anything that prevents Mr. Trump from getting to the presidency again, I will go along with,” she said.
And more women are now veterans of political campaigns.
Luisa Wakeman, 57, a flight attendant in suburban Cobb County, Ga., said women like her were relatively new to politics when they campaigned against Mr. Trump in 2016. Now, their informal and largely female-led networks in the area have matured into durable, battle-tested electoral machines.
“I think like many people, I’m feeling invigorated,” she said.
And she said she was impressed by Ms. Harris’s qualifications. “It’s not just because she’s a woman,” she said, “but I’m excited that she will make history.”
Reporting was contributed by Catie Edmondson in Stoughton, Wis., Eduardo Medina in Durham, N.C., and Amy Harmon and Jeremy W. Peters in New York. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
A correction was made on July 22, 2024
:
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified the location of Hillary Clinton’s campaign rally in 2016. It was in Philadelphia, not Washington.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico. More about Patricia Mazzei
Jenna Russell is the lead reporter covering New England for The Times. She is based near Boston. More about Jenna Russell
Richard Fausset, based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice. More about Richard Fausset
Christina Morales is a reporter covering food for The Times. More about Christina Morales
See more on: 2024 Elections, Kamala Harris, Democratic Party
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Rachel Minaya, wife of Yankees senior adviser Omar Minaya, dies at 55.txt | By Chris Strauss
Jul 22, 2024
52
Rachel Minaya, the wife of New York Yankees baseball operations senior adviser Omar Minaya, died Saturday after she was found unconscious in a private residence in Harrington Park, N.J., according to a statement Monday from Bergen County (N.J.) prosecutor Mark Musella. She was 55.
Harrington Park Police responded to a 911 call reporting Minaya was found unconscious and unresponsive in the bathroom of the home, according to the statement. First responders attempted to resuscitate her before she was transported to a hospital in Westwood, N.J., where she was pronounced dead, the statement said.
Authorities are investigating the death. The statement noted that “the circumstances involved do not appear suspicious, however a ruling on the cause and manner of death is pending.”
Omar Minaya, who has worked with the Yankees since 2023, previously worked as the New York Mets’ general manager from 2004 to 2010 and as a special assistant to several general managers with the team from 2017 to 2020.
“The Yankees are devastated to learn of the passing of Rachel Minaya, the wife of Yankees Baseball Operations Senior Advisor Omar Minaya,” the team said in a statement Monday. “To those closest to her, she was a loving and compassionate mother and wife, and a huge supporter of her family and loved ones.”
The Yankees held a moment of silence for Rachel Minaya before the national anthem at Monday afternoon’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium.
Prior to today’s game, we held a moment of silence to mourn the loss of Rachel Minaya, the beloved wife of Yankees Senior Advisor of Baseball Operations Omar Minaya, and the devoted mother to Teddy and Justin Minaya. We send our deepest condolences to Rachel’s family and friends… pic.twitter.com/sP1vNPM2Jm
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) July 22, 2024
“We were tremendously saddened to learn of Rachel Minaya’s passing,” New York Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen said in a statement Monday. “Omar had a substantial impact on our organization and his wife, Rachel, was always by his side every step of the way.
“The Minayas have been dear friends of ours for years and we extend our deepest condolences to Omar’s entire family and loved ones.”
In addition to her husband, Rachel Minaya is survived by her two adult sons, Justin and Teddy. Justin is a forward for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers.
According to a 2007 Sports Illustrated profile, Omar Minaya met Rachel in 1989 while he was getting a haircut in a Manhattan hair salon. A year later, the couple was engaged.
| By Chris Strauss
Jul 22, 2024
52
Rachel Minaya, the wife of New York Yankees baseball operations senior adviser Omar Minaya, died Saturday after she was found unconscious in a private residence in Harrington Park, N.J., according to a statement Monday from Bergen County (N.J.) prosecutor Mark Musella. She was 55.
Harrington Park Police responded to a 911 call reporting Minaya was found unconscious and unresponsive in the bathroom of the home, according to the statement. First responders attempted to resuscitate her before she was transported to a hospital in Westwood, | N.J., where she was pronounced dead, the statement said.
Authorities are investigating the death. The statement noted that “the circumstances involved do not appear suspicious, however a ruling on the cause and manner of death is pending.”
Omar Minaya, who has worked with the Yankees since 2023, previously worked as the New York Mets’ general manager from 2004 to 2010 and as a special assistant to several general managers with the team from 2017 to 2020.
“The Yankees are devastated to learn of the passing of Rachel Minaya, the wife of Yankees Baseball Operations Senior Advisor Omar Minaya,” the team said in a statement Monday. “To those closest to her, she was a loving and compassionate mother and wife, and a huge supporter of her family and loved ones.”
The Yankees held a moment of silence for Rachel Minaya before the national anthem at Monday afternoon’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium.
Prior to today’s game, we held a moment of silence to mourn the loss of Rachel Minaya, the beloved wife of Yankees Senior Advisor of Baseball Operations Omar Minaya, and the devoted mother to Teddy and Justin Minaya. We send our deepest condolences to Rachel’s family and friends… pic.twitter.com/sP1vNPM2Jm
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) July 22, 2024
“We were tremendously saddened to learn of Rachel Minaya’s passing,” New York Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen said in a statement Monday. “Omar had a substantial impact on our organization and his wife, Rachel, was always by his side every step of the way.
“The Minayas have been dear friends of ours for years and we extend our deepest condolences to Omar’s entire family and loved ones.”
In addition to her husband, Rachel Minaya is survived by her two adult sons, Justin and Teddy. Justin is a forward for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers.
According to a 2007 Sports Illustrated profile, Omar Minaya met Rachel in 1989 while he was getting a haircut in a Manhattan hair salon. A year later, the couple was engaged.
|
At Least 12 Dead and Dozens Missing After Highway Collapse in China.txt | By Keith Bradsher
Reporting from Beijing
July 20, 2024
Sign up for Your Places: Extreme Weather. Get notified about extreme weather before it happens with custom alerts for places in the U.S. you choose. Get it sent to your inbox.
At least a dozen people were killed and many more remained missing on Saturday after part of a highway bridge collapsed Friday night amid heavy rain in western China. It was the second deadly episode in the country in less than three months involving the failure of a stretch of highway.
State media reported early Saturday afternoon that 12 bodies and seven vehicles had been found, and that one person had been rescued. Eighteen vehicles and 31 people were still missing.
A photograph released by the official Xinhua news agency on Saturday showed how a bridge in one direction of the highway had snapped. A section of it was folded downward, nearly perpendicular, into a churning, muddy river. A separate bridge that supported traffic in the other direction remained standing.
The head of the Ministry of Emergency Management, Wang Xiangxi, went to the site Saturday morning and was overseeing a rescue effort that involved 869 people, 93 vehicles, 41 drones, 20 boats and a sonar system, according to the authorities.
Both Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, and Premier Li Qiang, the country’s second-highest leader, ordered all-out rescue efforts.
They had issued similar instructions after the previous disaster, which occurred on May 1 also amid heavy rain. At least 48 people died after a section of expressway running along the side of a hill in southeastern China gave way, apparently because a landslide began underneath it. Mr. Xi had ordered that local governments across China pay more attention to identifying and dealing with such risks.
In the past week, heavy rain has fallen in the location of the highway collapse, in rugged terrain in the southern part of Shaanxi Province. A flood emergency was declared there this past week. Late spring through late summer is the rainy season in China.
State television also reported on Saturday that a flash flood in neighboring Sichuan Province had left more than 30 people missing in a village about 500 miles southwest of the highway bridge collapse.
China has invested heavily in infrastructure like highways, bridges and rail lines in the past several decades, and much of the construction has been in mountainous terrain. By 2017, China had 81 of the world’s 100 tallest bridges either already built or in progress.
Just in the past two decades, China has also built twice as many miles of expressways as make up the entire interstate highway system in the United States.
Cloudbursts have periodically posed a problem. The heaviest hour of rainfall ever reliably recorded in China killed at least 300 people in the city of Zhengzhou in 2021, including 14 who drowned in a subway tunnel.
The May 1 highway collapse occurred when a landslide pulled the supports out from under an elevated section of expressway along the side of a hill on the outskirts of Meizhou, a city 180 miles northeast of Hong Kong.
Friday’s bridge collapse occurred in a village about 60 miles southeast of Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province. Xi’an is famous for the 2,200-year-old terra-cotta warriors discovered at the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuang.
Xi’an is also a place associated with Mr. Xi. His father was from a rural area about 25 miles north of the emperor’s tomb. Mr. Xi himself left Beijing for his father’s home county soon after Mao’s turbulent Cultural Revolution began in 1966, later spending his teenage years in Shaanxi Province.
Li You contributed research.
| By Keith Bradsher
Reporting from Beijing
July 20, 2024
Sign up for Your Places: Extreme Weather. Get notified about extreme weather before it happens with custom alerts for places in the U.S. you choose. Get it sent to your inbox.
At least a dozen people were killed and many more remained missing on Saturday after part of a highway bridge collapsed Friday night amid heavy rain in western China. It was the second deadly episode in the country in less than three months involving the failure of a stretch of highway.
State media reported early Saturday afternoon that 12 bodies and seven vehicles | had been found, and that one person had been rescued. Eighteen vehicles and 31 people were still missing.
A photograph released by the official Xinhua news agency on Saturday showed how a bridge in one direction of the highway had snapped. A section of it was folded downward, nearly perpendicular, into a churning, muddy river. A separate bridge that supported traffic in the other direction remained standing.
The head of the Ministry of Emergency Management, Wang Xiangxi, went to the site Saturday morning and was overseeing a rescue effort that involved 869 people, 93 vehicles, 41 drones, 20 boats and a sonar system, according to the authorities.
Both Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, and Premier Li Qiang, the country’s second-highest leader, ordered all-out rescue efforts.
They had issued similar instructions after the previous disaster, which occurred on May 1 also amid heavy rain. At least 48 people died after a section of expressway running along the side of a hill in southeastern China gave way, apparently because a landslide began underneath it. Mr. Xi had ordered that local governments across China pay more attention to identifying and dealing with such risks.
In the past week, heavy rain has fallen in the location of the highway collapse, in rugged terrain in the southern part of Shaanxi Province. A flood emergency was declared there this past week. Late spring through late summer is the rainy season in China.
State television also reported on Saturday that a flash flood in neighboring Sichuan Province had left more than 30 people missing in a village about 500 miles southwest of the highway bridge collapse.
China has invested heavily in infrastructure like highways, bridges and rail lines in the past several decades, and much of the construction has been in mountainous terrain. By 2017, China had 81 of the world’s 100 tallest bridges either already built or in progress.
Just in the past two decades, China has also built twice as many miles of expressways as make up the entire interstate highway system in the United States.
Cloudbursts have periodically posed a problem. The heaviest hour of rainfall ever reliably recorded in China killed at least 300 people in the city of Zhengzhou in 2021, including 14 who drowned in a subway tunnel.
The May 1 highway collapse occurred when a landslide pulled the supports out from under an elevated section of expressway along the side of a hill on the outskirts of Meizhou, a city 180 miles northeast of Hong Kong.
Friday’s bridge collapse occurred in a village about 60 miles southeast of Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province. Xi’an is famous for the 2,200-year-old terra-cotta warriors discovered at the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuang.
Xi’an is also a place associated with Mr. Xi. His father was from a rural area about 25 miles north of the emperor’s tomb. Mr. Xi himself left Beijing for his father’s home county soon after Mao’s turbulent Cultural Revolution began in 1966, later spending his teenage years in Shaanxi Province.
Li You contributed research.
|
We Love Levi’s Wedgie Jeans. Here’s How to Find the Perfect Pair for You..txt | By Rose Maura Lorre
Rose Maura Lorre is a writer on Wirecutter’s discovery team. She has reported on turkey fryers, composters, body pillows, and more.
If there’s such a thing as the perfect pair of jeans, we think Levi’s Premium Wedgie Straight Fit—the “crowd-pleasing” pick in our guide to the best women’s jeans—is it.
Comfy and versatile with a classic, stylish silhouette, Wedgie jeans possess an almost magical, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants–type ability to fit and flatter a wide array of body shapes and sizes. To nail down our favorite pairs for the guide, we asked seven testers ranging from size 0 to size 20W to try on 10 different types of jeans; the Wedgie jeans not only worked well on all types of bodies but also received our testers’ highest overall scores for style. In short, we dubbed them “an across-the-board hit.”
Still, as any denimhead knows, finding the best fit can be a frustrating process, no matter how universally beloved a particular pair of jeans may be. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the options Levi’s offers—not just in sizing but also length, stretch, and wash—the suggestions below from our style team and jeans testers can help you figure out which Wedgies are just right for you.
Our pick
Levi’s Premium Wedgie Straight Fit Women’s Jeans
The ultimate utility player
These versatile jeans are comfy, booty-flattering, well made, and usually priced under $100. They’re generally available in a wide range of sizes and three inseams, but in plus sizes the wash and length options are more limited.
$80 $65 from Nordstrom
(limited colors and sizes)
$160 $90 from Levi's (2-count)
limited colors and sizes, price reflects at checkout
$98 from Amazon
$98 from Zappos
$98 from Levi's
Sign up for our newsletter
Get Wirecutter's independent reviews, expert advice, and intensively researched deals sent straight to your inbox.
For information about our privacy practices, including how to opt out of marketing emails, see our Privacy Policy. For general questions, contact us anytime.
Looking for something else?
Four of our picks for the best jeans for men.
The Best Men’s Jeans
Four people with their backs turned, showing off four different styles of jeans.
The Best Women’s Jeans
A bunch of round adustable buttons with different designs displayed on a surface.
These Inexpensive Adjustable Buttons Make Your Pants Fit Better
Two of our testers walk on a trail while wearing rain pants.
The Best Rain Pants
Read more from Style
The advice
Measure your waist and hips before ordering online
Consider going up a size if you have a larger waist, or down a size if you have slender hips and thighs
Opt for ankle length for the most flattering silhouette
Note that plus-size Wedgies may not work for taller people
Order pairs in multiple sizes and return (for free) what you don’t want
Choose no-stretch Wedgies if you value longevity over give, and consider going up a size
If you want goes-with-everything jeans, the Christina wash is probably your best bet
To cheat a formal-pants look, opt for the Black Sprout wash
Looking for something else?
Four of our picks for the best jeans for men.
The Best Men’s Jeans
Four people with their backs turned, showing off four different styles of jeans.
The Best Women’s Jeans
A bunch of round adustable buttons with different designs displayed on a surface.
These Inexpensive Adjustable Buttons Make Your Pants Fit Better
Two of our testers walk on a trail while wearing rain pants.
The Best Rain Pants
Read more from Style
Measure your waist and hips before ordering online
It’s standard advice, but the best way to determine your Levi’s sizing is to consult the company’s online size guide after measuring around the smallest part of your waist and the fullest part of your hips. (Don’t wrap the tape measure too tightly, and make sure it stays horizontal.)
Using those two measurements, tester and updates writer Gabriella DePinho received a pair on her first try that instantly became her favorite pair of jeans in her closet. To help us make the picks for the guide, she tested 10 pairs of jeans in total.
Consider going up a size if you have a larger waist, or down a size if you have slender hips and thighs
Our testers found that Wedgie jeans generally run true-to-size. However, as we note in our jeans guide, “Testers with more defined waists found these jeans true-to-size; otherwise, consider sizing up.”
Senior staff writer Zoe Vanderweide, who researched and wrote the guide, says, “In my experience, they run one size small and I don’t have a particularly defined waist, but this wasn’t the experience of everyone on our testing panel.”
Ingela Ratledge Amundson, our supervising editor of style coverage, adds, “These are fairly roomy through the lower hips and thighs—if you’re slender in those areas, the cut might be too generous.” In that case, going one size down might work better for you.
Opt for ankle length for the most flattering silhouette
Most Wedgie sizes are available in a 26-, 28-, or 30-inch inseam. Because of the way Wedgie jeans are cut, with a subtle taper toward the hem, Ingela recommends choosing whichever inseam allows the jeans to hit at your ankle. (An ideal ankle length, Zoe notes, “doesn’t touch the top of low-top sneakers, but if you’re wearing ankle boots, it just goes over the tops of them.”)
Adds Ingela: “You don’t really want jeans with that shape to be breaking over shoes, and they don’t look quite right cuffed. It’s also not ideal to go any shorter than the ankle, into capri-length territory. As one of our testers noted, it starts to look a little Oliver Twist–y.”
Another benefit of ankle-length Wedgies: They look good with almost all kinds of shoes, including “sneakers, sandals, flats, booties, short/medium boots, and heels,” Ingela says. (However, Wedgies probably won’t work with tall boots: “The jeans are too wide to tuck into boots, and they wouldn’t look great with the jeans over the boot,” she notes.)
To find your ideal inseam, measure the inside of your leg from your crotch to “about 2 inches above your ankle bone,” Zoe says. As a general rule, though, petite shoppers should get the 26-inch inseam, taller shoppers should opt for the 30-inch version, and if you’re of average height, go with the 28-inch jeans.
Ingela, who is 6 feet tall and wears Wedgies in size 27 or 28, says the 30-inch inseam “is just barely ankle-length on me.” She also suggests, “If you’re 6 feet tall or over and okay with a slightly longer, leaner straight-leg cut than on the Wedgie, then Levi’s 501s might be a better bet.”
Note that plus-size Wedgies may not work for taller people
“A lot of denim brands still have a long way to go when it comes to size inclusivity,” Ingela says. And unfortunately, Levi’s Wedgie jeans are no exception.
Plus-size Wedgies (sold in sizes from 14W to 26W) come with fewer wash options and are available only in the shortest, 26-inch inseam. As a result, taller plus-size people may find that their only length option is more capri-length than ankle-cropped, which Ingela says may not look so great.
“I can’t in good conscience advise taller plus-size folks to compromise by wearing these at a shorter capri length,” she says. “There’s no fun tip or hack—like, pair them with fun socks!—because it’s just not optimal.”
Order pairs in multiple sizes and return (for free) what you don’t want
The best way to try on jeans is in person. But if you’re ordering online and you’re between sizes, or the size chart doesn’t reflect your body, “the next-best strategy when you’re unsure about your size is to order a few size options with the plan of returning what doesn’t work,” Ingela says.
This approach is especially helpful for first-time Wedgie shoppers, Ingela adds. “Since they have a few different inseam options, and you’re aiming for that just-right ankle length, you might not know which inseam translates to your height,” she explains. (See above for more advice on choosing the best ankle length.)
If you order from the Levi’s site, keep in mind that returns are free for members of the company’s Red Tab loyalty program, which is free to join. Items that you order online from Levi’s are also returnable in person at any Levi’s store for free. If you order from Amazon, select sizes and washes are eligible for free returns.
Choose no-stretch Wedgies if you value longevity over give, and consider going up a size
Wedgie jeans are available in low-stretch and no-stretch options; the former is made of a 99% cotton 1% elastane blend, while the latter is 100% cotton. We think most people are likely to prefer the low-stretch kind.
“Most people like their jeans to have a little give. It makes them more comfortable right off the bat,” Zoe says.
However, you have a few reasons to consider going all-cotton. “All-cotton jeans are typically more durable and long-lasting. They also hold their shape better because of the lack of stretch content,” Ingela says. “But the absence of stretch means the pants are stiffer since there’s no give. They don’t move with you the same way, they’re usually not considered as comfy, and there’s often a break-in period needed to soften up the denim. They’re definitely not for everyone.”
If you opt for all-cotton, Ingela suggests going one size up, as “most non-stretch jeans tend to run a bit smaller since they don’t have any give.” Zoe adds that wearing no-stretch Wedgies often but washing them infrequently is a good way to break them in more quickly.
If you want goes-with-everything jeans, the Christina wash is probably your best bet
Low-stretch Wedgie jeans are available in eight colors (or washes, as they’re called) ranging from a very light blue to a very dark black, while no-stretch Wedgies come in either black or white. We sent all of our women’s jeans testers a pair of Levi’s Wedgies in the Christina wash, which Ingela describes as “a very wearable, worn-in, medium wash.”
Since testing, Gabriella has found that the Christina wash is suitable for all kinds of styling scenarios.
“When I open my wardrobe looking for jeans, it’s the first pair I check to see if it’s clean and available,” she says. “Going to a concert? Wedgies. Going out with friends? Wedgies. Dressing more casually to come into the office? Wedgies. Casual date? Wedgies. Family barbecue? Wedgies. Traveling and want to wear a pair of pants on the plane that can also be strategically reworn during the trip? Wedgies. They are my go-to for practically any casual outing or just for daily wear.”
Zoe calls the Christina wash “a perfect medium-light blue, current but timeless, casual, unfussy-without-distracting distressing, with very subtle whiskering and fading, where it would naturally occur with wear.”
To cheat a formal-pants look, opt for the Black Sprout wash
A few months after receiving her testing Wedgies in the Christina wash, Gabriella got another pair in the darkest shade, Black Sprout, which she coordinates with a nice blouse when she needs something a tad dressier.
“I was worried they would look too informal, but they feel like an entirely different pant [than the Christina], despite having the same fit, comfort, and style,” she says. “I don’t always need to dress ‘formal’ so I don’t reach for them as often, but I feel super confident in them.”
| By Rose Maura Lorre
Rose Maura Lorre is a writer on Wirecutter’s discovery team. She has reported on turkey fryers, composters, body pillows, and more.
If there’s such a thing as the perfect pair of jeans, we think Levi’s Premium Wedgie Straight Fit—the “crowd-pleasing” pick in our guide to the best women’s jeans—is it.
Comfy and versatile with a classic, stylish silhouette, Wedgie jeans possess an almost magical, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants–type ability to fit and flatter a wide array of body shapes and | sizes. To nail down our favorite pairs for the guide, we asked seven testers ranging from size 0 to size 20W to try on 10 different types of jeans; the Wedgie jeans not only worked well on all types of bodies but also received our testers’ highest overall scores for style. In short, we dubbed them “an across-the-board hit.”
Still, as any denimhead knows, finding the best fit can be a frustrating process, no matter how universally beloved a particular pair of jeans may be. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the options Levi’s offers—not just in sizing but also length, stretch, and wash—the suggestions below from our style team and jeans testers can help you figure out which Wedgies are just right for you.
Our pick
Levi’s Premium Wedgie Straight Fit Women’s Jeans
The ultimate utility player
These versatile jeans are comfy, booty-flattering, well made, and usually priced under $100. They’re generally available in a wide range of sizes and three inseams, but in plus sizes the wash and length options are more limited.
$80 $65 from Nordstrom
(limited colors and sizes)
$160 $90 from Levi's (2-count)
limited colors and sizes, price reflects at checkout
$98 from Amazon
$98 from Zappos
$98 from Levi's
Sign up for our newsletter
Get Wirecutter's independent reviews, expert advice, and intensively researched deals sent straight to your inbox.
For information about our privacy practices, including how to opt out of marketing emails, see our Privacy Policy. For general questions, contact us anytime.
Looking for something else?
Four of our picks for the best jeans for men.
The Best Men’s Jeans
Four people with their backs turned, showing off four different styles of jeans.
The Best Women’s Jeans
A bunch of round adustable buttons with different designs displayed on a surface.
These Inexpensive Adjustable Buttons Make Your Pants Fit Better
Two of our testers walk on a trail while wearing rain pants.
The Best Rain Pants
Read more from Style
The advice
Measure your waist and hips before ordering online
Consider going up a size if you have a larger waist, or down a size if you have slender hips and thighs
Opt for ankle length for the most flattering silhouette
Note that plus-size Wedgies may not work for taller people
Order pairs in multiple sizes and return (for free) what you don’t want
Choose no-stretch Wedgies if you value longevity over give, and consider going up a size
If you want goes-with-everything jeans, the Christina wash is probably your best bet
To cheat a formal-pants look, opt for the Black Sprout wash
Looking for something else?
Four of our picks for the best jeans for men.
The Best Men’s Jeans
Four people with their backs turned, showing off four different styles of jeans.
The Best Women’s Jeans
A bunch of round adustable buttons with different designs displayed on a surface.
These Inexpensive Adjustable Buttons Make Your Pants Fit Better
Two of our testers walk on a trail while wearing rain pants.
The Best Rain Pants
Read more from Style
Measure your waist and hips before ordering online
It’s standard advice, but the best way to determine your Levi’s sizing is to consult the company’s online size guide after measuring around the smallest part of your waist and the fullest part of your hips. (Don’t wrap the tape measure too tightly, and make sure it stays horizontal.)
Using those two measurements, tester and updates writer Gabriella DePinho received a pair on her first try that instantly became her favorite pair of jeans in her closet. To help us make the picks for the guide, she tested 10 pairs of jeans in total.
Consider going up a size if you have a larger waist, or down a size if you have slender hips and thighs
Our testers found that Wedgie jeans generally run true-to-size. However, as we note in our jeans guide, “Testers with more defined waists found these jeans true-to-size; otherwise, consider sizing up.”
Senior staff writer Zoe Vanderweide, who researched and wrote the guide, says, “In my experience, they run one size small and I don’t have a particularly defined waist, but this wasn’t the experience of everyone on our testing panel.”
Ingela Ratledge Amundson, our supervising editor of style coverage, adds, “These are fairly roomy through the lower hips and thighs—if you’re slender in those areas, the cut might be too generous.” In that case, going one size down might work better for you.
Opt for ankle length for the most flattering silhouette
Most Wedgie sizes are available in a 26-, 28-, or 30-inch inseam. Because of the way Wedgie jeans are cut, with a subtle taper toward the hem, Ingela recommends choosing whichever inseam allows the jeans to hit at your ankle. (An ideal ankle length, Zoe notes, “doesn’t touch the top of low-top sneakers, but if you’re wearing ankle boots, it just goes over the tops of them.”)
Adds Ingela: “You don’t really want jeans with that shape to be breaking over shoes, and they don’t look quite right cuffed. It’s also not ideal to go any shorter than the ankle, into capri-length territory. As one of our testers noted, it starts to look a little Oliver Twist–y.”
Another benefit of ankle-length Wedgies: They look good with almost all kinds of shoes, including “sneakers, sandals, flats, booties, short/medium boots, and heels,” Ingela says. (However, Wedgies probably won’t work with tall boots: “The jeans are too wide to tuck into boots, and they wouldn’t look great with the jeans over the boot,” she notes.)
To find your ideal inseam, measure the inside of your leg from your crotch to “about 2 inches above your ankle bone,” Zoe says. As a general rule, though, petite shoppers should get the 26-inch inseam, taller shoppers should opt for the 30-inch version, and if you’re of average height, go with the 28-inch jeans.
Ingela, who is 6 feet tall and wears Wedgies in size 27 or 28, says the 30-inch inseam “is just barely ankle-length on me.” She also suggests, “If you’re 6 feet tall or over and okay with a slightly longer, leaner straight-leg cut than on the Wedgie, then Levi’s 501s might be a better bet.”
Note that plus-size Wedgies may not work for taller people
“A lot of denim brands still have a long way to go when it comes to size inclusivity,” Ingela says. And unfortunately, Levi’s Wedgie jeans are no exception.
Plus-size Wedgies (sold in sizes from 14W to 26W) come with fewer wash options and are available only in the shortest, 26-inch inseam. As a result, taller plus-size people may find that their only length option is more capri-length than ankle-cropped, which Ingela says may not look so great.
“I can’t in good conscience advise taller plus-size folks to compromise by wearing these at a shorter capri length,” she says. “There’s no fun tip or hack—like, pair them with fun socks!—because it’s just not optimal.”
Order pairs in multiple sizes and return (for free) what you don’t want
The best way to try on jeans is in person. But if you’re ordering online and you’re between sizes, or the size chart doesn’t reflect your body, “the next-best strategy when you’re unsure about your size is to order a few size options with the plan of returning what doesn’t work,” Ingela says.
This approach is especially helpful for first-time Wedgie shoppers, Ingela adds. “Since they have a few different inseam options, and you’re aiming for that just-right ankle length, you might not know which inseam translates to your height,” she explains. (See above for more advice on choosing the best ankle length.)
If you order from the Levi’s site, keep in mind that returns are free for members of the company’s Red Tab loyalty program, which is free to join. Items that you order online from Levi’s are also returnable in person at any Levi’s store for free. If you order from Amazon, select sizes and washes are eligible for free returns.
Choose no-stretch Wedgies if you value longevity over give, and consider going up a size
Wedgie jeans are available in low-stretch and no-stretch options; the former is made of a 99% cotton 1% elastane blend, while the latter is 100% cotton. We think most people are likely to prefer the low-stretch kind.
“Most people like their jeans to have a little give. It makes them more comfortable right off the bat,” Zoe says.
However, you have a few reasons to consider going all-cotton. “All-cotton jeans are typically more durable and long-lasting. They also hold their shape better because of the lack of stretch content,” Ingela says. “But the absence of stretch means the pants are stiffer since there’s no give. They don’t move with you the same way, they’re usually not considered as comfy, and there’s often a break-in period needed to soften up the denim. They’re definitely not for everyone.”
If you opt for all-cotton, Ingela suggests going one size up, as “most non-stretch jeans tend to run a bit smaller since they don’t have any give.” Zoe adds that wearing no-stretch Wedgies often but washing them infrequently is a good way to break them in more quickly.
If you want goes-with-everything jeans, the Christina wash is probably your best bet
Low-stretch Wedgie jeans are available in eight colors (or washes, as they’re called) ranging from a very light blue to a very dark black, while no-stretch Wedgies come in either black or white. We sent all of our women’s jeans testers a pair of Levi’s Wedgies in the Christina wash, which Ingela describes as “a very wearable, worn-in, medium wash.”
Since testing, Gabriella has found that the Christina wash is suitable for all kinds of styling scenarios.
“When I open my wardrobe looking for jeans, it’s the first pair I check to see if it’s clean and available,” she says. “Going to a concert? Wedgies. Going out with friends? Wedgies. Dressing more casually to come into the office? Wedgies. Casual date? Wedgies. Family barbecue? Wedgies. Traveling and want to wear a pair of pants on the plane that can also be strategically reworn during the trip? Wedgies. They are my go-to for practically any casual outing or just for daily wear.”
Zoe calls the Christina wash “a perfect medium-light blue, current but timeless, casual, unfussy-without-distracting distressing, with very subtle whiskering and fading, where it would naturally occur with wear.”
To cheat a formal-pants look, opt for the Black Sprout wash
A few months after receiving her testing Wedgies in the Christina wash, Gabriella got another pair in the darkest shade, Black Sprout, which she coordinates with a nice blouse when she needs something a tad dressier.
“I was worried they would look too informal, but they feel like an entirely different pant [than the Christina], despite having the same fit, comfort, and style,” she says. “I don’t always need to dress ‘formal’ so I don’t reach for them as often, but I feel super confident in them.”
|
River Surges Over Wisconsin Dam Amid Heavy Rain, Imperiling Small City.txt | By Ernesto Londoño
July 5, 2024
Emergency officials in Manawa, Wis., were rescuing people stranded on flooded roads on Friday after a river overflowing from torrential rain spilled over a local dam.
The Little Wolf River began overpowering the Manawa Dam around 12:30 p.m. local time after the area near the dam received more than five inches of rain in about four hours on Friday morning, said Kurt Kotenberg, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Green Bay, Wis.
Emergency officials were rescuing drivers who had become stranded while trying to flee, Mr. Kotenberg said. “People were in cars on roads that were flooded,” he said. Some were rescued “standing on the hoods of their cars,” he added.
As of Friday afternoon, Mr. Kotenberg said there had been no reports of deaths or injuries from the flooding.
Heavy rain in the Midwest in recent weeks has drawn attention to the vulnerability of dams in the region. The Rapidan Dam in southern Minnesota came close to failing last month.
The Manawa Dam is near the northern side of the Wisconsin city, on the edge of the Manawa Mill Pond. The city, home to roughly 1,400 people, is about 50 miles west of Green Bay. Mr. Kotenberg said it would take time to determine whether the dam had cracked.
In an advisory, the Weather Service urged Manawa residents to seek higher ground if possible. Mr. Kotenberg clarified that residents should try to do so while sheltering in place and not try to flee by flooded roads.
In a message posted on Facebook, the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office said rescue personnel were “diligently working” to help vulnerable people in Manawa and urged residents to avoid entering the city.
In another message, officials urged residents in the affected area to boil tap water before drinking it, saying “the public should assume the water is unsafe to drink due to contaminants.”
| By Ernesto Londoño
July 5, 2024
Emergency officials in Manawa, Wis., were rescuing people stranded on flooded roads on Friday after a river overflowing from torrential rain spilled over a local dam.
The Little Wolf River began overpowering the Manawa Dam around 12:30 p.m. local time after the area near the dam received more than five inches of rain in about four hours on Friday morning, said Kurt Kotenberg, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Green Bay, Wis.
Emergency officials were rescuing drivers who had become stranded while trying | to flee, Mr. Kotenberg said. “People were in cars on roads that were flooded,” he said. Some were rescued “standing on the hoods of their cars,” he added.
As of Friday afternoon, Mr. Kotenberg said there had been no reports of deaths or injuries from the flooding.
Heavy rain in the Midwest in recent weeks has drawn attention to the vulnerability of dams in the region. The Rapidan Dam in southern Minnesota came close to failing last month.
The Manawa Dam is near the northern side of the Wisconsin city, on the edge of the Manawa Mill Pond. The city, home to roughly 1,400 people, is about 50 miles west of Green Bay. Mr. Kotenberg said it would take time to determine whether the dam had cracked.
In an advisory, the Weather Service urged Manawa residents to seek higher ground if possible. Mr. Kotenberg clarified that residents should try to do so while sheltering in place and not try to flee by flooded roads.
In a message posted on Facebook, the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office said rescue personnel were “diligently working” to help vulnerable people in Manawa and urged residents to avoid entering the city.
In another message, officials urged residents in the affected area to boil tap water before drinking it, saying “the public should assume the water is unsafe to drink due to contaminants.”
|
We Can Buy Sustainable Food. Why Can’t We Buy Sustainable Batteries?.txt | By Stephen Lezak
Dr. Lezak is a researcher at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford who studies the politics of climate change.
Seventy years ago, the United States was the world’s leading producer of fluorite, a brilliantly multicolored mineral essential to industries such as steel. But the last American fluorite mine closed nearly 30 years ago, unable to compete with cheaper operations in places like Mongolia.
Although America has abundant deposits of many of the critical minerals that go into our vehicles, electronics and buildings, these materials are mostly mined abroad in poorer nations where labor is cheap (or worse, workers are enslaved) and environmental laws are more permissive, rarely enforced or easily sidestepped with bribes.
The decline of domestic mining means that Americans are outsourcing the environmental and social costs of our inexpensive consumer goods to lower-income nations. More than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt, sometimes called the blood diamond of electric vehicle batteries, comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where child labor and sexual violence are rampant in mines. About half of the world’s nickel, another key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries, comes from mines in Indonesia, some of which have destroyed almost 200,000 acres of rainforest amid allegations of operating illegally on Indigenous land. In the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, where I’ve studied the environmental impacts of mining, I met fluorite miners who lamented the destruction of their landscapes and the poisoning of their groundwater.
Demand for these minerals is only growing as we transition away from fossil fuels, and leaving them in the ground will jeopardize climate progress. A United Nations study found that meeting international climate goals by 2030 could require building as many as 80 copper mines, 70 lithium mines and 70 nickel mines to supply the materials for electric vehicles, solar panels and a host of other low-carbon technologies.
The ethical and strategic way to handle this situation is for the federal government and environmentalists to encourage this industry to return to the United States and to hold it to the highest sustainability standards. Because safe and ethical mines are more expensive to run, consumers will have to pay a small premium for products with minerals sourced from these operations. Many of us are already paying more for responsibly sourced goods, such as chocolate and coffee — we should demand the same of our smartphones and batteries.
A changing climate, a changing world
Card 1 of 4
Climate change around the world: In “Postcards From a World on Fire,” 193 stories from individual countries show how climate change is reshaping reality everywhere, from dying coral reefs in Fiji to disappearing oases in Morocco and far, far beyond.
The role of our leaders: Writing at the end of 2020, Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, found reasons for optimism in the Biden presidency, a feeling perhaps borne out by the passing of major climate legislation. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been criticisms. For example, Charles Harvey and Kurt House argue that subsidies for climate capture technology will ultimately be a waste.
The worst climate risks, mapped: In this feature, select a country, and we'll break down the climate hazards it faces. In the case of America, our maps, developed with experts, show where extreme heat is causing the most deaths.
What people can do: Justin Gillis and Hal Harvey describe the types of local activism that might be needed, while Saul Griffith points to how Australia shows the way on rooftop solar. Meanwhile, small changes at the office might be one good way to cut significant emissions, writes Carlos Gamarra.
Reinventing the American mining industry might be more broadly appealing than it seems. On the right, conservatives are looking to shore up the jobs and tax revenue in rural communities generated by the fossil fuel industry, which is likely to decline as the energy transition gains momentum. Meanwhile, defense hawks are looking to outmaneuver China, which has a near monopoly on the supply chains of several critical minerals.
On the left, the Biden administration is looking to deliver on its made-in-America industrial policy, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which created tax incentives and $250 million in grants for domestic critical mineral production. Many of the bill’s provisions, like a generous credit for electric vehicles, require manufacturers to source at least half of the critical minerals in batteries from the United States or nations with which we have free trade agreements.
Several experts have proposed further reforms to advance critical minerals mining in the United States. The Bipartisan Policy Center has suggested creating time limits for federal environmental reviews and funding work force development. But reinventing a domestic industry faces two simple issues. The first is cost.
Paying fair wages, safely storing toxic waste and setting aside money for cleanup is expensive, and some mining companies prefer to try to make larger profits by operating in countries with cheaper labor and laxer regulations. A coordinated effort by purchasers of these minerals — companies such as Apple and General Motors — could change that calculus. By committing to purchasing ethically sourced materials, these companies could spur miners and investors to chase higher profits by selling the materials at a higher price in the same way organic farmers do with organic food. Federal and state governments can also commit to only purchasing vehicles with materials sourced from mines certified by groups like the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance.
In my conversations with industry insiders, I frequently hear that supply chains are too long and complex for manufacturers to ensure that responsibly produced minerals wind up in products. But behind this weak excuse is a stubborn reluctance to depart from the status quo. Just last month, the Swedish automaker Volvo announced that one of its new electric vehicle models will have a groundbreaking “battery passport” telling consumers where its battery components were mined and processed. Other companies can no longer pretend to be powerless over their supply chains.
The more persistent obstacle standing in the way of bringing more mining home to the United States is vitriol between mining companies, local communities and environmental groups — vitriol that stalls proposed developments and causes decades-long lead times for new mines. This conflict — usually waged through lawsuits and other administrative maneuvers — stems from a centuries-long history of mining companies poisoning rural (and especially tribal) communities and landscapes. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 40 percent of the nation’s rivers and 50 percent of the nation’s lakes have been contaminated in part by abandoned mines. Even today, some companies act unethically and cut corners, for example by declaring bankruptcy to dodge legal requirements to repair environmental damage after a mine closes.
But the mining industry can leave behind this shameful legacy. Recent advances have made it possible to extract minerals with a much smaller environmental footprint, such as reprocessing old waste materials at once abandoned mines. And some mining companies have shown a willingness to safeguard local communities. One mine in Montana has a binding agreement with regional residents to fund independent experts to monitor local water quality, going far beyond federal and state requirements. Although mining will never be zero-impact, it has the potential to be fair and responsible.
Achieving safe and ethical mining will require collaboration from environmental groups. Instead of reflexively opposing mining projects, activists should demand that new American mines hew to the highest sustainability standards. They should also push Congress to reform America’s inadequate mining laws, such as by requiring mining companies to sign benefit-sharing agreements with local communities before breaking ground on new mines.
It’s easy to shirk responsibility for the faraway impacts of what we buy and consume, and it’s noble to defend the landscapes we call home. But turning a blind eye to the consequences of our affluence exacts a great cost. It’s time to look squarely at that damage and ask ourselves: What can we do to make mining — and the global energy transition — a fair trade for people and the planet?
| By Stephen Lezak
Dr. Lezak is a researcher at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford who studies the politics of climate change.
Seventy years ago, the United States was the world’s leading producer of fluorite, a brilliantly multicolored mineral essential to industries such as steel. But the last American fluorite mine closed nearly 30 years ago, unable to compete with cheaper operations in places like Mongolia.
Although America has abundant deposits of many of the critical minerals that go into our vehicles, electronics and buildings, these materials are mostly mined abroad in poorer nations where labor is cheap (or worse | , workers are enslaved) and environmental laws are more permissive, rarely enforced or easily sidestepped with bribes.
The decline of domestic mining means that Americans are outsourcing the environmental and social costs of our inexpensive consumer goods to lower-income nations. More than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt, sometimes called the blood diamond of electric vehicle batteries, comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where child labor and sexual violence are rampant in mines. About half of the world’s nickel, another key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries, comes from mines in Indonesia, some of which have destroyed almost 200,000 acres of rainforest amid allegations of operating illegally on Indigenous land. In the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, where I’ve studied the environmental impacts of mining, I met fluorite miners who lamented the destruction of their landscapes and the poisoning of their groundwater.
Demand for these minerals is only growing as we transition away from fossil fuels, and leaving them in the ground will jeopardize climate progress. A United Nations study found that meeting international climate goals by 2030 could require building as many as 80 copper mines, 70 lithium mines and 70 nickel mines to supply the materials for electric vehicles, solar panels and a host of other low-carbon technologies.
The ethical and strategic way to handle this situation is for the federal government and environmentalists to encourage this industry to return to the United States and to hold it to the highest sustainability standards. Because safe and ethical mines are more expensive to run, consumers will have to pay a small premium for products with minerals sourced from these operations. Many of us are already paying more for responsibly sourced goods, such as chocolate and coffee — we should demand the same of our smartphones and batteries.
A changing climate, a changing world
Card 1 of 4
Climate change around the world: In “Postcards From a World on Fire,” 193 stories from individual countries show how climate change is reshaping reality everywhere, from dying coral reefs in Fiji to disappearing oases in Morocco and far, far beyond.
The role of our leaders: Writing at the end of 2020, Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, found reasons for optimism in the Biden presidency, a feeling perhaps borne out by the passing of major climate legislation. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been criticisms. For example, Charles Harvey and Kurt House argue that subsidies for climate capture technology will ultimately be a waste.
The worst climate risks, mapped: In this feature, select a country, and we'll break down the climate hazards it faces. In the case of America, our maps, developed with experts, show where extreme heat is causing the most deaths.
What people can do: Justin Gillis and Hal Harvey describe the types of local activism that might be needed, while Saul Griffith points to how Australia shows the way on rooftop solar. Meanwhile, small changes at the office might be one good way to cut significant emissions, writes Carlos Gamarra.
Reinventing the American mining industry might be more broadly appealing than it seems. On the right, conservatives are looking to shore up the jobs and tax revenue in rural communities generated by the fossil fuel industry, which is likely to decline as the energy transition gains momentum. Meanwhile, defense hawks are looking to outmaneuver China, which has a near monopoly on the supply chains of several critical minerals.
On the left, the Biden administration is looking to deliver on its made-in-America industrial policy, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which created tax incentives and $250 million in grants for domestic critical mineral production. Many of the bill’s provisions, like a generous credit for electric vehicles, require manufacturers to source at least half of the critical minerals in batteries from the United States or nations with which we have free trade agreements.
Several experts have proposed further reforms to advance critical minerals mining in the United States. The Bipartisan Policy Center has suggested creating time limits for federal environmental reviews and funding work force development. But reinventing a domestic industry faces two simple issues. The first is cost.
Paying fair wages, safely storing toxic waste and setting aside money for cleanup is expensive, and some mining companies prefer to try to make larger profits by operating in countries with cheaper labor and laxer regulations. A coordinated effort by purchasers of these minerals — companies such as Apple and General Motors — could change that calculus. By committing to purchasing ethically sourced materials, these companies could spur miners and investors to chase higher profits by selling the materials at a higher price in the same way organic farmers do with organic food. Federal and state governments can also commit to only purchasing vehicles with materials sourced from mines certified by groups like the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance.
In my conversations with industry insiders, I frequently hear that supply chains are too long and complex for manufacturers to ensure that responsibly produced minerals wind up in products. But behind this weak excuse is a stubborn reluctance to depart from the status quo. Just last month, the Swedish automaker Volvo announced that one of its new electric vehicle models will have a groundbreaking “battery passport” telling consumers where its battery components were mined and processed. Other companies can no longer pretend to be powerless over their supply chains.
The more persistent obstacle standing in the way of bringing more mining home to the United States is vitriol between mining companies, local communities and environmental groups — vitriol that stalls proposed developments and causes decades-long lead times for new mines. This conflict — usually waged through lawsuits and other administrative maneuvers — stems from a centuries-long history of mining companies poisoning rural (and especially tribal) communities and landscapes. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 40 percent of the nation’s rivers and 50 percent of the nation’s lakes have been contaminated in part by abandoned mines. Even today, some companies act unethically and cut corners, for example by declaring bankruptcy to dodge legal requirements to repair environmental damage after a mine closes.
But the mining industry can leave behind this shameful legacy. Recent advances have made it possible to extract minerals with a much smaller environmental footprint, such as reprocessing old waste materials at once abandoned mines. And some mining companies have shown a willingness to safeguard local communities. One mine in Montana has a binding agreement with regional residents to fund independent experts to monitor local water quality, going far beyond federal and state requirements. Although mining will never be zero-impact, it has the potential to be fair and responsible.
Achieving safe and ethical mining will require collaboration from environmental groups. Instead of reflexively opposing mining projects, activists should demand that new American mines hew to the highest sustainability standards. They should also push Congress to reform America’s inadequate mining laws, such as by requiring mining companies to sign benefit-sharing agreements with local communities before breaking ground on new mines.
It’s easy to shirk responsibility for the faraway impacts of what we buy and consume, and it’s noble to defend the landscapes we call home. But turning a blind eye to the consequences of our affluence exacts a great cost. It’s time to look squarely at that damage and ask ourselves: What can we do to make mining — and the global energy transition — a fair trade for people and the planet?
|
From Gowanus to Rhinebeck: ‘It’s a Whole Lifestyle Change.’.txt | By Tim McKeough
July 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
When Charles Brill and Merrill Lyons bought land in upstate New York, they imagined building a weekend home there, an escape from their full-time life in Gowanus, Brooklyn. But that was before the pandemic made them rethink the way they lived.
For years before they bought the property, said Mr. Brill, 40, a founder of the lighting company RBW, “we would seek out all the different farmers markets of the Hudson Valley and take day trips to different towns,” trying to figure out which places they liked best. They finally settled on an eight-acre lot outside Rhinebeck, N.Y., paying $123,000 in September 2019.
The couple, with their two children, in front of their restored 1969 Subaru mobile hot-dog stand.
Ms. Lyons, 44, an interior designer, began drawing up plans for a house with two small structures connected by a breezeway, calling on her friends Ben Sandell and Van Chu, the founders of the architecture firm Built Narrative Studio, for help.
“We wanted to echo traditional bucolic architecture and the way a farm grows over time, with buildings upon buildings,” Ms. Lyons said.
A wide view of the living room.
Or as Ms. Chu put it, “We wanted a design that looked like it belonged to that space and had been there for a while” — even though it was a modern house.
By the end of the year, the plans were complete and they had lined up a contractor to start construction the following spring. Then Covid arrived. The project was put on hold, and Mr. Brill and Ms. Lyons left New York with their children, now 8 and 6, to stay at a lake house in southern Ontario, Canada, that belonged to Ms. Lyons’s family.
The dining room, with green chairs and a hanging light fixture embellished with playful paintings.
“We lived there for about six months,” Mr. Brill said. “It was pretty desolate, and the only restaurant was a Tim Hortons. We said, ‘Hey, if we can live up here for six months, living in Rhinebeck would be a breeze, with all its great restaurants and shops.’”
A wide view of the kitchen.
A close-up of the kitchen counter.
After some discussion, they decided to make the upstate house their primary residence, and to eventually sell the place in Brooklyn. Revisiting the architectural plans, they made just one small change, expanding a section of the house to allow for closets in the bedrooms.
The children's beds.
The children's dresser.
The 2,500-square-foot, four-bedroom house that they built splits public and private functions between the two structures. One volume contains a wide-open living, dining and kitchen space beneath a cathedral ceiling, along with a guest suite. Across the breezeway, the other volume contains three bedrooms, including the primary suite. They planned a garage as a separate structure.
Impressed with a house the architect John Pawson had designed in rural Sweden, which had a roof of corrugated, galvanized metal, they used the same material for their roof and clad the exterior walls in white fiber-cement siding.
The vanity in the children's bathroom.
The tub and shower in the children's bathroom.
Inside, Ms. Lyons led the design charge, taking inspiration from midcentury-modern and Scandinavian design. “I’m a lot more decorative than Charlie. I use a lot of wallpaper and color,” said Ms. Lyons, who attempted to find a middle ground when their ideas about design diverged. “Charlie gave me the brief that he wanted it simple and clean.”
Aiming for quick, low-cost construction, Mr. Brill also requested that she use tough, readily available materials that weren’t too time-consuming to install.
The bed in the primary bedroom.
Looking into the primary bedroom.
Ms. Lyons responded by specifying a tile floor, laminate kitchen cabinets and terrazzo counters in the primary living space. She kept the clean-lined space largely free of decorative clutter, but added color with various shades of laminate on the cabinets (mustard yellow, dark and light gray), bright green Rey dining chairs and a shaggy teal-and-black floor covering from Beni Rugs.
In the bedrooms, she created softer spaces with more visual warmth, using whitewashed pine flooring and covering the walls of the primary bedroom in floral wallpaper from the Swedish company Borastapeter.
Looking into a bathroom with black tile and colorful wallpaper.
The family moved back into their Brooklyn house a few months after construction began in August 2020. A year later, when the Rhinebeck house was nearly finished at a cost of about $650 a square foot, the family moved in and sold their Brooklyn home. Since then, they have completed the finishing touches, built the garage and done the landscaping, based on a plan developed with R Design.
“We love it,” Ms. Lyons said. “It’s a whole lifestyle change. We can spread out, and the kids can enjoy the outdoors without us having to watch them.”
The cat sits on a window seat in front of a large picture window.
“The parking is really good, too,” Mr. Brill added with a laugh. In Brooklyn, it used to take him an hour to find street parking. Now he drives right up to the front door.
To make the journey a little more fun, he bought and restored a 1969 Subaru mini truck that had been converted into a mobile hot-dog stand.
“We have ambitions for our kids to have a stand at the Rhinebeck Farmers Market,” he said. “When they’re teenagers, that can be their souped-up lemonade stand.”
A wide view of the breezeway connecting the house's two structures.
For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here.
| By Tim McKeough
July 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
When Charles Brill and Merrill Lyons bought land in upstate New York, they imagined building a weekend home there, an escape from their full-time life in Gowanus, Brooklyn. But that was before the pandemic made them rethink the way they lived.
For years before they bought the property, said Mr. Brill, 40, a founder of the lighting company RBW, “we would seek out all the different farmers markets of the Hudson Valley and take day trips to different towns,” trying | to figure out which places they liked best. They finally settled on an eight-acre lot outside Rhinebeck, N.Y., paying $123,000 in September 2019.
The couple, with their two children, in front of their restored 1969 Subaru mobile hot-dog stand.
Ms. Lyons, 44, an interior designer, began drawing up plans for a house with two small structures connected by a breezeway, calling on her friends Ben Sandell and Van Chu, the founders of the architecture firm Built Narrative Studio, for help.
“We wanted to echo traditional bucolic architecture and the way a farm grows over time, with buildings upon buildings,” Ms. Lyons said.
A wide view of the living room.
Or as Ms. Chu put it, “We wanted a design that looked like it belonged to that space and had been there for a while” — even though it was a modern house.
By the end of the year, the plans were complete and they had lined up a contractor to start construction the following spring. Then Covid arrived. The project was put on hold, and Mr. Brill and Ms. Lyons left New York with their children, now 8 and 6, to stay at a lake house in southern Ontario, Canada, that belonged to Ms. Lyons’s family.
The dining room, with green chairs and a hanging light fixture embellished with playful paintings.
“We lived there for about six months,” Mr. Brill said. “It was pretty desolate, and the only restaurant was a Tim Hortons. We said, ‘Hey, if we can live up here for six months, living in Rhinebeck would be a breeze, with all its great restaurants and shops.’”
A wide view of the kitchen.
A close-up of the kitchen counter.
After some discussion, they decided to make the upstate house their primary residence, and to eventually sell the place in Brooklyn. Revisiting the architectural plans, they made just one small change, expanding a section of the house to allow for closets in the bedrooms.
The children's beds.
The children's dresser.
The 2,500-square-foot, four-bedroom house that they built splits public and private functions between the two structures. One volume contains a wide-open living, dining and kitchen space beneath a cathedral ceiling, along with a guest suite. Across the breezeway, the other volume contains three bedrooms, including the primary suite. They planned a garage as a separate structure.
Impressed with a house the architect John Pawson had designed in rural Sweden, which had a roof of corrugated, galvanized metal, they used the same material for their roof and clad the exterior walls in white fiber-cement siding.
The vanity in the children's bathroom.
The tub and shower in the children's bathroom.
Inside, Ms. Lyons led the design charge, taking inspiration from midcentury-modern and Scandinavian design. “I’m a lot more decorative than Charlie. I use a lot of wallpaper and color,” said Ms. Lyons, who attempted to find a middle ground when their ideas about design diverged. “Charlie gave me the brief that he wanted it simple and clean.”
Aiming for quick, low-cost construction, Mr. Brill also requested that she use tough, readily available materials that weren’t too time-consuming to install.
The bed in the primary bedroom.
Looking into the primary bedroom.
Ms. Lyons responded by specifying a tile floor, laminate kitchen cabinets and terrazzo counters in the primary living space. She kept the clean-lined space largely free of decorative clutter, but added color with various shades of laminate on the cabinets (mustard yellow, dark and light gray), bright green Rey dining chairs and a shaggy teal-and-black floor covering from Beni Rugs.
In the bedrooms, she created softer spaces with more visual warmth, using whitewashed pine flooring and covering the walls of the primary bedroom in floral wallpaper from the Swedish company Borastapeter.
Looking into a bathroom with black tile and colorful wallpaper.
The family moved back into their Brooklyn house a few months after construction began in August 2020. A year later, when the Rhinebeck house was nearly finished at a cost of about $650 a square foot, the family moved in and sold their Brooklyn home. Since then, they have completed the finishing touches, built the garage and done the landscaping, based on a plan developed with R Design.
“We love it,” Ms. Lyons said. “It’s a whole lifestyle change. We can spread out, and the kids can enjoy the outdoors without us having to watch them.”
The cat sits on a window seat in front of a large picture window.
“The parking is really good, too,” Mr. Brill added with a laugh. In Brooklyn, it used to take him an hour to find street parking. Now he drives right up to the front door.
To make the journey a little more fun, he bought and restored a 1969 Subaru mini truck that had been converted into a mobile hot-dog stand.
“We have ambitions for our kids to have a stand at the Rhinebeck Farmers Market,” he said. “When they’re teenagers, that can be their souped-up lemonade stand.”
A wide view of the breezeway connecting the house's two structures.
For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here.
|
The Good Mood in Milwaukee.txt | By Jess Bidgood
July 15, 2024
You’re reading the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
Hello from Milwaukee, where there is So. Much. News. Read on for the top developments and a look at how the sobriety of the weekend has given way to jubilation at the Republican National Convention. Plus, the calculus behind Trump’s pick for veep.
The latest
Former President Donald Trump selected Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio to be his vice-presidential nominee, rewarding a loyal and TV-ready ally as he moved to ensure the future of the G.O.P. sounds just like him.
Trump clinched the number of delegates needed to become his party’s official nominee.
Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the federal charges he faced for taking classified documents from the White House after his presidency. An appeal is expected.
President Biden was set to sit for an interview with NBC, which will run in full at 9 p.m. Eastern time.
‘Trump just won’
As the Republican National Convention opened in the extraordinary shadow of the attempted assassination of the nominee, aides with Trump’s campaign insisted that the former president’s near-death “changes nothing” about their plans or their focus here.
Tell that to the Republican delegates and party stalwarts milling around in Milwaukee.
“Talk about strength, right?” said Mark Morgan, a former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration, raising his arms as he spoke at a policy forum staged by the Heritage Foundation just outside the convention.
“After President Trump was shot in the head, what does he do? Fist bump and say ‘Fight, fight, fight,” Morgan said as the crowd cheered.
The bombast around the shooting — which killed one rallygoer and left two people in critical condition — may not be coming from the main stage tonight as the G.O.P. seeks to show some restraint.
But in party breakfasts, bars and the baking sidewalks of Milwaukee, Republicans said they believe the episode would bring them a political boost. And they view it as just one more example of the way everything — everything — seems to be going their way.
“Let’s be honest,” said the former Fox News host and Trump ally Tucker Carlson from the Heritage stage, according to my colleague Ken Bensinger. “Trump just won. He just won.”
On Monday morning, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the federal charges Trump faced for retaining classified documents after his presidency — a decision sure to be appealed that nevertheless removes a major legal threat against the former president.
Battleground polls show Trump leading President Biden in states he would need to clinch the presidency. Trump has a three-point lead in Pennsylvania, according to a poll from The New York Times and Siena College, and is trailing by only three points in Virginia, which hasn’t backed a Republican for president since George W. Bush in 2004.
And, of course, there is the fact that over the past two weeks, the Democrats have melted down, consumed with worry about the age and fitness of President Biden after his halting debate performance just over two weeks ago.
“It kind of feels to me like Reagan coming in the 1980s,” said Jonathan Barnett, a Republican committeeman from Arkansas who was attending his 12th convention, comparing the recent developments to the release of hostages in Iran that helped lift the national mood after Ronald Reagan won the presidency in a landslide.
Barnett and other Republicans described the shooting on Saturday as a tragedy — but one that they nevertheless believe has left Trump stronger than ever.
“He’s a survivor,” Barnett said, “and people like survivors.”
A party on offense
It has all fed a sense of bullishness — even inevitability — across a Republican Party that has in recent years often found itself on defense. Republicans did not expect to win the 2016 presidential election. They bled House seats in the 2018 midterms, lost the 2020 presidential election and were underwhelmed by their performance in the 2022 midterm elections.
“This is like playing a football game in which you’ve been playing defense for seven years and suddenly they handed you the ball,” the Republican strategist Scott Jennings said in an interview last week, before the shooting. “It’s the first time the party has actually, truly been on offense.”
To the Republicans here, it’s not just Trump who survived the shooting and emerged with a boost. Their party has, too.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 7:02 a.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
Trump’s new rival may bring out his harshest instincts.
“We were very united before,” said Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who was a Utah congressman from 2009 to 2017. “But there’s an unbreakable bond now. He’s willing to put his life on the line to make America great again, and that is so baked into the D.N.A. of Republicans at this point — it makes us proud.”
Maggie Sandrock, 68, a retired executive and a delegate from North Carolina, said she saw Trump’s survival as a miracle that showed “God’s hands on him.”
But she also said she thought it would help Republicans mend internal divisions over party leaders’ decisions to soften the party platform’s position on abortion and to roll back its focus on longstanding values like fiscal conservatism.
“There have been some really major differences,” she said. “I think as a result of what happened on Saturday, I think this party is more committed than ever to come out united, saying that ‘This is our president, we’re going to fight until there’s no fight left and we’re going to win.’”
The unity on display here is a stark contrast from the last time the party gathered in person, in 2016, when Trump muscled his way to the nomination despite wide opposition. Now, he is the king of his party, with most of his opponents largely excommunicated.
On Monday afternoon, the party also crowned a prince, when it nominated Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.
My colleague Michael Gold was in the arena when Vance walked onto the convention floor to cheers. Michael said Vance seemed overcome with emotion as Ohio’s lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, read a speech that celebrated his conservative values and his adherence to Trumpism. With his wife, Usha, standing nearby, he beamed as the crowd started a chant of “J.D.! J.D.!”
It was another moment of jubilation for a party that feels it can already taste victory.
Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio is applauding on the floor of the Republican National Convention.
THE VEEPSTAKES
Why Trump chose J.D. Vance
On Monday, Trump elevated an ambitious ideologue to his ticket in a move that is likely to shape Republican politics for years to come. I asked my colleague Michael Bender, who has joined us periodically over the last couple of months to talk veepstakes, to tell us about a figure who could become the heir to Trump’s political movement.
JB: Why do you think Trump picked Vance?
MB: Vance fits better than any of the other contenders with Trump’s instincts. I think about, right after the attempted assassination, where Trump wanted to get up and tell everybody to keep fighting. Vance has really positioned himself as a fighter in Trump’s MAGA movement.
JB: Vance went on X shortly after the shooting at the Trump rally and blamed the Biden campaign’s rhetoric for the attempted assassination. Is that the kind of instinct you mean?
MB: For sure. And that happened when Trump’s advisers and his wife, Melania Trump, were all urging Trump and the rest of the campaign to take it down a couple of notches, calling for unity and peace. Trump must see Vance as his best chance to win this November.
JB: What does it mean that Trump has chosen a former critic to be his vice president?
MB: Each of the final three contenders — Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Vance — all have some Trump criticism in their background. You might have to go back to the post-Revolutionary era to find a vice president who has said so many divisive things about the person at the top of the ticket — go back to a time when the vice president was whoever came in second. There are just very few people out there who have always believed that Donald Trump was the right man for the job.
JB: Does it say something about the way Trump is trying to shape the future of the party that he has chosen the youngest of his contenders?
This is one of the most shocking elements of this pick to me. Trump is not someone who has ever shown any interest in finding a successor, whether that’s in his business, whether that’s as a reality TV show host, or in politics to this point. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the potential that the page could ever be turned from Donald Trump. By choosing an up-and-comer who’s barely beyond the age threshold to be president himself, he’s inviting speculation right now about what Vance’s plans are for 2028.
Jess Bidgood is a managing correspondent for The Times and writes the On Politics newsletter, a guide to the 2024 election and beyond. More about Jess Bidgood
See more on: 2024 Elections, Republican Party, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, President Joe Biden
| By Jess Bidgood
July 15, 2024
You’re reading the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
Hello from Milwaukee, where there is So. Much. News. Read on for the top developments and a look at how the sobriety of the weekend has given way to jubilation at the Republican National Convention. Plus, the calculus behind Trump’s pick for veep.
The latest
Former President Donald Trump selected Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio to be his vice-presidential nominee, rewarding a loyal and | TV-ready ally as he moved to ensure the future of the G.O.P. sounds just like him.
Trump clinched the number of delegates needed to become his party’s official nominee.
Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the federal charges he faced for taking classified documents from the White House after his presidency. An appeal is expected.
President Biden was set to sit for an interview with NBC, which will run in full at 9 p.m. Eastern time.
‘Trump just won’
As the Republican National Convention opened in the extraordinary shadow of the attempted assassination of the nominee, aides with Trump’s campaign insisted that the former president’s near-death “changes nothing” about their plans or their focus here.
Tell that to the Republican delegates and party stalwarts milling around in Milwaukee.
“Talk about strength, right?” said Mark Morgan, a former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration, raising his arms as he spoke at a policy forum staged by the Heritage Foundation just outside the convention.
“After President Trump was shot in the head, what does he do? Fist bump and say ‘Fight, fight, fight,” Morgan said as the crowd cheered.
The bombast around the shooting — which killed one rallygoer and left two people in critical condition — may not be coming from the main stage tonight as the G.O.P. seeks to show some restraint.
But in party breakfasts, bars and the baking sidewalks of Milwaukee, Republicans said they believe the episode would bring them a political boost. And they view it as just one more example of the way everything — everything — seems to be going their way.
“Let’s be honest,” said the former Fox News host and Trump ally Tucker Carlson from the Heritage stage, according to my colleague Ken Bensinger. “Trump just won. He just won.”
On Monday morning, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the federal charges Trump faced for retaining classified documents after his presidency — a decision sure to be appealed that nevertheless removes a major legal threat against the former president.
Battleground polls show Trump leading President Biden in states he would need to clinch the presidency. Trump has a three-point lead in Pennsylvania, according to a poll from The New York Times and Siena College, and is trailing by only three points in Virginia, which hasn’t backed a Republican for president since George W. Bush in 2004.
And, of course, there is the fact that over the past two weeks, the Democrats have melted down, consumed with worry about the age and fitness of President Biden after his halting debate performance just over two weeks ago.
“It kind of feels to me like Reagan coming in the 1980s,” said Jonathan Barnett, a Republican committeeman from Arkansas who was attending his 12th convention, comparing the recent developments to the release of hostages in Iran that helped lift the national mood after Ronald Reagan won the presidency in a landslide.
Barnett and other Republicans described the shooting on Saturday as a tragedy — but one that they nevertheless believe has left Trump stronger than ever.
“He’s a survivor,” Barnett said, “and people like survivors.”
A party on offense
It has all fed a sense of bullishness — even inevitability — across a Republican Party that has in recent years often found itself on defense. Republicans did not expect to win the 2016 presidential election. They bled House seats in the 2018 midterms, lost the 2020 presidential election and were underwhelmed by their performance in the 2022 midterm elections.
“This is like playing a football game in which you’ve been playing defense for seven years and suddenly they handed you the ball,” the Republican strategist Scott Jennings said in an interview last week, before the shooting. “It’s the first time the party has actually, truly been on offense.”
To the Republicans here, it’s not just Trump who survived the shooting and emerged with a boost. Their party has, too.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 7:02 a.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
Trump’s new rival may bring out his harshest instincts.
“We were very united before,” said Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who was a Utah congressman from 2009 to 2017. “But there’s an unbreakable bond now. He’s willing to put his life on the line to make America great again, and that is so baked into the D.N.A. of Republicans at this point — it makes us proud.”
Maggie Sandrock, 68, a retired executive and a delegate from North Carolina, said she saw Trump’s survival as a miracle that showed “God’s hands on him.”
But she also said she thought it would help Republicans mend internal divisions over party leaders’ decisions to soften the party platform’s position on abortion and to roll back its focus on longstanding values like fiscal conservatism.
“There have been some really major differences,” she said. “I think as a result of what happened on Saturday, I think this party is more committed than ever to come out united, saying that ‘This is our president, we’re going to fight until there’s no fight left and we’re going to win.’”
The unity on display here is a stark contrast from the last time the party gathered in person, in 2016, when Trump muscled his way to the nomination despite wide opposition. Now, he is the king of his party, with most of his opponents largely excommunicated.
On Monday afternoon, the party also crowned a prince, when it nominated Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.
My colleague Michael Gold was in the arena when Vance walked onto the convention floor to cheers. Michael said Vance seemed overcome with emotion as Ohio’s lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, read a speech that celebrated his conservative values and his adherence to Trumpism. With his wife, Usha, standing nearby, he beamed as the crowd started a chant of “J.D.! J.D.!”
It was another moment of jubilation for a party that feels it can already taste victory.
Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio is applauding on the floor of the Republican National Convention.
THE VEEPSTAKES
Why Trump chose J.D. Vance
On Monday, Trump elevated an ambitious ideologue to his ticket in a move that is likely to shape Republican politics for years to come. I asked my colleague Michael Bender, who has joined us periodically over the last couple of months to talk veepstakes, to tell us about a figure who could become the heir to Trump’s political movement.
JB: Why do you think Trump picked Vance?
MB: Vance fits better than any of the other contenders with Trump’s instincts. I think about, right after the attempted assassination, where Trump wanted to get up and tell everybody to keep fighting. Vance has really positioned himself as a fighter in Trump’s MAGA movement.
JB: Vance went on X shortly after the shooting at the Trump rally and blamed the Biden campaign’s rhetoric for the attempted assassination. Is that the kind of instinct you mean?
MB: For sure. And that happened when Trump’s advisers and his wife, Melania Trump, were all urging Trump and the rest of the campaign to take it down a couple of notches, calling for unity and peace. Trump must see Vance as his best chance to win this November.
JB: What does it mean that Trump has chosen a former critic to be his vice president?
MB: Each of the final three contenders — Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Vance — all have some Trump criticism in their background. You might have to go back to the post-Revolutionary era to find a vice president who has said so many divisive things about the person at the top of the ticket — go back to a time when the vice president was whoever came in second. There are just very few people out there who have always believed that Donald Trump was the right man for the job.
JB: Does it say something about the way Trump is trying to shape the future of the party that he has chosen the youngest of his contenders?
This is one of the most shocking elements of this pick to me. Trump is not someone who has ever shown any interest in finding a successor, whether that’s in his business, whether that’s as a reality TV show host, or in politics to this point. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the potential that the page could ever be turned from Donald Trump. By choosing an up-and-comer who’s barely beyond the age threshold to be president himself, he’s inviting speculation right now about what Vance’s plans are for 2028.
Jess Bidgood is a managing correspondent for The Times and writes the On Politics newsletter, a guide to the 2024 election and beyond. More about Jess Bidgood
See more on: 2024 Elections, Republican Party, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, President Joe Biden
|
Elon Musk Allies Help Start Pro-Trump Super PAC.txt | By Theodore Schleifer
July 15, 2024
Some of Elon Musk’s closest friends have helped start a new super PAC meant to help former President Donald J. Trump, creating an avenue for Mr. Musk and his $250 billion fortune to potentially play a significant role in the 2024 presidential race.
The group, America PAC, is likely to draw significant support from Mr. Musk, according to three people close to the group who spoke on the condition of anonymity; it is not confirmed whether he has already donated. The group’s founding donors span Mr. Musk’s social circle and include a tight-knit network of wealthy tech entrepreneurs who frequently finance one another’s startups, philanthropic projects and favored political candidates.
Mr. Musk had not donated to the super PAC as of June 30, the end of the most recent disclosure period, according to a Monday filing with the Federal Election Commission. But his tilt to the right, especially in his commentary on his social media site X, has left Republicans hoping he will wade more into funding conservative candidates and causes. On Saturday, soon after Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt, Mr. Musk went on X to issue a full-throated endorsement of the former president.
In the spring, one leader of America PAC told a friend that the group expected to have a major donor who would make donations in four batches, adding up to as much as $160 million over the course of the campaign. The friend, who insisted on anonymity, was not told the identity of the megadonor.
The super PAC, according to three people close to the organization, is led in part by Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of the software company Palantir and a politically ambitious venture capitalist in Austin who serves as a political confidant to Mr. Musk. Mr. Lonsdale, the people say, has played a key role in fund-raising for the group in its opening weeks, encouraging his network of influential entrepreneurs to support the super PAC. His personal company donated $1 million to the group.
The top early donors to America PAC include several powerful conservatives from the tech industry. Contributions include $1 million from Antonio Gracias, a private-equity mogul and a board director at SpaceX; $1 million from Ken Howery, an early executive at PayPal alongside Mr. Musk who served as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Sweden; and $500,000 from Shaun Maguire, an investor at Sequoia Capital who is close to Mr. Musk.
The group has released few details about its operations and its strategy, other than that it has been running field and digital programs on behalf of the former president, mostly encouraging early and mail-in voting. People close to it say that a key operative is Dave Rexrode, a top political operative who most recently has served as a key ally to Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. Mr. Rexrode did not respond to requests for comment in recent days.
America PAC, whose existence was first reported by The New York Times, has spent about $15 million on behalf of Mr. Trump over the last few weeks, turning heads among Mr. Trump’s allies. It raised $9 million in the month after it was founded.
Because of loosened rules adopted this year by the F.E.C., super PACs like America PAC that conduct canvassing are legally able to strategize and coordinate with candidates such as Mr. Trump.
Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment over the last few days about his reported support for the group.
“We believe that four more years of Joe Biden is a grave threat to the financial and physical safety of the United States,” the group said in a statement to The New York Times, its first public comment about its activities, criticizing the Biden administration’s policies on inflation, debt and the border.
Other supporters from tech circles include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the cryptocurrency entrepreneurs who famously fought with Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard and who gave $250,000 apiece; Doug Leone, a billionaire venture capitalist at Sequoia who put in $1 million; and John Hering, a tech founder in San Francisco who put in $500,000 and helps run a fund that invested in Mr. Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
Mr. Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX, had been circumspect about whether he would back Mr. Trump. In March, Mr. Musk attended a breakfast at a private home in Palm Beach, Fla., with Mr. Trump and a small group of wealthy Republican donors, at a time when the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was seeking a cash injection to his campaign.
After The Times reported on the meeting, Mr. Musk went on X, the social platform that he owns, to push back against rumors that he was giving money to Mr. Trump. “Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President,” he wrote.
However, those statements did not preclude the potential for donating to an outside group supporting one of the candidates.
Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman and Ryan Mac contributed reporting.
| By Theodore Schleifer
July 15, 2024
Some of Elon Musk’s closest friends have helped start a new super PAC meant to help former President Donald J. Trump, creating an avenue for Mr. Musk and his $250 billion fortune to potentially play a significant role in the 2024 presidential race.
The group, America PAC, is likely to draw significant support from Mr. Musk, according to three people close to the group who spoke on the condition of anonymity; it is not confirmed whether he has already donated. The group’s founding donors span Mr. Musk’s social | circle and include a tight-knit network of wealthy tech entrepreneurs who frequently finance one another’s startups, philanthropic projects and favored political candidates.
Mr. Musk had not donated to the super PAC as of June 30, the end of the most recent disclosure period, according to a Monday filing with the Federal Election Commission. But his tilt to the right, especially in his commentary on his social media site X, has left Republicans hoping he will wade more into funding conservative candidates and causes. On Saturday, soon after Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt, Mr. Musk went on X to issue a full-throated endorsement of the former president.
In the spring, one leader of America PAC told a friend that the group expected to have a major donor who would make donations in four batches, adding up to as much as $160 million over the course of the campaign. The friend, who insisted on anonymity, was not told the identity of the megadonor.
The super PAC, according to three people close to the organization, is led in part by Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of the software company Palantir and a politically ambitious venture capitalist in Austin who serves as a political confidant to Mr. Musk. Mr. Lonsdale, the people say, has played a key role in fund-raising for the group in its opening weeks, encouraging his network of influential entrepreneurs to support the super PAC. His personal company donated $1 million to the group.
The top early donors to America PAC include several powerful conservatives from the tech industry. Contributions include $1 million from Antonio Gracias, a private-equity mogul and a board director at SpaceX; $1 million from Ken Howery, an early executive at PayPal alongside Mr. Musk who served as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Sweden; and $500,000 from Shaun Maguire, an investor at Sequoia Capital who is close to Mr. Musk.
The group has released few details about its operations and its strategy, other than that it has been running field and digital programs on behalf of the former president, mostly encouraging early and mail-in voting. People close to it say that a key operative is Dave Rexrode, a top political operative who most recently has served as a key ally to Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. Mr. Rexrode did not respond to requests for comment in recent days.
America PAC, whose existence was first reported by The New York Times, has spent about $15 million on behalf of Mr. Trump over the last few weeks, turning heads among Mr. Trump’s allies. It raised $9 million in the month after it was founded.
Because of loosened rules adopted this year by the F.E.C., super PACs like America PAC that conduct canvassing are legally able to strategize and coordinate with candidates such as Mr. Trump.
Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment over the last few days about his reported support for the group.
“We believe that four more years of Joe Biden is a grave threat to the financial and physical safety of the United States,” the group said in a statement to The New York Times, its first public comment about its activities, criticizing the Biden administration’s policies on inflation, debt and the border.
Other supporters from tech circles include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the cryptocurrency entrepreneurs who famously fought with Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard and who gave $250,000 apiece; Doug Leone, a billionaire venture capitalist at Sequoia who put in $1 million; and John Hering, a tech founder in San Francisco who put in $500,000 and helps run a fund that invested in Mr. Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
Mr. Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX, had been circumspect about whether he would back Mr. Trump. In March, Mr. Musk attended a breakfast at a private home in Palm Beach, Fla., with Mr. Trump and a small group of wealthy Republican donors, at a time when the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was seeking a cash injection to his campaign.
After The Times reported on the meeting, Mr. Musk went on X, the social platform that he owns, to push back against rumors that he was giving money to Mr. Trump. “Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President,” he wrote.
However, those statements did not preclude the potential for donating to an outside group supporting one of the candidates.
Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman and Ryan Mac contributed reporting.
|
Flight Delays and Cancellations Continue Saturday but in Lower Numbers.txt | By Niraj Chokshi and Emily Flitter
July 20, 2024
Airlines made progress toward containing the fallout from a tech outage that disrupted global travel on Friday, though some flight delays and cancellations extended into Saturday.
In all, about 3,400 flights to, from and within the United States were canceled on Friday, according to FlightAware, a company that tracks flight information. That made it the worst day of the year for flight cancellations, beating Jan. 15 when airlines besieged by bad winter storms canceled nearly 3,200 flights in the United States.
Delays and cancellations on Saturday appeared on track to be much lower than on Friday. Airlines had canceled about 1,600 flights as of midafternoon, with Delta Air Lines and United Airlines among the hardest hit, according to FlightAware.
“Delta teams in airports, on board flights, on the phones and in messaging are working tirelessly to care for customers as the airline works to put flight crews and aircraft back in position following the disruption,” the airline said in a statement. Most of the flight cancellations on Saturday were concentrated in the morning and early afternoon, Delta said.
In a statement, United said, “Most of our technology systems have been restored and our reliability is improving, although we will continue to see cancellations and delays this weekend.” It added, “Our customer service teams in call centers and airports are working significant overtime” to help passengers, including offering “hotel and food vouchers when needed.”
Several carriers said they would waive fees and fare differences or offer refunds for affected passengers. The Transportation Department said that carriers may also have to compensate some travelers for food, lodging and transport.
In a statement on Saturday, American Airlines said it had fully recovered from the outage, with cancellations totaling “less than 1 percent of our total operation.”
The outage on Friday was caused when CrowdStrike, a widely used cybersecurity provider, issued a flawed software update to Microsoft devices. Soon after, airlines and many other businesses and institutions began suffering technical failures. For airlines, a wide range of systems were affected, including those that calculate aircraft weight, check in customers, issue boarding passes and manage call center phone lines.
The problems for airlines peaked early on Friday morning, with most major U.S. airlines having resumed flying by the start of the workday. But the early disruption continued to reverberate throughout the day.
Widespread outages like the one on Friday can quickly destabilize an airline’s operations. When flights are canceled, pilots and flight attendants may miss or arrive late to their next assigned trips. Aviation regulations also limit how many consecutive hours crews can work. As a result, airlines are forced to find and assign other pilots and attendants to take over, possibly leading to further delays.
Delta had canceled about 31 percent of its scheduled flights by the end of the day on Friday, while United had scrapped 22 percent and American Airlines had canceled about 10 percent, according to FlightAware. But some airlines emerged relatively unscathed. Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines each canceled only a handful of flights.
On Friday afternoon, Todd and Diane Keiller, a couple from the Boston suburbs, sipped beers at a small bar at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, a major East Coast hub, and tried to make their three-hour delay feel less oppressive. They were on an American Airlines flight to Grand Rapids, Mich., that was delayed while the airline waited for a flight crew.
They had arrived at Boston Logan International Airport early Friday morning to a chaotic scene: The crowd at the security checkpoint was so thick that a Transportation Security Administration agent accidentally handed Mr. Keiller’s driver’s license to someone else who walked away with it. The agency later reviewed security tapes to track down the man who had his license.
Mr. Keiller said he was on his way to Michigan for a fraternity reunion and had notified his host that he and Mrs. Keiller would be hours late.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry, whenever you get here there will be a cold beer waiting,’” Mr. Keiller said.
At Harry Reid International Airport near Las Vegas on Friday, some passengers who had been waiting at a gate since early that morning for a delayed flight to Boston learned around 5 p.m. that Delta had canceled their flight. At one counter, a Delta agent told stranded passengers that there were no available flights back to Boston until Monday.
The airline had publicly promised, on its app and website, that it would provide meal vouchers and hotel accommodations for affected customers. But the agent told the Boston passengers that Delta was not honoring that commitment in Las Vegas and customers would have to pick up the costs of meals and hotel rooms.
On Friday evening at the airport, dozens of passengers on canceled Delta flights who had checked their bags then stood in line for hours in baggage claim trying to retrieve their belongings from the airline’s luggage office.
Travelers reported similarly chaotic scenes around the world as airport and airline employees did their best to manage the disruption, including, in some instances, by issuing handwritten boarding passes.
While the disruption was severe, it is expected to have little lasting financial effect on airlines or airports, analysts for Morningstar, the financial research firm, said in a note on Friday.
“We expect the impact to the global airline industry to be manageable,” they said.
| By Niraj Chokshi and Emily Flitter
July 20, 2024
Airlines made progress toward containing the fallout from a tech outage that disrupted global travel on Friday, though some flight delays and cancellations extended into Saturday.
In all, about 3,400 flights to, from and within the United States were canceled on Friday, according to FlightAware, a company that tracks flight information. That made it the worst day of the year for flight cancellations, beating Jan. 15 when airlines besieged by bad winter storms canceled nearly 3,200 | flights in the United States.
Delays and cancellations on Saturday appeared on track to be much lower than on Friday. Airlines had canceled about 1,600 flights as of midafternoon, with Delta Air Lines and United Airlines among the hardest hit, according to FlightAware.
“Delta teams in airports, on board flights, on the phones and in messaging are working tirelessly to care for customers as the airline works to put flight crews and aircraft back in position following the disruption,” the airline said in a statement. Most of the flight cancellations on Saturday were concentrated in the morning and early afternoon, Delta said.
In a statement, United said, “Most of our technology systems have been restored and our reliability is improving, although we will continue to see cancellations and delays this weekend.” It added, “Our customer service teams in call centers and airports are working significant overtime” to help passengers, including offering “hotel and food vouchers when needed.”
Several carriers said they would waive fees and fare differences or offer refunds for affected passengers. The Transportation Department said that carriers may also have to compensate some travelers for food, lodging and transport.
In a statement on Saturday, American Airlines said it had fully recovered from the outage, with cancellations totaling “less than 1 percent of our total operation.”
The outage on Friday was caused when CrowdStrike, a widely used cybersecurity provider, issued a flawed software update to Microsoft devices. Soon after, airlines and many other businesses and institutions began suffering technical failures. For airlines, a wide range of systems were affected, including those that calculate aircraft weight, check in customers, issue boarding passes and manage call center phone lines.
The problems for airlines peaked early on Friday morning, with most major U.S. airlines having resumed flying by the start of the workday. But the early disruption continued to reverberate throughout the day.
Widespread outages like the one on Friday can quickly destabilize an airline’s operations. When flights are canceled, pilots and flight attendants may miss or arrive late to their next assigned trips. Aviation regulations also limit how many consecutive hours crews can work. As a result, airlines are forced to find and assign other pilots and attendants to take over, possibly leading to further delays.
Delta had canceled about 31 percent of its scheduled flights by the end of the day on Friday, while United had scrapped 22 percent and American Airlines had canceled about 10 percent, according to FlightAware. But some airlines emerged relatively unscathed. Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines each canceled only a handful of flights.
On Friday afternoon, Todd and Diane Keiller, a couple from the Boston suburbs, sipped beers at a small bar at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, a major East Coast hub, and tried to make their three-hour delay feel less oppressive. They were on an American Airlines flight to Grand Rapids, Mich., that was delayed while the airline waited for a flight crew.
They had arrived at Boston Logan International Airport early Friday morning to a chaotic scene: The crowd at the security checkpoint was so thick that a Transportation Security Administration agent accidentally handed Mr. Keiller’s driver’s license to someone else who walked away with it. The agency later reviewed security tapes to track down the man who had his license.
Mr. Keiller said he was on his way to Michigan for a fraternity reunion and had notified his host that he and Mrs. Keiller would be hours late.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry, whenever you get here there will be a cold beer waiting,’” Mr. Keiller said.
At Harry Reid International Airport near Las Vegas on Friday, some passengers who had been waiting at a gate since early that morning for a delayed flight to Boston learned around 5 p.m. that Delta had canceled their flight. At one counter, a Delta agent told stranded passengers that there were no available flights back to Boston until Monday.
The airline had publicly promised, on its app and website, that it would provide meal vouchers and hotel accommodations for affected customers. But the agent told the Boston passengers that Delta was not honoring that commitment in Las Vegas and customers would have to pick up the costs of meals and hotel rooms.
On Friday evening at the airport, dozens of passengers on canceled Delta flights who had checked their bags then stood in line for hours in baggage claim trying to retrieve their belongings from the airline’s luggage office.
Travelers reported similarly chaotic scenes around the world as airport and airline employees did their best to manage the disruption, including, in some instances, by issuing handwritten boarding passes.
While the disruption was severe, it is expected to have little lasting financial effect on airlines or airports, analysts for Morningstar, the financial research firm, said in a note on Friday.
“We expect the impact to the global airline industry to be manageable,” they said.
|
Some of Biden’s Upcoming Fund-Raising Events Face New Uncertainty.txt | By Reid J. Epstein, Theodore Schleifer, Maggie Haberman and Kenneth P. Vogel
July 5, 2024
Some of President Biden’s fund-raising events in the coming weeks are in jeopardy, with one potential Wisconsin event failing to materialize and a Texas event up in the air after his poor debate performance against Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden’s fund-raising schedule is often fluid, as the White House and the campaign juggle the complicated logistics of official events with the competing demands of donors and finance operatives. But the aftermath of his debate performance has added an additional layer of uncertainty, with a growing group of major donors calling on Mr. Biden to drop his re-election campaign and make way for a replacement at the top of the ticket.
The Biden campaign had discussed sending Mr. Biden to Wisconsin for a late July fund-raiser, according to three people briefed on the plans. But donors who had committed to giving large sums and attending began withdrawing soon after the debate ended.
The campaign had hoped to raise $1 million from the event, but after the debate, campaign officials reset the event’s goal to $500,000, according to one person involved in arranging it. Even that proved to be more than Wisconsin donors were willing to give to Mr. Biden. Plans for the event are now off.
Another fund-raiser under consideration was to be paired with an official event in mid-July at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library in Austin, Texas, where Mr. Biden will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, according to two people briefed on the planning.
The fund-raiser was to be hosted by Luci Baines Johnson, the former president’s daughter. But it is unclear whether the event will proceed, according to the people briefed on the planning.
John Morgan, a Florida lawyer who had discussed the possibility of hosting Mr. Biden at a fund-raiser next month or in September, said campaign officials had not confirmed details and that he had not pressed them.
“I don’t think they know the answer,” he wrote in a text message, suggesting that the brewing donor revolt had thrown the campaign’s fund-raising operation into uncharted territory.
The donors who have publicly called for Mr. Biden to step down have emboldened others to follow suit, he said, warning “it can become an avalanche.”
Campaign finance officials met on Friday at a standing meeting, where they discussed the state of the current situation, in which Mr. Biden is facing the prospect of some major donors cutting off support if he remains in the race. Officials made clear in the meeting that they were carrying on and planning to move forward, two people briefed on what took place said.
In a statement, Rufus Gifford, Mr. Biden’s campaign finance chairman, said: “In the last week the president has proven he has a strong message and a strong agenda to run on. We know our supporters will see the determination he has and ensure we have the resources to win in November.”
Noah Mamet, a Biden fund-raiser and a former U.S. ambassador to Argentina, said Mr. Biden’s speech at a rally in Wisconsin on Friday had helped “calm a lot of donors and activists” and underscored the election’s stakes, one of Mr. Biden’s core messages.
“He was energetic and went directly at the critics this week,” Mr. Mamet said. “It was a good event to help turn the page and refocus the discussion back on Trump and the crazy stuff he says on a daily basis.”
A campaign official said they were seeing the strongest start to grass-roots fund-raising to date in the month of July, the period shortly after the debate.
On a list of finalized fund-raisers that was distributed to top donors in recent weeks, Mr. Biden himself was not scheduled to attend an event until one in Denver on July 28, to be hosted by the state’s governor, Jared Polis. Mr. Polis, in a recent meeting that Democratic governors held with Mr. Biden, told Mr. Biden that he had heard an outpouring from people who wanted the president to end his campaign.
Biden surrogates, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, do have fund-raising events scheduled, according to the distributed calendar.
Mr. Biden has been expected to attend two fund-raisers in Northern California this month, although neither have been finalized.
One has been planned in the Oakland area by Wayne Jordan and Quinn Delaney, two longtime major Democratic donors who are married and who are close with Ms. Harris, according to a person briefed on the event that is still not yet final.
Many Democratic megadonors, on far-flung vacations during the holiday weekend, have been getting increasingly tough with the Biden campaign and ascertaining what leverage they might have, if any.
The billionaire tech investor Ron Conway has been working the phones from his vacation in Europe to encourage his network to push for a change at the top of the ticket, according to two people with knowledge of his activities. In recent days, a memo has been circulating among major Democratic donors and operatives making what its authors, who remain anonymous, call “The Case for Kamala.”
Mr. Biden’s fate has been a topic of discussion on the Fourth of July party circuit. At a private party this holiday weekend in the Hamptons, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, was approached by a major Democratic donor and asked for an update on Mr. Biden’s fortunes. Mr. Schumer said his “lips were sealed,” according to a person who witnessed the interaction.
Mr. Biden has received support from other wealthy donors.
On Friday, Amy Goldman Fowler, one of her party’s biggest donors who has put over $27 million behind Democrats in her lifetime, told The New York Times that she planned to donate $400,000 more to the Biden Victory Fund, bringing her up to the legal maximum.
“I continue to support President Biden’s re-election effort and I am making my maximum contribution to his campaign today,” said Ms. Goldman Fowler, who typically prefers to keep a low profile.
| By Reid J. Epstein, Theodore Schleifer, Maggie Haberman and Kenneth P. Vogel
July 5, 2024
Some of President Biden’s fund-raising events in the coming weeks are in jeopardy, with one potential Wisconsin event failing to materialize and a Texas event up in the air after his poor debate performance against Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden’s fund-raising schedule is often fluid, as the White House and the campaign juggle the complicated logistics of official events with the competing demands of donors and finance operatives. But the aftermath of his debate performance has added an additional layer of uncertainty | , with a growing group of major donors calling on Mr. Biden to drop his re-election campaign and make way for a replacement at the top of the ticket.
The Biden campaign had discussed sending Mr. Biden to Wisconsin for a late July fund-raiser, according to three people briefed on the plans. But donors who had committed to giving large sums and attending began withdrawing soon after the debate ended.
The campaign had hoped to raise $1 million from the event, but after the debate, campaign officials reset the event’s goal to $500,000, according to one person involved in arranging it. Even that proved to be more than Wisconsin donors were willing to give to Mr. Biden. Plans for the event are now off.
Another fund-raiser under consideration was to be paired with an official event in mid-July at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library in Austin, Texas, where Mr. Biden will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, according to two people briefed on the planning.
The fund-raiser was to be hosted by Luci Baines Johnson, the former president’s daughter. But it is unclear whether the event will proceed, according to the people briefed on the planning.
John Morgan, a Florida lawyer who had discussed the possibility of hosting Mr. Biden at a fund-raiser next month or in September, said campaign officials had not confirmed details and that he had not pressed them.
“I don’t think they know the answer,” he wrote in a text message, suggesting that the brewing donor revolt had thrown the campaign’s fund-raising operation into uncharted territory.
The donors who have publicly called for Mr. Biden to step down have emboldened others to follow suit, he said, warning “it can become an avalanche.”
Campaign finance officials met on Friday at a standing meeting, where they discussed the state of the current situation, in which Mr. Biden is facing the prospect of some major donors cutting off support if he remains in the race. Officials made clear in the meeting that they were carrying on and planning to move forward, two people briefed on what took place said.
In a statement, Rufus Gifford, Mr. Biden’s campaign finance chairman, said: “In the last week the president has proven he has a strong message and a strong agenda to run on. We know our supporters will see the determination he has and ensure we have the resources to win in November.”
Noah Mamet, a Biden fund-raiser and a former U.S. ambassador to Argentina, said Mr. Biden’s speech at a rally in Wisconsin on Friday had helped “calm a lot of donors and activists” and underscored the election’s stakes, one of Mr. Biden’s core messages.
“He was energetic and went directly at the critics this week,” Mr. Mamet said. “It was a good event to help turn the page and refocus the discussion back on Trump and the crazy stuff he says on a daily basis.”
A campaign official said they were seeing the strongest start to grass-roots fund-raising to date in the month of July, the period shortly after the debate.
On a list of finalized fund-raisers that was distributed to top donors in recent weeks, Mr. Biden himself was not scheduled to attend an event until one in Denver on July 28, to be hosted by the state’s governor, Jared Polis. Mr. Polis, in a recent meeting that Democratic governors held with Mr. Biden, told Mr. Biden that he had heard an outpouring from people who wanted the president to end his campaign.
Biden surrogates, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, do have fund-raising events scheduled, according to the distributed calendar.
Mr. Biden has been expected to attend two fund-raisers in Northern California this month, although neither have been finalized.
One has been planned in the Oakland area by Wayne Jordan and Quinn Delaney, two longtime major Democratic donors who are married and who are close with Ms. Harris, according to a person briefed on the event that is still not yet final.
Many Democratic megadonors, on far-flung vacations during the holiday weekend, have been getting increasingly tough with the Biden campaign and ascertaining what leverage they might have, if any.
The billionaire tech investor Ron Conway has been working the phones from his vacation in Europe to encourage his network to push for a change at the top of the ticket, according to two people with knowledge of his activities. In recent days, a memo has been circulating among major Democratic donors and operatives making what its authors, who remain anonymous, call “The Case for Kamala.”
Mr. Biden’s fate has been a topic of discussion on the Fourth of July party circuit. At a private party this holiday weekend in the Hamptons, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, was approached by a major Democratic donor and asked for an update on Mr. Biden’s fortunes. Mr. Schumer said his “lips were sealed,” according to a person who witnessed the interaction.
Mr. Biden has received support from other wealthy donors.
On Friday, Amy Goldman Fowler, one of her party’s biggest donors who has put over $27 million behind Democrats in her lifetime, told The New York Times that she planned to donate $400,000 more to the Biden Victory Fund, bringing her up to the legal maximum.
“I continue to support President Biden’s re-election effort and I am making my maximum contribution to his campaign today,” said Ms. Goldman Fowler, who typically prefers to keep a low profile.
|
Before the Alec Baldwin Trial’s End, 2 Jurors Had Doubts About His Guilt.txt | By Julia Jacobs
July 20, 2024
When the judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin earlier this month after finding that the prosecution had withheld evidence that could have helped his defense, it left key questions that have hung over the case for more than two years unresolved.
But two members of the jury who spoke about the case publicly for the first time on Saturday said in interviews that they had been far from convinced — given the evidence they had heard before the trial was brought to its abrupt end — that Mr. Baldwin was guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a film set.
“As the week went by, it just didn’t, it didn’t seem like a very strong case,” Johanna Haag, known to the court as juror No. 7, said in a phone interview on Saturday.
Gabriela Picayo, who was identified in court documents as juror No. 9, said that she too had been having serious doubts about the case against Mr. Baldwin before it was dismissed.
A critical moment for her during the trial, she said, was when she learned that the armorer who had loaded a live round into the gun that day, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, had already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter. “I’m still here, I’m still open to hearing and obviously trying to stay unbiased,” Ms. Picayo said of her thinking at the time, “but I was starting to move towards the direction of thinking that this was very silly and he should not be on trial.”
The trial centered on what happened on Oct. 21, 2021, when Mr. Baldwin was rehearsing on the set of the film “Rust” in New Mexico with a gun that he had been told was “cold” — meaning that it should have contained no live ammunition — when it suddenly fired a bullet that killed Halyna Hutchins, the movie’s cinematographer.
Prosecutors argued at the trial that Mr. Baldwin had been reckless with firearms and violated gun safety protocols, and that he should have participated in gun safety checks to see what kind of ammunition it was loaded with. The defense countered that Mr. Baldwin had no reason to think that the gun had been loaded with a live round because live ammunition is generally forbidden on film sets, and underscored that he had been told that the gun was “cold,” meaning that it should have been impossible to fire. They said he had relied on the weapons safety professionals in the film’s crew, who were supposed to check the gun.
In order to convict Mr. Baldwin, 12 jurors would have had to agree, unanimously, that he had committed involuntary manslaughter by finding, in part, that he had acted with a “willful disregard” for the safety of others on the set and that he “should have known” of the danger inherent in his actions. The interviews on Saturday with the two jurors provided the first indication that the prosecution had been struggling to convince at least some on the panel.
Ms. Picayo, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory with modest exposure to Mr. Baldwin’s work — “What was the show he was on?” she asked at one point — said that, as both sides presented evidence, she began to form the position that, as an actor, Mr. Baldwin should have been able to trust the experts on the set who oversee gun safety.
“Alec Baldwin is an actor, right?” she said, adding that she would not have expected him to know a lot about gun safety. “I think he would have trusted the people, you know, on the set to do their job.”
Both jurors described themselves as being affected by emotional — and, at times, graphic — footage that the prosecution showed at the trial of the aftermath of the shooting, taken from law enforcement body-worn cameras.
“Baldwin just looked shocked and stunned and so sad,” said Ms. Haag, who works in advertising and marketing. “It was clearly an accident, and the idea that there’s anything purposeful, or the idea that there was this grave carelessness that caused this, didn’t seem realistic to me.”
The judge’s finding that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the defense halted the trial before the jury could even begin to debate. Mr. Baldwin still faces several civil lawsuits over the fatal shooting that will deal with some of the same central questions.
But based on what Ms. Picayo heard during the first two days of the trial — which had been expected to last eight days — she said she had been leaning against a conviction.
“But,” she noted, “I wasn’t presented with all of the evidence, so I don’t know what could have swayed me.”
The trial took a dramatic turn when a lawyer for Mr. Baldwin began grilling a crime scene technician about her handling of new evidence that could have shed light on how live rounds reached the set. “It was like a Perry Mason moment,” Ms. Haag said.
“At that point, I really started to feel sorry for Mr. Baldwin,” she continued. “I thought, you know, ‘What’s going on here? What is happening?’”
The judge overseeing the case, Mary Marlowe Sommer, sent the jury home from the Santa Fe County District Courthouse and held an extraordinary hearing about the withheld evidence. At one point, she left the bench and put on latex gloves to examine the evidence, a batch of ammunition that had been delivered to the sheriff’s office in March. At another point, the lead prosecutor, Kari T. Morrissey, called herself as a witness to defend her handling of the evidence.
The judge was unpersuaded, and dismissed the case permanently, ruling that the evidence had been intentionally withheld from the defense, and that it could have helped their case by allowing them to test the prosecution’s case of how live rounds had reached the set.
That afternoon, hours after the judge had sent them home, the jurors received a text message from the court.
“Trail CANCELLED,” the text read, misspelling the word trial.
| By Julia Jacobs
July 20, 2024
When the judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin earlier this month after finding that the prosecution had withheld evidence that could have helped his defense, it left key questions that have hung over the case for more than two years unresolved.
But two members of the jury who spoke about the case publicly for the first time on Saturday said in interviews that they had been far from convinced — given the evidence they had heard before the trial was brought to its abrupt end — that Mr. Baldwin was guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of | a cinematographer on a film set.
“As the week went by, it just didn’t, it didn’t seem like a very strong case,” Johanna Haag, known to the court as juror No. 7, said in a phone interview on Saturday.
Gabriela Picayo, who was identified in court documents as juror No. 9, said that she too had been having serious doubts about the case against Mr. Baldwin before it was dismissed.
A critical moment for her during the trial, she said, was when she learned that the armorer who had loaded a live round into the gun that day, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, had already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter. “I’m still here, I’m still open to hearing and obviously trying to stay unbiased,” Ms. Picayo said of her thinking at the time, “but I was starting to move towards the direction of thinking that this was very silly and he should not be on trial.”
The trial centered on what happened on Oct. 21, 2021, when Mr. Baldwin was rehearsing on the set of the film “Rust” in New Mexico with a gun that he had been told was “cold” — meaning that it should have contained no live ammunition — when it suddenly fired a bullet that killed Halyna Hutchins, the movie’s cinematographer.
Prosecutors argued at the trial that Mr. Baldwin had been reckless with firearms and violated gun safety protocols, and that he should have participated in gun safety checks to see what kind of ammunition it was loaded with. The defense countered that Mr. Baldwin had no reason to think that the gun had been loaded with a live round because live ammunition is generally forbidden on film sets, and underscored that he had been told that the gun was “cold,” meaning that it should have been impossible to fire. They said he had relied on the weapons safety professionals in the film’s crew, who were supposed to check the gun.
In order to convict Mr. Baldwin, 12 jurors would have had to agree, unanimously, that he had committed involuntary manslaughter by finding, in part, that he had acted with a “willful disregard” for the safety of others on the set and that he “should have known” of the danger inherent in his actions. The interviews on Saturday with the two jurors provided the first indication that the prosecution had been struggling to convince at least some on the panel.
Ms. Picayo, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory with modest exposure to Mr. Baldwin’s work — “What was the show he was on?” she asked at one point — said that, as both sides presented evidence, she began to form the position that, as an actor, Mr. Baldwin should have been able to trust the experts on the set who oversee gun safety.
“Alec Baldwin is an actor, right?” she said, adding that she would not have expected him to know a lot about gun safety. “I think he would have trusted the people, you know, on the set to do their job.”
Both jurors described themselves as being affected by emotional — and, at times, graphic — footage that the prosecution showed at the trial of the aftermath of the shooting, taken from law enforcement body-worn cameras.
“Baldwin just looked shocked and stunned and so sad,” said Ms. Haag, who works in advertising and marketing. “It was clearly an accident, and the idea that there’s anything purposeful, or the idea that there was this grave carelessness that caused this, didn’t seem realistic to me.”
The judge’s finding that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the defense halted the trial before the jury could even begin to debate. Mr. Baldwin still faces several civil lawsuits over the fatal shooting that will deal with some of the same central questions.
But based on what Ms. Picayo heard during the first two days of the trial — which had been expected to last eight days — she said she had been leaning against a conviction.
“But,” she noted, “I wasn’t presented with all of the evidence, so I don’t know what could have swayed me.”
The trial took a dramatic turn when a lawyer for Mr. Baldwin began grilling a crime scene technician about her handling of new evidence that could have shed light on how live rounds reached the set. “It was like a Perry Mason moment,” Ms. Haag said.
“At that point, I really started to feel sorry for Mr. Baldwin,” she continued. “I thought, you know, ‘What’s going on here? What is happening?’”
The judge overseeing the case, Mary Marlowe Sommer, sent the jury home from the Santa Fe County District Courthouse and held an extraordinary hearing about the withheld evidence. At one point, she left the bench and put on latex gloves to examine the evidence, a batch of ammunition that had been delivered to the sheriff’s office in March. At another point, the lead prosecutor, Kari T. Morrissey, called herself as a witness to defend her handling of the evidence.
The judge was unpersuaded, and dismissed the case permanently, ruling that the evidence had been intentionally withheld from the defense, and that it could have helped their case by allowing them to test the prosecution’s case of how live rounds had reached the set.
That afternoon, hours after the judge had sent them home, the jurors received a text message from the court.
“Trail CANCELLED,” the text read, misspelling the word trial.
|
Investigators Unlock Gunman’s Phone in Search of Motive for Trump Shooting.txt | By Glenn Thrush
Reporting from Washington
July 15, 2024
The motives of the young man who tried to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump remain a mystery, even after the F.B.I. gained access to his cellphone on Monday and began analyzing its contents for clues, law enforcement officials said.
Investigators hope the phone, which was password-protected, will help explain why Thomas Matthew Crooks, an unassuming 20-year-old from Pennsylvania with no criminal history or known strongly held political beliefs, would open fire at Mr. Trump at a rally on Saturday. The gunfire left the former president’s ear bloodied, killed a bystander and seriously injured two other people.
Technicians at the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Va., sifting through the gunman’s texts, emails and other data did not immediately find clear evidence of a potential motive, or significant new details about possible connections to other people.
The F.B.I., in a statement on Monday, cautioned that the investigation was still in the early stages. Technicians are in the middle of analyzing all of the gunman’s electronic devices, not just his phone, for his communications, browser history and social media activity, officials added.
As Mr. Trump’s attention shifted to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, dozens of agents and technical specialists in the Pittsburgh area scoured photos and videos taken by rally attendees and law enforcement personnel. The bureau has interviewed more than 100 people in the last two days, and completed a search of the gunman’s car and residence.
What they have assembled so far is less a portrait of him than an empty frame.
Records show that Mr. Crooks, a nursing home employee, registered to vote as a Republican. But people close to him have told investigators that he rarely spoke about politics, and even then did not seem to voice easily definable positions, according to a person briefed on the investigation.
While the bureau officials said they had found no evidence that the shooting was part of a larger plot, F.B.I. and Justice Department officials said they had not ruled out any scenario.
“While the investigation to date indicates the shooter acted alone, the F.B.I. continues to conduct logical investigative activity to determine if there were any co-conspirators associated with this attack,” the F.B.I. wrote in an email to reporters late Sunday. “At this time, there are no current public safety concerns.”
F.B.I. officials said Mr. Crooks did not have a history of mental illness or criminal activity.
He does not appear to have left behind any written statement that could easily explain his motivations or provide clues to any external connections or influences, according to a senior law enforcement official.
Along with his phone, investigators sent the AR-15-type rifle found near the gunman’s body — the weapon had been purchased by his father — to the bureau’s lab, as well as several explosive devices discovered in his car and home.
The homemade devices were believed to contain highly explosive material in relatively small amounts, according to a law enforcement official.
Amid increased scrutiny of security lapses that allowed the gunman to come within inches of ending Mr. Trump’s life, videos and photographs taken at the scene provided new details of the moments leading up to the shooting.
Footage by one bystander shows people apparently pointing to someone and alerting the authorities, minutes before the first burst of gunfire rang out, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
“Someone’s on top of the roof,” one person is heard saying. “There he is, right there.”
“He’s on the roof!” says another, warning an officer. “Right here, right on the roof.”
According to the video, the gunman was lying prone on the white roof of a structure, which The Times previously identified as the location from which the deadly fusillade rang out moments later. The gunman’s position was about 450 feet from the stage where Mr. Trump was delivering his speech, but the building was outside the security perimeter of the rally.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons. More about Glenn Thrush
A version of this article appears in print on July 16, 2024, Section A, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: Investigators Looking At Cellphone in Hopes Of Discovering a Motive. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
See more on: Republican Party, Donald Trump, 2024 Elections, U.S. Politics
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Glenn Thrush
Reporting from Washington
July 15, 2024
The motives of the young man who tried to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump remain a mystery, even after the F.B.I. gained access to his cellphone on Monday and began analyzing its contents for clues, law enforcement officials said.
Investigators hope the phone, which was password-protected, will help explain why Thomas Matthew Crooks, an unassuming 20-year-old from Pennsylvania with no criminal history or known strongly held political beliefs, would open fire at Mr. Trump at a rally on Saturday. The | gunfire left the former president’s ear bloodied, killed a bystander and seriously injured two other people.
Technicians at the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Va., sifting through the gunman’s texts, emails and other data did not immediately find clear evidence of a potential motive, or significant new details about possible connections to other people.
The F.B.I., in a statement on Monday, cautioned that the investigation was still in the early stages. Technicians are in the middle of analyzing all of the gunman’s electronic devices, not just his phone, for his communications, browser history and social media activity, officials added.
As Mr. Trump’s attention shifted to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, dozens of agents and technical specialists in the Pittsburgh area scoured photos and videos taken by rally attendees and law enforcement personnel. The bureau has interviewed more than 100 people in the last two days, and completed a search of the gunman’s car and residence.
What they have assembled so far is less a portrait of him than an empty frame.
Records show that Mr. Crooks, a nursing home employee, registered to vote as a Republican. But people close to him have told investigators that he rarely spoke about politics, and even then did not seem to voice easily definable positions, according to a person briefed on the investigation.
While the bureau officials said they had found no evidence that the shooting was part of a larger plot, F.B.I. and Justice Department officials said they had not ruled out any scenario.
“While the investigation to date indicates the shooter acted alone, the F.B.I. continues to conduct logical investigative activity to determine if there were any co-conspirators associated with this attack,” the F.B.I. wrote in an email to reporters late Sunday. “At this time, there are no current public safety concerns.”
F.B.I. officials said Mr. Crooks did not have a history of mental illness or criminal activity.
He does not appear to have left behind any written statement that could easily explain his motivations or provide clues to any external connections or influences, according to a senior law enforcement official.
Along with his phone, investigators sent the AR-15-type rifle found near the gunman’s body — the weapon had been purchased by his father — to the bureau’s lab, as well as several explosive devices discovered in his car and home.
The homemade devices were believed to contain highly explosive material in relatively small amounts, according to a law enforcement official.
Amid increased scrutiny of security lapses that allowed the gunman to come within inches of ending Mr. Trump’s life, videos and photographs taken at the scene provided new details of the moments leading up to the shooting.
Footage by one bystander shows people apparently pointing to someone and alerting the authorities, minutes before the first burst of gunfire rang out, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
“Someone’s on top of the roof,” one person is heard saying. “There he is, right there.”
“He’s on the roof!” says another, warning an officer. “Right here, right on the roof.”
According to the video, the gunman was lying prone on the white roof of a structure, which The Times previously identified as the location from which the deadly fusillade rang out moments later. The gunman’s position was about 450 feet from the stage where Mr. Trump was delivering his speech, but the building was outside the security perimeter of the rally.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons. More about Glenn Thrush
A version of this article appears in print on July 16, 2024, Section A, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: Investigators Looking At Cellphone in Hopes Of Discovering a Motive. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
See more on: Republican Party, Donald Trump, 2024 Elections, U.S. Politics
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Warner Is Working to Convene Democratic Senators to Talk About Biden’s Future.txt | By Annie Karni, Robert Jimison and Reid J. Epstein
July 5, 2024
Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, is working to convene Democratic senators next week to discuss a path forward after President Biden’s disastrous debate performance, and to discuss their concerns about him remaining as the nominee, according to five people with direct knowledge about the effort.
The push by Mr. Warner reflects a mounting sense of panic among some Democrats in the Senate about Mr. Biden’s viability to continue in the presidential race, and growing frustration among senators that the president and those around him have not communicated directly with them about how they plan to address such concerns.
The people insisted on anonymity to discuss Mr. Warner’s efforts, and a spokeswoman for the senator did not respond to requests for comment. His outreach efforts were reported earlier by The Washington Post.
While some House Democrats have been outspoken in their harsh assessments of Mr. Biden’s performance last week — and three have called on him to end his candidacy — most senators have so far been quieter about their concerns.
Mr. Warner, a centrist former governor who himself weighed a presidential run in 2008, has been reaching out to colleagues since the night of the debate last week to express anguish about Mr. Biden’s performance and a sense of urgency for Democrats to figure out what to do about it. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, he is a trusted voice in the Senate and has cultivated a reputation for bipartisanship.
While his conversations with Democratic senators have conveyed his dismay about the situation, Mr. Warner, according to one person who spoke with him on Friday, was not trying to organize an effort to persuade the president to withdraw from the race but was instead working to facilitate a discussion about the right way to proceed.
Mr. Biden told reporters on Friday that he had spoken to at least 20 members of Congress, and “they’re telling me to stay in the race.”
When a reporter said Mr. Warner was trying to get him to step aside, Mr. Biden responded that the senator was “the only one considering that. No one else has called on me to do that.”
Democratic Representatives Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts have all called on him to do so this week.
Senators are scheduled to return to Washington on Monday after a weeklong recess.
Luke Broadwater and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
| By Annie Karni, Robert Jimison and Reid J. Epstein
July 5, 2024
Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, is working to convene Democratic senators next week to discuss a path forward after President Biden’s disastrous debate performance, and to discuss their concerns about him remaining as the nominee, according to five people with direct knowledge about the effort.
The push by Mr. Warner reflects a mounting sense of panic among some Democrats in the Senate about Mr. Biden’s viability to continue in the presidential race, and growing frustration among senators that the president and those around him have not communicated directly with them | about how they plan to address such concerns.
The people insisted on anonymity to discuss Mr. Warner’s efforts, and a spokeswoman for the senator did not respond to requests for comment. His outreach efforts were reported earlier by The Washington Post.
While some House Democrats have been outspoken in their harsh assessments of Mr. Biden’s performance last week — and three have called on him to end his candidacy — most senators have so far been quieter about their concerns.
Mr. Warner, a centrist former governor who himself weighed a presidential run in 2008, has been reaching out to colleagues since the night of the debate last week to express anguish about Mr. Biden’s performance and a sense of urgency for Democrats to figure out what to do about it. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, he is a trusted voice in the Senate and has cultivated a reputation for bipartisanship.
While his conversations with Democratic senators have conveyed his dismay about the situation, Mr. Warner, according to one person who spoke with him on Friday, was not trying to organize an effort to persuade the president to withdraw from the race but was instead working to facilitate a discussion about the right way to proceed.
Mr. Biden told reporters on Friday that he had spoken to at least 20 members of Congress, and “they’re telling me to stay in the race.”
When a reporter said Mr. Warner was trying to get him to step aside, Mr. Biden responded that the senator was “the only one considering that. No one else has called on me to do that.”
Democratic Representatives Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts have all called on him to do so this week.
Senators are scheduled to return to Washington on Monday after a weeklong recess.
Luke Broadwater and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
|
This Week in Mets: What do the Mets need to know before the deadline?.txt | By Tim Britton
4h ago
12
Save Article
“Since we can’t pursue time that is passed, let us at least celebrate it joyfully and gracefully while it is passing by.”
—“Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship,” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Tuesday marks one week until the July 30 trade deadline — the perfect time for the I-assume-much-ballyhooed-and-long-awaited return of This Week in Mets. While the New York Mets have positioned themselves as buyers at the deadline, there’s plenty of latitude within that label.
So with seven days to go, let’s examine a few questions the Mets need to answer about themselves before embarking on external additions.
Which facet of the offense is likeliest to need help?
For weeks, the Mets offense has been one of the best in the league, propelled by Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo at the top of the order with Francisco Alvarez’s return and José Iglesias’ rejuvenation providing crucial assistance. That offense is bound to slow down at some point; how can the Mets best prepare themselves to supplement it then?
According to ZiPS projection system over at FanGraphs, the three positions where the Mets figure to receive worse production moving forward are second base, third base and right field. One main reason for that possible regression? Of all the Mets’ key contributors to this point in the season, Iglesias is the one out over his skis the most. Entering this season, he owned a career OPS+ of 88; this year it’s 188. The club’s joy around Iglesias’ “OMG” song has belied how valuable he’s been on the field, allowing the Mets to withstand Jeff McNeil’s struggles and Starling Marte’s recent injury.
If Iglesias were to fall back to his career norms, the Mets’ offense would dip. New York would have to lean more heavily on a turnaround from McNeil, on a return from the injured list from Marte, on sustained production at third base from Mark Vientos and maybe on better numbers from Tyrone Taylor or DJ Stewart.
An ideal deadline addition, then, would cover the Mets for this possibility, bringing them a bench bat with experience at either the middle infield or the corner outfield. The Los Angeles Angels’ Luis Rengifo is the best option, as he could play all over the place, though he’d represent a starting-level addition likely beyond the Mets’ price point. Former Met Amed Rosario could work, as well.
How many bullpen solutions do they possess internally?
Two weeks ago, when the Mets saw a 2-2 game in Pittsburgh unravel with Eric Orze and Adrian Houser on the mound, it was fair to wonder if they needed an entirely new bullpen. They’d lost Brooks Raley and Drew Smith, they’d watched Adam Ottavino and Jake Diekman struggle, they didn’t know night to night what Edwin Díaz could provide. Was there anyone Carlos Mendoza could trust?
In the fortnight since, that unit has stabilized to an extent. Díaz had compiled nine consecutive scoreless outings before allowing a run Monday night. Phil Maton, acquired earlier this month from the Tampa Bay Rays, brings an experienced back-end right-hander. And maybe most importantly, Dedniel Núñez and Jose Buttó have looked like a legitimate set-up bridge.
Núñez wasn’t even invited to major-league spring training; he’s been the Mets’ best reliever this season by almost any measure. After excelling for multiple frames in mop-up spots, he’s pitched and pitched well in bigger spots since the final week of June. For the season, Núñez is striking out better than 35 percent of opposing hitters while walking fewer than 6 percent. In the last decade, Díaz is the only Met to post a strikeout rate that good, and only Díaz, Addison Reed and Seth Lugo have finished seasons with better strikeout-to-walk ratios.
Effective as a starter this season, Buttó has been electric as a reliever; he allowed his first run in the role Monday night, struck out more than a third of opposing hitters and owns a WHIP below 0.700 in that small sample.
The Mets still need help in that bullpen, and who knows how long both Buttó and Núñez will pitch quite like this? But perhaps New York only needs to bring in one or two arms rather than four or five.
Can the Mets afford to be cute with their rotation?
With Kodai Senga returning this week, the Mets plan to go to a six-man rotation. Senga will join a rotation that already includes Jose Quintana, Luis Severino, Sean Manaea, David Peterson and Christian Scott. The Mets also have Buttó and Houser in their bullpen, as well as Tylor Megill and Joey Lucchesi in Triple-A Syracuse.
Theoretically, the Mets could capitalize on a seller’s market and deal from their starting surplus, backfilling with their depth. Quintana, in particular, made sense to move as a veteran innings-eater set to become a free agent this winter. In the last several weeks, though, the dynamic has changed a bit: Quintana’s been a significant part of the Mets’ turnaround, Scott has struggled since his return to the majors, the club has committed to a six-man rotation with Senga’s return, and Buttó has emerged as a bullpen weapon. If New York were to deal Quintana (or Severino, who’s in a similar contractual situation), it would be relying on Megill to take a regular turn in the rotation and leave few backup plans if and when an injury strikes.
Given how tight the wild-card standings are, such maneuvering could be too cute by half, especially if the return isn’t that substantial. In our Trade Deadline Big Board, Severino ranked 13th among starting pitchers, and Quintana ranked 19th — too low to make the top 50 targets. (In 2022, amid an overall better season, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Quintana was traded alongside reliever Chris Stratton to the St. Louis Cardinals for young starter Johan Oviedo.)
The exposition
The Mets salvaged a split of their four-game series in Miami with Monday night’s win. They’ve lost only one of their last 14 series, though a penchant for splitting series makes that less impressive in reality. The Mets are 51-48 and in the third wild-card spot in the National League.
The New York Yankees split their wraparound series with the Rays in the Bronx. They’re 60-42, 1 1/2 games behind Baltimore in the AL East.
Atlanta lost two of three at home over the weekend to the Cardinals. It still sits well behind the Phillies in the NL East but in a comfortable wild-card position in the National League. The Cincinnati Reds won the first of a three-game series at Truist Park Monday night.
The pitching possibles
at New York (AL)
LHP Jose Quintana (4-6, 4.13 ERA) v. RHP Luis Gil (10-5, 3.17 ERA)
LHP Sean Manaea (6-4, 3.73) v. RHP Gerrit Cole (3-1, 4.60)
v. Atlanta
RHP Luis Severino (7-3, 3.58) v. RHP Charlie Morton (5-5, 3.92)
RHP Kodai Senga (12-7, 2.98 in 2023) v. RHP Spencer Schwellenbach (3-5, 4.62)
RHP Christian Scott (0-3, 4.56) v. RHP Reynaldo López (7-4, 2.12)
LHP David Peterson (5-0, 3.14) v. LHP Chris Sale (13-3, 2.70)
Injury updates
Mets injured list
Kodai Senga
Moderate posterior capsule strain in right shoulder
Now
7. July
Shintaro Fujinami
Right shoulder strain
Now
7. July
Sean Reid-Foley
Right shoulder impingement
Now
7. July
Reed Garrett
Right elbow inflammation
7/25
8. August
Starling Marte
Right knee bone bruise
Now
8. August
Drew Smith
Tommy John surgery
8/23
X. 2025
Ronny Mauricio
Torn right ACL
Now
X. 2025
Brooks Raley
Tommy John surgery
Now
X. 2025
Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL
Kodai Senga is slated to return on Friday.
Starling Marte has begun “low-impact” baseball activities. There’s still no real timetable for his return.
Sean Reid-Foley could start a rehab assignment this week.
| By Tim Britton
4h ago
12
Save Article
“Since we can’t pursue time that is passed, let us at least celebrate it joyfully and gracefully while it is passing by.”
—“Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship,” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Tuesday marks one week until the July 30 trade deadline — the perfect time for the I-assume-much-ballyhooed-and-long-awaited return of This Week in Mets. While the New York Mets have positioned themselves as buyers at the deadline, there’s plenty of latitude within that label.
So with seven days to | go, let’s examine a few questions the Mets need to answer about themselves before embarking on external additions.
Which facet of the offense is likeliest to need help?
For weeks, the Mets offense has been one of the best in the league, propelled by Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo at the top of the order with Francisco Alvarez’s return and José Iglesias’ rejuvenation providing crucial assistance. That offense is bound to slow down at some point; how can the Mets best prepare themselves to supplement it then?
According to ZiPS projection system over at FanGraphs, the three positions where the Mets figure to receive worse production moving forward are second base, third base and right field. One main reason for that possible regression? Of all the Mets’ key contributors to this point in the season, Iglesias is the one out over his skis the most. Entering this season, he owned a career OPS+ of 88; this year it’s 188. The club’s joy around Iglesias’ “OMG” song has belied how valuable he’s been on the field, allowing the Mets to withstand Jeff McNeil’s struggles and Starling Marte’s recent injury.
If Iglesias were to fall back to his career norms, the Mets’ offense would dip. New York would have to lean more heavily on a turnaround from McNeil, on a return from the injured list from Marte, on sustained production at third base from Mark Vientos and maybe on better numbers from Tyrone Taylor or DJ Stewart.
An ideal deadline addition, then, would cover the Mets for this possibility, bringing them a bench bat with experience at either the middle infield or the corner outfield. The Los Angeles Angels’ Luis Rengifo is the best option, as he could play all over the place, though he’d represent a starting-level addition likely beyond the Mets’ price point. Former Met Amed Rosario could work, as well.
How many bullpen solutions do they possess internally?
Two weeks ago, when the Mets saw a 2-2 game in Pittsburgh unravel with Eric Orze and Adrian Houser on the mound, it was fair to wonder if they needed an entirely new bullpen. They’d lost Brooks Raley and Drew Smith, they’d watched Adam Ottavino and Jake Diekman struggle, they didn’t know night to night what Edwin Díaz could provide. Was there anyone Carlos Mendoza could trust?
In the fortnight since, that unit has stabilized to an extent. Díaz had compiled nine consecutive scoreless outings before allowing a run Monday night. Phil Maton, acquired earlier this month from the Tampa Bay Rays, brings an experienced back-end right-hander. And maybe most importantly, Dedniel Núñez and Jose Buttó have looked like a legitimate set-up bridge.
Núñez wasn’t even invited to major-league spring training; he’s been the Mets’ best reliever this season by almost any measure. After excelling for multiple frames in mop-up spots, he’s pitched and pitched well in bigger spots since the final week of June. For the season, Núñez is striking out better than 35 percent of opposing hitters while walking fewer than 6 percent. In the last decade, Díaz is the only Met to post a strikeout rate that good, and only Díaz, Addison Reed and Seth Lugo have finished seasons with better strikeout-to-walk ratios.
Effective as a starter this season, Buttó has been electric as a reliever; he allowed his first run in the role Monday night, struck out more than a third of opposing hitters and owns a WHIP below 0.700 in that small sample.
The Mets still need help in that bullpen, and who knows how long both Buttó and Núñez will pitch quite like this? But perhaps New York only needs to bring in one or two arms rather than four or five.
Can the Mets afford to be cute with their rotation?
With Kodai Senga returning this week, the Mets plan to go to a six-man rotation. Senga will join a rotation that already includes Jose Quintana, Luis Severino, Sean Manaea, David Peterson and Christian Scott. The Mets also have Buttó and Houser in their bullpen, as well as Tylor Megill and Joey Lucchesi in Triple-A Syracuse.
Theoretically, the Mets could capitalize on a seller’s market and deal from their starting surplus, backfilling with their depth. Quintana, in particular, made sense to move as a veteran innings-eater set to become a free agent this winter. In the last several weeks, though, the dynamic has changed a bit: Quintana’s been a significant part of the Mets’ turnaround, Scott has struggled since his return to the majors, the club has committed to a six-man rotation with Senga’s return, and Buttó has emerged as a bullpen weapon. If New York were to deal Quintana (or Severino, who’s in a similar contractual situation), it would be relying on Megill to take a regular turn in the rotation and leave few backup plans if and when an injury strikes.
Given how tight the wild-card standings are, such maneuvering could be too cute by half, especially if the return isn’t that substantial. In our Trade Deadline Big Board, Severino ranked 13th among starting pitchers, and Quintana ranked 19th — too low to make the top 50 targets. (In 2022, amid an overall better season, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Quintana was traded alongside reliever Chris Stratton to the St. Louis Cardinals for young starter Johan Oviedo.)
The exposition
The Mets salvaged a split of their four-game series in Miami with Monday night’s win. They’ve lost only one of their last 14 series, though a penchant for splitting series makes that less impressive in reality. The Mets are 51-48 and in the third wild-card spot in the National League.
The New York Yankees split their wraparound series with the Rays in the Bronx. They’re 60-42, 1 1/2 games behind Baltimore in the AL East.
Atlanta lost two of three at home over the weekend to the Cardinals. It still sits well behind the Phillies in the NL East but in a comfortable wild-card position in the National League. The Cincinnati Reds won the first of a three-game series at Truist Park Monday night.
The pitching possibles
at New York (AL)
LHP Jose Quintana (4-6, 4.13 ERA) v. RHP Luis Gil (10-5, 3.17 ERA)
LHP Sean Manaea (6-4, 3.73) v. RHP Gerrit Cole (3-1, 4.60)
v. Atlanta
RHP Luis Severino (7-3, 3.58) v. RHP Charlie Morton (5-5, 3.92)
RHP Kodai Senga (12-7, 2.98 in 2023) v. RHP Spencer Schwellenbach (3-5, 4.62)
RHP Christian Scott (0-3, 4.56) v. RHP Reynaldo López (7-4, 2.12)
LHP David Peterson (5-0, 3.14) v. LHP Chris Sale (13-3, 2.70)
Injury updates
Mets injured list
Kodai Senga
Moderate posterior capsule strain in right shoulder
Now
7. July
Shintaro Fujinami
Right shoulder strain
Now
7. July
Sean Reid-Foley
Right shoulder impingement
Now
7. July
Reed Garrett
Right elbow inflammation
7/25
8. August
Starling Marte
Right knee bone bruise
Now
8. August
Drew Smith
Tommy John surgery
8/23
X. 2025
Ronny Mauricio
Torn right ACL
Now
X. 2025
Brooks Raley
Tommy John surgery
Now
X. 2025
Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL
Kodai Senga is slated to return on Friday.
Starling Marte has begun “low-impact” baseball activities. There’s still no real timetable for his return.
Sean Reid-Foley could start a rehab assignment this week.
|
Kamala Harris will meet with Benjamin Netanyahu this week, but will miss his address to Congress..txt |
Skip to content
Skip to site index
Israel-Hamas War
Updates
Trapped Sick and Wounded
Inside Gaza’s Deadliest Day
Carnage After an Airstrike
Cease-Fire Talks
The Latest
Updated
July 23, 2024, 8:34 a.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Middle East CrisisA Day After Deadly Strikes, Israel Presses On in Khan Younis
ImagePeople standing among destroyed concrete buildings as a cloud of smoke or dust rises above them.
The military used tanks and fighter jets to strike what it said were Hamas facilities.
Israel’s military said on Tuesday that it was pushing ahead with operations against Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, using tanks and fighter jets to strike what it said were weapons storage facilities and observation posts, a day after aid workers reported that dozens of people had been killed and hundreds of others wounded in the area.
The military, which is seeking to dismantle Hamas, invaded Khan Younis in December, and by spring it said that it had defeated the armed group’s forces in the city. That its troops have returned there this week suggests that Israel’s commanders perceive that Hamas had not been fully defeated or has regrouped.
The military said on Tuesday that it was again “eliminating terrorists in tank and aerial strikes.” It also said that a projectile fired by Hamas toward Israel from the area of Maghazi in central Gaza “fell and hit a school in the area of Nuseirat,” a town in the same part of the enclave. The military did not say whether there were casualties. It was not immediately possible to confirm the claim, and the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, said that it had no information about the reported incident.
The Israeli military had ordered residents to evacuate parts of Khan Younis on Monday, and video and photos showed terrified people, many on foot, running for safety. More than 150,000 people had fled by late Monday afternoon, according to UNRWA, which cited information from a charity, Alwaleed Philanthropies.
Israel had established what it described as a humanitarian zone just west of the city around the coastal village of Al Mawasi and encouraged Palestinians in Gaza to go there for safety. But on Monday the military said that it had shrunk the area of that zone, asking people, many of whom had set up makeshift shelters, to leave again because it said Hamas fighters had been launching rockets from the area.
The decision was made because of “intelligence indicating that terrorists were operating and firing rockets in these areas, as well as efforts by Hamas to reassemble its forces there,” the military said in a statement.
The claim could not be independently confirmed, but Hamas has used urban areas in Gaza to conceal its operations, running tunnels under neighborhoods and holding hostages in city centers. The group’s members, who are from Gaza, have long lived among the civilian population.
People in Gaza “search for safety to no avail because no place is safe,” said Juliette Touma, the communications director of UNRWA, who also said that people had been forced to move once a month.
An injured person being carried by two other people.
The situation was particularly dire at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The Gazan health ministry said on Monday that 70 bodies had been brought there and that 200 others had been wounded. The figures could not be confirmed independently, and they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Javid Abdelmoneim, the medical team leader for Doctors Without Borders at the hospital, said in an impassioned video posted on social media on Tuesday that staff members were at a breaking point because of the overwhelming medical needs, not least patients with burns. Stocks of blood were at critically low levels, he said, adding that he feared the hospital would be forced to close entirely.
— Matthew Mpoke Bigg reporting from Jerusalem
Israeli raids in West Bank kill at least 3, Palestinian officials say, and other news.
At least three people were killed Tuesday during Israeli military raids against Palestinian militant groups in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian officials. Israeli troops were operating in the city of Tulkarm, in the central West Bank, Mustafa Taqataqa, a local governor, said. He said the number of casualties was unclear because medics were unable to reach combat areas. The Israeli attack included a drone strike in the city, which the Israeli military said had targeted several militants. Once relatively quiet, Tulkarm has become a battle zone in recent months, with Israeli soldiers conducting over 50 operations against Palestinian armed groups there. The raids have torn up roads and created a climate of fear among the city’s residents.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said during a visit to Washington that conditions for a cease-fire deal with Hamas were “ripening.” Mr. Netanyahu told the families of hostages in a meeting on Monday that Israel was “placing very, very heavy pressure on Hamas,” leading the armed group to compromise on its position, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office. The families of the remaining 120 living and dead hostages in Gaza have increasingly criticized Netanyahu as not doing enough to bring home their loved ones.
Washington is bracing for protests to coincide with Mr. Netanyahu’s visit. A number of Jewish, Palestinian and other activist groups calling for a cease-fire in Gaza or a hostage deal are planning rallies on Capitol Hill and near the White House this week to coincide with the Israeli prime minister’s visit and speech to Congress on Wednesday. Some Democratic members of Congress have already said they will skip Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to show their unhappiness with his conduct of the war.
Israeli athletes will get 24-hour French police protection at the Paris Olympics amid heightened security concerns. Israeli athletes are targeted more than other delegations, Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said in a television interview on Sunday, pledging to ensure that the team would feel welcome and could compete without fear. The announcement followed reports that a far-left French minister, Thomas Portes, said there should be protests against the Israeli athletes, citing the war in Gaza. Israeli news outlets have reported that some athletes have received threatening messages recalling the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, in which a Palestinian militant group, Black September, killed 11 Israelis.
Palestinian rivals hail a declaration of unity in Beijing, but the news is met with a shrug at home.
Three men in suits. The two on the left are shaking hands.
Fatah and Hamas signed a joint statement in Beijing on Tuesday in a grand show of unity, with the leaders of the rival Palestinian factions standing beside China’s foreign minister for a photo opportunity in an ornate hall.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, declared that “historic moments” were underway. Mahmoud al-Aloul, the deputy leader of Fatah, showered praise on China for standing beside the Palestinian people.
Their joint statement supports the formation of a temporary government for Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank that all parties agree upon. But for many Palestinians, without concrete steps to make that plan a reality, the gathering in the Chinese capital was little more than a performance — and one they had seen before.
“What happened in China isn’t significant,” said Jehad Harb, an analyst of Palestinian affairs. “There aren’t any indications that Hamas and Fatah intend to end the split between them.”
Hamas and Fatah have been deeply divided for years, each trying to present itself as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and wary that the other will undermine its power. In 2007, the parties engaged in a civil war in which Hamas forcibly took over Gaza from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which retains limited autonomy over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Multiple past attempts to broker unity between the rival parties have resulted in joint statements and agreements, but all of those efforts have failed.
“These statements aren’t worth the ink needed to write them,” said Abd Al-Rahman Basem al-Masri, 25, a resident of Deir al Balah in central Gaza. “We’ve seen these things before and we’ve lost hope in them.”
The joint statement on Tuesday, which was also signed by other smaller Palestinian factions, said the new government should begin working on uniting Palestinian institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, reconstructing Gaza and preparing for national elections, though it does not lay out a clear timeline.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Fatah official and the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said he thought the statement was “serious,” but he emphasized that more discussions were required to advance reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
“There’s no alternative to Palestinian unity,” he said in an interview. “What has happened in China is stating the obvious.”
“It’s a matter of principles,” he said, adding that “a lot of talks and details” were needed for implementation.
Palestinian experts have said cooperation between Hamas and Fatah was critical to discussions about a postwar future in Gaza. If they can form a government of independent figures without formal ties to Hamas, it could make it easier for much of the Western world to participate in rebuilding the territory. The United States, Britain and other nations consider Hamas a terrorist group.
The statement does not address a key sticking point: security control over Gaza. Fatah has demanded that all weapons be under the authority of one unified security force and government, while Hamas has said it will not dismantle its military wing, the Qassam Brigades.Mr. Shtayyeh, who stepped down as prime minister in March, acknowledged frustration among Palestinians, describing the division between Hamas and Fatah as a “black chapter in the history of Palestine.”
“Palestinians on the street are very angry and disappointed that these talks have been ongoing for 17 years now,” he said. “The general public wants results, they don’t want papers. They want practical steps in the right direction.”
For China, meanwhile, bringing Hamas and Fatah together represented an opportunity to promote its image as a peace broker and an important player in the Middle East. The declaration on Tuesday followed Beijing’s success in negotiating a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year. It also comes as China has deepened its financial ties in the region in areas like technology and artificial intelligence.
Official Chinese state media hailed the meeting, saying it was “bringing precious hope to the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
The Palestinian factions attended the meeting mostly to placate China, Mr. Harb said, noting that they want to be in the good graces of a world power.
The images of China as a key international actor were not just for an overseas audience.
“The Chinese government does put significant weight on symbolic interactions, and certainly they are trying to lay out a tableau for everyone to look at domestically to say, ‘Yes, the Chinese government is important and is a force for good in the world,” said William J. Hurst, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Cambridge.
Zixu Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
— Adam Rasgon and Alexandra Stevenson reporting from Jerusalem and Hong Kong
Kamala Harris will meet with Benjamin Netanyahu this week, but will miss his address to Congress.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel holds papers and speaks from a leather chair. Behind him is a U.S. flag flanked by Israeli flags.
Vice President Harris will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Washington this week, her staff said on Monday, but she will miss the prime minister’s speech in Congress on Wednesday because of previously planned travel to Indianapolis.
The meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, which has not yet been scheduled, will be the vice president’s first foreign policy moment since Mr. Biden stepped aside from the fall presidential election and Ms. Harris moved swiftly to secure her place at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Aides to the vice president said that in her meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, Ms. Harris is expected to underscore her commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas. But she will also say that “it is time for the war to end in a way where Israel is secure, all hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom and self-determination,” an aide to Ms. Harris said.
The vice president has been involved in the difficult Middle East diplomacy since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, whose military response has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. Late last year, Ms. Harris traveled to Dubai and met with a series of regional leaders in an effort to bring about a deal to release Israeli hostages and increase aid to Gaza.
But those efforts were conducted while much of the focus was on Mr. Biden. Now that Ms. Harris is poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee, there will be more attention on her words and actions.
White House national security officials have long stressed that Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are in complete agreement about the situation in the Middle East and the fighting in Israel. But Ms. Harris has emerged as one of the leading voices for Palestinians in closed-door meetings inside the White House.
As she pursues the presidency, Ms. Harris will have to navigate any policy differences with Mr. Biden carefully — continuing to uphold his approach while also making clear on the campaign trail what she believes and how she would approach the situation from the Oval Office.
Her aides appeared to recognize the new attention she was under regarding foreign policy, making it clear that the vice president’s absence on Wednesday when Mr. Netanyahu delivers a speech to Congress was not intended as a slight or a message to Israel.
“Her travel to Indianapolis on July 24 should not be interpreted as a change in her position with regard to Israel,” said one top aide, who asked for anonymity because of the delicate nature of the regional diplomacy. “This is a simple statement confirming her travel plans.”
Normally, as vice president, Ms. Harris — who also serves as the president of the Senate — would preside over a joint session of Congress during a visit by a foreign leader.
— Michael D. Shear
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Skip to content
Skip to site index
Israel-Hamas War
Updates
Trapped Sick and Wounded
Inside Gaza’s Deadliest Day
Carnage After an Airstrike
Cease-Fire Talks
The Latest
Updated
July 23, 2024, 8:34 a.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Middle East CrisisA Day After Deadly Strikes, Israel Presses On in Khan Younis
ImagePeople standing among destroyed concrete buildings as a cloud of smoke or dust rises above them.
The military used | tanks and fighter jets to strike what it said were Hamas facilities.
Israel’s military said on Tuesday that it was pushing ahead with operations against Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, using tanks and fighter jets to strike what it said were weapons storage facilities and observation posts, a day after aid workers reported that dozens of people had been killed and hundreds of others wounded in the area.
The military, which is seeking to dismantle Hamas, invaded Khan Younis in December, and by spring it said that it had defeated the armed group’s forces in the city. That its troops have returned there this week suggests that Israel’s commanders perceive that Hamas had not been fully defeated or has regrouped.
The military said on Tuesday that it was again “eliminating terrorists in tank and aerial strikes.” It also said that a projectile fired by Hamas toward Israel from the area of Maghazi in central Gaza “fell and hit a school in the area of Nuseirat,” a town in the same part of the enclave. The military did not say whether there were casualties. It was not immediately possible to confirm the claim, and the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, said that it had no information about the reported incident.
The Israeli military had ordered residents to evacuate parts of Khan Younis on Monday, and video and photos showed terrified people, many on foot, running for safety. More than 150,000 people had fled by late Monday afternoon, according to UNRWA, which cited information from a charity, Alwaleed Philanthropies.
Israel had established what it described as a humanitarian zone just west of the city around the coastal village of Al Mawasi and encouraged Palestinians in Gaza to go there for safety. But on Monday the military said that it had shrunk the area of that zone, asking people, many of whom had set up makeshift shelters, to leave again because it said Hamas fighters had been launching rockets from the area.
The decision was made because of “intelligence indicating that terrorists were operating and firing rockets in these areas, as well as efforts by Hamas to reassemble its forces there,” the military said in a statement.
The claim could not be independently confirmed, but Hamas has used urban areas in Gaza to conceal its operations, running tunnels under neighborhoods and holding hostages in city centers. The group’s members, who are from Gaza, have long lived among the civilian population.
People in Gaza “search for safety to no avail because no place is safe,” said Juliette Touma, the communications director of UNRWA, who also said that people had been forced to move once a month.
An injured person being carried by two other people.
The situation was particularly dire at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The Gazan health ministry said on Monday that 70 bodies had been brought there and that 200 others had been wounded. The figures could not be confirmed independently, and they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Javid Abdelmoneim, the medical team leader for Doctors Without Borders at the hospital, said in an impassioned video posted on social media on Tuesday that staff members were at a breaking point because of the overwhelming medical needs, not least patients with burns. Stocks of blood were at critically low levels, he said, adding that he feared the hospital would be forced to close entirely.
— Matthew Mpoke Bigg reporting from Jerusalem
Israeli raids in West Bank kill at least 3, Palestinian officials say, and other news.
At least three people were killed Tuesday during Israeli military raids against Palestinian militant groups in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian officials. Israeli troops were operating in the city of Tulkarm, in the central West Bank, Mustafa Taqataqa, a local governor, said. He said the number of casualties was unclear because medics were unable to reach combat areas. The Israeli attack included a drone strike in the city, which the Israeli military said had targeted several militants. Once relatively quiet, Tulkarm has become a battle zone in recent months, with Israeli soldiers conducting over 50 operations against Palestinian armed groups there. The raids have torn up roads and created a climate of fear among the city’s residents.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said during a visit to Washington that conditions for a cease-fire deal with Hamas were “ripening.” Mr. Netanyahu told the families of hostages in a meeting on Monday that Israel was “placing very, very heavy pressure on Hamas,” leading the armed group to compromise on its position, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office. The families of the remaining 120 living and dead hostages in Gaza have increasingly criticized Netanyahu as not doing enough to bring home their loved ones.
Washington is bracing for protests to coincide with Mr. Netanyahu’s visit. A number of Jewish, Palestinian and other activist groups calling for a cease-fire in Gaza or a hostage deal are planning rallies on Capitol Hill and near the White House this week to coincide with the Israeli prime minister’s visit and speech to Congress on Wednesday. Some Democratic members of Congress have already said they will skip Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to show their unhappiness with his conduct of the war.
Israeli athletes will get 24-hour French police protection at the Paris Olympics amid heightened security concerns. Israeli athletes are targeted more than other delegations, Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said in a television interview on Sunday, pledging to ensure that the team would feel welcome and could compete without fear. The announcement followed reports that a far-left French minister, Thomas Portes, said there should be protests against the Israeli athletes, citing the war in Gaza. Israeli news outlets have reported that some athletes have received threatening messages recalling the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, in which a Palestinian militant group, Black September, killed 11 Israelis.
Palestinian rivals hail a declaration of unity in Beijing, but the news is met with a shrug at home.
Three men in suits. The two on the left are shaking hands.
Fatah and Hamas signed a joint statement in Beijing on Tuesday in a grand show of unity, with the leaders of the rival Palestinian factions standing beside China’s foreign minister for a photo opportunity in an ornate hall.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, declared that “historic moments” were underway. Mahmoud al-Aloul, the deputy leader of Fatah, showered praise on China for standing beside the Palestinian people.
Their joint statement supports the formation of a temporary government for Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank that all parties agree upon. But for many Palestinians, without concrete steps to make that plan a reality, the gathering in the Chinese capital was little more than a performance — and one they had seen before.
“What happened in China isn’t significant,” said Jehad Harb, an analyst of Palestinian affairs. “There aren’t any indications that Hamas and Fatah intend to end the split between them.”
Hamas and Fatah have been deeply divided for years, each trying to present itself as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and wary that the other will undermine its power. In 2007, the parties engaged in a civil war in which Hamas forcibly took over Gaza from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which retains limited autonomy over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Multiple past attempts to broker unity between the rival parties have resulted in joint statements and agreements, but all of those efforts have failed.
“These statements aren’t worth the ink needed to write them,” said Abd Al-Rahman Basem al-Masri, 25, a resident of Deir al Balah in central Gaza. “We’ve seen these things before and we’ve lost hope in them.”
The joint statement on Tuesday, which was also signed by other smaller Palestinian factions, said the new government should begin working on uniting Palestinian institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, reconstructing Gaza and preparing for national elections, though it does not lay out a clear timeline.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Fatah official and the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said he thought the statement was “serious,” but he emphasized that more discussions were required to advance reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
“There’s no alternative to Palestinian unity,” he said in an interview. “What has happened in China is stating the obvious.”
“It’s a matter of principles,” he said, adding that “a lot of talks and details” were needed for implementation.
Palestinian experts have said cooperation between Hamas and Fatah was critical to discussions about a postwar future in Gaza. If they can form a government of independent figures without formal ties to Hamas, it could make it easier for much of the Western world to participate in rebuilding the territory. The United States, Britain and other nations consider Hamas a terrorist group.
The statement does not address a key sticking point: security control over Gaza. Fatah has demanded that all weapons be under the authority of one unified security force and government, while Hamas has said it will not dismantle its military wing, the Qassam Brigades.Mr. Shtayyeh, who stepped down as prime minister in March, acknowledged frustration among Palestinians, describing the division between Hamas and Fatah as a “black chapter in the history of Palestine.”
“Palestinians on the street are very angry and disappointed that these talks have been ongoing for 17 years now,” he said. “The general public wants results, they don’t want papers. They want practical steps in the right direction.”
For China, meanwhile, bringing Hamas and Fatah together represented an opportunity to promote its image as a peace broker and an important player in the Middle East. The declaration on Tuesday followed Beijing’s success in negotiating a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year. It also comes as China has deepened its financial ties in the region in areas like technology and artificial intelligence.
Official Chinese state media hailed the meeting, saying it was “bringing precious hope to the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
The Palestinian factions attended the meeting mostly to placate China, Mr. Harb said, noting that they want to be in the good graces of a world power.
The images of China as a key international actor were not just for an overseas audience.
“The Chinese government does put significant weight on symbolic interactions, and certainly they are trying to lay out a tableau for everyone to look at domestically to say, ‘Yes, the Chinese government is important and is a force for good in the world,” said William J. Hurst, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Cambridge.
Zixu Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
— Adam Rasgon and Alexandra Stevenson reporting from Jerusalem and Hong Kong
Kamala Harris will meet with Benjamin Netanyahu this week, but will miss his address to Congress.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel holds papers and speaks from a leather chair. Behind him is a U.S. flag flanked by Israeli flags.
Vice President Harris will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Washington this week, her staff said on Monday, but she will miss the prime minister’s speech in Congress on Wednesday because of previously planned travel to Indianapolis.
The meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, which has not yet been scheduled, will be the vice president’s first foreign policy moment since Mr. Biden stepped aside from the fall presidential election and Ms. Harris moved swiftly to secure her place at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Aides to the vice president said that in her meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, Ms. Harris is expected to underscore her commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas. But she will also say that “it is time for the war to end in a way where Israel is secure, all hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom and self-determination,” an aide to Ms. Harris said.
The vice president has been involved in the difficult Middle East diplomacy since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, whose military response has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. Late last year, Ms. Harris traveled to Dubai and met with a series of regional leaders in an effort to bring about a deal to release Israeli hostages and increase aid to Gaza.
But those efforts were conducted while much of the focus was on Mr. Biden. Now that Ms. Harris is poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee, there will be more attention on her words and actions.
White House national security officials have long stressed that Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are in complete agreement about the situation in the Middle East and the fighting in Israel. But Ms. Harris has emerged as one of the leading voices for Palestinians in closed-door meetings inside the White House.
As she pursues the presidency, Ms. Harris will have to navigate any policy differences with Mr. Biden carefully — continuing to uphold his approach while also making clear on the campaign trail what she believes and how she would approach the situation from the Oval Office.
Her aides appeared to recognize the new attention she was under regarding foreign policy, making it clear that the vice president’s absence on Wednesday when Mr. Netanyahu delivers a speech to Congress was not intended as a slight or a message to Israel.
“Her travel to Indianapolis on July 24 should not be interpreted as a change in her position with regard to Israel,” said one top aide, who asked for anonymity because of the delicate nature of the regional diplomacy. “This is a simple statement confirming her travel plans.”
Normally, as vice president, Ms. Harris — who also serves as the president of the Senate — would preside over a joint session of Congress during a visit by a foreign leader.
— Michael D. Shear
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
27 Facts About J.D. Vance, Trump’s Pick for V.P..txt | By Shawn McCreesh
Published July 15, 2024Updated July 19, 2024
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
Follow the latest news from the Republican National Convention.
J.D. Vance, Donald J. Trump’s choice for vice president, has not lived an unexamined life. Here are 27 things to know about him, drawn from his best-selling 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” and the many other things he has said or written since.
1. His name was not always James David Vance. At birth, it was James Donald Bowman. It changed to James David Hamel after his mother remarried, and then it changed one more time.
2. He longed for a role model. His father left when he was 6. “It was the saddest I had ever felt,” he wrote in his memoir. “Of all the things I hated about my childhood,” he wrote, “nothing compared to the revolving door of father figures.”
3. He had a fraught relationship with his mother, who was married five times. One of the most harrowing scenes in the book occurs when he’s a young child, in a car with his mother, who often lapsed into cycles of abuse. She sped up to “what seemed like a hundred miles per hour and told me that she was going to crash the car and kill us both,” he writes. After she slowed down, so she could reach in the back of the car to beat him, he leaped out of the car and escaped to the house of a neighbor, who called the police.
4. He was raised by blue-dog Democrats. He spent much of his childhood with his grandfather and grandmother — papaw and mamaw, in his hillbilly patois. He described his mamaw’s “affinity for Bill Clinton” and wrote about how his papaw swayed from the Democrats only once, to vote for Ronald Reagan. “The people who raised me,” he said in one interview, “were classic blue-dog Democrats, union Democrats, right? They loved their country, they were socially conservative.”
5. As a teenager, he loved Black Sabbath, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin. But then his biological father, who was deeply religious, re-entered his life. “When we first reconnected, he made it clear that he didn’t care for my taste in classic rock, especially Led Zeppelin,” he wrote. “He just advised that I listened to Christian rock instead.”
6. He was taught to accept gay people. Mr. Vance wrote that he would “never forget the time I convinced myself I was gay.” Not yet old enough to feel attracted to the opposite sex, he worried something was wrong. “You’re not gay,” his mamaw told him, and even if he were, she reassured him, “that would be OK. God would still love you.” As he wrote, “Now that I’m older, I recognize the profundity of her sentiment: Gay people, though unfamiliar, threatened nothing about mamaw’s being. There were more important things for a Christian to worry about.”
7. As a candidate, he said he would vote against federal protections for gay and interracial marriage. He called the matter a “bizarre distraction” from more pressing issues. Though he also said that “gay marriage is the law of the land in this country. And I’m not trying to do anything to change that.
8. He’s a late-in-life Catholic. In 2019, when he was 35, Mr. Vance was baptized into the Catholic Church. He chose St. Augustine as his patron saint. “Augustine gave me a way to understand Christian faith in a strongly intellectual way,” he explained in an interview that year. “I also went through an angry atheist phase. As someone who spent a lot of his life buying into the lie that you had to be stupid to be a Christian, Augustine really demonstrated in a moving way that that’s not true.”
9. He was a young Marine. Mr. Vance joined the Marines after high school and eventually served in Iraq, where, he wrote, “I was lucky to escape any real fighting,” but it was a time that “affected me deeply nonetheless.” He worked in public affairs and, for a time, as “the media relations officer” for a large military base, Cherry Point, in North Carolina.
10. “Proud to Be an American” gets him every time. “I choke up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy anthem ‘Proud to Be an American,’” he wrote. “When I was 16, I vowed that every time I met a veteran, I would go out of my way to shake his or her hand, even if I had to awkwardly interject to do so.”
11. He was never a “birther.” Mr. Vance has said he was offended by the racist birther conspiracy against Barack Obama — peddled most famously by Mr. Trump — and alarmed at how people in his hometown seemed so susceptible to such things.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 9:32 a.m. ET20 minutes ago
20 minutes ago
George Clooney endorses Kamala Harris, says Biden is ‘saving democracy.’
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
12. He later soured on Mr. Obama (and warmed to Trump). The former president was “unable of saying anything outside of the elite consensus,” Mr. Vance said in 2022, calling Mr. Obama “a walking, talking Atlantic magazine subscription.”
13. He felt impostor syndrome at Yale Law School. As he wrote: “I lived among the newly christened members of what folks back home pejoratively call the ‘elites,’ and by every outward appearance, I was one of them: I am a stale, white, straight male. I have never felt out of place in my entire life. But I did at Yale.”
14. Mr. Vance met his wife, Usha, at Yale. They married in Kentucky in 2013, and were blessed by a Hindu pundit. “Usha definitely brings me back to earth,” Mr. Vance said in a 2021 interview with Megyn Kelly.
15. He found famous mentors. One was Amy Chua, a law professor known for her memoir, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” who encouraged Mr. Vance to write his own book. Another was David Frum, a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration and cheerleader for the Iraq war who helped Mr. Vance make early career connections. Mr. Frum has since become disillusioned with his former charge, describing him as a hyper-ambitious shape-shifter who would do anything or be anyone to get ahead.
16. Former Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a centrist, was his “political hero.” In 2022, Mr. Daniels observed that Mr. Vance had “veered in a different direction” that he described as being “a little regrettable.”
17. He did not vote for Mr. Trump in 2016. He voted instead for the independent candidate Evan McMullin.
18. But he claimed to understand Mr. Trump’s appeal. He predicted that Mr. Trump could be the G.O.P. nominee in 2016, though he did not think Mr. Trump would win the general election. As he said in an interview the following year, “It’s amazing, and I can’t repeat enough: As much as I saw Trump winning the nomination, I was super wrong about his prospects in the general.”
19. He deleted his old social media posts that were critical of Mr. Trump. Among other things, Mr. Vance has called Mr. Trump “cultural heroin” and wondered if he would be “America’s Hitler.”
20. His wife clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts, and, before he was on the Supreme Court, for Brett Kavanaugh. The controversy around Mr. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the court seemed to be a pivotal moment in both Mr. Vance and his wife’s political journey. “My wife worked for Kavanaugh, loved the guy,” he told Ross Douthat, a Times columnist. “You start looking around and say, ‘If they can do this to him, can they just do this to any of us?’”
21. He has espoused traditional views of marriage and the role of women in the workplace. He has called Democratic leaders “childless cat ladies.” And he said that “if your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at The New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had.”
22. His champion is the Silicon Valley mogul Peter Thiel. After Yale, he worked for Mr. Thiel’s firm Mithril Capital, and Mr. Thiel donated $15 million to Mr. Vance’s race in Ohio.
23. His venture capital firm is named after “Lord of the Rings” lore. The firm, Narya Capital, was named after a mythical object from J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy: Narya was one of three Elven rings of power, worn in the third age by the wizard Gandalf. Mr. Vance has invested in various services including a Catholic prayer and meditation app and the right-wing, video-sharing platform Rumble.
24. He made amends with Mr. Trump, with Mr. Thiel’s help. The mogul brokered a meeting at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Vance had been trailing in the polls during his primary race in Ohio. Mr. Trump backed him, with just two weeks left in the race, and Mr. Vance went on to win his crowded primary by nearly 10 points.
25. He was an executive producer on the film version of his memoir. The 2020 movie starred Glenn Close as mamaw and Amy Adams as Mr. Vance’s mother. The director Ron Howard largely steered the movie away from political debates. Still, the film prompted a backlash and was largely panned. A Times critic described it as a “strange stew of melodrama, didacticism and inadvertent camp.”
26. He is tight with Donald Trump Jr. They text or talk nearly daily and try to meet up if they are in the same city, according to people who know them both. They are a social-media tag team, often reposting each other’s messages.
27. His beard is Trump-approved. The former president has said that Mr. Vance looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.
Michael Gold and Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting.
See more on: J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, Republican Party, U.S. Politics, 2024 Elections
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Shawn McCreesh
Published July 15, 2024Updated July 19, 2024
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
Follow the latest news from the Republican National Convention.
J.D. Vance, Donald J. Trump’s choice for vice president, has not lived an unexamined life. Here are 27 things to know about him, drawn from his best-selling 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” and the many other | things he has said or written since.
1. His name was not always James David Vance. At birth, it was James Donald Bowman. It changed to James David Hamel after his mother remarried, and then it changed one more time.
2. He longed for a role model. His father left when he was 6. “It was the saddest I had ever felt,” he wrote in his memoir. “Of all the things I hated about my childhood,” he wrote, “nothing compared to the revolving door of father figures.”
3. He had a fraught relationship with his mother, who was married five times. One of the most harrowing scenes in the book occurs when he’s a young child, in a car with his mother, who often lapsed into cycles of abuse. She sped up to “what seemed like a hundred miles per hour and told me that she was going to crash the car and kill us both,” he writes. After she slowed down, so she could reach in the back of the car to beat him, he leaped out of the car and escaped to the house of a neighbor, who called the police.
4. He was raised by blue-dog Democrats. He spent much of his childhood with his grandfather and grandmother — papaw and mamaw, in his hillbilly patois. He described his mamaw’s “affinity for Bill Clinton” and wrote about how his papaw swayed from the Democrats only once, to vote for Ronald Reagan. “The people who raised me,” he said in one interview, “were classic blue-dog Democrats, union Democrats, right? They loved their country, they were socially conservative.”
5. As a teenager, he loved Black Sabbath, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin. But then his biological father, who was deeply religious, re-entered his life. “When we first reconnected, he made it clear that he didn’t care for my taste in classic rock, especially Led Zeppelin,” he wrote. “He just advised that I listened to Christian rock instead.”
6. He was taught to accept gay people. Mr. Vance wrote that he would “never forget the time I convinced myself I was gay.” Not yet old enough to feel attracted to the opposite sex, he worried something was wrong. “You’re not gay,” his mamaw told him, and even if he were, she reassured him, “that would be OK. God would still love you.” As he wrote, “Now that I’m older, I recognize the profundity of her sentiment: Gay people, though unfamiliar, threatened nothing about mamaw’s being. There were more important things for a Christian to worry about.”
7. As a candidate, he said he would vote against federal protections for gay and interracial marriage. He called the matter a “bizarre distraction” from more pressing issues. Though he also said that “gay marriage is the law of the land in this country. And I’m not trying to do anything to change that.
8. He’s a late-in-life Catholic. In 2019, when he was 35, Mr. Vance was baptized into the Catholic Church. He chose St. Augustine as his patron saint. “Augustine gave me a way to understand Christian faith in a strongly intellectual way,” he explained in an interview that year. “I also went through an angry atheist phase. As someone who spent a lot of his life buying into the lie that you had to be stupid to be a Christian, Augustine really demonstrated in a moving way that that’s not true.”
9. He was a young Marine. Mr. Vance joined the Marines after high school and eventually served in Iraq, where, he wrote, “I was lucky to escape any real fighting,” but it was a time that “affected me deeply nonetheless.” He worked in public affairs and, for a time, as “the media relations officer” for a large military base, Cherry Point, in North Carolina.
10. “Proud to Be an American” gets him every time. “I choke up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy anthem ‘Proud to Be an American,’” he wrote. “When I was 16, I vowed that every time I met a veteran, I would go out of my way to shake his or her hand, even if I had to awkwardly interject to do so.”
11. He was never a “birther.” Mr. Vance has said he was offended by the racist birther conspiracy against Barack Obama — peddled most famously by Mr. Trump — and alarmed at how people in his hometown seemed so susceptible to such things.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 9:32 a.m. ET20 minutes ago
20 minutes ago
George Clooney endorses Kamala Harris, says Biden is ‘saving democracy.’
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
12. He later soured on Mr. Obama (and warmed to Trump). The former president was “unable of saying anything outside of the elite consensus,” Mr. Vance said in 2022, calling Mr. Obama “a walking, talking Atlantic magazine subscription.”
13. He felt impostor syndrome at Yale Law School. As he wrote: “I lived among the newly christened members of what folks back home pejoratively call the ‘elites,’ and by every outward appearance, I was one of them: I am a stale, white, straight male. I have never felt out of place in my entire life. But I did at Yale.”
14. Mr. Vance met his wife, Usha, at Yale. They married in Kentucky in 2013, and were blessed by a Hindu pundit. “Usha definitely brings me back to earth,” Mr. Vance said in a 2021 interview with Megyn Kelly.
15. He found famous mentors. One was Amy Chua, a law professor known for her memoir, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” who encouraged Mr. Vance to write his own book. Another was David Frum, a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration and cheerleader for the Iraq war who helped Mr. Vance make early career connections. Mr. Frum has since become disillusioned with his former charge, describing him as a hyper-ambitious shape-shifter who would do anything or be anyone to get ahead.
16. Former Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a centrist, was his “political hero.” In 2022, Mr. Daniels observed that Mr. Vance had “veered in a different direction” that he described as being “a little regrettable.”
17. He did not vote for Mr. Trump in 2016. He voted instead for the independent candidate Evan McMullin.
18. But he claimed to understand Mr. Trump’s appeal. He predicted that Mr. Trump could be the G.O.P. nominee in 2016, though he did not think Mr. Trump would win the general election. As he said in an interview the following year, “It’s amazing, and I can’t repeat enough: As much as I saw Trump winning the nomination, I was super wrong about his prospects in the general.”
19. He deleted his old social media posts that were critical of Mr. Trump. Among other things, Mr. Vance has called Mr. Trump “cultural heroin” and wondered if he would be “America’s Hitler.”
20. His wife clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts, and, before he was on the Supreme Court, for Brett Kavanaugh. The controversy around Mr. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the court seemed to be a pivotal moment in both Mr. Vance and his wife’s political journey. “My wife worked for Kavanaugh, loved the guy,” he told Ross Douthat, a Times columnist. “You start looking around and say, ‘If they can do this to him, can they just do this to any of us?’”
21. He has espoused traditional views of marriage and the role of women in the workplace. He has called Democratic leaders “childless cat ladies.” And he said that “if your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at The New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had.”
22. His champion is the Silicon Valley mogul Peter Thiel. After Yale, he worked for Mr. Thiel’s firm Mithril Capital, and Mr. Thiel donated $15 million to Mr. Vance’s race in Ohio.
23. His venture capital firm is named after “Lord of the Rings” lore. The firm, Narya Capital, was named after a mythical object from J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy: Narya was one of three Elven rings of power, worn in the third age by the wizard Gandalf. Mr. Vance has invested in various services including a Catholic prayer and meditation app and the right-wing, video-sharing platform Rumble.
24. He made amends with Mr. Trump, with Mr. Thiel’s help. The mogul brokered a meeting at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Vance had been trailing in the polls during his primary race in Ohio. Mr. Trump backed him, with just two weeks left in the race, and Mr. Vance went on to win his crowded primary by nearly 10 points.
25. He was an executive producer on the film version of his memoir. The 2020 movie starred Glenn Close as mamaw and Amy Adams as Mr. Vance’s mother. The director Ron Howard largely steered the movie away from political debates. Still, the film prompted a backlash and was largely panned. A Times critic described it as a “strange stew of melodrama, didacticism and inadvertent camp.”
26. He is tight with Donald Trump Jr. They text or talk nearly daily and try to meet up if they are in the same city, according to people who know them both. They are a social-media tag team, often reposting each other’s messages.
27. His beard is Trump-approved. The former president has said that Mr. Vance looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.
Michael Gold and Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting.
See more on: J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, Republican Party, U.S. Politics, 2024 Elections
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
At Least 2 Dead in Listeria Outbreak Tied to Deli-Sliced Meat.txt | By Emily Schmall
July 20, 2024
At least two people have died and more than two dozen others have been sickened in an outbreak of listeria that appears to be connected to meat sliced at delis, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The fatalities were recorded in Illinois and New Jersey, the agency said. In all, 28 people across 12 states have been hospitalized with an infection of the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes since May, the C.D.C. said on Friday.
“Many people in this outbreak are reporting eating meats that they had sliced at deli counters,” the agency said, adding that the true number of people infected was most likely higher.
New York has reported the most cases at seven, followed by Maryland with six. States that have also reported cases include: Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Patients who gave samples that tested positive for the bacteria between May 29 and July 5 were 32 to 94 years old, including one pregnant person who recovered, according to the investigation.
The C.D.C. said public health investigators were using a national database of DNA fingerprints of bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses to identify specific products that had been contaminated.
DNA fingerprinting is performed on bacteria using a method called whole genome sequencing, which showed that bacteria from samples of those infected were closely related genetically, suggesting that people became ill from eating the same foods.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service was working to identify the suppliers of meats, sliced at deli counters, purchased in the outbreak.
“Listeria spreads easily among deli equipment, surfaces, hands and food,” the C.D.C. said. “Refrigeration does not kill Listeria, but reheating to a high enough temperature before eating will kill any germs that may be on these meats.”
The agency said that it had no evidence of listeria bacteria infections tied to prepackaged deli meats.
Listeria bacteria, which are naturally found in soil, can contaminate many foods. When ingested, they are most harmful to people who are pregnant, people who are at least 65 years old or those who have weakened immune systems.
Listeria infection is the third leading cause of death from food-borne illness in the United States, according to the C.D.C.
Possible symptoms from an infection include fever, muscle aches and tiredness. Listeria can cause pregnancy loss, premature birth and life-threatening infections in newborns. For people who are 65 years or older, or with a weakened immune system, listeria often results in hospitalization and sometimes death.
Public health authorities in Canada this month reported that two people had died from listeriosis after consuming plant-based alternatives to dairy milk. In June, dozens of ice cream products were recalled by the manufacturer Totally Cool after the Food and Drug Administration warned of possible listeria contamination.
In 2023, several listeria outbreaks were reported, including ones tied to leafy greens, ice cream and peaches, nectarines and plums.
| By Emily Schmall
July 20, 2024
At least two people have died and more than two dozen others have been sickened in an outbreak of listeria that appears to be connected to meat sliced at delis, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The fatalities were recorded in Illinois and New Jersey, the agency said. In all, 28 people across 12 states have been hospitalized with an infection of the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes since May, the C.D.C. said on Friday.
“Many people in this outbreak are reporting eating meats that they | had sliced at deli counters,” the agency said, adding that the true number of people infected was most likely higher.
New York has reported the most cases at seven, followed by Maryland with six. States that have also reported cases include: Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Patients who gave samples that tested positive for the bacteria between May 29 and July 5 were 32 to 94 years old, including one pregnant person who recovered, according to the investigation.
The C.D.C. said public health investigators were using a national database of DNA fingerprints of bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses to identify specific products that had been contaminated.
DNA fingerprinting is performed on bacteria using a method called whole genome sequencing, which showed that bacteria from samples of those infected were closely related genetically, suggesting that people became ill from eating the same foods.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service was working to identify the suppliers of meats, sliced at deli counters, purchased in the outbreak.
“Listeria spreads easily among deli equipment, surfaces, hands and food,” the C.D.C. said. “Refrigeration does not kill Listeria, but reheating to a high enough temperature before eating will kill any germs that may be on these meats.”
The agency said that it had no evidence of listeria bacteria infections tied to prepackaged deli meats.
Listeria bacteria, which are naturally found in soil, can contaminate many foods. When ingested, they are most harmful to people who are pregnant, people who are at least 65 years old or those who have weakened immune systems.
Listeria infection is the third leading cause of death from food-borne illness in the United States, according to the C.D.C.
Possible symptoms from an infection include fever, muscle aches and tiredness. Listeria can cause pregnancy loss, premature birth and life-threatening infections in newborns. For people who are 65 years or older, or with a weakened immune system, listeria often results in hospitalization and sometimes death.
Public health authorities in Canada this month reported that two people had died from listeriosis after consuming plant-based alternatives to dairy milk. In June, dozens of ice cream products were recalled by the manufacturer Totally Cool after the Food and Drug Administration warned of possible listeria contamination.
In 2023, several listeria outbreaks were reported, including ones tied to leafy greens, ice cream and peaches, nectarines and plums.
|
Finally, a Way Around Exorbitant Rental Car Surcharges for Tolls.txt | By Elaine Glusac
Elaine Glusac is the Frugal Traveler columnist, focusing on budget-friendly tips and journeys.
July 23, 2024, 5:01 a.m. ET
Sign up for the Travel Dispatch newsletter. Essential news on the changing travel landscape, expert tips and inspiration for your future trips. Get it sent to your inbox.
Tolls have long been the curse of rental car drivers, who often find their final bills inflated by per-day charges for access to automated toll payment devices provided by rental car companies.
Now one toll authority in Florida aims to eliminate rental car sticker shock. The Central Florida Expressway Authority, based in Orlando, has begun issuing temporary toll passes available free to travelers who rent cars at Orlando International Airport, allowing drivers to pay for toll road access like a local.
The program — which the toll authority says is the first of its kind in the nation — aims to ensure that a traveler’s last memory of a trip to Orlando is not being gouged by fees for a rental car transponder.
“There was a misconception that toll agencies like us or Florida’s Turnpike were getting those fees, and we’re not,” said Michelle Maikisch, the executive director of the Central Florida Expressway Authority. Usage fees often go to third-party contractors that handle toll payments for rental car companies. “Our governing board is made up of local elected officials and they were getting calls and emails. They challenged us to come up with a solution,” Ms. Maikisch added.
Signs throughout the Orlando airport for the Visitor Toll Pass direct travelers to download the pass app, where they can register for an account with a credit card. After registration, users receive a QR code that releases a toll pass from one of six vending machines near the airport’s rental car counters. The tag is designed to hang from the rearview mirror of a car.
Enrollment requires that travelers deposit an initial $10, which is used to pay for tolls. After that $10 is spent, a user’s credit card is charged each time a toll is incurred. If a traveler does not use the full $10 to pay tolls, the balance will be refunded to the credit card after the tag is returned. Travelers can return the tags at 14 drop boxes around the airport; failure to return them incurs a $10 fine.
Using toll roads to travel from the airport to Disney World typically costs $6.19 in tolls, according to the toll authority. On top of the tolls, rental car companies often charge transponder usage fees. For example, Avis charges $6.95 a day on rentals in Florida once the device is initially engaged — whether or not you use the transponder to pay a toll on any day — with a cap at $34.95 for any rental period not exceeding 30 days.
To avoid excess charges, renters at the Orlando airport must decline the use of a transponder or payment service when they reserve or check out a rental car and, where applicable, make sure the toll transponder in the car is set to the closed or nonpayment position.
While the Visitor Toll Pass program remains limited to Orlando’s main airport rental car facilities, the pass works on all toll roads and most bridges throughout the state.
Orlando International, which handled 57.7 million passengers in 2023, is considered the world’s largest rental car location. Pilot-tested in 2018, Visitor Toll Pass, which has a 99.5 percent approval rating from past users, according to the authority, was expanded to all of the airport’s terminals this spring.
Nationally, travelers have other means of avoiding toll fees, including bringing their own transponders from home — making sure in advance that the transponder is compatible with the destination — or renting from the car-sharing platform Turo, which only charges processing and administrative fees for such things as when drivers incur a toll beyond the scope of the host’s transponder.
Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2024.
| By Elaine Glusac
Elaine Glusac is the Frugal Traveler columnist, focusing on budget-friendly tips and journeys.
July 23, 2024, 5:01 a.m. ET
Sign up for the Travel Dispatch newsletter. Essential news on the changing travel landscape, expert tips and inspiration for your future trips. Get it sent to your inbox.
Tolls have long been the curse of rental car drivers, who often find their final bills inflated by per-day charges for access to automated toll payment devices provided by rental car companies.
Now one toll authority in Florida aims | to eliminate rental car sticker shock. The Central Florida Expressway Authority, based in Orlando, has begun issuing temporary toll passes available free to travelers who rent cars at Orlando International Airport, allowing drivers to pay for toll road access like a local.
The program — which the toll authority says is the first of its kind in the nation — aims to ensure that a traveler’s last memory of a trip to Orlando is not being gouged by fees for a rental car transponder.
“There was a misconception that toll agencies like us or Florida’s Turnpike were getting those fees, and we’re not,” said Michelle Maikisch, the executive director of the Central Florida Expressway Authority. Usage fees often go to third-party contractors that handle toll payments for rental car companies. “Our governing board is made up of local elected officials and they were getting calls and emails. They challenged us to come up with a solution,” Ms. Maikisch added.
Signs throughout the Orlando airport for the Visitor Toll Pass direct travelers to download the pass app, where they can register for an account with a credit card. After registration, users receive a QR code that releases a toll pass from one of six vending machines near the airport’s rental car counters. The tag is designed to hang from the rearview mirror of a car.
Enrollment requires that travelers deposit an initial $10, which is used to pay for tolls. After that $10 is spent, a user’s credit card is charged each time a toll is incurred. If a traveler does not use the full $10 to pay tolls, the balance will be refunded to the credit card after the tag is returned. Travelers can return the tags at 14 drop boxes around the airport; failure to return them incurs a $10 fine.
Using toll roads to travel from the airport to Disney World typically costs $6.19 in tolls, according to the toll authority. On top of the tolls, rental car companies often charge transponder usage fees. For example, Avis charges $6.95 a day on rentals in Florida once the device is initially engaged — whether or not you use the transponder to pay a toll on any day — with a cap at $34.95 for any rental period not exceeding 30 days.
To avoid excess charges, renters at the Orlando airport must decline the use of a transponder or payment service when they reserve or check out a rental car and, where applicable, make sure the toll transponder in the car is set to the closed or nonpayment position.
While the Visitor Toll Pass program remains limited to Orlando’s main airport rental car facilities, the pass works on all toll roads and most bridges throughout the state.
Orlando International, which handled 57.7 million passengers in 2023, is considered the world’s largest rental car location. Pilot-tested in 2018, Visitor Toll Pass, which has a 99.5 percent approval rating from past users, according to the authority, was expanded to all of the airport’s terminals this spring.
Nationally, travelers have other means of avoiding toll fees, including bringing their own transponders from home — making sure in advance that the transponder is compatible with the destination — or renting from the car-sharing platform Turo, which only charges processing and administrative fees for such things as when drivers incur a toll beyond the scope of the host’s transponder.
Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2024.
|
Trump Appeals $454 Million Fraud Judgment, Saying It Was Excessive.txt | By Jesse McKinley and Ben Protess
July 22, 2024
Sign up for the Trump on Trial newsletter. The latest news and analysis on the trials of Donald Trump in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. Get it sent to your inbox.
Lawyers for Donald J. Trump filed an appeal on Monday evening seeking to dismiss or drastically reduce the $454 million judgment levied against him this year in a New York civil fraud case, the latest maneuver in the former president’s multiple legal battles.
The filing made a raft of arguments questioning the judgment handed down in February by Justice Arthur F. Engoron, who found that Mr. Trump had conspired to manipulate his net worth and lied about the value of his properties to receive more favorable terms on loans.
The suit was brought by Attorney General Letitia James of New York, a Democrat, who hailed her victory over Mr. Trump as having demonstrated that “there cannot be different rules for different people in this country.”
In their lengthy appeal to the First Department of the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, however, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that many of the deals in question in Ms. James’s suit had occurred long ago and that the statute of limitations for violations it cited had run out.
They also questioned the size of the judgment awarded by Justice Engoron, calling it disproportionate and suggesting that the judge had overcounted damages and miscalculated the profits from some of the properties named in Ms. James’s suit.
Taken as a whole, the appeal — peppered with talking points from Mr. Trump’s campaign and his public criticism of the case — seeks to show that the former president’s dealings were business as usual, and that no harm was caused.
“There were no victims and no losses,” the appeal reads, adding that Mr. Trump’s business partners had “raved internally about their business with him and were eager for more.”
If, it added, Mr. Trump’s actions constituted fraud, “then that word has no meaning,” and the attorney general’s “power to seize and destroy private businesses is boundless — and standardless.”
In a statement, Ms. James’s office said that the defendants were raising arguments that had already been decided in the prosecution’s favor, and predicted a legal victory.
“We won this case based on the facts and the law, and we are confident we will prevail on appeal,” the statement said.
Letitia James, wearing a dark winter coat, speaks into news microphones outside a courthouse.
The attorney general’s legal response to the filing is expected next month, and the appeals court will hear oral arguments in the fall, even as the nation weighs whether to re-elect Mr. Trump president. A decision could come before the end of the year.
The First Department has considered the issue of the statute of limitations before, and allowed the case against Mr. Trump to continue while dismissing a case against his daughter Ivanka.
The appeal is Mr. Trump’s latest attempt to avoid a potential nine-figure payout that could dent his political and personal image as a successful billionaire.
If Mr. Trump were forced to pay the entire judgment, it could wipe out his cash reserves, though he may soon also come into a multibillion-dollar windfall as a result of his stake in his social media company, Truth Social. Mr. Trump was also ordered in January to pay nearly $84 million in damages after a jury found he had defamed E. Jean Carroll, the writer whom he was earlier found liable of sexually abusing and defaming. In that earlier decision, in 2023, another jury awarded $5 million to Ms. Carroll.
Mr. Trump had scrambled to find a bond company willing to promise the money for the civil fraud judgment as he appealed it, raising the prospect that he could lose control over his bank accounts or Ms. James could seize one of his namesake properties. (A bond is a legal document from an outside company agreeing to pay at least some the judgment if Mr. Trump were to lose the appeal and fail to pay.)
The former president’s lawyers had called getting a bond for the full $454 million judgment a “practical impossibility.” But Mr. Trump received a reprieve in March, when a New York appeals court allowed him to post a smaller bond of $175 million. He was able to secure a bond from a California company that handles such deals shortly thereafter.
The former president’s legal travails, including his conviction in late May on 34 felony counts in state court in Manhattan, have continued as he seeks a second term. Mr. Trump, 78, accepted the Republican Party’s nomination last week, days after an assassination attempt.
The Manhattan case is likely to be the only one of his four criminal cases that will have been adjudicated by Election Day. Last week, a federal judge in Florida threw out all of the charges against Mr. Trump in a case involving his handling of classified documents, handing him a victory as the Republican National Convention began. Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed the indictment, has said he will appeal to a higher federal court.
Two other cases, including a state case in Georgia involving election interference and a federal case involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, face uncertain timetables.
Mr. Trump’s sentencing in the Manhattan case, originally scheduled for July 11, was delayed until Sept. 18 after the state judge who oversaw the trial, Justice Juan M. Merchan, said he would consider whether a recent Supreme Court ruling granting the president broad immunity for official acts might imperil Mr. Trump’s conviction.
Mr. Trump, who was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal that could have derailed his 2016 campaign, faces up to four years in prison for his crimes. (He could receive probation instead.)
In the civil suit brought by Ms. James, Justice Engoron imposed a penalty of nearly $355 million plus interest, bringing the total amount to more than $450 million. That interest has only grown as the months have passed.
In a statement on Monday, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher Kise, called the former president “a visionary and iconic real estate titan who has been baselessly pursued and persecuted” by Ms. James, echoing language in the appeal.
“Such an outrageous miscarriage of justice is profoundly un-American,” Mr. Kise said. “And a complete reversal is the only means available to restore public confidence.”
Jesse McKinley is a Times reporter covering upstate New York, courts and politics. More about Jesse McKinley
Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess
See more on: Donald Trump, New York
| By Jesse McKinley and Ben Protess
July 22, 2024
Sign up for the Trump on Trial newsletter. The latest news and analysis on the trials of Donald Trump in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. Get it sent to your inbox.
Lawyers for Donald J. Trump filed an appeal on Monday evening seeking to dismiss or drastically reduce the $454 million judgment levied against him this year in a New York civil fraud case, the latest maneuver in the former president’s multiple legal battles.
The filing made a raft of arguments questioning the judgment handed down in | February by Justice Arthur F. Engoron, who found that Mr. Trump had conspired to manipulate his net worth and lied about the value of his properties to receive more favorable terms on loans.
The suit was brought by Attorney General Letitia James of New York, a Democrat, who hailed her victory over Mr. Trump as having demonstrated that “there cannot be different rules for different people in this country.”
In their lengthy appeal to the First Department of the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, however, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that many of the deals in question in Ms. James’s suit had occurred long ago and that the statute of limitations for violations it cited had run out.
They also questioned the size of the judgment awarded by Justice Engoron, calling it disproportionate and suggesting that the judge had overcounted damages and miscalculated the profits from some of the properties named in Ms. James’s suit.
Taken as a whole, the appeal — peppered with talking points from Mr. Trump’s campaign and his public criticism of the case — seeks to show that the former president’s dealings were business as usual, and that no harm was caused.
“There were no victims and no losses,” the appeal reads, adding that Mr. Trump’s business partners had “raved internally about their business with him and were eager for more.”
If, it added, Mr. Trump’s actions constituted fraud, “then that word has no meaning,” and the attorney general’s “power to seize and destroy private businesses is boundless — and standardless.”
In a statement, Ms. James’s office said that the defendants were raising arguments that had already been decided in the prosecution’s favor, and predicted a legal victory.
“We won this case based on the facts and the law, and we are confident we will prevail on appeal,” the statement said.
Letitia James, wearing a dark winter coat, speaks into news microphones outside a courthouse.
The attorney general’s legal response to the filing is expected next month, and the appeals court will hear oral arguments in the fall, even as the nation weighs whether to re-elect Mr. Trump president. A decision could come before the end of the year.
The First Department has considered the issue of the statute of limitations before, and allowed the case against Mr. Trump to continue while dismissing a case against his daughter Ivanka.
The appeal is Mr. Trump’s latest attempt to avoid a potential nine-figure payout that could dent his political and personal image as a successful billionaire.
If Mr. Trump were forced to pay the entire judgment, it could wipe out his cash reserves, though he may soon also come into a multibillion-dollar windfall as a result of his stake in his social media company, Truth Social. Mr. Trump was also ordered in January to pay nearly $84 million in damages after a jury found he had defamed E. Jean Carroll, the writer whom he was earlier found liable of sexually abusing and defaming. In that earlier decision, in 2023, another jury awarded $5 million to Ms. Carroll.
Mr. Trump had scrambled to find a bond company willing to promise the money for the civil fraud judgment as he appealed it, raising the prospect that he could lose control over his bank accounts or Ms. James could seize one of his namesake properties. (A bond is a legal document from an outside company agreeing to pay at least some the judgment if Mr. Trump were to lose the appeal and fail to pay.)
The former president’s lawyers had called getting a bond for the full $454 million judgment a “practical impossibility.” But Mr. Trump received a reprieve in March, when a New York appeals court allowed him to post a smaller bond of $175 million. He was able to secure a bond from a California company that handles such deals shortly thereafter.
The former president’s legal travails, including his conviction in late May on 34 felony counts in state court in Manhattan, have continued as he seeks a second term. Mr. Trump, 78, accepted the Republican Party’s nomination last week, days after an assassination attempt.
The Manhattan case is likely to be the only one of his four criminal cases that will have been adjudicated by Election Day. Last week, a federal judge in Florida threw out all of the charges against Mr. Trump in a case involving his handling of classified documents, handing him a victory as the Republican National Convention began. Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed the indictment, has said he will appeal to a higher federal court.
Two other cases, including a state case in Georgia involving election interference and a federal case involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, face uncertain timetables.
Mr. Trump’s sentencing in the Manhattan case, originally scheduled for July 11, was delayed until Sept. 18 after the state judge who oversaw the trial, Justice Juan M. Merchan, said he would consider whether a recent Supreme Court ruling granting the president broad immunity for official acts might imperil Mr. Trump’s conviction.
Mr. Trump, who was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal that could have derailed his 2016 campaign, faces up to four years in prison for his crimes. (He could receive probation instead.)
In the civil suit brought by Ms. James, Justice Engoron imposed a penalty of nearly $355 million plus interest, bringing the total amount to more than $450 million. That interest has only grown as the months have passed.
In a statement on Monday, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher Kise, called the former president “a visionary and iconic real estate titan who has been baselessly pursued and persecuted” by Ms. James, echoing language in the appeal.
“Such an outrageous miscarriage of justice is profoundly un-American,” Mr. Kise said. “And a complete reversal is the only means available to restore public confidence.”
Jesse McKinley is a Times reporter covering upstate New York, courts and politics. More about Jesse McKinley
Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess
See more on: Donald Trump, New York
|
Adultery, a Corpse Eaten by Alligators and a $1 Million Insurance Payout.txt | By Kelly McMasters
July 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
GUILTY CREATURES: Sex, God and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida, by Mikita Brottman
Were Mikita Brottman’s “Guilty Creatures” a work of fiction, the plot would be deemed clichéd: an affair, a missing body presumed eaten by alligators, a million-dollar life insurance payout and a beautiful widow who quickly finds love in the arms of her dead husband’s newly divorced best friend.
“Nobody believed Mike had drowned in Lake Seminole,” the author and psychoanalyst Brottman establishes, before dispensing with the missing body as the least interesting part of the story and turning her attention instead to the 17 years between Mike Williams’s disappearance and the conviction of his killers — justice (mostly) served.
The book cover for “Guilty Creatures” shows a roadside sign advertising “Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida” and palm trees set against a threatening sky.
The book opens with feathered bangs and hunting rifles: a 1988 yearbook from North Florida Christian High, a private Baptist school, “formerly a segregation academy and almost entirely white.” Here is where we get our first glimpse of the main players — the doomed victim, “quarterback Jerry Michael Williams, always known as Mike”; his girlfriend, Denise Merrell, three rows above; and to his left, Mike’s “best buddy,” Brian Winchester, along with Brian’s girlfriend, Kathy.
“The boys played football, the girls cheered them on,” Brottman tells us. Their world was as narrow as the yearbook, its rules dictated by strict church doctrine and their conservative families. After high school, all four attended Florida State University, living at home until the storybook inevitable. “Both couples married in 1994. Church weddings. Cake and lemonade.”
Right on cue, each pair had a child. And then, on Dec. 16, 2000 — his sixth wedding anniversary — Mike disappeared during a duck-hunting trip to Lake Seminole. Initially, alligators were the presumed suspects, or at least blamed for the absence of a body.
At this point, the narrative doubles back, intent on exposing the unseemly truths behind the pious veneer of “first-generation suburbia, an ecosystem of oak-shaded, brick-and-mortar homes, cul-de-sacs, beltways, megachurches, outlet malls and big-box stores — clean, prosperous, exclusive, safe and repressed.”
In reality, after their shared Southern Baptist upbringings, the two young couples had let loose in a kind of fundamentalist rumspringa; “they skipped church, tried drugs, went to strip clubs.” After drinking all day, “Brian would get Kathy and Denise to take their clothes off and fool around while he took Polaroids.”
Ultimately, two of them — Kathy and Mike — had their fill of this relative libertinism. A quote from Kathy’s 2018 trial deposition says it best: “Mike and I were kind of, like, this is fun or whatever, but we were ready to have kids.”
Enter adultery. Denise and Brian continued meeting in secret. “Like teenagers, they did it in the car, getting to know places they wouldn’t be disturbed. Church parking lots were good for that, ironically.”
Brottman posits that their faith took divorce off the table, but this is hardly convincing; the million-dollar life insurance policy that Brian sold to his best friend a few months before his disappearance seems a far more compelling motive.
Brottman shines in her depiction of the victim’s mother, Cheryl — busy with “running her day care, babysitting her granddaughter and feeding 20 feral cats” — who refuses to allow her son’s disappearance to be forgotten and is rendered one of the few truly complex characters in the book.
And Brottman’s treatment of Reddit, the Websleuths forums and commentary from self-anointed YouTube experts makes for a particularly damning portrait of our culture’s consumption of crime — though this point would have cut more sharply had the writer attributed these quotes in the text rather than sourcing them in the notes.
In Brottman’s earlier books, she used dead bodies as lenses to reflect a larger story: “An Unexplained Death” explored the link between invisibility and suicide, and “Couple Found Slain” focused on the disaster of our country’s forensic psych wards. In both, her obsession with and proximity to the central crime drives the narrative — one victim is found in Brottman’s apartment building; she meets a murderer in a reading group she oversees in his psychiatric hospital. In “Guilty Creatures,” however, this level of personal obsession never takes hold, aside from the murder-map-style evidence marshaling (which can border on tedious). It never becomes clear why she is drawn to this particular crime, or what larger story she wants to tell.
Polyamory, open marriage, expansive desire and divorce are all current best-seller fodder, making the foursome’s porn-fueled, vanilla-hetero-fantasy romps feel more quaint than salacious. The power of the Baptist Church is barely examined, the poison of the American dream merely gestured at, the uniqueness of Florida sketched only briefly.
In the introduction to his masterly collection “Killings,” Calvin Trillin writes, “These stories are meant to be more about how Americans lived than about how some of them died.” The cauldron of fornication, fundamentalism and Florida Man high jinks is a steamy promise; ultimately “the alligators made a great punchline.” But, really, these reptiles are simply a distraction from the actual coldblooded monster here, which may be the pressures of perfection itself.
| By Kelly McMasters
July 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
GUILTY CREATURES: Sex, God and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida, by Mikita Brottman
Were Mikita Brottman’s “Guilty Creatures” a work of fiction, the plot would be deemed clichéd: an affair, a missing body presumed eaten by alligators, a million-dollar life insurance payout and a beautiful widow who quickly finds love | in the arms of her dead husband’s newly divorced best friend.
“Nobody believed Mike had drowned in Lake Seminole,” the author and psychoanalyst Brottman establishes, before dispensing with the missing body as the least interesting part of the story and turning her attention instead to the 17 years between Mike Williams’s disappearance and the conviction of his killers — justice (mostly) served.
The book cover for “Guilty Creatures” shows a roadside sign advertising “Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida” and palm trees set against a threatening sky.
The book opens with feathered bangs and hunting rifles: a 1988 yearbook from North Florida Christian High, a private Baptist school, “formerly a segregation academy and almost entirely white.” Here is where we get our first glimpse of the main players — the doomed victim, “quarterback Jerry Michael Williams, always known as Mike”; his girlfriend, Denise Merrell, three rows above; and to his left, Mike’s “best buddy,” Brian Winchester, along with Brian’s girlfriend, Kathy.
“The boys played football, the girls cheered them on,” Brottman tells us. Their world was as narrow as the yearbook, its rules dictated by strict church doctrine and their conservative families. After high school, all four attended Florida State University, living at home until the storybook inevitable. “Both couples married in 1994. Church weddings. Cake and lemonade.”
Right on cue, each pair had a child. And then, on Dec. 16, 2000 — his sixth wedding anniversary — Mike disappeared during a duck-hunting trip to Lake Seminole. Initially, alligators were the presumed suspects, or at least blamed for the absence of a body.
At this point, the narrative doubles back, intent on exposing the unseemly truths behind the pious veneer of “first-generation suburbia, an ecosystem of oak-shaded, brick-and-mortar homes, cul-de-sacs, beltways, megachurches, outlet malls and big-box stores — clean, prosperous, exclusive, safe and repressed.”
In reality, after their shared Southern Baptist upbringings, the two young couples had let loose in a kind of fundamentalist rumspringa; “they skipped church, tried drugs, went to strip clubs.” After drinking all day, “Brian would get Kathy and Denise to take their clothes off and fool around while he took Polaroids.”
Ultimately, two of them — Kathy and Mike — had their fill of this relative libertinism. A quote from Kathy’s 2018 trial deposition says it best: “Mike and I were kind of, like, this is fun or whatever, but we were ready to have kids.”
Enter adultery. Denise and Brian continued meeting in secret. “Like teenagers, they did it in the car, getting to know places they wouldn’t be disturbed. Church parking lots were good for that, ironically.”
Brottman posits that their faith took divorce off the table, but this is hardly convincing; the million-dollar life insurance policy that Brian sold to his best friend a few months before his disappearance seems a far more compelling motive.
Brottman shines in her depiction of the victim’s mother, Cheryl — busy with “running her day care, babysitting her granddaughter and feeding 20 feral cats” — who refuses to allow her son’s disappearance to be forgotten and is rendered one of the few truly complex characters in the book.
And Brottman’s treatment of Reddit, the Websleuths forums and commentary from self-anointed YouTube experts makes for a particularly damning portrait of our culture’s consumption of crime — though this point would have cut more sharply had the writer attributed these quotes in the text rather than sourcing them in the notes.
In Brottman’s earlier books, she used dead bodies as lenses to reflect a larger story: “An Unexplained Death” explored the link between invisibility and suicide, and “Couple Found Slain” focused on the disaster of our country’s forensic psych wards. In both, her obsession with and proximity to the central crime drives the narrative — one victim is found in Brottman’s apartment building; she meets a murderer in a reading group she oversees in his psychiatric hospital. In “Guilty Creatures,” however, this level of personal obsession never takes hold, aside from the murder-map-style evidence marshaling (which can border on tedious). It never becomes clear why she is drawn to this particular crime, or what larger story she wants to tell.
Polyamory, open marriage, expansive desire and divorce are all current best-seller fodder, making the foursome’s porn-fueled, vanilla-hetero-fantasy romps feel more quaint than salacious. The power of the Baptist Church is barely examined, the poison of the American dream merely gestured at, the uniqueness of Florida sketched only briefly.
In the introduction to his masterly collection “Killings,” Calvin Trillin writes, “These stories are meant to be more about how Americans lived than about how some of them died.” The cauldron of fornication, fundamentalism and Florida Man high jinks is a steamy promise; ultimately “the alligators made a great punchline.” But, really, these reptiles are simply a distraction from the actual coldblooded monster here, which may be the pressures of perfection itself.
|
How to Guard Against Scams Tied to the CrowdStrike Crash.txt | By Hank Sanders and Emmett Lindner
July 20, 2024
In the hours after the American cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike deployed a flawed software update that crippled critical businesses and services around the world, scammers pounced.
Government agencies and businesses have warned that the panic caused by the CrowdStrike crash on Friday has given criminals an opening to take advantage of customers who are looking to reschedule flights, access banking information or fix their technology.
Here are some ways to guard against the fraudulent schemes.
Scammers see an opportunity.
CrowdStrike provides cybersecurity for some 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies, so the crash led to widespread failures that grounded planes, crippled businesses, disrupted 911 emergency systems and delayed banking transactions.
Thieves online are using the confusion to carry out a variety of scams, including phishing attempts, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said. The National Cyber Security Center in the United Kingdom issued a similar statement noting that an “increase in phishing referencing this outage has already been observed.”
Scammers may look to get your money immediately by offering a product like a bogus plane ticket. But they could also be after personal identifying data that would allow them to access your finances in the future.
What industries are being targeted?
Because grounded planes caused frustrated customers to look to reschedule their flights, travel has been particularly subject to schemers, said Anton Dahbura, the executive director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
For example, suspicious social media accounts with fewer than five followers have been posing as airline support staff. The accounts reply on social media to customers who are seeking assistance from airlines.
One such account, which posts under the handle @EasyJetHlpdek, joined X this month, and began replying to travelers on Friday.
“Please do something about all of these @Delta scam accounts,” one social media user posted. “They’re making a technical issue worse by attempting to redirect customers to DMs fraudulently.”
Some airlines have acknowledged the phishing attempts.
JetBlue, in response to a post on X about fraudulent accounts, wrote that the company was “aware of the impersonating accounts and report them as we see them hoping that Twitter will bring them down.”
The cybersecurity industry also appears to be the target of scams.
CrowdStrike said on its blog that it was aware of groups impersonating CrowdStrike support. These groups send users files to download with the promise that, once opened, they will fix the crash. Instead, the files contain malware.
Because the effects of the crash have been so widespread, few industries are safe.
“It can be just about anything, unfortunately,” Mr. Dahbura said. “It can be anything, anyone, at any time.”
Here’s how to recognize a scam.
Scammers will often ask for information that a verified company already knows about you, or details that it does not need at all, Mr. Dahbura said.
On social media, the verified X account for Delta asked customers struggling with their flights to message the company’s account with their full name, confirmation number, cities of travel and dates of travel.
That information is less sensitive than asking for someone’s date of birth, home address or Social Security number, which a fraudulent account might seek.
Poor grammar and spelling on social media and in texts and emails can also be a sign of a fraudulent account. Also, check the location where a phone call or message originates, but keep in mind that it is also often difficult to recognize impostors.
“They have become incredibly clever,” Mr. Dahbura said.
Don’t give in to quick-fix impulses.
Think twice before giving anyone your personal information over the phone, and look closely at a link before providing credit card information for an online purchase.
During a disruption on the scale caused by the CrowdStrike crash, customers can feel desperate. That desperation, in turn, can fuel demand for a quick-fix solution.
Though it may take longer for a response from a verified business, Mr. Dahbura said it is better to spend the extra time than to take a chance on what might be a phony offer of help.
“There is a balance between careful and being paranoid,” he said, “and you almost have to start verging on being paranoid.”
Hank Sanders is a Times reporter and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Hank Sanders
Emmett Lindner writes about breaking and trending news. He has written about international protests, climate change and social media influencers. More about Emmett Lindner
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Hank Sanders and Emmett Lindner
July 20, 2024
In the hours after the American cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike deployed a flawed software update that crippled critical businesses and services around the world, scammers pounced.
Government agencies and businesses have warned that the panic caused by the CrowdStrike crash on Friday has given criminals an opening to take advantage of customers who are looking to reschedule flights, access banking information or fix their technology.
Here are some ways to guard against the fraudulent schemes.
Scammers see an opportunity.
CrowdStrike provides cybersecurity for | some 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies, so the crash led to widespread failures that grounded planes, crippled businesses, disrupted 911 emergency systems and delayed banking transactions.
Thieves online are using the confusion to carry out a variety of scams, including phishing attempts, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said. The National Cyber Security Center in the United Kingdom issued a similar statement noting that an “increase in phishing referencing this outage has already been observed.”
Scammers may look to get your money immediately by offering a product like a bogus plane ticket. But they could also be after personal identifying data that would allow them to access your finances in the future.
What industries are being targeted?
Because grounded planes caused frustrated customers to look to reschedule their flights, travel has been particularly subject to schemers, said Anton Dahbura, the executive director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
For example, suspicious social media accounts with fewer than five followers have been posing as airline support staff. The accounts reply on social media to customers who are seeking assistance from airlines.
One such account, which posts under the handle @EasyJetHlpdek, joined X this month, and began replying to travelers on Friday.
“Please do something about all of these @Delta scam accounts,” one social media user posted. “They’re making a technical issue worse by attempting to redirect customers to DMs fraudulently.”
Some airlines have acknowledged the phishing attempts.
JetBlue, in response to a post on X about fraudulent accounts, wrote that the company was “aware of the impersonating accounts and report them as we see them hoping that Twitter will bring them down.”
The cybersecurity industry also appears to be the target of scams.
CrowdStrike said on its blog that it was aware of groups impersonating CrowdStrike support. These groups send users files to download with the promise that, once opened, they will fix the crash. Instead, the files contain malware.
Because the effects of the crash have been so widespread, few industries are safe.
“It can be just about anything, unfortunately,” Mr. Dahbura said. “It can be anything, anyone, at any time.”
Here’s how to recognize a scam.
Scammers will often ask for information that a verified company already knows about you, or details that it does not need at all, Mr. Dahbura said.
On social media, the verified X account for Delta asked customers struggling with their flights to message the company’s account with their full name, confirmation number, cities of travel and dates of travel.
That information is less sensitive than asking for someone’s date of birth, home address or Social Security number, which a fraudulent account might seek.
Poor grammar and spelling on social media and in texts and emails can also be a sign of a fraudulent account. Also, check the location where a phone call or message originates, but keep in mind that it is also often difficult to recognize impostors.
“They have become incredibly clever,” Mr. Dahbura said.
Don’t give in to quick-fix impulses.
Think twice before giving anyone your personal information over the phone, and look closely at a link before providing credit card information for an online purchase.
During a disruption on the scale caused by the CrowdStrike crash, customers can feel desperate. That desperation, in turn, can fuel demand for a quick-fix solution.
Though it may take longer for a response from a verified business, Mr. Dahbura said it is better to spend the extra time than to take a chance on what might be a phony offer of help.
“There is a balance between careful and being paranoid,” he said, “and you almost have to start verging on being paranoid.”
Hank Sanders is a Times reporter and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Hank Sanders
Emmett Lindner writes about breaking and trending news. He has written about international protests, climate change and social media influencers. More about Emmett Lindner
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Running the Packers Is Complicated. A Sense of Humor Helps..txt | By Ken Belson
Reporting from Green Bay, Wis.
July 20, 2024
On a sunny summer day two years ago, Mark Murphy hosted one of the most unusual events in corporate America: the Green Bay Packers’ annual meeting. Thousands of the team’s shareholders — almost all of them fans who had paid hundreds of dollars for nearly worthless shares — filled Lambeau Field and listened to Murphy, the team’s president and chief executive officer, provide updates on the state of the franchise.
Murphy is the antithesis of corporate slick. He speaks bluntly, eschews jargon and disarms critics with a dry sense of humor. One of the many topics he covered that day was the coming season’s schedule. He said the Packers would play the most games in prime time of any team, a sign of their success and popularity. Then he addressed a frequent complaint from fans who said night games at an open-air stadium in Wisconsin were too cold.
“I often hear from fans that, gosh, it would be great if we had more noon home games,” he said. “Well, here’s the reality. If we have a lot of noon home games,” we’re a terrible team. Murphy substituted an expletive for “terrible.”
The fans erupted in laughter. Murphy made his point, but with a smile.
On Monday, Murphy will preside over his 17th and final shareholder meeting. Next year, he will hit the Packers’ mandatory chief executive retirement age of 70 and must step down. Ed Policy, the team’s chief operating officer and general counsel, was chosen last month as his successor and will take over next July.
“I feel very fortunate to be in this position,” Murphy said. “I’ve been in it for a long time now.”
Policy, who has worked alongside Murphy for a dozen years, is best known for creating Titletown, a 45-acre development across the street from the stadium that includes a hotel, offices, restaurants and apartments and provides the team with an extra source of revenue. But the chief executive of the Packers is a different, one-of-a-kind job.
As the leader of the only publicly owned, nonprofit professional sports team, he represents the Packers at N.F.L. meetings, where his vote counts the same as owners who paid 10 figures for their clubs. Unlike them, he flies commercial and doesn’t report to family members or limited partners, but to a board of directors and 539,000 shareholders whose stock pays no dividends and can’t be traded.
The chief executive is also the titular caretaker of an original N.F.L. franchise and a globally recognized brand that doubles as a civic institution in Wisconsin.
Ed Policy, wearing a blue suit and green tie, smiling in front of a large group of people.
Policy, whose father, Carmen, was a longtime executive with the San Francisco 49ers and the Cleveland Browns, has plenty of N.F.L. experience. But fully replacing Murphy will be difficult. Murphy has a law degree and an M.B.A., and before joining the Packers in 2007, he played eight seasons as a defensive back in the N.F.L. and won a Super Bowl with Washington, tried cases for the Department of Justice and worked as a college athletic director at Colgate and Northwestern.
He sits on the N.F.L.’s influential competition committee, where his views on player safety get attention. His experience at the N.F.L. Players Association — where he was a player representative during the 1982 strike, and later worked for the union’s chief, Gene Upshaw — was a big reason Commissioner Roger Goodell asked him to join the owners who negotiated the renewal of the league’s labor agreement in 2011.
“He was always thoughtful because he could give both perspectives, and he was respected,” said Pete Abitante, a former longtime N.F.L. executive. “But Murph is so understated I’m not even sure how many players knew he was a former player.”
Murphy, who grew up in Western New York and went to Colgate, gets that the Packers are a quirky outlier in the N.F.L. Founded in 1919, the Packers are a link to the league’s early years, when teams dotted the Midwest. In keeping with the team’s public ownership, Murphy is remarkably transparent by N.F.L. standards. He writes newsletters to fans, where he sometimes discusses uncomfortable news like the league’s recent defeat in an antitrust lawsuit challenging the Sunday Ticket television package. Murphy holds conference calls to discuss the team’s earnings, providing a window into the league’s tightly guarded finances.
On the field, Murphy built on the success of his predecessor, Bob Harlan, who, with the general manager Ron Wolf, rejuvenated the Packers in the 1990s. Since Murphy arrived in Green Bay, the Packers have won 174 games, the third-most in the league, and qualified for the postseason 12 times.
Yet the Packers won just one Super Bowl during that time. (The New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs have each won three.) Murphy also made waves in 2018 when he changed the team’s management structure so that the coach, general manager and director of football operations reported to him, a move critics said was a power grab and departure from Harlan’s style.
“I think you always get some complaints, but I think most people think the organization’s been run fairly well,” Murphy said.
Mark Murphy and Matt LaFleur talking while the football team does stretches around them.
Murphy hasn’t lost his sense of humor, even amid the turmoil. In January, he received an application for the open defensive coordinator’s position from a Packers shareholder who listed his skills at fantasy football as an asset. Murphy sent back a handwritten note.
“While your fantasy football experience is impressive, I regret to inform you that we have decided to go in a different direction,” Murphy wrote before pointing him toward the Packers’ archrival. “I hear the Bears have an opening — you look to be a perfect fit for them.”
Off the field, Murphy has focused on strengthening the Packers’ finances. In addition to the Titletown project, Lambeau Field — the oldest continuously occupied stadium in the N.F.L. — has received several makeovers, including a larger pro shop and new restaurants and luxury boxes as well as new video boards and 8,000 more seats. These and other enhancements were paid for in part by two stock sales, in 2011 and 2021, that each raised tens of millions of dollars.
This month, the team said its operating income fell 12.5 percent to $60.1 million last fiscal year. Revenue grew by 7.2 percent, to $654 million, nearly three times as much as when Murphy arrived in 2007.
“I think the finances are important because we want to make sure that we’re providing the football side with the resources they need to be successful,” he said.
Because the team is without a deep-pocketed owner who can absorb losses or splurge on big projects, Murphy has built a $536 million corporate reserve that grew by $76 million last year.
“This is kind of our alternative to having a rich owner, nothing against rich owners,” Murphy quipped.
Murphy responded to criticism that the Packers’ board was not diverse enough by pushing for the recruitment of more women and people of color. Murphy was also one of the first N.F.L. executives to condemn the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
“Mark brings a unique perspective having been a player and a high-level player and now representing an organization,” said Susan Finco, the outgoing lead director of the Packers board. “I think that really does shape his interest in and empathy for social justice issues and a lot of other issues as well.”
Some Green Bay residents chafe at Titletown and other ways the Packers have encroached on the surrounding neighborhood, not unlike neighbors who live near Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park, which have expanded their footprints. Others wonder whether the complex will erode some of the small-town charm that makes Green Bay unique.
“It’s something we’re sensitive to,” Murphy said last week. “I’m a little biased, but over all, Titletown is a great addition to the community. We have all kinds of events going on year-round. I think it’s been overwhelmingly positive.”
The visiting crowds will get larger next April when the N.F.L. holds the draft in Green Bay, a three-day event that Murphy lobbied for and will end up being his swan song as the most visible nonplayer in the league’s smallest market.
“You do get some criticism,” Murphy said. “But knock on wood, I think we’ve been successful enough that most people think, well, you didn’t screw it up too bad.”
| By Ken Belson
Reporting from Green Bay, Wis.
July 20, 2024
On a sunny summer day two years ago, Mark Murphy hosted one of the most unusual events in corporate America: the Green Bay Packers’ annual meeting. Thousands of the team’s shareholders — almost all of them fans who had paid hundreds of dollars for nearly worthless shares — filled Lambeau Field and listened to Murphy, the team’s president and chief executive officer, provide updates on the state of the franchise.
Murphy is the antithesis of corporate slick. He speaks bluntly, eschews jargon and | disarms critics with a dry sense of humor. One of the many topics he covered that day was the coming season’s schedule. He said the Packers would play the most games in prime time of any team, a sign of their success and popularity. Then he addressed a frequent complaint from fans who said night games at an open-air stadium in Wisconsin were too cold.
“I often hear from fans that, gosh, it would be great if we had more noon home games,” he said. “Well, here’s the reality. If we have a lot of noon home games,” we’re a terrible team. Murphy substituted an expletive for “terrible.”
The fans erupted in laughter. Murphy made his point, but with a smile.
On Monday, Murphy will preside over his 17th and final shareholder meeting. Next year, he will hit the Packers’ mandatory chief executive retirement age of 70 and must step down. Ed Policy, the team’s chief operating officer and general counsel, was chosen last month as his successor and will take over next July.
“I feel very fortunate to be in this position,” Murphy said. “I’ve been in it for a long time now.”
Policy, who has worked alongside Murphy for a dozen years, is best known for creating Titletown, a 45-acre development across the street from the stadium that includes a hotel, offices, restaurants and apartments and provides the team with an extra source of revenue. But the chief executive of the Packers is a different, one-of-a-kind job.
As the leader of the only publicly owned, nonprofit professional sports team, he represents the Packers at N.F.L. meetings, where his vote counts the same as owners who paid 10 figures for their clubs. Unlike them, he flies commercial and doesn’t report to family members or limited partners, but to a board of directors and 539,000 shareholders whose stock pays no dividends and can’t be traded.
The chief executive is also the titular caretaker of an original N.F.L. franchise and a globally recognized brand that doubles as a civic institution in Wisconsin.
Ed Policy, wearing a blue suit and green tie, smiling in front of a large group of people.
Policy, whose father, Carmen, was a longtime executive with the San Francisco 49ers and the Cleveland Browns, has plenty of N.F.L. experience. But fully replacing Murphy will be difficult. Murphy has a law degree and an M.B.A., and before joining the Packers in 2007, he played eight seasons as a defensive back in the N.F.L. and won a Super Bowl with Washington, tried cases for the Department of Justice and worked as a college athletic director at Colgate and Northwestern.
He sits on the N.F.L.’s influential competition committee, where his views on player safety get attention. His experience at the N.F.L. Players Association — where he was a player representative during the 1982 strike, and later worked for the union’s chief, Gene Upshaw — was a big reason Commissioner Roger Goodell asked him to join the owners who negotiated the renewal of the league’s labor agreement in 2011.
“He was always thoughtful because he could give both perspectives, and he was respected,” said Pete Abitante, a former longtime N.F.L. executive. “But Murph is so understated I’m not even sure how many players knew he was a former player.”
Murphy, who grew up in Western New York and went to Colgate, gets that the Packers are a quirky outlier in the N.F.L. Founded in 1919, the Packers are a link to the league’s early years, when teams dotted the Midwest. In keeping with the team’s public ownership, Murphy is remarkably transparent by N.F.L. standards. He writes newsletters to fans, where he sometimes discusses uncomfortable news like the league’s recent defeat in an antitrust lawsuit challenging the Sunday Ticket television package. Murphy holds conference calls to discuss the team’s earnings, providing a window into the league’s tightly guarded finances.
On the field, Murphy built on the success of his predecessor, Bob Harlan, who, with the general manager Ron Wolf, rejuvenated the Packers in the 1990s. Since Murphy arrived in Green Bay, the Packers have won 174 games, the third-most in the league, and qualified for the postseason 12 times.
Yet the Packers won just one Super Bowl during that time. (The New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs have each won three.) Murphy also made waves in 2018 when he changed the team’s management structure so that the coach, general manager and director of football operations reported to him, a move critics said was a power grab and departure from Harlan’s style.
“I think you always get some complaints, but I think most people think the organization’s been run fairly well,” Murphy said.
Mark Murphy and Matt LaFleur talking while the football team does stretches around them.
Murphy hasn’t lost his sense of humor, even amid the turmoil. In January, he received an application for the open defensive coordinator’s position from a Packers shareholder who listed his skills at fantasy football as an asset. Murphy sent back a handwritten note.
“While your fantasy football experience is impressive, I regret to inform you that we have decided to go in a different direction,” Murphy wrote before pointing him toward the Packers’ archrival. “I hear the Bears have an opening — you look to be a perfect fit for them.”
Off the field, Murphy has focused on strengthening the Packers’ finances. In addition to the Titletown project, Lambeau Field — the oldest continuously occupied stadium in the N.F.L. — has received several makeovers, including a larger pro shop and new restaurants and luxury boxes as well as new video boards and 8,000 more seats. These and other enhancements were paid for in part by two stock sales, in 2011 and 2021, that each raised tens of millions of dollars.
This month, the team said its operating income fell 12.5 percent to $60.1 million last fiscal year. Revenue grew by 7.2 percent, to $654 million, nearly three times as much as when Murphy arrived in 2007.
“I think the finances are important because we want to make sure that we’re providing the football side with the resources they need to be successful,” he said.
Because the team is without a deep-pocketed owner who can absorb losses or splurge on big projects, Murphy has built a $536 million corporate reserve that grew by $76 million last year.
“This is kind of our alternative to having a rich owner, nothing against rich owners,” Murphy quipped.
Murphy responded to criticism that the Packers’ board was not diverse enough by pushing for the recruitment of more women and people of color. Murphy was also one of the first N.F.L. executives to condemn the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
“Mark brings a unique perspective having been a player and a high-level player and now representing an organization,” said Susan Finco, the outgoing lead director of the Packers board. “I think that really does shape his interest in and empathy for social justice issues and a lot of other issues as well.”
Some Green Bay residents chafe at Titletown and other ways the Packers have encroached on the surrounding neighborhood, not unlike neighbors who live near Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park, which have expanded their footprints. Others wonder whether the complex will erode some of the small-town charm that makes Green Bay unique.
“It’s something we’re sensitive to,” Murphy said last week. “I’m a little biased, but over all, Titletown is a great addition to the community. We have all kinds of events going on year-round. I think it’s been overwhelmingly positive.”
The visiting crowds will get larger next April when the N.F.L. holds the draft in Green Bay, a three-day event that Murphy lobbied for and will end up being his swan song as the most visible nonplayer in the league’s smallest market.
“You do get some criticism,” Murphy said. “But knock on wood, I think we’ve been successful enough that most people think, well, you didn’t screw it up too bad.”
|
‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ to Compete at Venice Film Festival.txt | By Alex Marshall
July 23, 2024, 7:57 a.m. ET
“Joker: Folie à Deux,” Todd Phillips’s comic-book sequel starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, will compete for the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.
The movie’s participation, which festival organizers announced during a news conference on Tuesday to reveal the lineup, comes five years after Phillips’s “Joker” — which told the Batman villain’s origin story — won the same prize at Venice’s 76th edition, paving the way for its two Oscar wins.
Phillips’s movie will face starry competition for the Golden Lion, including from Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door,” starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, and Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” a biopic of the opera singer Maria Callas with Angelina Jolie in the lead.
Also in competition will be Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” an adaptation of a short novel by William S. Burroughs that follows a drug addict (Daniel Craig) as he undergoes withdrawal in Mexico City and becomes infatuated with an American drifter (Drew Starkey); Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” starring Nicole Kidman as a manager who starts an affair; and Justin Kurzel’s “The Order,” with Jude Law as an F.B.I. agent investigating a white supremacist terrorist organization.
Altogether, 21 movies will compete for the top prize at Venice’s 81st edition, which is scheduled to run Aug. 28 through Sep. 7. A nine-person jury led by Isabelle Huppert, the French actor, will choose the Golden Lion winner, which is announced on the festival’s final day.
This year’s star-studded lineup suggests the impact of last year’s Hollywood strikes on the movie industry’s schedules is waning. Those strikes wrought havoc at last year’s festival, with the MGM studio pulling Guadagnino’s tennis drama “Challengers” from the lineup, and many actors and directors staying away to avoid breaking strike terms.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Alberto Barbera, the festival’s artistic director, said that “Joker: Folie à Deux” showed Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s characters stuck in an asylum awaiting trial.
“Nobody can imagine what Todd and his screenwriters have imagined,” Barbera said, adding that Phoenix’s performance was “incredible.”
Venice’s organizers had announced some of this year’s lineup before Tuesday’s news conference, including this year’s opening movie, which won’t compete for the Golden Lion: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 comedy horror. The new movie has Michael Keaton return to play the title role, and also stars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara.
Another high-profile movie appearing out of competition is Jon Watts’s comedic thriller “Wolfs,” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as professional fixers who are hired to cover up the same crime. There are also movies by directors less familiar to Western audiences, including the Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, with “Cloud,” and the Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, who is showing “April.”
In recent years, the Venice Film Festival has gained a reputation for debuting Oscar contenders. Last year, Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone, won the Golden Lion for best film and Stone went on to win best actress at this year’s Academy Awards.
| By Alex Marshall
July 23, 2024, 7:57 a.m. ET
“Joker: Folie à Deux,” Todd Phillips’s comic-book sequel starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, will compete for the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.
The movie’s participation, which festival organizers announced during a news conference on Tuesday to reveal the lineup, comes five years after Phillips’s “Joker” — which told the Batman villain’s origin story — won the same prize at Venice’s 76th edition, paving the way for its two Oscar wins.
Ph | illips’s movie will face starry competition for the Golden Lion, including from Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door,” starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, and Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” a biopic of the opera singer Maria Callas with Angelina Jolie in the lead.
Also in competition will be Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” an adaptation of a short novel by William S. Burroughs that follows a drug addict (Daniel Craig) as he undergoes withdrawal in Mexico City and becomes infatuated with an American drifter (Drew Starkey); Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” starring Nicole Kidman as a manager who starts an affair; and Justin Kurzel’s “The Order,” with Jude Law as an F.B.I. agent investigating a white supremacist terrorist organization.
Altogether, 21 movies will compete for the top prize at Venice’s 81st edition, which is scheduled to run Aug. 28 through Sep. 7. A nine-person jury led by Isabelle Huppert, the French actor, will choose the Golden Lion winner, which is announced on the festival’s final day.
This year’s star-studded lineup suggests the impact of last year’s Hollywood strikes on the movie industry’s schedules is waning. Those strikes wrought havoc at last year’s festival, with the MGM studio pulling Guadagnino’s tennis drama “Challengers” from the lineup, and many actors and directors staying away to avoid breaking strike terms.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Alberto Barbera, the festival’s artistic director, said that “Joker: Folie à Deux” showed Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s characters stuck in an asylum awaiting trial.
“Nobody can imagine what Todd and his screenwriters have imagined,” Barbera said, adding that Phoenix’s performance was “incredible.”
Venice’s organizers had announced some of this year’s lineup before Tuesday’s news conference, including this year’s opening movie, which won’t compete for the Golden Lion: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 comedy horror. The new movie has Michael Keaton return to play the title role, and also stars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara.
Another high-profile movie appearing out of competition is Jon Watts’s comedic thriller “Wolfs,” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as professional fixers who are hired to cover up the same crime. There are also movies by directors less familiar to Western audiences, including the Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, with “Cloud,” and the Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, who is showing “April.”
In recent years, the Venice Film Festival has gained a reputation for debuting Oscar contenders. Last year, Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone, won the Golden Lion for best film and Stone went on to win best actress at this year’s Academy Awards.
|
Rockets’ Tari Eason discusses lows of his injury-riddled season and journey back.txt | By Kelly Iko
4h ago
Save Article
HOUSTON — The air conditioning system within the 53,000 square-foot Guy V. Lewis practice facility is state of the art, but by 8 p.m. on a Texas summer night, its productivity has come to a halt. An exhausted Tari Eason, leaning against the south wall in hopes of a brief respite, is drenched, down to his capri sweats and “Reverse Grinch” Kobe 6 sneakers.
A few feet away, Rockets forward Cam Whitmore, Eason’s teammate and summer workout partner, is finishing a drill with local trainer Aaron Miller. Eason and Whitmore are working on improving their consistency from the 3-point line, relocating around the perimeter in a circuit-like fashion but with different objectives in mind.
With Whitmore, rhythm and form are the focus. For the 23-year-old Eason, there’s a goal to improve as a shooter. But the fact he’s getting reps in, and the ability to move his legs rapidly, is a standalone victory. Because there were days not too long ago when he couldn’t.
A few minutes later, Miller walks Eason through a dribble-handoff drill. After receiving a pass in the right corner, Eason is instructed to move left with the ball, dribbling around a screen before taking a pull-up jumper in a fluid motion. Having largely made his mark in the NBA on the defensive side, Eason is working to expand his offensive repertoire. According to NBA.com tracking data, of Eason’s 222 career 3-point attempts, 207 of them were created for him. Within coach Ime Udoka’s offensive scheme, which is adding wrinkles ahead of the 2024-25 season, there is room for improvisation within half-court structures, and Eason is working to ensure he’s a more diverse option on the floor.
Eason's 2023-24 Snapshot
Defensive Postiional Versatility
94th
Passing Lane Defense
98th
Pickpocket Rating
97th
Deflections/ 75 Possessions
96th
Transition Shot Creation
95th
3PT Shooting Talent
4th
The mechanics of Eason’s handle look smoother now as he performs a wide array of dribbles, a bag he didn’t have when he first entered the league in 2022. Halfway through his drill, Eason misses three shots in a row.
He curses, before starting all over.
It’s not just about missing an open look. Eason’s frustration is rooted in pressure. He knows the margin of error is small, especially heading into a year knowing he’ll have to fight for his place in Udoka’s rotation. But it’s been over six months since Eason last stepped on an NBA floor. In March, the third-year forward underwent season-ending surgery to treat a growth on his left shin. Before that, Eason had been seeking second and third opinions on an injury that had left several questions dating back to training camp.
For Eason, who prides himself on availability — he appeared in all 82 games as a rookie and missed one game at LSU — being forced to step away from basketball, even momentarily, was difficult.
“It was a trying time,” Eason told The Athletic. “I’ve never really dealt with a major injury or anything that has kept me out of basketball for a long period of time. It was tough on me mentally, but I had the right people in my corner, giving me good, positive energy and praying. That helped me stay grounded through the process.”
Eason recently sat down with The Athletic to discuss his injury, the recovery process, being back in the gym and more. Parts have been edited for length and clarity.
Trainer Aaron Miller, center, works with Cam Whitmore, left, and Tari Eason. (Photo courtesy of Cody Barclay)
I know the recovery process is long, but how are you feeling right now?
I feel good. I feel like I’m close to 100 percent. You’ve seen me jumping, running, dunking. I feel pretty normal, to be honest. It’s really about getting all the movements back to where they were.
This certainly felt, at least from an outsider’s perspective, like an injury that took a while to diagnose. When did you start to feel like something was wrong?
I’d say right before training camp in the Bahamas during the team trip. Working out, I would notice that my shin would be really, really sore. I thought that was maybe through lack of treatment or stretching, things like that. I put more time in the training room and just ignored it. But definitely around training camp, because every time I jumped, I was in pain. I thought it might have been shin splints or something. The previous year, I played all 82 games and definitely wasn’t in the training room then as much as this year.
Does that process take a while, recalibrating your body and regaining muscle memory?
For sure. The first week doing it, running and jumping and doing certain movements was a little awkward. But as time progressed (and the workouts continued) it’s getting back to normal.
In terms of scheduling time to recover and rehab, is it more along the lines of how your body is reacting on a particular day? Or is there a set regimen that you stick to no matter what?
As far as my rehab process, it’s definitely based on how I feel. But at the same time, my leg feels really good. I don’t feel the same pain that I felt before, so trying to find that happy medium between pushing it but not overdoing myself. This is me getting back into the swing of things, so I don’t want to rush it.
From what I’ve seen, you’re becoming a bit more fluid with ballhandling and finishing. You’ve worked with Aaron Miller for some time now, correct?
Yeah, it’s been great. I’ve been working with Aaron since LSU. He came down to LSU and worked me out with (coach) Will Wade, so we’ve had a relationship since then and seeing him in the gym with Cam (Whitmore), it made more sense because of our prior relationship.
Not being able to play much last season, you had an up-close view of your team. What did you see from how they played and grew?
I’m super proud of the team, especially the way the guys ended (the season). Things were shaky during the middle of the season, but we really came together as a unit and banded together to make a good run. It gives us great momentum going into next year — with me coming back — and the addition of (Reed Sheppard).
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
In summer-league debut, Reed Sheppard flashes traits that made him a top-5 pick
You carved out a reputation as an iron man as a rookie. To not be able to replicate that last season, how was that for you? Waking up knowing you can’t play in a game that evening?
It was weird going to games and not suiting up, wearing regular clothes. It was sad. There was a point where I really was sad, a low point. I didn’t know what was going to happen, I didn’t know what the solution was. That thought of not knowing is uncomfortable. But I stayed prayed up and focused on controlling what I could, even strengthening my right leg or getting my body right. My ability to have come back as fast as I have since surgery is a credit to the amount of time spent in the training room, working on all aspects of my body — my core, fitness and stamina. It’s allowed me to bounce back quicker.
Going into next season, do you have anything to prove? You missed a lot of time and are returning to a competitive group, how do you feel as you prepare for another campaign?
I don’t have too many words on that. I’m going to let my game do the talking. A lot of stuff has been said, a lot of ways people view me, I hear it all. But I’m not here to prove anything.
Are you referring to last season’s incident with the Golden State Warriors? Is that a part of the noise you’re talking about?
Yeah, just the outside noise. It doesn’t matter to me. Even as far as the Draymond (Green) thing, I was hurt and it was unfortunate that I couldn’t be out there to support my guys, but I didn’t even want that thing to blow up as much as it did. At the end of the day, you gotta put your money where your mouth is. It didn’t happen for us, but it’s fuel to the fire.
How important is it for you to be able to get in the lab with Cam during the offseason, especially ahead of a big year?
I think it’s huge. The young guys, we’re all around similar ages. Some of us have played together in AAU camps coming up, like me and Jabari (Smith Jr.) at the Top 100 camp. So we have a really good relationship, especially because we’re so young, don’t have families and are always in the gym. It’s a bond that you create through working out late nights, early mornings.
Have you kept in regular contact with Ime Udoka and the coaching staff during this process?
They’re working closely with our team’s trainer (Motoki Fujii). He’s filling them in on the things that I can and can’t do, the movements. Making sure I’m comfortable going into this next phase because it’s going to start ramping up.
Are there things you’ve learned about yourself during this process that you might not have known a few months ago?
I think I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was. The initial reaction was, ‘There’s no way he’s playing through a stress fracture,’ but it turns out it was. People think that there was no way I was playing through that. My ability to play was probably the biggest thing; my pain tolerance being high.
(Top photo: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
| By Kelly Iko
4h ago
Save Article
HOUSTON — The air conditioning system within the 53,000 square-foot Guy V. Lewis practice facility is state of the art, but by 8 p.m. on a Texas summer night, its productivity has come to a halt. An exhausted Tari Eason, leaning against the south wall in hopes of a brief respite, is drenched, down to his capri sweats and “Reverse Grinch” Kobe 6 sneakers.
A few feet away, Rockets forward Cam Whitmore, Eason’s teammate and summer workout partner, is | finishing a drill with local trainer Aaron Miller. Eason and Whitmore are working on improving their consistency from the 3-point line, relocating around the perimeter in a circuit-like fashion but with different objectives in mind.
With Whitmore, rhythm and form are the focus. For the 23-year-old Eason, there’s a goal to improve as a shooter. But the fact he’s getting reps in, and the ability to move his legs rapidly, is a standalone victory. Because there were days not too long ago when he couldn’t.
A few minutes later, Miller walks Eason through a dribble-handoff drill. After receiving a pass in the right corner, Eason is instructed to move left with the ball, dribbling around a screen before taking a pull-up jumper in a fluid motion. Having largely made his mark in the NBA on the defensive side, Eason is working to expand his offensive repertoire. According to NBA.com tracking data, of Eason’s 222 career 3-point attempts, 207 of them were created for him. Within coach Ime Udoka’s offensive scheme, which is adding wrinkles ahead of the 2024-25 season, there is room for improvisation within half-court structures, and Eason is working to ensure he’s a more diverse option on the floor.
Eason's 2023-24 Snapshot
Defensive Postiional Versatility
94th
Passing Lane Defense
98th
Pickpocket Rating
97th
Deflections/ 75 Possessions
96th
Transition Shot Creation
95th
3PT Shooting Talent
4th
The mechanics of Eason’s handle look smoother now as he performs a wide array of dribbles, a bag he didn’t have when he first entered the league in 2022. Halfway through his drill, Eason misses three shots in a row.
He curses, before starting all over.
It’s not just about missing an open look. Eason’s frustration is rooted in pressure. He knows the margin of error is small, especially heading into a year knowing he’ll have to fight for his place in Udoka’s rotation. But it’s been over six months since Eason last stepped on an NBA floor. In March, the third-year forward underwent season-ending surgery to treat a growth on his left shin. Before that, Eason had been seeking second and third opinions on an injury that had left several questions dating back to training camp.
For Eason, who prides himself on availability — he appeared in all 82 games as a rookie and missed one game at LSU — being forced to step away from basketball, even momentarily, was difficult.
“It was a trying time,” Eason told The Athletic. “I’ve never really dealt with a major injury or anything that has kept me out of basketball for a long period of time. It was tough on me mentally, but I had the right people in my corner, giving me good, positive energy and praying. That helped me stay grounded through the process.”
Eason recently sat down with The Athletic to discuss his injury, the recovery process, being back in the gym and more. Parts have been edited for length and clarity.
Trainer Aaron Miller, center, works with Cam Whitmore, left, and Tari Eason. (Photo courtesy of Cody Barclay)
I know the recovery process is long, but how are you feeling right now?
I feel good. I feel like I’m close to 100 percent. You’ve seen me jumping, running, dunking. I feel pretty normal, to be honest. It’s really about getting all the movements back to where they were.
This certainly felt, at least from an outsider’s perspective, like an injury that took a while to diagnose. When did you start to feel like something was wrong?
I’d say right before training camp in the Bahamas during the team trip. Working out, I would notice that my shin would be really, really sore. I thought that was maybe through lack of treatment or stretching, things like that. I put more time in the training room and just ignored it. But definitely around training camp, because every time I jumped, I was in pain. I thought it might have been shin splints or something. The previous year, I played all 82 games and definitely wasn’t in the training room then as much as this year.
Does that process take a while, recalibrating your body and regaining muscle memory?
For sure. The first week doing it, running and jumping and doing certain movements was a little awkward. But as time progressed (and the workouts continued) it’s getting back to normal.
In terms of scheduling time to recover and rehab, is it more along the lines of how your body is reacting on a particular day? Or is there a set regimen that you stick to no matter what?
As far as my rehab process, it’s definitely based on how I feel. But at the same time, my leg feels really good. I don’t feel the same pain that I felt before, so trying to find that happy medium between pushing it but not overdoing myself. This is me getting back into the swing of things, so I don’t want to rush it.
From what I’ve seen, you’re becoming a bit more fluid with ballhandling and finishing. You’ve worked with Aaron Miller for some time now, correct?
Yeah, it’s been great. I’ve been working with Aaron since LSU. He came down to LSU and worked me out with (coach) Will Wade, so we’ve had a relationship since then and seeing him in the gym with Cam (Whitmore), it made more sense because of our prior relationship.
Not being able to play much last season, you had an up-close view of your team. What did you see from how they played and grew?
I’m super proud of the team, especially the way the guys ended (the season). Things were shaky during the middle of the season, but we really came together as a unit and banded together to make a good run. It gives us great momentum going into next year — with me coming back — and the addition of (Reed Sheppard).
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
In summer-league debut, Reed Sheppard flashes traits that made him a top-5 pick
You carved out a reputation as an iron man as a rookie. To not be able to replicate that last season, how was that for you? Waking up knowing you can’t play in a game that evening?
It was weird going to games and not suiting up, wearing regular clothes. It was sad. There was a point where I really was sad, a low point. I didn’t know what was going to happen, I didn’t know what the solution was. That thought of not knowing is uncomfortable. But I stayed prayed up and focused on controlling what I could, even strengthening my right leg or getting my body right. My ability to have come back as fast as I have since surgery is a credit to the amount of time spent in the training room, working on all aspects of my body — my core, fitness and stamina. It’s allowed me to bounce back quicker.
Going into next season, do you have anything to prove? You missed a lot of time and are returning to a competitive group, how do you feel as you prepare for another campaign?
I don’t have too many words on that. I’m going to let my game do the talking. A lot of stuff has been said, a lot of ways people view me, I hear it all. But I’m not here to prove anything.
Are you referring to last season’s incident with the Golden State Warriors? Is that a part of the noise you’re talking about?
Yeah, just the outside noise. It doesn’t matter to me. Even as far as the Draymond (Green) thing, I was hurt and it was unfortunate that I couldn’t be out there to support my guys, but I didn’t even want that thing to blow up as much as it did. At the end of the day, you gotta put your money where your mouth is. It didn’t happen for us, but it’s fuel to the fire.
How important is it for you to be able to get in the lab with Cam during the offseason, especially ahead of a big year?
I think it’s huge. The young guys, we’re all around similar ages. Some of us have played together in AAU camps coming up, like me and Jabari (Smith Jr.) at the Top 100 camp. So we have a really good relationship, especially because we’re so young, don’t have families and are always in the gym. It’s a bond that you create through working out late nights, early mornings.
Have you kept in regular contact with Ime Udoka and the coaching staff during this process?
They’re working closely with our team’s trainer (Motoki Fujii). He’s filling them in on the things that I can and can’t do, the movements. Making sure I’m comfortable going into this next phase because it’s going to start ramping up.
Are there things you’ve learned about yourself during this process that you might not have known a few months ago?
I think I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was. The initial reaction was, ‘There’s no way he’s playing through a stress fracture,’ but it turns out it was. People think that there was no way I was playing through that. My ability to play was probably the biggest thing; my pain tolerance being high.
(Top photo: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
|
Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe Are Masters of None in 2024 Race.txt | By Maureen Farrell and Rob Copeland
The reporters spoke to nearly two dozen financial industry executives, donors and advisers for this article.
July 20, 2024
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
It’s a bad time to be a finance billionaire. Well, in Washington, D.C., anyway.
Republicans on Wall Street, who had been largely coalescing around former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to return to office, suffered outright repudiation this week with his pick of Senator JD Vance of Ohio as a running mate. Mr. Vance, a harsh critic of corporate interests and a former venture capitalist, solidified a feeling in the world of high finance that the balance of power in the party had suddenly shifted westward to Silicon Valley.
In choosing Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump brushed off personal entreaties from some of the Republican Party’s biggest donors. Those financiers preferred Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota or Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, all reliable supporters of traditional rightward causes like corporate tax cuts, freewheeling trade policies and internationalism writ large.
Mr. Vance, by comparison, has built a political brand as an antagonist of the financial elite by criticizing business tax breaks, talking up the costs of global trade, embracing cryptocurrency, and opposing diversity initiatives that are popular across corporate America.
While accepting his nomination on Wednesday at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, he said the party was done “catering to Wall Street.”
That line and several others in Mr. Vance’s speech cast Wall Street’s titans as villains. It was a clear sign to many financiers at the convention and those watching at home that the party is no longer a clear ally, according to interviews with nearly two dozen investors, ex-government officials and advisers to donors of both parties.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance standing side by side in blue suits.
“Populism is on the rise in the Republican Party,” said Eric Cantor, a former Republican House majority leader who is vice chairman at the investment bank Moelis & Company. It means “individuals and the high paid executives on Wall Street” were not playing a central role in the election, he said in an interview.
It’s a new and uncomfortable position for the finance set, which for decades enjoyed access and political sway in administrations of both parties. Either they slink back to a candidate they have savaged publicly and privately, or risk being shut out no matter who wins the White House in November.
“The influence of classic bankers just isn’t here,” said Rob Collins, the founder of Coign, an upstart credit-card company that markets its products to conservatives, in an interview from the convention.
The choice of Mr. Vance was a pointed rebuke of top Republican donors, including the hedge-fund titan Kenneth Griffin, who opposed the senator’s nomination right up until the hours before Mr. Trump’s announcement, according to two people briefed on his efforts. The billionaire investor Paul Singer, in a recent dinner with Mr. Trump, suggested several vice-presidential candidates, none of them Mr. Vance, said one person familiar with the discussion.
“Nobody dangled or held back or conditioned any contribution or endorsement based on the choice of a vice president,” said Susie Wiles, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.
Propelled by enthusiasm from Silicon Valley and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, however, Mr. Trump chose Mr. Vance anyway.
“President Trump had many good choices for vice president, and I appreciate the thoughtful deliberations of the president and his team,” Mr. Griffin said in a statement.
Wall Street financiers have been heavy donors to both parties, and often take high-level roles in the government when they leave banking. For part of Mr. Trump’s term, Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president and chief operating officer, served as a top economic adviser. The former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was also an alumnus of the bank — the latest in a procession of century-long overlap between public and private industry that earned the term “Government Sachs.”
They brought with them a view that global competition wasn’t just good for big business but for consumers at all income levels, as it helped drive down the cost of goods and ultimately increased the standard of living for all.
But, said Jay Clayton, a lawyer who represented some of the world’s biggest financial institutions and was head of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Trump administration, it is time to “question whether the traditional economic view of the last decades” was the right one for the party.
Mr. Trump can still boast of a cadre of Wall Street supporters: Billionaire investor John Paulson hosted an event for Mr. Trump in April that raised more than $50 million and included some financiers, including Nelson Peltz of the hedge fund Trian Partners. Steve Schwarzman, the billionaire chief executive of the Blackstone Group, has separately said he’s backing Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Vance has been embraced by the technology and cryptocurrency worlds. Mr. Musk, who lobbied for Mr. Vance’s pick, is expected to donate to at least one outside group supporting the Republican ticket. Others who encouraged Mr. Trump to choose Mr. Vance as a running mate include Chamath Palihapitiya, the investor, and David Sacks, an entrepreneur.
Meanwhile, President Biden is not winning many converts from the right-leaning financial world with his recent embrace of a nationwide cap in rents, statements that they see as antagonistic to big business, and high profile support from Senator Bernie Sanders and other well-known liberals, several people said.
Many said they expect that Trump would remain friendly to business interests and include an extension of the corporate tax cuts signed in his first term and scheduled to expire next year. Mr. Trump said an interview published this week that he still favors lowering the rate, which Mr. Vance opposed before he was nominated.
Even some of those who were spurned by Mr. Trump’s choice continue to donate heavily to Senate and gubernatorial races.
And they are finding other uses for their cash.
Mr. Griffin, who has told associates he could give as much as $100 million to Republicans but hasn’t decided whether any of that will go to Mr. Trump’s campaign, earlier this week opened up his checkbook to buy a $45 million fossil of a Stegosaurus at auction.
| By Maureen Farrell and Rob Copeland
The reporters spoke to nearly two dozen financial industry executives, donors and advisers for this article.
July 20, 2024
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
It’s a bad time to be a finance billionaire. Well, in Washington, D.C., anyway.
Republicans on Wall Street, who had been largely coalescing around former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to return to office, suffered outright repudiation this week with his pick of Senator JD Vance | of Ohio as a running mate. Mr. Vance, a harsh critic of corporate interests and a former venture capitalist, solidified a feeling in the world of high finance that the balance of power in the party had suddenly shifted westward to Silicon Valley.
In choosing Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump brushed off personal entreaties from some of the Republican Party’s biggest donors. Those financiers preferred Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota or Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, all reliable supporters of traditional rightward causes like corporate tax cuts, freewheeling trade policies and internationalism writ large.
Mr. Vance, by comparison, has built a political brand as an antagonist of the financial elite by criticizing business tax breaks, talking up the costs of global trade, embracing cryptocurrency, and opposing diversity initiatives that are popular across corporate America.
While accepting his nomination on Wednesday at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, he said the party was done “catering to Wall Street.”
That line and several others in Mr. Vance’s speech cast Wall Street’s titans as villains. It was a clear sign to many financiers at the convention and those watching at home that the party is no longer a clear ally, according to interviews with nearly two dozen investors, ex-government officials and advisers to donors of both parties.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance standing side by side in blue suits.
“Populism is on the rise in the Republican Party,” said Eric Cantor, a former Republican House majority leader who is vice chairman at the investment bank Moelis & Company. It means “individuals and the high paid executives on Wall Street” were not playing a central role in the election, he said in an interview.
It’s a new and uncomfortable position for the finance set, which for decades enjoyed access and political sway in administrations of both parties. Either they slink back to a candidate they have savaged publicly and privately, or risk being shut out no matter who wins the White House in November.
“The influence of classic bankers just isn’t here,” said Rob Collins, the founder of Coign, an upstart credit-card company that markets its products to conservatives, in an interview from the convention.
The choice of Mr. Vance was a pointed rebuke of top Republican donors, including the hedge-fund titan Kenneth Griffin, who opposed the senator’s nomination right up until the hours before Mr. Trump’s announcement, according to two people briefed on his efforts. The billionaire investor Paul Singer, in a recent dinner with Mr. Trump, suggested several vice-presidential candidates, none of them Mr. Vance, said one person familiar with the discussion.
“Nobody dangled or held back or conditioned any contribution or endorsement based on the choice of a vice president,” said Susie Wiles, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.
Propelled by enthusiasm from Silicon Valley and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, however, Mr. Trump chose Mr. Vance anyway.
“President Trump had many good choices for vice president, and I appreciate the thoughtful deliberations of the president and his team,” Mr. Griffin said in a statement.
Wall Street financiers have been heavy donors to both parties, and often take high-level roles in the government when they leave banking. For part of Mr. Trump’s term, Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president and chief operating officer, served as a top economic adviser. The former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was also an alumnus of the bank — the latest in a procession of century-long overlap between public and private industry that earned the term “Government Sachs.”
They brought with them a view that global competition wasn’t just good for big business but for consumers at all income levels, as it helped drive down the cost of goods and ultimately increased the standard of living for all.
But, said Jay Clayton, a lawyer who represented some of the world’s biggest financial institutions and was head of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Trump administration, it is time to “question whether the traditional economic view of the last decades” was the right one for the party.
Mr. Trump can still boast of a cadre of Wall Street supporters: Billionaire investor John Paulson hosted an event for Mr. Trump in April that raised more than $50 million and included some financiers, including Nelson Peltz of the hedge fund Trian Partners. Steve Schwarzman, the billionaire chief executive of the Blackstone Group, has separately said he’s backing Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Vance has been embraced by the technology and cryptocurrency worlds. Mr. Musk, who lobbied for Mr. Vance’s pick, is expected to donate to at least one outside group supporting the Republican ticket. Others who encouraged Mr. Trump to choose Mr. Vance as a running mate include Chamath Palihapitiya, the investor, and David Sacks, an entrepreneur.
Meanwhile, President Biden is not winning many converts from the right-leaning financial world with his recent embrace of a nationwide cap in rents, statements that they see as antagonistic to big business, and high profile support from Senator Bernie Sanders and other well-known liberals, several people said.
Many said they expect that Trump would remain friendly to business interests and include an extension of the corporate tax cuts signed in his first term and scheduled to expire next year. Mr. Trump said an interview published this week that he still favors lowering the rate, which Mr. Vance opposed before he was nominated.
Even some of those who were spurned by Mr. Trump’s choice continue to donate heavily to Senate and gubernatorial races.
And they are finding other uses for their cash.
Mr. Griffin, who has told associates he could give as much as $100 million to Republicans but hasn’t decided whether any of that will go to Mr. Trump’s campaign, earlier this week opened up his checkbook to buy a $45 million fossil of a Stegosaurus at auction.
|
Lord Almighty, Joe, Let It Go!.txt | By Maureen Dowd
Opinion Columnist, reporting from Milwaukee
Everyone wants Joe Biden gone.
Even the people who don’t want him gone really want him gone.
“Everyone’s waiting for Joe,” said one top Democrat. “And he’s sitting at home, stewing and saying, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ We’re doing things the Democratic way. We’re botching it.”
I have many happy memories of Rehoboth Beach. I went there growing up and have Proustian recollections of crispy French fries with vinegar sold on the Boardwalk. But now my gladdening images have been replaced by a maddening one: President Biden hunkered down in his house there, recovering from Covid, resisting talking to anyone who will tell him the truth, hoarsely yelling, “Get off my beach!” at the growing list of Democratic lawmakers and donors trying to warn him that he is pulling down his party and the country.
It makes me sad that Biden doesn’t see what’s inescapable: If he doesn’t walk away gracefully right now, he will likely go down as a pariah and ruin his legacy.
The race for the Oval today is between two delusional, selfish, stubborn old guys, and that’s a depressing state of affairs.
As for those D.C. careerists surrounding Biden who a) hid his true condition; b) gaslighted the press for focusing on what they called a nonexistent age issue; c) shielded the president from the truth about his cratering chances of winning; and d) seem to have put their self-interest first?
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
One way or the other, they’ll probably be out of their jobs soon.
Shockingly, even as the Republicans roar out of Milwaukee, vibrating with joy, Biden’s brain trust continues to run a lousy campaign, as though nothing has changed. Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chair, went on “Morning Joe” Friday to say that the polls aren’t as bad as they are, that Biden is “more committed than ever” to running and that, when 100,000 homes got a knock on the door this past week, 76 percent of the respondents “are with Joe Biden.” Then, as Alex Thompson reported for Axios, Dillon went from cable news to a rah-rah call telling staffers not to pay attention to cable news because “the people in our country are not watching cable news.”
On the same day, Kamala Harris suddenly joined a call to reassure donors, but donors are in full flight.
At the convention, I went to a “Policy Fest” held by the Heritage Foundation — the folks devising the extreme Project 2025 — and their vision for America is very creepy and retrogressive.
Democrats should be alarmed thinking about Donald Trump with a Republican Senate promoting Judge Aileen Cannon to the Supreme Court.
A Timeline of Lies, Chaos
and Damage: This Is Trump’s
Record as President
This is already over. Democrats and journalists have moved on to other questions: Will Biden throw his support to Kamala or ask for an open convention? Would Kamala agree to be on an all-femme ticket with Gretchen Whitmer? Can a candidate other than Kamala play with the pot of gold now designated for Biden? Would the amazing ratings of a gladiatorial Democratic contest and an open convention drive Trump out of his mind? (Yes!!)
Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster, told reporters this week that not only does the campaign have an ad blitz about Biden’s debate brain freeze ready to go, but it also has primo oppo on Kamala. “Rest assured,” he said, “we are 100 percent ready.”
But Republicans are nervous about a Dem ticket swap. Tom Cotton posted that it would be a “coup.”
Biden has a right to be sniffy about some of the elite Democrats who want him out. Even if Barack Obama stopped messing with his Netflix money and came to Delaware to tell Biden to go, Biden wouldn’t listen. He’s still bitter that Obama pushed him aside for Hillary in 2015, so he doesn’t want to hear from either of them. Obama always seems to be leading Joe off the stage — even at that glossy Hollywood fund-raiser — and Joe resents it. He doesn’t want to have that awful feeling like he had in 2016 when he watched Trump beat Hillary, after he had stepped aside.
Now CNN reports that Biden is “seething” at his old friend Nancy Pelosi, the most respected person in the party, because he thinks she’s coordinating a campaign to force him out. Pelosi’s longtime pal in the California delegation, Zoe Lofgren, put out a letter Friday urging Biden to step aside, and New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, who is sure to bring others with him, also joined the chorus.
It’s true that Pelosi has played Madame Web in this crisis, initially trying to create a silky web that would caress Biden out of the race, and only getting tougher once he resisted. She has been sitting with her maps of the political world, working the phones and doing her head counts.
She loves Biden — he was more grateful for her help than Obama was and more effusive in his praise — but she loves the House more. She refuses to let the president burn it down for the sake of his ego and make it easy for Trump to slouch back to Washington with messianic, vengeful dreams.
Given that Biden said it would take the Lord Almighty to make him drop out, I have no doubt that Pelosi has been using their shared Catholic faith to guilt-trip the president into understanding the stakes, and what she thinks the Lord Almighty would want. Certainly, she might have said, she doesn’t like Trump claiming, as he did this week, that the Lord Almighty is on his side.
Really, what the Democrats need is a thrilling open convention, rather than a coronation. Trump just had one of those, after all.
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, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads.
Maureen Dowd is an Opinion columnist for The Times. She won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. @MaureenDowd • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section SR, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Lord Almighty, Joe, Let It Go!. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Maureen Dowd
Opinion Columnist, reporting from Milwaukee
Everyone wants Joe Biden gone.
Even the people who don’t want him gone really want him gone.
“Everyone’s waiting for Joe,” said one top Democrat. “And he’s sitting at home, stewing and saying, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ We’re doing things the Democratic way. We’re botching it.”
I have many happy memories of Rehoboth Beach. I went there growing up and have Proustian recollections of crispy French fries with vinegar sold on the Boardwalk. But now my gladdening | images have been replaced by a maddening one: President Biden hunkered down in his house there, recovering from Covid, resisting talking to anyone who will tell him the truth, hoarsely yelling, “Get off my beach!” at the growing list of Democratic lawmakers and donors trying to warn him that he is pulling down his party and the country.
It makes me sad that Biden doesn’t see what’s inescapable: If he doesn’t walk away gracefully right now, he will likely go down as a pariah and ruin his legacy.
The race for the Oval today is between two delusional, selfish, stubborn old guys, and that’s a depressing state of affairs.
As for those D.C. careerists surrounding Biden who a) hid his true condition; b) gaslighted the press for focusing on what they called a nonexistent age issue; c) shielded the president from the truth about his cratering chances of winning; and d) seem to have put their self-interest first?
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
One way or the other, they’ll probably be out of their jobs soon.
Shockingly, even as the Republicans roar out of Milwaukee, vibrating with joy, Biden’s brain trust continues to run a lousy campaign, as though nothing has changed. Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chair, went on “Morning Joe” Friday to say that the polls aren’t as bad as they are, that Biden is “more committed than ever” to running and that, when 100,000 homes got a knock on the door this past week, 76 percent of the respondents “are with Joe Biden.” Then, as Alex Thompson reported for Axios, Dillon went from cable news to a rah-rah call telling staffers not to pay attention to cable news because “the people in our country are not watching cable news.”
On the same day, Kamala Harris suddenly joined a call to reassure donors, but donors are in full flight.
At the convention, I went to a “Policy Fest” held by the Heritage Foundation — the folks devising the extreme Project 2025 — and their vision for America is very creepy and retrogressive.
Democrats should be alarmed thinking about Donald Trump with a Republican Senate promoting Judge Aileen Cannon to the Supreme Court.
A Timeline of Lies, Chaos
and Damage: This Is Trump’s
Record as President
This is already over. Democrats and journalists have moved on to other questions: Will Biden throw his support to Kamala or ask for an open convention? Would Kamala agree to be on an all-femme ticket with Gretchen Whitmer? Can a candidate other than Kamala play with the pot of gold now designated for Biden? Would the amazing ratings of a gladiatorial Democratic contest and an open convention drive Trump out of his mind? (Yes!!)
Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster, told reporters this week that not only does the campaign have an ad blitz about Biden’s debate brain freeze ready to go, but it also has primo oppo on Kamala. “Rest assured,” he said, “we are 100 percent ready.”
But Republicans are nervous about a Dem ticket swap. Tom Cotton posted that it would be a “coup.”
Biden has a right to be sniffy about some of the elite Democrats who want him out. Even if Barack Obama stopped messing with his Netflix money and came to Delaware to tell Biden to go, Biden wouldn’t listen. He’s still bitter that Obama pushed him aside for Hillary in 2015, so he doesn’t want to hear from either of them. Obama always seems to be leading Joe off the stage — even at that glossy Hollywood fund-raiser — and Joe resents it. He doesn’t want to have that awful feeling like he had in 2016 when he watched Trump beat Hillary, after he had stepped aside.
Now CNN reports that Biden is “seething” at his old friend Nancy Pelosi, the most respected person in the party, because he thinks she’s coordinating a campaign to force him out. Pelosi’s longtime pal in the California delegation, Zoe Lofgren, put out a letter Friday urging Biden to step aside, and New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, who is sure to bring others with him, also joined the chorus.
It’s true that Pelosi has played Madame Web in this crisis, initially trying to create a silky web that would caress Biden out of the race, and only getting tougher once he resisted. She has been sitting with her maps of the political world, working the phones and doing her head counts.
She loves Biden — he was more grateful for her help than Obama was and more effusive in his praise — but she loves the House more. She refuses to let the president burn it down for the sake of his ego and make it easy for Trump to slouch back to Washington with messianic, vengeful dreams.
Given that Biden said it would take the Lord Almighty to make him drop out, I have no doubt that Pelosi has been using their shared Catholic faith to guilt-trip the president into understanding the stakes, and what she thinks the Lord Almighty would want. Certainly, she might have said, she doesn’t like Trump claiming, as he did this week, that the Lord Almighty is on his side.
Really, what the Democrats need is a thrilling open convention, rather than a coronation. Trump just had one of those, after all.
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, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads.
Maureen Dowd is an Opinion columnist for The Times. She won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. @MaureenDowd • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section SR, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Lord Almighty, Joe, Let It Go!. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Motels Are Having a Moment.txt | By Jim Zarroli
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 22, 2024
In 2022, Lisa Lennox was visiting a friend in Stephenville, Texas, when she stumbled upon the Interstate Inn. The motel, on a highway an hour west of Fort Worth, had seen better days. The building was notorious with the local police, and rooms rented for $40 a night. The property needed new plumbing and wiring, and asbestos had to be removed.
But Ms. Lennox immediately felt a connection to the property, with its funky design, including a giant sloped roof that screamed Space Age.
“These motels are very Americana,” she said. “They’ve got a really unique design. But they’re all in disrepair, and a lot of them are being torn down.” Ms. Lennox had no real experience in hospitality, but she’d traveled widely and knew what made a good hotel room. She bought the motel that year, took an online hotel management course at Cornell and plans to open a renovated 35-room Interstate Inn, as well as another motel, with her siblings by the end of September. A third opening is planned for next year.
Ms. Lennox and her siblings are not alone: Motels are having a moment. Kimberly Walker, founder and creative director of Nomada Hotel Group, which owns three motels in California, says she sees a rise in what she calls “motel culture.” It includes people who are interested in owning and renovating motels, as well as travelers — especially young people — with an affinity for them.
ImageLisa Lennox leaning against a wall structure outdoors at a construction site.
The Interstate Inn sign with words saying “a Mod Motel” and “Pool and A/C” below the name.
In recent years, the humble roadside motel that an older generation might dismiss as outmoded at best has begun to appeal to a new group of younger fans, attracted to hit-the-road adventures. Instagram pages celebrating zany motel designs have hundreds of thousands of followers. The award-winning sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” which takes place largely in a motel setting, has a cult following.
And streaming services, such as Max, have programs devoted to motel renovation. These programs became especially popular during the pandemic, when cooped-up viewers began dreaming of do-it-yourself projects.
The pandemic also changed how travelers viewed motels. A lot of homebound people craved a getaway after being shut up for so long, and motels, which afforded more privacy than many hotels, felt safer health-wise, Ms. Walker said. Outward-facing rooms meant guests didn’t have to walk through a crowded lobby or share an elevator to get to their cars. Many properties built more recently have private outdoor spaces.
Motels — the word is a portmanteau of “motor” and “hotel” — boomed after the Interstate System was built in the 1950s and 60s. At their peak, in 1964, more than 61,000 motels operated in the United States, said Mark Okrant, the author of “No Vacancy: The Rise, Demise and Reprise of America’s Motels.”
Many motels were small, family-owned, one- or two-story places that tended to serve as quick stopovers for motorists. By the 1990s, slightly more than half were owned by people of Indian origin, part of what was coined “the Patel motel cartel.”
These places offered convenience and comfort. Guests could park right outside their rooms, check in at the front desk and recover from their travels before moving on. The interiors were typically simple: A couple beds, a desk, a television and, perhaps, a chair or two. Glamorous, they were not.
By 2012, only 16,000 motels remained in the United States, and a lot of them were struggling to stay in business. The children and grandchildren of the immigrant owners often had little interest in what could be a grueling business, Ms. Lennox said. More mom-and-pop motels were replaced by big hotel chains, such as Motel 6 and the Holiday Inn.
But it’s the unique and charming aesthetic of roadside motels that are helping them become relevant again.
When the Nomada Group purchased the Skyview in Los Alamos, Calif., for $1.9 million in 2016, it was so rundown and forbidding that locals likened it to the Bates Motel in the movie “Psycho.” But it had 360-degree views of the wine country and a quirky, bright yellow road sign right out of the Rat Pack days.
The company, which has outside investors, spent $3 million to overhaul the 33-room property. That included opening a restaurant, the Norman, where guests could dine on Bates burgers. It also included moving the parking lot and replacing it with a large communal space containing Adirondack chairs and a fire pit. The property has a rustic California feel, with a swimming pool surrounded by palm trees and spiky agave plants. Inside are a lot of midcentury modern-style features, like turquoise-blue bubble lamps and a hutch with a record player.
The Skyview was closed during the pandemic, but once California lifted its Covid restrictions in June 2021, business was brisk, even on weekdays. A lot of the guests were working remotely and eager for a getaway, Ms. Walker said.
In Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the Downtowner was an aging family-owned motel with “tasteful, but dated” décor that attracted guests looking for a “basic,” inexpensive place to stay, said Rob Blood, chief executive of Massachusetts-based Lark Hotels, which operates nine motels under the Bluebird by Lark brand.
Mr. Blood’s company, which operates old inns in places like Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Portland, Maine, bought the property for $4.25 million in 2018. Business was tepid at first, Mr. Blood said, until the company turned it into a boutique hotel with a sleek, midcentury modern look. Its gallery-white walls are filled with arty photos of famous writers like Alice Walker and Carson McCullers, who once stayed at the Yaddo artists’ retreat nearby.
The Downtowner became the Spa City Motor Lodge, to emphasize its motel origins. Mr. Blood believes the changes helped turn business around at the 42-room property, in part by attracting a lot of younger guests.
“Some people shy away from the word ‘motel,’ because it has a connotation of Super 8 and Motel 6,” Mr. Blood said. “But the Brooklyn crew is not afraid of a good motel,” he said, referring to what he calls “young hipsters.”
The designs are appealing to roadside adventurers looking for a place to spend the night.
At Ms. Lennox’s Interstate Inn, one room has a water bed and a black velvet headboard. She also found a Magic Fingers bed, which vibrates when you put a quarter in the slot. Such beds were commonplace in motels in the 1960s and 70s, but they had fallen out of favor by the ’80s.
A hotel room leading to a balcony outdoors.
A person walking in the parking area of a black building with the words “Spa City Motor Lodge” on it.
Ms. Lennox said she hoped that when guests visited the Interstate Inn, they would say, “‘Oh, I love the mermaid drinking champagne,’ or ‘I love the Sputnik wallpaper.’” She said that she wanted people to stay in a different room each time.
Touches like that can be a big hit in the Instagram age, said Lindsey Kurowski, the host of “Motel Rescue,” a television series about motel renovation on the Magnolia Network.
But getting the low-cost look of a motel can be deceptively expensive. Old motels can be full of maintenance issues. Many mid-20th-century motels have small rooms and tiny bathrooms with stall showers, and converting the rooms into the kind of interiors contemporary travelers want can require stripping them down to the studs and even moving walls, said Rod Clough, president of HVS Americas, a consulting firm for the hospitality industry.
“When we see these neat projects where they’re bringing something back to life, there tends to be a group behind it that has incredibly deep pockets,” he said.
The motels may need new roofs and wiring. Many have single-paned windows that must be replaced with double panes to muffle outside sounds. “A lot of these motels were built on busy streets that weren’t so busy back then, and now they’re even busier,” Mr. Clough said.
Rising construction costs and higher interest rates have also recently slowed new deals to a trickle, just as motels are starting to appear again along American highways.
Still, the pandemic changed how a lot of people traveled, long after a virus is a top concern on a trip.
Many people, like Maggie Burke, who once avoided motels have changed their minds. When Ms. Burke used to travel for work, she never considered staying in a motel. They had seedy associations of illicit assignations and hourly rates, she said.
“I would kind of look at the cars as I went zooming past, and think, ‘Oh my God, who goes there?’ ” she said.
But last New Year’s Eve, her husband surprised her with a trip to the Alander, a newly restored roadside motel with its own restaurant in Ancram, N.Y.
Today, the couple is building a house in the area and regularly stay at the property. A hotel might offer more amenities, Ms. Burke said, but she has discovered she likes the quiet comfort and simplicity of a motel.
“You just come and go — you’re not disturbing anyone,” she said. “It’s become our new destination.”
A correction was made on July 22, 2024
:
An earlier version of this article misstated that Sikh immigrants owned as many as half of motels in the United States by the 1990s. It was people of Indian origin who owned slightly more than half of motels then, not Sikh immigrants.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Jim Zarroli
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 22, 2024
In 2022, Lisa Lennox was visiting a friend in Stephenville, Texas, when she stumbled upon the Interstate Inn. The motel, on a highway an hour west of Fort Worth, had seen better days. The building was notorious with the local police, and rooms rented for $40 a night. The property needed new plumbing and wiring, and asbestos had to be removed.
But Ms. Lennox immediately felt a connection to the property, with its funky | design, including a giant sloped roof that screamed Space Age.
“These motels are very Americana,” she said. “They’ve got a really unique design. But they’re all in disrepair, and a lot of them are being torn down.” Ms. Lennox had no real experience in hospitality, but she’d traveled widely and knew what made a good hotel room. She bought the motel that year, took an online hotel management course at Cornell and plans to open a renovated 35-room Interstate Inn, as well as another motel, with her siblings by the end of September. A third opening is planned for next year.
Ms. Lennox and her siblings are not alone: Motels are having a moment. Kimberly Walker, founder and creative director of Nomada Hotel Group, which owns three motels in California, says she sees a rise in what she calls “motel culture.” It includes people who are interested in owning and renovating motels, as well as travelers — especially young people — with an affinity for them.
ImageLisa Lennox leaning against a wall structure outdoors at a construction site.
The Interstate Inn sign with words saying “a Mod Motel” and “Pool and A/C” below the name.
In recent years, the humble roadside motel that an older generation might dismiss as outmoded at best has begun to appeal to a new group of younger fans, attracted to hit-the-road adventures. Instagram pages celebrating zany motel designs have hundreds of thousands of followers. The award-winning sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” which takes place largely in a motel setting, has a cult following.
And streaming services, such as Max, have programs devoted to motel renovation. These programs became especially popular during the pandemic, when cooped-up viewers began dreaming of do-it-yourself projects.
The pandemic also changed how travelers viewed motels. A lot of homebound people craved a getaway after being shut up for so long, and motels, which afforded more privacy than many hotels, felt safer health-wise, Ms. Walker said. Outward-facing rooms meant guests didn’t have to walk through a crowded lobby or share an elevator to get to their cars. Many properties built more recently have private outdoor spaces.
Motels — the word is a portmanteau of “motor” and “hotel” — boomed after the Interstate System was built in the 1950s and 60s. At their peak, in 1964, more than 61,000 motels operated in the United States, said Mark Okrant, the author of “No Vacancy: The Rise, Demise and Reprise of America’s Motels.”
Many motels were small, family-owned, one- or two-story places that tended to serve as quick stopovers for motorists. By the 1990s, slightly more than half were owned by people of Indian origin, part of what was coined “the Patel motel cartel.”
These places offered convenience and comfort. Guests could park right outside their rooms, check in at the front desk and recover from their travels before moving on. The interiors were typically simple: A couple beds, a desk, a television and, perhaps, a chair or two. Glamorous, they were not.
By 2012, only 16,000 motels remained in the United States, and a lot of them were struggling to stay in business. The children and grandchildren of the immigrant owners often had little interest in what could be a grueling business, Ms. Lennox said. More mom-and-pop motels were replaced by big hotel chains, such as Motel 6 and the Holiday Inn.
But it’s the unique and charming aesthetic of roadside motels that are helping them become relevant again.
When the Nomada Group purchased the Skyview in Los Alamos, Calif., for $1.9 million in 2016, it was so rundown and forbidding that locals likened it to the Bates Motel in the movie “Psycho.” But it had 360-degree views of the wine country and a quirky, bright yellow road sign right out of the Rat Pack days.
The company, which has outside investors, spent $3 million to overhaul the 33-room property. That included opening a restaurant, the Norman, where guests could dine on Bates burgers. It also included moving the parking lot and replacing it with a large communal space containing Adirondack chairs and a fire pit. The property has a rustic California feel, with a swimming pool surrounded by palm trees and spiky agave plants. Inside are a lot of midcentury modern-style features, like turquoise-blue bubble lamps and a hutch with a record player.
The Skyview was closed during the pandemic, but once California lifted its Covid restrictions in June 2021, business was brisk, even on weekdays. A lot of the guests were working remotely and eager for a getaway, Ms. Walker said.
In Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the Downtowner was an aging family-owned motel with “tasteful, but dated” décor that attracted guests looking for a “basic,” inexpensive place to stay, said Rob Blood, chief executive of Massachusetts-based Lark Hotels, which operates nine motels under the Bluebird by Lark brand.
Mr. Blood’s company, which operates old inns in places like Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Portland, Maine, bought the property for $4.25 million in 2018. Business was tepid at first, Mr. Blood said, until the company turned it into a boutique hotel with a sleek, midcentury modern look. Its gallery-white walls are filled with arty photos of famous writers like Alice Walker and Carson McCullers, who once stayed at the Yaddo artists’ retreat nearby.
The Downtowner became the Spa City Motor Lodge, to emphasize its motel origins. Mr. Blood believes the changes helped turn business around at the 42-room property, in part by attracting a lot of younger guests.
“Some people shy away from the word ‘motel,’ because it has a connotation of Super 8 and Motel 6,” Mr. Blood said. “But the Brooklyn crew is not afraid of a good motel,” he said, referring to what he calls “young hipsters.”
The designs are appealing to roadside adventurers looking for a place to spend the night.
At Ms. Lennox’s Interstate Inn, one room has a water bed and a black velvet headboard. She also found a Magic Fingers bed, which vibrates when you put a quarter in the slot. Such beds were commonplace in motels in the 1960s and 70s, but they had fallen out of favor by the ’80s.
A hotel room leading to a balcony outdoors.
A person walking in the parking area of a black building with the words “Spa City Motor Lodge” on it.
Ms. Lennox said she hoped that when guests visited the Interstate Inn, they would say, “‘Oh, I love the mermaid drinking champagne,’ or ‘I love the Sputnik wallpaper.’” She said that she wanted people to stay in a different room each time.
Touches like that can be a big hit in the Instagram age, said Lindsey Kurowski, the host of “Motel Rescue,” a television series about motel renovation on the Magnolia Network.
But getting the low-cost look of a motel can be deceptively expensive. Old motels can be full of maintenance issues. Many mid-20th-century motels have small rooms and tiny bathrooms with stall showers, and converting the rooms into the kind of interiors contemporary travelers want can require stripping them down to the studs and even moving walls, said Rod Clough, president of HVS Americas, a consulting firm for the hospitality industry.
“When we see these neat projects where they’re bringing something back to life, there tends to be a group behind it that has incredibly deep pockets,” he said.
The motels may need new roofs and wiring. Many have single-paned windows that must be replaced with double panes to muffle outside sounds. “A lot of these motels were built on busy streets that weren’t so busy back then, and now they’re even busier,” Mr. Clough said.
Rising construction costs and higher interest rates have also recently slowed new deals to a trickle, just as motels are starting to appear again along American highways.
Still, the pandemic changed how a lot of people traveled, long after a virus is a top concern on a trip.
Many people, like Maggie Burke, who once avoided motels have changed their minds. When Ms. Burke used to travel for work, she never considered staying in a motel. They had seedy associations of illicit assignations and hourly rates, she said.
“I would kind of look at the cars as I went zooming past, and think, ‘Oh my God, who goes there?’ ” she said.
But last New Year’s Eve, her husband surprised her with a trip to the Alander, a newly restored roadside motel with its own restaurant in Ancram, N.Y.
Today, the couple is building a house in the area and regularly stay at the property. A hotel might offer more amenities, Ms. Burke said, but she has discovered she likes the quiet comfort and simplicity of a motel.
“You just come and go — you’re not disturbing anyone,” she said. “It’s become our new destination.”
A correction was made on July 22, 2024
:
An earlier version of this article misstated that Sikh immigrants owned as many as half of motels in the United States by the 1990s. It was people of Indian origin who owned slightly more than half of motels then, not Sikh immigrants.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Arike Ogunbowale leads Team WNBA to All-Star Game win vs. Team USA: Takeaways.txt | By Sabreena Merchant and Ben Pickman
Jul 20, 2024
PHOENIX — The WNBA All-Stars were familiar with this script. After being underdogs in the 2021 midseason showcase when facing off against Team USA, the “other” All-Stars entered the 2024 event projected to lose by 6.5 points.
They never once even trailed by that many.
Despite being behind for much of the first quarter, Team WNBA stayed close early and then took the lead for good behind an explosive performance from Arike Ogunbowale in the second half to win 117-109. The 2021 All-Star MVP went scoreless in the first half but made up for it after the break, putting on an All-Star Game show for the ages with 34 points in the final 20 minutes.
MVP, MVP, MVP!
With 34 PTS, 3 REB, 6 AST Arike Ogunbowale is named the @ATT #WNBAAllstar Game MVP for the 2nd time in her career! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/SfJrdzECFB
— WNBA (@WNBA) July 21, 2024
Ogunbowale, who was named the All-Star Game MVP, shot 6 of 10 in the third quarter to go along with four assists and two steals as Team WNBA turned a two-point halftime deficit into a nine-point lead. The pyrotechnics didn’t stop in the fourth for the Dallas Wings star. The four-time All-Star added three more triples in the final period, the last one giving her the record for most points in an All-Star game with 34. To put it plainly, she scored more points in one half than any previous All-Star had scored in the full 40 minutes.
Ogunbowale was one of five double-digit scorers for Team WNBA. Nneka Ogwumike did her work early, scoring eight of her 14 in the first quarter on trademark Ogwumike efficiency (7 of 9). Kelsey Mitchell added 13, knifing her way to the rim repeatedly and providing the non-Ogunbowale highlight of the evening with a third-quarter buzzer-beater that brought her teammates racing onto the court.
Friday night star Allisha Gray had 16, including ten trips to the foul line, to go along with her five steals as Team USA conceded 15 points off of turnovers.
Angel Reese added yet another double-double (though this one doesn’t count on the stats) to her rookie tally, posting 11 points and 10 rebounds in the victory.
Evaluating Team USA’s performance
Throughout the contest, U.S. Olympic team coach Cheryl Reeve cycled through various rotations. Only two players (Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson) played more than 25 minutes, with nine players playing between three and 21 minutes. The result will give Reeve and her staff plenty of film to work off of as they prepare for their upcoming exhibition against Germany on July 23.
One of the clear bright spots was the play of Wilson and Stewart. Both were efficient, with Stewart scoring 31 points on 10-of-20 shooting from the field. Wilson added 22 points on 8-of-13 shooting. If both play at the level they did on Saturday, then any other struggles across the roster will be masked.
How the American team improves defensively will, of course, be something to watch going forward. In the first half, they held Team WNBA to 17.6 percent shooting from 3 and looked solid on the perimeter. Ogunbowale, however, lit up Team USA from deep in the second half, hitting eight 3-pointers.
“We weren’t good at what we were trying to get done defensively,” Reeve said. “But we also know there’s really good offensive players on the other side. Sometimes we played great defense and it didn’t matter.”
Overall, Team WNBA shot 68.4 percent in the third quarter and 45.5 percent in the fourth quarter. Team USA won’t face an opposing guard as skilled as Ogunbowale at the Olympics, but her performance put a lot on tape on areas the American group can improve. The Americans allowed 50 paint points and Reeve said they played too much one-on-one, with little rim protection. — Ben Pickman, women’s basketball staff writer
| By Sabreena Merchant and Ben Pickman
Jul 20, 2024
PHOENIX — The WNBA All-Stars were familiar with this script. After being underdogs in the 2021 midseason showcase when facing off against Team USA, the “other” All-Stars entered the 2024 event projected to lose by 6.5 points.
They never once even trailed by that many.
Despite being behind for much of the first quarter, Team WNBA stayed close early and then took the lead for good behind an explosive performance from Arike Ogunbowale | in the second half to win 117-109. The 2021 All-Star MVP went scoreless in the first half but made up for it after the break, putting on an All-Star Game show for the ages with 34 points in the final 20 minutes.
MVP, MVP, MVP!
With 34 PTS, 3 REB, 6 AST Arike Ogunbowale is named the @ATT #WNBAAllstar Game MVP for the 2nd time in her career! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/SfJrdzECFB
— WNBA (@WNBA) July 21, 2024
Ogunbowale, who was named the All-Star Game MVP, shot 6 of 10 in the third quarter to go along with four assists and two steals as Team WNBA turned a two-point halftime deficit into a nine-point lead. The pyrotechnics didn’t stop in the fourth for the Dallas Wings star. The four-time All-Star added three more triples in the final period, the last one giving her the record for most points in an All-Star game with 34. To put it plainly, she scored more points in one half than any previous All-Star had scored in the full 40 minutes.
Ogunbowale was one of five double-digit scorers for Team WNBA. Nneka Ogwumike did her work early, scoring eight of her 14 in the first quarter on trademark Ogwumike efficiency (7 of 9). Kelsey Mitchell added 13, knifing her way to the rim repeatedly and providing the non-Ogunbowale highlight of the evening with a third-quarter buzzer-beater that brought her teammates racing onto the court.
Friday night star Allisha Gray had 16, including ten trips to the foul line, to go along with her five steals as Team USA conceded 15 points off of turnovers.
Angel Reese added yet another double-double (though this one doesn’t count on the stats) to her rookie tally, posting 11 points and 10 rebounds in the victory.
Evaluating Team USA’s performance
Throughout the contest, U.S. Olympic team coach Cheryl Reeve cycled through various rotations. Only two players (Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson) played more than 25 minutes, with nine players playing between three and 21 minutes. The result will give Reeve and her staff plenty of film to work off of as they prepare for their upcoming exhibition against Germany on July 23.
One of the clear bright spots was the play of Wilson and Stewart. Both were efficient, with Stewart scoring 31 points on 10-of-20 shooting from the field. Wilson added 22 points on 8-of-13 shooting. If both play at the level they did on Saturday, then any other struggles across the roster will be masked.
How the American team improves defensively will, of course, be something to watch going forward. In the first half, they held Team WNBA to 17.6 percent shooting from 3 and looked solid on the perimeter. Ogunbowale, however, lit up Team USA from deep in the second half, hitting eight 3-pointers.
“We weren’t good at what we were trying to get done defensively,” Reeve said. “But we also know there’s really good offensive players on the other side. Sometimes we played great defense and it didn’t matter.”
Overall, Team WNBA shot 68.4 percent in the third quarter and 45.5 percent in the fourth quarter. Team USA won’t face an opposing guard as skilled as Ogunbowale at the Olympics, but her performance put a lot on tape on areas the American group can improve. The Americans allowed 50 paint points and Reeve said they played too much one-on-one, with little rim protection. — Ben Pickman, women’s basketball staff writer
|
Crystal Palace agree personal terms with Ismaila Sarr, still apart on transfer fee with Marseille.txt | By Adam Leventhal
4h ago
Crystal Palace have agreed personal terms in principle with Ismaila Sarr over a four-year contract and are now working to agree a fee with Marseille.
Palace are one of a number of clubs that have shown interest in the 26-year-old winger, who joined Marseille from Watford a year ago.
The Athletic reported last week that Palace were exploring a move for the Senegal international.
Initial talks between parties began last week and Sarr — who is expected to be one of a number of players who will be allowed to leave the Ligue 1 club following Roberto De Zerbi’s appointment as Marseille head coach — could become Palace’s third senior signing of the summer after defender Chadi Riad, who joined from Real Betis, and Japan international midfielder Daichi Kamada following his exit from Lazio.
The option of an additional year on the contract term or as an option is also part of discussions. Negotiations are ongoing between the clubs but they currently are apart on their valuation of the winger.
Sarr spent four years at Watford across the Premier League and Championship (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Sarr spent four years at Watford across the Premier League and Championship (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Palace start work on redeveloping Selhurst Park - what does it mean?
Sarr scored four goals across 35 appearances across all competitions in his debut season with the club.
Palace have held a long-standing interest in Sarr, dating back to his previous spell in French football with Rennes.
Marseille announced on Monday that new loan signing Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg would wear Sarr’s No 23 shirt at Marseille next season.
Sarr scored 13 goals for Rennes in the 2018-19 season and joined Watford at the end of that season — he went on to score 34 goals across four seasons at Vicarage Road prior to joining Marseille last summer.
Palace explored the possibility of signing Sarr during his time at Watford.
However, Michael Olise has left the club to join Bayern Munich and Palace are keen to add to their wide attacking options.
Last week, Marseille completed the signing of forward Mason Greenwood from Manchester United.
(Top photo: Ulrik Pedersen/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
Adam Leventhal
| By Adam Leventhal
4h ago
Crystal Palace have agreed personal terms in principle with Ismaila Sarr over a four-year contract and are now working to agree a fee with Marseille.
Palace are one of a number of clubs that have shown interest in the 26-year-old winger, who joined Marseille from Watford a year ago.
The Athletic reported last week that Palace were exploring a move for the Senegal international.
Initial talks between parties began last week and Sarr — who is expected to be one of a number of players who will be allowed to leave the Ligue 1 club following Roberto De Zerbi’s appointment | as Marseille head coach — could become Palace’s third senior signing of the summer after defender Chadi Riad, who joined from Real Betis, and Japan international midfielder Daichi Kamada following his exit from Lazio.
The option of an additional year on the contract term or as an option is also part of discussions. Negotiations are ongoing between the clubs but they currently are apart on their valuation of the winger.
Sarr spent four years at Watford across the Premier League and Championship (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Sarr spent four years at Watford across the Premier League and Championship (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Palace start work on redeveloping Selhurst Park - what does it mean?
Sarr scored four goals across 35 appearances across all competitions in his debut season with the club.
Palace have held a long-standing interest in Sarr, dating back to his previous spell in French football with Rennes.
Marseille announced on Monday that new loan signing Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg would wear Sarr’s No 23 shirt at Marseille next season.
Sarr scored 13 goals for Rennes in the 2018-19 season and joined Watford at the end of that season — he went on to score 34 goals across four seasons at Vicarage Road prior to joining Marseille last summer.
Palace explored the possibility of signing Sarr during his time at Watford.
However, Michael Olise has left the club to join Bayern Munich and Palace are keen to add to their wide attacking options.
Last week, Marseille completed the signing of forward Mason Greenwood from Manchester United.
(Top photo: Ulrik Pedersen/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
Adam Leventhal
|
Bears open training camp with patience for Caleb Williams but sense of urgency on offense.txt | By Kevin Fishbain
Jul 20, 2024
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Chicago Bears fervor made it to Cooperstown, N.Y. While there with his son for a baseball tournament, general manager Ryan Poles garnered some attention from other Chicago-area teams that made the trip.
“All of the kids found me, and I answered probably more questions than I’ll answer today,” he said Friday at the start of training camp.
Linebacker T.J. Edwards felt it while playing golf around his hometown during the summer.
“Checking in when you get to the pro shop, there’s always (people) getting excited, asking questions, trying to get insight on everything,” he said. “That’s Chicago. That’s why you love it.”
Expectations for wins and losses haven’t gone up at the same level as the interest and intrigue, thanks in large part to rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. But as Poles opened training camp, he previewed what will be felt at Halas Hall in the coming weeks when practice begins, and fans can come to see this team for themselves.
“We love the excitement that is coming from the fan base,” he said. “You can feel that in the city this summer.”
Here are five takeaways from training camp report day.
1. Offensive urgency
Wide receiver DJ Moore and tight end Cole Kmet understand there will be some growing pains in a new playbook with a rookie quarterback. They also know this team isn’t built to take its time going through some kind of learning curve.
So when asked for a timeline for the offense coming together, Moore responded simply, “Tomorrow.”
“We gotta get this thing going quickly,” Kmet said. “There’s not going to be time to kind of meander through this thing. We’ve got to get this thing going quickly here. We’ve got to operate at a high level. We’ve got to really take advantage of our walk-throughs when we get these things at night. The better we are through these things, the faster we will be on game day. But it’s got to happen quickly.”
Kmet said that balance between patience and urgency will be apparent for Williams when padded practices start.
“Now it gets real with pads on, and when he gets through his first live NFL game, dudes are gonna be coming after him,” he said. “There’s a patience level to it, and there’s also an urgency level to it, and he’s gonna feel that, and that’s just natural with the NFL. That is part of it, and we’ve just got to be there as teammates to guide him through this process.”
Moore, in his seventh season, isn’t interested in taking his time to get up to speed. Presumably, neither would Keenan Allen, entering his 12th season.
“We’ve just all got to come together as quickly as possible,” Moore said. “Everybody’s gotta start to mesh, and they’ve gotta start tomorrow when we get on the field.”
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
'No doubt here': Bears put their trust in Caleb Williams from Day 1
2. Not worried, but eyes open at edge rusher
Assuming the question would come, Poles got in front of it, using part of his opening statement to address the defensive end spot.
“We feel really comfortable with the guys we have on our roster now, and I’m excited — we’re both excited — to see (defensive line coach) Travis (Smith) and (defensive coordinator) Eric (Washington) really put their hands on those guys and develop them as we go through the beginning of training camp,” Poles said. “But we will always have our eyes on the list of players that we could potentially bring in.”
Translation? The Bears believe in what they have opposite Montez Sweat and also won’t say no to a possible upgrade.
“I don’t really see it as a defensive end problem,” Poles said. “Our mindset’s always, ‘How can we make a position group the best we can possibly make it and as deep as we possibly can make it?’ So it’s … continue to develop the players that we have in and see, especially when we get pads on, see how they do. We saw some really encouraging things during OTAs. But we all know this game is played in full pads, so we want to see that process through.”
The padded practices begin next week. Maybe after the Hall of Fame Game, a free agent could come in if the Bears believe they need it. Yannick Ngakoue is available and knows the scheme.
“With the physical therapy, our athletic trainer has been a part of that all the way through,” Poles said of Ngakoue, who broke his ankle last December. “Evaluation-wise, I think once we got Montez, you saw the sack rate go up for really everybody. So I think it enhanced everyone. But I really enjoyed our time with him. I thought he did a nice job. Brought some leadership. So, it was positive.”
3. Deeper O-line
With so many starting spots solidified and even many of the backups known, the most competitive position group could be the offensive line.
The main starting competition will take place there (center: Ryan Bates versus Coleman Shelton). It also features one of the biggest question marks as we await what kind of camp right guard Nate Davis will put together.
After adding more veterans to the group, Poles said he feels better about the offensive line.
“Obviously, we’re excited to see Darnell (Wright) take the next step,” he said. “I know he has the opportunity to be pretty special. Braxton (Jones is) coming along and continuing to get better. And then we have, with Bates and Coleman competing inside, I think there’s opportunity that we can be really talented and deep.
“One of the tough things we’ve had to do the first two years is just a lack of depth and not enough versatility to really create the best five from Week 1 all the way to the very end of the season. We’re happy with that group, but obviously they’ve got to continue to work, get better and build that chemistry together.”
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Greenberg: Bears tight end Cole Kmet knows it's time for the team to start winning
4. Injury report
Third-round rookie offensive lineman Kiran Amegadjie was not ready for the start of training camp, as he is still dealing with a quad injury. The Bears placed him on the non-football injury list.
“He has done an outstanding job this offseason working and rehabbing,” Poles said. “We love his work ethic. That’s one of the reasons why he’s here. He’s progressing. Everything is positive, but I don’t have a specific timetable now.”
Veteran tight end Gerald Everett is also starting camp on the NFI list. That transaction took place after media availability, so we don’t know the injury. Rookie defensive end Jamree Kromah, who was placed on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list Wednesday, was activated Friday afternoon.
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Bears fan survey results: Why there is ‘cautious optimism’ for Caleb Williams
5. More praise for Dexter
Continuing an offseason of positive things said about second-year three-technique defensive tackle Gervon Dexter, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds is pleased with what he’s seen.
“Just his physical stature and his build speaks measures as far as the work that he’s put in,” Edmunds said. “I saw it even last year when he first came in as a rookie. He works extremely hard. Obviously, he got drafted high, but at the same time, you can tell it’s a chip on his shoulder and just seeing him take that next step, being dominant like we know he could be.
“The way they practice, like for Dex to be so big, he’s always one of the first ones to the ball running out of the stack. And it doesn’t go unnoticed; everybody in the meeting room sees it. His work speaks for itself, and it’s going to translate over to the field.”
(Photo of DJ Moore and Cole Kmet: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
Kevin Fishbain
| By Kevin Fishbain
Jul 20, 2024
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Chicago Bears fervor made it to Cooperstown, N.Y. While there with his son for a baseball tournament, general manager Ryan Poles garnered some attention from other Chicago-area teams that made the trip.
“All of the kids found me, and I answered probably more questions than I’ll answer today,” he said Friday at the start of training camp.
Linebacker T.J. Edwards felt it while playing golf around his hometown during the summer.
“Checking in when you get to the pro shop, there’s always ( | people) getting excited, asking questions, trying to get insight on everything,” he said. “That’s Chicago. That’s why you love it.”
Expectations for wins and losses haven’t gone up at the same level as the interest and intrigue, thanks in large part to rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. But as Poles opened training camp, he previewed what will be felt at Halas Hall in the coming weeks when practice begins, and fans can come to see this team for themselves.
“We love the excitement that is coming from the fan base,” he said. “You can feel that in the city this summer.”
Here are five takeaways from training camp report day.
1. Offensive urgency
Wide receiver DJ Moore and tight end Cole Kmet understand there will be some growing pains in a new playbook with a rookie quarterback. They also know this team isn’t built to take its time going through some kind of learning curve.
So when asked for a timeline for the offense coming together, Moore responded simply, “Tomorrow.”
“We gotta get this thing going quickly,” Kmet said. “There’s not going to be time to kind of meander through this thing. We’ve got to get this thing going quickly here. We’ve got to operate at a high level. We’ve got to really take advantage of our walk-throughs when we get these things at night. The better we are through these things, the faster we will be on game day. But it’s got to happen quickly.”
Kmet said that balance between patience and urgency will be apparent for Williams when padded practices start.
“Now it gets real with pads on, and when he gets through his first live NFL game, dudes are gonna be coming after him,” he said. “There’s a patience level to it, and there’s also an urgency level to it, and he’s gonna feel that, and that’s just natural with the NFL. That is part of it, and we’ve just got to be there as teammates to guide him through this process.”
Moore, in his seventh season, isn’t interested in taking his time to get up to speed. Presumably, neither would Keenan Allen, entering his 12th season.
“We’ve just all got to come together as quickly as possible,” Moore said. “Everybody’s gotta start to mesh, and they’ve gotta start tomorrow when we get on the field.”
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
'No doubt here': Bears put their trust in Caleb Williams from Day 1
2. Not worried, but eyes open at edge rusher
Assuming the question would come, Poles got in front of it, using part of his opening statement to address the defensive end spot.
“We feel really comfortable with the guys we have on our roster now, and I’m excited — we’re both excited — to see (defensive line coach) Travis (Smith) and (defensive coordinator) Eric (Washington) really put their hands on those guys and develop them as we go through the beginning of training camp,” Poles said. “But we will always have our eyes on the list of players that we could potentially bring in.”
Translation? The Bears believe in what they have opposite Montez Sweat and also won’t say no to a possible upgrade.
“I don’t really see it as a defensive end problem,” Poles said. “Our mindset’s always, ‘How can we make a position group the best we can possibly make it and as deep as we possibly can make it?’ So it’s … continue to develop the players that we have in and see, especially when we get pads on, see how they do. We saw some really encouraging things during OTAs. But we all know this game is played in full pads, so we want to see that process through.”
The padded practices begin next week. Maybe after the Hall of Fame Game, a free agent could come in if the Bears believe they need it. Yannick Ngakoue is available and knows the scheme.
“With the physical therapy, our athletic trainer has been a part of that all the way through,” Poles said of Ngakoue, who broke his ankle last December. “Evaluation-wise, I think once we got Montez, you saw the sack rate go up for really everybody. So I think it enhanced everyone. But I really enjoyed our time with him. I thought he did a nice job. Brought some leadership. So, it was positive.”
3. Deeper O-line
With so many starting spots solidified and even many of the backups known, the most competitive position group could be the offensive line.
The main starting competition will take place there (center: Ryan Bates versus Coleman Shelton). It also features one of the biggest question marks as we await what kind of camp right guard Nate Davis will put together.
After adding more veterans to the group, Poles said he feels better about the offensive line.
“Obviously, we’re excited to see Darnell (Wright) take the next step,” he said. “I know he has the opportunity to be pretty special. Braxton (Jones is) coming along and continuing to get better. And then we have, with Bates and Coleman competing inside, I think there’s opportunity that we can be really talented and deep.
“One of the tough things we’ve had to do the first two years is just a lack of depth and not enough versatility to really create the best five from Week 1 all the way to the very end of the season. We’re happy with that group, but obviously they’ve got to continue to work, get better and build that chemistry together.”
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Greenberg: Bears tight end Cole Kmet knows it's time for the team to start winning
4. Injury report
Third-round rookie offensive lineman Kiran Amegadjie was not ready for the start of training camp, as he is still dealing with a quad injury. The Bears placed him on the non-football injury list.
“He has done an outstanding job this offseason working and rehabbing,” Poles said. “We love his work ethic. That’s one of the reasons why he’s here. He’s progressing. Everything is positive, but I don’t have a specific timetable now.”
Veteran tight end Gerald Everett is also starting camp on the NFI list. That transaction took place after media availability, so we don’t know the injury. Rookie defensive end Jamree Kromah, who was placed on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list Wednesday, was activated Friday afternoon.
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Bears fan survey results: Why there is ‘cautious optimism’ for Caleb Williams
5. More praise for Dexter
Continuing an offseason of positive things said about second-year three-technique defensive tackle Gervon Dexter, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds is pleased with what he’s seen.
“Just his physical stature and his build speaks measures as far as the work that he’s put in,” Edmunds said. “I saw it even last year when he first came in as a rookie. He works extremely hard. Obviously, he got drafted high, but at the same time, you can tell it’s a chip on his shoulder and just seeing him take that next step, being dominant like we know he could be.
“The way they practice, like for Dex to be so big, he’s always one of the first ones to the ball running out of the stack. And it doesn’t go unnoticed; everybody in the meeting room sees it. His work speaks for itself, and it’s going to translate over to the field.”
(Photo of DJ Moore and Cole Kmet: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
Kevin Fishbain
|
Families Left Scrambling After Delta Bars Minors From Flying Alone in Wake of Outage.txt | By Yan Zhuang
July 23, 2024, 8:34 a.m. ET
Scott Darling and his wife drove their 17-year-old son, Asher, to the San Jose airport on Sunday morning and saw him off at the check-in counter. They were back in their car and pulling out of the airport when they got a frantic call: Delta Air Lines wouldn’t let Asher check in because he didn’t have a parent accompanying him on the flight.
“I was perplexed,” Mr. Darling said. Asher had flown by himself on several occasions, he said, and “we were never notified about this.”
Delta has been the slowest U.S. airline to restore its operations, canceling over 1,000 flights each day from Friday to Monday. Another 400 had been canceled as of 7 a.m. on Tuesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. On Tuesday, the secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, said his agency was opening an investigation into Delta’s ongoing response “to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.”
Delta began to bar children under 18 from traveling without a guardian as it struggled to recover from the global technology outage Friday that affected Microsoft users and systems across the world, and forced airlines around the world to ground flights.
Its suspension of travel for unaccompanied minors, a measure implemented with little notice, left some children stranded across state lines or even in different countries, and it left families scrambling to book last minute flights on other airlines or arrange alternative transportation.
Some families, like the Darlings, said that they were not notified of the change until their children were turned away at the check-in counter, and that Delta offered little support or assistance.
The travel suspension, on top of the airline’s continued cancellations and delays, has shaken some customers’ long-held loyalty.
Delta initially suspended travel for unaccompanied minors until Sunday, but the suspension was later extended through Tuesday. “Those already booked will not be able to travel. Please do not book new travel for unaccompanied minors during this time,” its website said.
In an email statement early Tuesday, Delta Air Lines said that it implemented the suspension to “protect minors from being separated from their families and caregivers in the event of flight disruptions or cancellations” following the outage.
“We take seriously the trust caregivers place in us with their children’s travel, and sincerely apologize that that trust was compromised through confusion around the embargo,” the statement said.
How a Software Update Crashed Computers Around the World
Here’s a visual explanation for how a faulty software update crippled machines.
For many parents, particularly those with young children, the situation has been distressing.
At about 3 a.m. on Tuesday, Patricia Starek was waiting at her home in Brooklyn for the news that her 12-year-old son was finally on his way back to her after being stuck in Colorado for three extra days.
Her son, Ellis, was visiting her sister in Boulder, on the first solo trip he’d ever taken and the longest time he’d been away from home, Ms. Starek said. He was supposed to fly back to New York on Saturday, she said, but Delta informed her sister on Friday that he would not be able to.
Delta said he could fly on Monday when the suspension was lifted, she said. Then, when it was extended, that became Wednesday. She tried speaking to Delta’s customer service, waiting for hours on hold on the phone, she said, but was told nothing could be done.
On Monday, she gave up and scrambled to find a flight on another airline, ultimately booking a JetBlue flight that night for about $650, she said.
Although Ellis was safe and staying with family who were looking after him, Ms. Starek said it was still distressing to be separated from her son for longer than she should have been while navigating a confusing and chaotic situation.
“It was a complete nightmare,” she said. “I can’t wait for him to be home.”
For some parents, like Jason Hewlett from South Jordan, Utah, whose 17-year-old son, Redford, was stranded in Montreal overnight, the experience has made them lose confidence in a long-trusted airline.
Redford was supposed to fly home Saturday from visiting family friends. But Delta pushed him onto a Monday flight, and then said that the earliest flight he could take was on Wednesday. But Redford was supposed to leave for a trip to Thailand on Tuesday.
His trip home ended up being a multiday journey. Redford flew on an Air Canada flight Sunday from Montreal to Las Vegas, where his grandfather picked him up and drove two hours to his house in Saint George, Utah. From there, Redford took a six-hour shuttle bus home to South Jordan, Utah, arriving Monday afternoon.
Mr. Hewlett said that he found out about the travel suspension by checking Delta’s app, and that the airline did not proactively contact his family. He added that he was able to speak to a Delta representative only by calling the phone line exclusive to Diamond Medallion members, the highest tier of the airline’s frequent flier program, after no one picked up on the general phone line.
Tami Hewlett, Mr. Hewlett’s wife, said that the idea that the travel suspension was protecting children, especially those on the return legs of their journeys, was ridiculous. “All it’s doing is stranding them,” Ms. Hewlett said.
Similarly, Mr. Darling, who drove his son to the San Jose airport, said that being unable to fly with Delta put his son, Asher, more at risk.
After being told that Asher could not check in without a parent accompanying him, Mr. Darling bought a refundable first-class ticket for himself, intending to use it to get Asher to the boarding gate. At that point, he hoped that they could find an adult on the flight who could accompany him and that Mr. Darling would be able to refund the ticket.
They managed to find such a person, and Asher boarded the plane with that passenger. But when Mr. Darling tried to stay behind, he said, airline staff said that Asher would not be allowed to fly unless Mr. Darling was on the flight too.
“I said, ‘He’s already on the plane, he’s with another adult who’s agreed to accompany him, what’s the matter?’ And they said, ‘It has to be family,’” Mr. Darling said.
Airline staff made Asher leave the plane, Mr. Darling said. Mr. Darling and his wife booked him another flight, on Southwest Airlines. It was departing an hour later, bound for Los Angeles, where Asher would attend a summer pre-college program. But the plane landed at a different airport in Los Angeles than the one the program had arranged to pick Asher up from, and he had to take an Uber in an unfamiliar city, Mr. Darling said.
“They said they had instituted this policy for Asher’s safety,” he said, “which I found kind of comical.”
| By Yan Zhuang
July 23, 2024, 8:34 a.m. ET
Scott Darling and his wife drove their 17-year-old son, Asher, to the San Jose airport on Sunday morning and saw him off at the check-in counter. They were back in their car and pulling out of the airport when they got a frantic call: Delta Air Lines wouldn’t let Asher check in because he didn’t have a parent accompanying him on the flight.
“I was perplexed,” Mr. Darling said. Asher had flown by himself on several occasions, he said, and “we were | never notified about this.”
Delta has been the slowest U.S. airline to restore its operations, canceling over 1,000 flights each day from Friday to Monday. Another 400 had been canceled as of 7 a.m. on Tuesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. On Tuesday, the secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, said his agency was opening an investigation into Delta’s ongoing response “to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.”
Delta began to bar children under 18 from traveling without a guardian as it struggled to recover from the global technology outage Friday that affected Microsoft users and systems across the world, and forced airlines around the world to ground flights.
Its suspension of travel for unaccompanied minors, a measure implemented with little notice, left some children stranded across state lines or even in different countries, and it left families scrambling to book last minute flights on other airlines or arrange alternative transportation.
Some families, like the Darlings, said that they were not notified of the change until their children were turned away at the check-in counter, and that Delta offered little support or assistance.
The travel suspension, on top of the airline’s continued cancellations and delays, has shaken some customers’ long-held loyalty.
Delta initially suspended travel for unaccompanied minors until Sunday, but the suspension was later extended through Tuesday. “Those already booked will not be able to travel. Please do not book new travel for unaccompanied minors during this time,” its website said.
In an email statement early Tuesday, Delta Air Lines said that it implemented the suspension to “protect minors from being separated from their families and caregivers in the event of flight disruptions or cancellations” following the outage.
“We take seriously the trust caregivers place in us with their children’s travel, and sincerely apologize that that trust was compromised through confusion around the embargo,” the statement said.
How a Software Update Crashed Computers Around the World
Here’s a visual explanation for how a faulty software update crippled machines.
For many parents, particularly those with young children, the situation has been distressing.
At about 3 a.m. on Tuesday, Patricia Starek was waiting at her home in Brooklyn for the news that her 12-year-old son was finally on his way back to her after being stuck in Colorado for three extra days.
Her son, Ellis, was visiting her sister in Boulder, on the first solo trip he’d ever taken and the longest time he’d been away from home, Ms. Starek said. He was supposed to fly back to New York on Saturday, she said, but Delta informed her sister on Friday that he would not be able to.
Delta said he could fly on Monday when the suspension was lifted, she said. Then, when it was extended, that became Wednesday. She tried speaking to Delta’s customer service, waiting for hours on hold on the phone, she said, but was told nothing could be done.
On Monday, she gave up and scrambled to find a flight on another airline, ultimately booking a JetBlue flight that night for about $650, she said.
Although Ellis was safe and staying with family who were looking after him, Ms. Starek said it was still distressing to be separated from her son for longer than she should have been while navigating a confusing and chaotic situation.
“It was a complete nightmare,” she said. “I can’t wait for him to be home.”
For some parents, like Jason Hewlett from South Jordan, Utah, whose 17-year-old son, Redford, was stranded in Montreal overnight, the experience has made them lose confidence in a long-trusted airline.
Redford was supposed to fly home Saturday from visiting family friends. But Delta pushed him onto a Monday flight, and then said that the earliest flight he could take was on Wednesday. But Redford was supposed to leave for a trip to Thailand on Tuesday.
His trip home ended up being a multiday journey. Redford flew on an Air Canada flight Sunday from Montreal to Las Vegas, where his grandfather picked him up and drove two hours to his house in Saint George, Utah. From there, Redford took a six-hour shuttle bus home to South Jordan, Utah, arriving Monday afternoon.
Mr. Hewlett said that he found out about the travel suspension by checking Delta’s app, and that the airline did not proactively contact his family. He added that he was able to speak to a Delta representative only by calling the phone line exclusive to Diamond Medallion members, the highest tier of the airline’s frequent flier program, after no one picked up on the general phone line.
Tami Hewlett, Mr. Hewlett’s wife, said that the idea that the travel suspension was protecting children, especially those on the return legs of their journeys, was ridiculous. “All it’s doing is stranding them,” Ms. Hewlett said.
Similarly, Mr. Darling, who drove his son to the San Jose airport, said that being unable to fly with Delta put his son, Asher, more at risk.
After being told that Asher could not check in without a parent accompanying him, Mr. Darling bought a refundable first-class ticket for himself, intending to use it to get Asher to the boarding gate. At that point, he hoped that they could find an adult on the flight who could accompany him and that Mr. Darling would be able to refund the ticket.
They managed to find such a person, and Asher boarded the plane with that passenger. But when Mr. Darling tried to stay behind, he said, airline staff said that Asher would not be allowed to fly unless Mr. Darling was on the flight too.
“I said, ‘He’s already on the plane, he’s with another adult who’s agreed to accompany him, what’s the matter?’ And they said, ‘It has to be family,’” Mr. Darling said.
Airline staff made Asher leave the plane, Mr. Darling said. Mr. Darling and his wife booked him another flight, on Southwest Airlines. It was departing an hour later, bound for Los Angeles, where Asher would attend a summer pre-college program. But the plane landed at a different airport in Los Angeles than the one the program had arranged to pick Asher up from, and he had to take an Uber in an unfamiliar city, Mr. Darling said.
“They said they had instituted this policy for Asher’s safety,” he said, “which I found kind of comical.”
|
Cavaliers, Evan Mobley agree to 5-year, $224 million max rookie extension: Source.txt | By David Aldridge, Jason Lloyd and Alex Andrejev
The Cleveland Cavaliers and Evan Mobley have agreed on a five-year, $224 million maximum rookie contract extension that could be worth up to $269 million, a league source confirmed Saturday.
ESPN first reported the news.
Mobley is the second key player Cleveland locked up with a maximum extension this month after agreeing to a three-year, $150.3 million max contract with five-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell on July 2.
Mobley, a 23-year-old power forward, averaged 15.7 points, 9.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists in 50 regular-season games last season. In 12 postseason contests during the 2023-24 campaign, he averaged 16 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists.
Mobley led all players in blocks and contested shots by a wide margin last postseason. With him as an anchor, the Cavs have ranked in the top 10 in defensive rating each of his three years in the league.
He made the All-Defensive First Team in 2023 and All-Rookie First Team in 2022 after the Cavaliers selected him at No. 3 in the 2021 NBA Draft.
He is the fourth member of the 2021 draft class to receive a max extension, joining Cade Cunningham, Scottie Barnes and Franz Wagner.
Cleveland went 48-34 last season, losing in five games to the eventual champion Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, under J.B. Bickerstaff.
Bickerstaff was fired after the season and replaced in June by former Golden State Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson in the head-coaching role.
What this means for Cavs
The Cavs have been preparing to give Mobley a max extension for at least two years. He joins Mitchell and Darius Garland as players on max contracts in Cleveland, giving the organization control over all three franchise pillars through at least the 2026-27 season.
Mobley has been a defensive force since entering the league, finishing third in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2023. He has underwhelmed offensively, averaging 15.6 points through his first three seasons while his 3-point shot has been slow to develop.
The Cavs believe Atkinson can get more out of Mobley on the offensive end while maintaining his standing as a premier big defensively. The Cavs also control Jarrett Allen for two more years, meaning it’s on Atkinson to figure out how to play Allen with Mobley after the two struggled to stay on the floor for extended minutes together last season. — Jason Lloyd, Cleveland senior writer
Required reading
Cavaliers hiring Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson as next coach: Sources
| By David Aldridge, Jason Lloyd and Alex Andrejev
The Cleveland Cavaliers and Evan Mobley have agreed on a five-year, $224 million maximum rookie contract extension that could be worth up to $269 million, a league source confirmed Saturday.
ESPN first reported the news.
Mobley is the second key player Cleveland locked up with a maximum extension this month after agreeing to a three-year, $150.3 million max contract with five-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell on July 2.
Mobley, a 23-year-old power forward, averaged 15.7 points, 9.4 | rebounds and 3.2 assists in 50 regular-season games last season. In 12 postseason contests during the 2023-24 campaign, he averaged 16 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists.
Mobley led all players in blocks and contested shots by a wide margin last postseason. With him as an anchor, the Cavs have ranked in the top 10 in defensive rating each of his three years in the league.
He made the All-Defensive First Team in 2023 and All-Rookie First Team in 2022 after the Cavaliers selected him at No. 3 in the 2021 NBA Draft.
He is the fourth member of the 2021 draft class to receive a max extension, joining Cade Cunningham, Scottie Barnes and Franz Wagner.
Cleveland went 48-34 last season, losing in five games to the eventual champion Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, under J.B. Bickerstaff.
Bickerstaff was fired after the season and replaced in June by former Golden State Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson in the head-coaching role.
What this means for Cavs
The Cavs have been preparing to give Mobley a max extension for at least two years. He joins Mitchell and Darius Garland as players on max contracts in Cleveland, giving the organization control over all three franchise pillars through at least the 2026-27 season.
Mobley has been a defensive force since entering the league, finishing third in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2023. He has underwhelmed offensively, averaging 15.6 points through his first three seasons while his 3-point shot has been slow to develop.
The Cavs believe Atkinson can get more out of Mobley on the offensive end while maintaining his standing as a premier big defensively. The Cavs also control Jarrett Allen for two more years, meaning it’s on Atkinson to figure out how to play Allen with Mobley after the two struggled to stay on the floor for extended minutes together last season. — Jason Lloyd, Cleveland senior writer
Required reading
Cavaliers hiring Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson as next coach: Sources
|
Not Your Usual Secondhand Book Sale.txt | By Alex Vadukul
July 23, 2024
Robert Gottlieb didn’t just edit books. He voraciously read and collected them.
On Saturday, a portion of his personal library — his books on show business — were sold at a fair in the lobby of the Metrograph theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
When Mr. Gottlieb, who died last June at 92, wasn’t heartlessly lancing thousands of words out of Robert Caro’s biographical volumes or marking up the manuscripts of Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie, he loved watching movies. Along the course of his career, he built a vast collection of books on Hollywood’s golden age.
His family was unsure what to do with the collection until earlier this year, when they started talking with Metrograph, a two-screen cinema that is a pillar of the downtown art house scene.
Visitors lined up to buy “My Life with Chaplin,” “Fasten Your Seat Belts: The Passionate Life of Bette Davis,” “Little Girl Lost: The Life & Hard Times of Judy Garland” and hundreds of other books. When they opened them, they found a stamped seal reading “From the Library of Robert Gottlieb.” The books were priced around $15 to $40.
Reinaldo Buitron, 28, a documentary filmmaker, flipped through a book about the Italian director Roberto Rossellini.
“Being able to touch the same books Gottlieb had in his own home is surreal,” he said. “I see we admired the same films, and that makes me think we might have gotten along. That we could have sat for dinner and talked cinema and about his opinions on semicolons.”
“People don’t think like Gottlieb did anymore,” he added. “Whether film or publishing, it’s all about the algorithm now, and not taking risks. The world needs more Gottliebs.”
ImageA man in a T-shirt stands against a brick wall. He is holding a copy of a book on Roberto Rossellini in one hand.
Many of the people at the book fair weren’t old enough to have followed Mr. Gottlieb’s rise in publishing, during which he led Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker. They had become smitten with him after seeing the 2022 documentary “Turn Every Page,” which focused on his intense working relationship with Mr. Caro.
The documentary, which was directed by his daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb, depicted how the two men had collaborated, often combatively, since the 1970s, and it portrayed the race against mortality they faced as Mr. Caro labored to complete the fifth volume of “The Years of Lyndon Johnson.”
“It’s different from writer to writer,” Mr. Gottlieb says in the film, speaking of his life’s work. “Sometimes it’s a highly emotional relationship, because a transference gets made, as in psychoanalysis, and the writer needs to use the editor for emotional or psychic reasons, and that becomes part of the relationship. It’s not deliberate. It happens.”
Some who bought the books owned by Mr. Gottlieb said that possessing them let them feel closer to a bygone world of literary and intellectual life in New York.
Katherine Sedlock-Reiner, 17, who recently graduated from Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, scored a copy of “Conversations with Greta Garbo.”
“All those passionate arguments he got into with Robert Caro, and all his opinions about the comma, I just admire that so much,” she said. “To be a writer now and have someone like a Robert Gottlieb seems rare. To work with an editor who has the willingness to want to get to know your mind.”
Will Regalado Succop, 21, a budding writer from Brooklyn, said he was working on his first short stories but had yet to publish anything. “It’s romantic to me that Gottlieb and his writers bickered over semicolons,” he said.
As the day waned, the inventory depleted. Choice offerings like biographies of Joan Crawford and anthologies of Pauline Kael’s reviews for The New Yorker grew scarce.
John Gillen, 32, an aspiring filmmaker who secured a copy of “Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story,” offered a less misty-eyed view of things.
“If a writer needs to work on a sentence for three weeks, then they need to work on a sentence for three weeks, and I respect that,” he said. “But people also have to eat. You can’t just say you always want to be making Michelangelo’s David.”
David Fear, 53, an editor and film critic for Rolling Stone, snagged a copy of Dwight Macdonald’s “On Movies.”
“If you believe that a comma put in the right place is the work of the divine, then what Gottlieb represented isn’t antiquated,” he said. “But I also think everyone mourns the era they missed. The idea of writing off an entire generation of young writers just because they can’t have editors like Gottlieb is foolish.”
“The online beast needs to be fed now,” he added. “The idea of wrestling tooth and nail over paragraphs just isn’t practical anymore.”
Reached by phone that evening, Mr. Gottlieb’s daughter, Lizzie, reminisced about her father’s habit for collecting things, including 1950s Lucite handbags and Scottie dog art, alongside his film books.
“We had to let the books go,” she said. “There were just too many. But it’s gratifying to know they will now have another life. My father wanted books to have a life.”
She was touched to hear that the young writers and cinephiles knew about her father’s legacy.
“I made the documentary for that exact reason, because it’s a vanishing world I felt needed to be documented,” she said. “But I hope the takeaway isn’t that it was just about fighting over semicolons. I hope what these young people can take away from my father is that it is joyful to care deeply about your craft and to want to devote yourself to it. It’s not about being precious.”
Alex Vadukul is a features writer for the Styles section of The Times, specializing in stories about New York City. More about Alex Vadukul
| By Alex Vadukul
July 23, 2024
Robert Gottlieb didn’t just edit books. He voraciously read and collected them.
On Saturday, a portion of his personal library — his books on show business — were sold at a fair in the lobby of the Metrograph theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
When Mr. Gottlieb, who died last June at 92, wasn’t heartlessly lancing thousands of words out of Robert Caro’s biographical volumes or marking up the manuscripts of Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie, he loved watching movies. Along the course of his | career, he built a vast collection of books on Hollywood’s golden age.
His family was unsure what to do with the collection until earlier this year, when they started talking with Metrograph, a two-screen cinema that is a pillar of the downtown art house scene.
Visitors lined up to buy “My Life with Chaplin,” “Fasten Your Seat Belts: The Passionate Life of Bette Davis,” “Little Girl Lost: The Life & Hard Times of Judy Garland” and hundreds of other books. When they opened them, they found a stamped seal reading “From the Library of Robert Gottlieb.” The books were priced around $15 to $40.
Reinaldo Buitron, 28, a documentary filmmaker, flipped through a book about the Italian director Roberto Rossellini.
“Being able to touch the same books Gottlieb had in his own home is surreal,” he said. “I see we admired the same films, and that makes me think we might have gotten along. That we could have sat for dinner and talked cinema and about his opinions on semicolons.”
“People don’t think like Gottlieb did anymore,” he added. “Whether film or publishing, it’s all about the algorithm now, and not taking risks. The world needs more Gottliebs.”
ImageA man in a T-shirt stands against a brick wall. He is holding a copy of a book on Roberto Rossellini in one hand.
Many of the people at the book fair weren’t old enough to have followed Mr. Gottlieb’s rise in publishing, during which he led Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker. They had become smitten with him after seeing the 2022 documentary “Turn Every Page,” which focused on his intense working relationship with Mr. Caro.
The documentary, which was directed by his daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb, depicted how the two men had collaborated, often combatively, since the 1970s, and it portrayed the race against mortality they faced as Mr. Caro labored to complete the fifth volume of “The Years of Lyndon Johnson.”
“It’s different from writer to writer,” Mr. Gottlieb says in the film, speaking of his life’s work. “Sometimes it’s a highly emotional relationship, because a transference gets made, as in psychoanalysis, and the writer needs to use the editor for emotional or psychic reasons, and that becomes part of the relationship. It’s not deliberate. It happens.”
Some who bought the books owned by Mr. Gottlieb said that possessing them let them feel closer to a bygone world of literary and intellectual life in New York.
Katherine Sedlock-Reiner, 17, who recently graduated from Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, scored a copy of “Conversations with Greta Garbo.”
“All those passionate arguments he got into with Robert Caro, and all his opinions about the comma, I just admire that so much,” she said. “To be a writer now and have someone like a Robert Gottlieb seems rare. To work with an editor who has the willingness to want to get to know your mind.”
Will Regalado Succop, 21, a budding writer from Brooklyn, said he was working on his first short stories but had yet to publish anything. “It’s romantic to me that Gottlieb and his writers bickered over semicolons,” he said.
As the day waned, the inventory depleted. Choice offerings like biographies of Joan Crawford and anthologies of Pauline Kael’s reviews for The New Yorker grew scarce.
John Gillen, 32, an aspiring filmmaker who secured a copy of “Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story,” offered a less misty-eyed view of things.
“If a writer needs to work on a sentence for three weeks, then they need to work on a sentence for three weeks, and I respect that,” he said. “But people also have to eat. You can’t just say you always want to be making Michelangelo’s David.”
David Fear, 53, an editor and film critic for Rolling Stone, snagged a copy of Dwight Macdonald’s “On Movies.”
“If you believe that a comma put in the right place is the work of the divine, then what Gottlieb represented isn’t antiquated,” he said. “But I also think everyone mourns the era they missed. The idea of writing off an entire generation of young writers just because they can’t have editors like Gottlieb is foolish.”
“The online beast needs to be fed now,” he added. “The idea of wrestling tooth and nail over paragraphs just isn’t practical anymore.”
Reached by phone that evening, Mr. Gottlieb’s daughter, Lizzie, reminisced about her father’s habit for collecting things, including 1950s Lucite handbags and Scottie dog art, alongside his film books.
“We had to let the books go,” she said. “There were just too many. But it’s gratifying to know they will now have another life. My father wanted books to have a life.”
She was touched to hear that the young writers and cinephiles knew about her father’s legacy.
“I made the documentary for that exact reason, because it’s a vanishing world I felt needed to be documented,” she said. “But I hope the takeaway isn’t that it was just about fighting over semicolons. I hope what these young people can take away from my father is that it is joyful to care deeply about your craft and to want to devote yourself to it. It’s not about being precious.”
Alex Vadukul is a features writer for the Styles section of The Times, specializing in stories about New York City. More about Alex Vadukul
|
A 17th-Century Parisian Literary Salon Rife With Stories and Sex.txt | By S. Kirk Walsh
S. Kirk Walsh is the author of “The Elephant of Belfast.”
July 20, 2024
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
THE MODERN FAIRIES, by Clare Pollard
In her sophomore novel, “The Modern Fairies,” the British writer Clare Pollard cleverly animates the art of storytelling and its roots in French history. In the late 17th century, during the ruthless reign of Louis XIV, an eclectic group of Parisian intellectuals met frequently in a literary salon on the Rue St.-Benoit run by a divorced writer, Madame d’Aulnoy, to tell one another fairy tales. This gathering of mostly noblewomen and a handful of men made up an unofficial literary institution that established a new genre of literature. More than a century later, some of these oral fables — or “Mother Goose tales” — evolved into the Brothers Grimm classics.
In 25 discrete chapters, this artfully composed reimagining of the real salon moves episodically, cinematically through the origins of classic fairy tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella” and “Bluebeard.” Like the narrative gallop of Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet,” Pollard’s use of the present tense brings an immediacy and a velocity to these centuries-old French stories. She provides a new translation that is both female-centric and keenly alive; issues like freedom of speech, sexism and authoritarian rule percolate throughout the novel, making it feel particularly current.
Madame d’Aulnoy’s salon can also read like an early modern cousin of the M.F.A. workshop, with Pollard creating a meta-narrative through entertaining asides about the art of storytelling. Performing “The Tale of Donkey-Skin, Part One,” about a king who seeks to marry his daughter, the writer Charles Perrault thinks: “All verbal storytelling is a kind of improvisation, done on nerve, and his instincts tell him that he must get on with the plot.” (Plot! More plot!)
What could have read as a collection of disparate tales is united by Pollard’s singular focus on the community of storytellers gathered in Madame d’Aulnoy’s home. The glossary of characters at the front of the book includes Perrault, the author of “Cinderella,” “Bluebeard” and “Puss in Boots”; his cousin Télésille, who invites Perrault into this circle as a diversion from his ongoing grief over the sudden loss of his wife during childbirth; Madame Henriette, who endures physical abuse from her husband and is later arrested for her alleged involvement with Louis XIV’s daughter; and Madame Angélique and Charlotte-Rose, both having sex with the same man. There are other churning dramas involving infidelity, incest, poisoning and more. It’s a lot to follow at times, and the fairy-tale form can constrain the chapters into short, sometimes elliptical fragments, making it harder for the novel to sustain its broader arc.
More compelling than the plot and characters is Pollard’s vibrant language; perhaps unsurprisingly given her background as a poet, translator and playwright, the author’s sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence. “Outside the mansions, rabbits freeze in their burrows,” she writes lyrically of a harsh winter. “Apples stick in girls’ throats. The snow falls so thickly there is scarcely air between the flakes; lakes are glass coffins. All of France has become an abandoned palace, glittering with chandeliers and crystal staircases, its gardens full of marble statues of sheep and cows.”
Fairy tales are a particularly elastic genre, inviting retellings and adaptations into so many different forms and voices. Pollard’s work takes its place in this canon alongside those by Italo Calvino, Angela Carter, Helen Oyeyemi and Edward Carey.
When Madame d’Aulnoy was 13, she became the wife of an older, drunken baron who violently raped her. She began writing stories as an escape: “The pen is a magic wand she can tap and a door somewhere else appears.” This memorable novel reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives, then and now.
THE MODERN FAIRIES | By Clare Pollard | Avid Reader Press | 249 pp. | $28
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By S. Kirk Walsh
S. Kirk Walsh is the author of “The Elephant of Belfast.”
July 20, 2024
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
THE MODERN FAIRIES, by Clare Pollard
In her sophomore novel, “The Modern Fairies,” the British writer Clare Pollard cleverly animates the art of storytelling and its roots in French history. In the late 17th century, during the ruthless reign of Louis XIV, an eclectic group of Parisian intellectuals met frequently in a literary | salon on the Rue St.-Benoit run by a divorced writer, Madame d’Aulnoy, to tell one another fairy tales. This gathering of mostly noblewomen and a handful of men made up an unofficial literary institution that established a new genre of literature. More than a century later, some of these oral fables — or “Mother Goose tales” — evolved into the Brothers Grimm classics.
In 25 discrete chapters, this artfully composed reimagining of the real salon moves episodically, cinematically through the origins of classic fairy tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella” and “Bluebeard.” Like the narrative gallop of Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet,” Pollard’s use of the present tense brings an immediacy and a velocity to these centuries-old French stories. She provides a new translation that is both female-centric and keenly alive; issues like freedom of speech, sexism and authoritarian rule percolate throughout the novel, making it feel particularly current.
Madame d’Aulnoy’s salon can also read like an early modern cousin of the M.F.A. workshop, with Pollard creating a meta-narrative through entertaining asides about the art of storytelling. Performing “The Tale of Donkey-Skin, Part One,” about a king who seeks to marry his daughter, the writer Charles Perrault thinks: “All verbal storytelling is a kind of improvisation, done on nerve, and his instincts tell him that he must get on with the plot.” (Plot! More plot!)
What could have read as a collection of disparate tales is united by Pollard’s singular focus on the community of storytellers gathered in Madame d’Aulnoy’s home. The glossary of characters at the front of the book includes Perrault, the author of “Cinderella,” “Bluebeard” and “Puss in Boots”; his cousin Télésille, who invites Perrault into this circle as a diversion from his ongoing grief over the sudden loss of his wife during childbirth; Madame Henriette, who endures physical abuse from her husband and is later arrested for her alleged involvement with Louis XIV’s daughter; and Madame Angélique and Charlotte-Rose, both having sex with the same man. There are other churning dramas involving infidelity, incest, poisoning and more. It’s a lot to follow at times, and the fairy-tale form can constrain the chapters into short, sometimes elliptical fragments, making it harder for the novel to sustain its broader arc.
More compelling than the plot and characters is Pollard’s vibrant language; perhaps unsurprisingly given her background as a poet, translator and playwright, the author’s sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence. “Outside the mansions, rabbits freeze in their burrows,” she writes lyrically of a harsh winter. “Apples stick in girls’ throats. The snow falls so thickly there is scarcely air between the flakes; lakes are glass coffins. All of France has become an abandoned palace, glittering with chandeliers and crystal staircases, its gardens full of marble statues of sheep and cows.”
Fairy tales are a particularly elastic genre, inviting retellings and adaptations into so many different forms and voices. Pollard’s work takes its place in this canon alongside those by Italo Calvino, Angela Carter, Helen Oyeyemi and Edward Carey.
When Madame d’Aulnoy was 13, she became the wife of an older, drunken baron who violently raped her. She began writing stories as an escape: “The pen is a magic wand she can tap and a door somewhere else appears.” This memorable novel reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives, then and now.
THE MODERN FAIRIES | By Clare Pollard | Avid Reader Press | 249 pp. | $28
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Christian Conservatives March Ahead for God, for Country, and for Trump.txt | By Elizabeth Dias
Elizabeth Dias writes about faith, politics and values.
July 20, 2024
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
One after another, for four days, the testimonies for Donald J. Trump poured out.
“God spared his life,” Franklin Graham, the evangelist, proclaimed.
“Divine intervention” saved his father from the assassin’s bullet, Eric Trump said.
Ben Carson, the former secretary of housing and urban development, said that when he saw his friend “escape death by mere inches” his thoughts “immediately turned to the book of Isaiah, which says, ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper.’”
And Mr. Trump himself said at the Republican National Convention, “I felt very safe because I had God on my side.”
As many in the audience nodded and cried in the darkness, the message was unmistakable. Even as his speech was criticized by many for its divisive tone and length, for these believers, Mr. Trump appears supernaturally anointed, an embodiment of God’s blessing.
This extraordinary week capped the rising and unreserved expression of Christianity in Republican politics, along with the changes the Trump movement has wrought for American Christianity itself. This fusion of Christian fervor and Republican politics reflects a shift that has intensified in response to an increasingly secular and pluralist country, and fractured many evangelical churches and families.
And for many, it’s fueling their staunch support for Mr. Trump to retake the White House in November, even as he pulls back on some of their longstanding social goals.
Only eight years ago, during the 2016 presidential campaign, many conservative Christians supported Mr. Trump pragmatically, for his promises to nominate conservative Supreme Court justices who would end abortion rights. He earned favor for his promise that Christians would have power in America.
And they did. Even after his loss in 2020, a segment of Christians on the far right became emboldened, calling for the end of the separation of church and state. At the same time, the rituals of Christian worship became embedded in Republican rallies.
Now this key constituency sees in Mr. Trump a new, very real story of salvation, not just for himself, but for the country.
The feeling of being saved — spiritually, economically, culturally — is a powerful force driving the former president’s support, even after his convictions and civil penalties, including the order to pay $83.3 million for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of rape.
The assassination attempt last Saturday only pumped up the idea of divine intervention in Mr. Trump’s ascent.
On Fox News and in prayer breakfasts, supporters pointed out that the bullet was fired at 6:11 p.m., and pointed to the biblical verse Ephesians 6:11, which says, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”
Sean Feucht, a right-wing worship leader from California, led a prayer call on Sunday night and put a diagram up on the Zoom screen of where he said the bullet could have hit Mr. Trump had his head been tilted differently. “We were less than one inch away from an entirely different future for America,” he said.
When Mr. Trump stood and pumped his fist, blood on his face — shouting, “Fight!” — Mr. Feucht described feeling a new sort of power.
“That’s the America that, like, I’ve read about! Watching ‘The Patriot’ movie with Mel Gibson!” he said, referring to the actor who went on to produce “The Passion of the Christ.”
“I felt like in the spirit it was recapturing this warrior kind of thing that we must recapture in our nation,” he added.
God saved not just Trump, but also a nation last week, explained William Wolfe, executive director for the Center for Baptist Leadership, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Trump administration.
“I do hope that Christians in America can recognize what time it is, how serious this is, and they can put aside whatever differences they do have with Donald Trump in terms of policy,” he said, even as he noted his own criticisms of the recent Republican shifts backing away from abortion and defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
He saw God’s providence in Mr. Trump’s survival but also hoped the near-death experience would encourage Mr. Trump to turn completely to God. “At a moment when there is increasing secularization, there’s I’d say an increasing abandonment of our Christian commitments,” he said. “I think it would have a very positive impact on the political discourse and the body politic of America.”
To the former president’s supporters, the narrative of divine protection has tangible effects in real-world policy. They see the advances he made for their cause and want them to continue, on everything from religious freedom to the Supreme Court.
John Yep, who leads Catholics for Catholics and is organizing “Masses for Trump” across the country, sees a divine blessing on Trump’s policy views, specifically immigration.
“That position saved his life,” he said. Just as the gun fired, he added, Mr. Trump “was turning to read the screen on immigration stats.”
The former president would make the same argument three days later on the convention stage.
Mr. Yep said he sees the election not so much as a choice between two persons, but between two systems. While “Trump represents the traditional American way of life,” Democrats represent “neo-Marxism” and government control over sexuality for minors, he said.
“This country, remember, is founded on, there is a higher power above the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “We report to God.”
The story of Mr. Trump being under attack has particular resonance for Christians in Mr. Trump’s movement, who see themselves fighting back against an increasingly secularizing society.
Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas and an early supporter of Mr. Trump, said he saw echoes of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. God spared Reagan’s life, he said, to “fulfill a unique purpose,” which was “to break the stranglehold the Soviet Empire, the evil empire, had on the world.”
Now, he said, some Christians see the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump as “divine intervention” that could allow the former president “to return our nation to its Judeo-Christian foundation.”
Jackson Lahmeyer, pastor of Sheridan Church in Tulsa, Okla., started a network of “patriot pastors” for Mr. Trump. He now feels, he said, even more motivated to mobilize voters, and worked with Ryan Walters, the state superintendent in Oklahoma, to direct all public schools to teach the Bible.
In that work, he said, he saw the fate of the country — not just in spiritual terms but in politics as well.
There could be a revival or a time of darkness, he said. “Our efforts literally could take the nation in either direction.”
| By Elizabeth Dias
Elizabeth Dias writes about faith, politics and values.
July 20, 2024
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
One after another, for four days, the testimonies for Donald J. Trump poured out.
“God spared his life,” Franklin Graham, the evangelist, proclaimed.
“Divine intervention” saved his father from the assassin’s bullet, Eric Trump said.
Ben Carson, the former secretary of housing and urban development, said that when he saw his friend “escape death by | mere inches” his thoughts “immediately turned to the book of Isaiah, which says, ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper.’”
And Mr. Trump himself said at the Republican National Convention, “I felt very safe because I had God on my side.”
As many in the audience nodded and cried in the darkness, the message was unmistakable. Even as his speech was criticized by many for its divisive tone and length, for these believers, Mr. Trump appears supernaturally anointed, an embodiment of God’s blessing.
This extraordinary week capped the rising and unreserved expression of Christianity in Republican politics, along with the changes the Trump movement has wrought for American Christianity itself. This fusion of Christian fervor and Republican politics reflects a shift that has intensified in response to an increasingly secular and pluralist country, and fractured many evangelical churches and families.
And for many, it’s fueling their staunch support for Mr. Trump to retake the White House in November, even as he pulls back on some of their longstanding social goals.
Only eight years ago, during the 2016 presidential campaign, many conservative Christians supported Mr. Trump pragmatically, for his promises to nominate conservative Supreme Court justices who would end abortion rights. He earned favor for his promise that Christians would have power in America.
And they did. Even after his loss in 2020, a segment of Christians on the far right became emboldened, calling for the end of the separation of church and state. At the same time, the rituals of Christian worship became embedded in Republican rallies.
Now this key constituency sees in Mr. Trump a new, very real story of salvation, not just for himself, but for the country.
The feeling of being saved — spiritually, economically, culturally — is a powerful force driving the former president’s support, even after his convictions and civil penalties, including the order to pay $83.3 million for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of rape.
The assassination attempt last Saturday only pumped up the idea of divine intervention in Mr. Trump’s ascent.
On Fox News and in prayer breakfasts, supporters pointed out that the bullet was fired at 6:11 p.m., and pointed to the biblical verse Ephesians 6:11, which says, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”
Sean Feucht, a right-wing worship leader from California, led a prayer call on Sunday night and put a diagram up on the Zoom screen of where he said the bullet could have hit Mr. Trump had his head been tilted differently. “We were less than one inch away from an entirely different future for America,” he said.
When Mr. Trump stood and pumped his fist, blood on his face — shouting, “Fight!” — Mr. Feucht described feeling a new sort of power.
“That’s the America that, like, I’ve read about! Watching ‘The Patriot’ movie with Mel Gibson!” he said, referring to the actor who went on to produce “The Passion of the Christ.”
“I felt like in the spirit it was recapturing this warrior kind of thing that we must recapture in our nation,” he added.
God saved not just Trump, but also a nation last week, explained William Wolfe, executive director for the Center for Baptist Leadership, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Trump administration.
“I do hope that Christians in America can recognize what time it is, how serious this is, and they can put aside whatever differences they do have with Donald Trump in terms of policy,” he said, even as he noted his own criticisms of the recent Republican shifts backing away from abortion and defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
He saw God’s providence in Mr. Trump’s survival but also hoped the near-death experience would encourage Mr. Trump to turn completely to God. “At a moment when there is increasing secularization, there’s I’d say an increasing abandonment of our Christian commitments,” he said. “I think it would have a very positive impact on the political discourse and the body politic of America.”
To the former president’s supporters, the narrative of divine protection has tangible effects in real-world policy. They see the advances he made for their cause and want them to continue, on everything from religious freedom to the Supreme Court.
John Yep, who leads Catholics for Catholics and is organizing “Masses for Trump” across the country, sees a divine blessing on Trump’s policy views, specifically immigration.
“That position saved his life,” he said. Just as the gun fired, he added, Mr. Trump “was turning to read the screen on immigration stats.”
The former president would make the same argument three days later on the convention stage.
Mr. Yep said he sees the election not so much as a choice between two persons, but between two systems. While “Trump represents the traditional American way of life,” Democrats represent “neo-Marxism” and government control over sexuality for minors, he said.
“This country, remember, is founded on, there is a higher power above the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “We report to God.”
The story of Mr. Trump being under attack has particular resonance for Christians in Mr. Trump’s movement, who see themselves fighting back against an increasingly secularizing society.
Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas and an early supporter of Mr. Trump, said he saw echoes of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. God spared Reagan’s life, he said, to “fulfill a unique purpose,” which was “to break the stranglehold the Soviet Empire, the evil empire, had on the world.”
Now, he said, some Christians see the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump as “divine intervention” that could allow the former president “to return our nation to its Judeo-Christian foundation.”
Jackson Lahmeyer, pastor of Sheridan Church in Tulsa, Okla., started a network of “patriot pastors” for Mr. Trump. He now feels, he said, even more motivated to mobilize voters, and worked with Ryan Walters, the state superintendent in Oklahoma, to direct all public schools to teach the Bible.
In that work, he said, he saw the fate of the country — not just in spiritual terms but in politics as well.
There could be a revival or a time of darkness, he said. “Our efforts literally could take the nation in either direction.”
|
George Clooney Endorses Kamala Harris, Says Biden Is ‘Saving Democracy’ .txt | By Maya King
July 23, 2024, 9:32 a.m. ET
Actor and Democratic fund-raiser George Clooney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy on Tuesday morning and thanked President Biden for deciding not to seek re-election.
In a statement to CNN, Mr. Clooney said Mr. Biden, 81, “has shown true leadership. He’s saving democracy once again.” He also vowed to “do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest.”
Mr. Clooney’s representation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
His statement comes less than two weeks after he penned a harsh guest essay in The New York Times calling for Mr. Biden to step aside as the Democratic presidential nominee. The president’s disastrous debate performance and subsequent efforts to revitalize his campaign, including an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and NBC’s Lester Holt, inspired little confidence from Democratic voters and donors, who said Mr. Biden’s age was a liability to the party and its most vulnerable down-ballot candidates.
Since suspending his presidential campaign on Sunday, Mr. Biden has been praised by Democrats and by many political figures across the world. The party has also quickly coalesced behind Ms. Harris, whom Mr. Biden endorsed shortly after exiting the race. Since formally launching her presidential campaign on Sunday, the vice president has raised more than $100 million.
| By Maya King
July 23, 2024, 9:32 a.m. ET
Actor and Democratic fund-raiser George Clooney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy on Tuesday morning and thanked President Biden for deciding not to seek re-election.
In a statement to CNN, Mr. Clooney said Mr. Biden, 81, “has shown true leadership. He’s saving democracy once again.” He also vowed to “do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest.”
Mr. Clooney’s representation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
His | statement comes less than two weeks after he penned a harsh guest essay in The New York Times calling for Mr. Biden to step aside as the Democratic presidential nominee. The president’s disastrous debate performance and subsequent efforts to revitalize his campaign, including an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and NBC’s Lester Holt, inspired little confidence from Democratic voters and donors, who said Mr. Biden’s age was a liability to the party and its most vulnerable down-ballot candidates.
Since suspending his presidential campaign on Sunday, Mr. Biden has been praised by Democrats and by many political figures across the world. The party has also quickly coalesced behind Ms. Harris, whom Mr. Biden endorsed shortly after exiting the race. Since formally launching her presidential campaign on Sunday, the vice president has raised more than $100 million.
|
How to Protect the World From an Accidental Pandemic.txt | By Tom Inglesby, Anita Cicero and Marc Lipsitch
Dr. Inglesby, Ms. Cicero and Dr. Lipsitch are experts in pandemics and biosecurity.
It’s been about a century since viruses were recognized as causing devastating human diseases. Since then, scientists and public health experts have diligently tried to reduce the threats they pose by developing vaccines and treatments, improving ventilation and more.
So it was stunning when, in 2012, scientists published papers describing how they had done the opposite: They had genetically engineered highly lethal avian flu viruses to make them more contagious between mammals, potentially including humans.
The researchers said they pursued this work to deepen their scientific understanding of avian influenza. We were among the many experts around the world who objected to their research. The risk of an accidental or deliberate pandemic emerging from these enhanced viruses far outweighed any potential scientific benefit.
In the six years before the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. government paused, then restarted, funding for such work, putting in place restrictions that — although stronger than those in many other countries — some researchers still seemed to find ways around. The rules lacked transparency about what research was being approved and funded, and they were insufficient to ensure safety and security.
The potential role of a laboratory accident in causing the Covid pandemic remains uncertain and widely debated. But what is clear is that we still urgently need stronger government oversight of risky virus research.
The U.S. government recently released a detailed new policy, which if fully implemented would establish strong oversight and set concrete rules about whether and under what conditions this kind of high-risk scientific work can be done. This work was initially called “gain of function” research, because much of it involved giving viruses new abilities. But many scientists recognized that term as vague and overly broad. The new policy corrects this misnomer and addresses oversight on scientific research involving pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential, or PEPP.
This new policy, which needs to be in place and operating by May 2025, defines for researchers and their institutions which types of scientific work are risky enough to require special government review and approval. Any scientist who anticipates her research could create a more lethal or transmissible pathogen that risks causing a severe outbreak would need high-level federal review and approval for that work before proceeding.
Experiments that interfere with or disrupt how the human immune system defends against a pathogen must also be scrutinized under this policy. Scientists working to resurrect extinct or eradicated viruses that caused past epidemics or pandemics must similarly obtain permission from federal officials. The policy eliminates some exemptions that might have offered a path for avoiding high-level review in the past, and it requires the signature of an accountable federal official for the work to start.
We think the new policy is robust, and a clear improvement in both scope and content from past U.S. efforts to reduce risks posed by this kind of research. The U.S. government should actively persuade other countries to set up similar systems to ensure this realm of science is safely governed worldwide.
Still, the new policy doesn’t solve all of the challenges. There are gaps that need to be addressed, either as the White House evaluates and amends the policy during its implementation this year or by Congress as it exercises its oversight on it.
One concern is that the policy does not apply to all research, only research funded by the U.S. government or otherwise required to comply by a federal oversight policy. Congress should require that this policy apply for all PEPP research activities, regardless of funding source. The federal government also needs to set expectations and rules for scientists who use computational tools in ways that could potentially create pandemic-level risks. When and how the government should evaluate such tools still needs to be established, and it’s especially important to do so as artificial intelligence enhances our capabilities to create toxins and designer microbes that may present new risks.
To build trust that the policy is actually working, the process needs to be much more transparent. As currently written, the policy plans to publish a single annual aggregate report across the government. Much better would be quarterly reporting with summaries of PEPP research projects that are proposed under any funding agency, a description of how proposals are being evaluated and a rationale for the decisions that are made. Concerns about intellectual property, while real, are outweighed by the need to tell the public how it’s being safeguarded from deadly disease.
There has been increased scrutiny around the National Institutes of Health’s role in the review process for PEPP research that the agency is considering funding. It would be unwise for Congress to eliminate the involvement of federal funding agencies, such as the N.I.H., in the review process. There is substantial expertise and experience in the N.I.H. on these issues, and that should be brought to bear as part of the review process.
The N.I.H. and other agencies must eliminate any real or perceived conflicts of interest of officials involved in deciding which research gets reviewed, and in performing the reviews. This new policy makes clear that final decisions regarding PEPP proposals made to the N.I.H. will be made by senior U.S. Health and Human Services officials outside of the agency, which we support.
Researchers who want to make pathogens more transmissible, lethal or capable of avoiding the human immune system should bear great responsibility for first proving several things: that this work is critical to perform, that the public health benefits aren’t achievable through safer approaches and that these benefits outweigh the extraordinary potential risks that would be part of it. They also need to have the competency and expertise, as well as the laboratory safety protocols and engineering controls in place to prevent any accidents or accidental infections.
This new policy is not perfect, but it represents the most robust governance and clearest set of rules in the world for this kind of science. Strong, effective oversight for this research should be a priority for the United States and the world. None of us should bear the risk of living through a future pandemic of humanity’s own making.
Tom Inglesby is an infectious disease physician at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he is director of the Center for Health Security. Anita Cicero is a lawyer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she is the deputy director of the Center for Health Security. Marc Lipsitch is a microbiologist and infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he directs the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics.
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, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads.
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Tom Inglesby, Anita Cicero and Marc Lipsitch
Dr. Inglesby, Ms. Cicero and Dr. Lipsitch are experts in pandemics and biosecurity.
It’s been about a century since viruses were recognized as causing devastating human diseases. Since then, scientists and public health experts have diligently tried to reduce the threats they pose by developing vaccines and treatments, improving ventilation and more.
So it was stunning when, in 2012, scientists published papers describing how they had done the opposite: They had genetically engineered highly lethal avian flu viruses to make them more contagious between mammals | , potentially including humans.
The researchers said they pursued this work to deepen their scientific understanding of avian influenza. We were among the many experts around the world who objected to their research. The risk of an accidental or deliberate pandemic emerging from these enhanced viruses far outweighed any potential scientific benefit.
In the six years before the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. government paused, then restarted, funding for such work, putting in place restrictions that — although stronger than those in many other countries — some researchers still seemed to find ways around. The rules lacked transparency about what research was being approved and funded, and they were insufficient to ensure safety and security.
The potential role of a laboratory accident in causing the Covid pandemic remains uncertain and widely debated. But what is clear is that we still urgently need stronger government oversight of risky virus research.
The U.S. government recently released a detailed new policy, which if fully implemented would establish strong oversight and set concrete rules about whether and under what conditions this kind of high-risk scientific work can be done. This work was initially called “gain of function” research, because much of it involved giving viruses new abilities. But many scientists recognized that term as vague and overly broad. The new policy corrects this misnomer and addresses oversight on scientific research involving pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential, or PEPP.
This new policy, which needs to be in place and operating by May 2025, defines for researchers and their institutions which types of scientific work are risky enough to require special government review and approval. Any scientist who anticipates her research could create a more lethal or transmissible pathogen that risks causing a severe outbreak would need high-level federal review and approval for that work before proceeding.
Experiments that interfere with or disrupt how the human immune system defends against a pathogen must also be scrutinized under this policy. Scientists working to resurrect extinct or eradicated viruses that caused past epidemics or pandemics must similarly obtain permission from federal officials. The policy eliminates some exemptions that might have offered a path for avoiding high-level review in the past, and it requires the signature of an accountable federal official for the work to start.
We think the new policy is robust, and a clear improvement in both scope and content from past U.S. efforts to reduce risks posed by this kind of research. The U.S. government should actively persuade other countries to set up similar systems to ensure this realm of science is safely governed worldwide.
Still, the new policy doesn’t solve all of the challenges. There are gaps that need to be addressed, either as the White House evaluates and amends the policy during its implementation this year or by Congress as it exercises its oversight on it.
One concern is that the policy does not apply to all research, only research funded by the U.S. government or otherwise required to comply by a federal oversight policy. Congress should require that this policy apply for all PEPP research activities, regardless of funding source. The federal government also needs to set expectations and rules for scientists who use computational tools in ways that could potentially create pandemic-level risks. When and how the government should evaluate such tools still needs to be established, and it’s especially important to do so as artificial intelligence enhances our capabilities to create toxins and designer microbes that may present new risks.
To build trust that the policy is actually working, the process needs to be much more transparent. As currently written, the policy plans to publish a single annual aggregate report across the government. Much better would be quarterly reporting with summaries of PEPP research projects that are proposed under any funding agency, a description of how proposals are being evaluated and a rationale for the decisions that are made. Concerns about intellectual property, while real, are outweighed by the need to tell the public how it’s being safeguarded from deadly disease.
There has been increased scrutiny around the National Institutes of Health’s role in the review process for PEPP research that the agency is considering funding. It would be unwise for Congress to eliminate the involvement of federal funding agencies, such as the N.I.H., in the review process. There is substantial expertise and experience in the N.I.H. on these issues, and that should be brought to bear as part of the review process.
The N.I.H. and other agencies must eliminate any real or perceived conflicts of interest of officials involved in deciding which research gets reviewed, and in performing the reviews. This new policy makes clear that final decisions regarding PEPP proposals made to the N.I.H. will be made by senior U.S. Health and Human Services officials outside of the agency, which we support.
Researchers who want to make pathogens more transmissible, lethal or capable of avoiding the human immune system should bear great responsibility for first proving several things: that this work is critical to perform, that the public health benefits aren’t achievable through safer approaches and that these benefits outweigh the extraordinary potential risks that would be part of it. They also need to have the competency and expertise, as well as the laboratory safety protocols and engineering controls in place to prevent any accidents or accidental infections.
This new policy is not perfect, but it represents the most robust governance and clearest set of rules in the world for this kind of science. Strong, effective oversight for this research should be a priority for the United States and the world. None of us should bear the risk of living through a future pandemic of humanity’s own making.
Tom Inglesby is an infectious disease physician at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he is director of the Center for Health Security. Anita Cicero is a lawyer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she is the deputy director of the Center for Health Security. Marc Lipsitch is a microbiologist and infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he directs the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics.
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, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads.
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Arsenal accelerating efforts to sign Bologna defender Riccardo Calafiori.txt | By David Ornstein
Jul 20, 2024
Arsenal are accelerating their efforts to sign Bologna defender Riccardo Calafiori.
Arsenal are now progressing the situation and looking to complete a deal for the 22-year-old as soon as possible, with other clubs looking for a similar profile this summer.
The Italy international is Mikel Arteta’s top defensive target this summer and is comfortable playing either as a centre-half or at left-back, and impressed at Euro 2024.
Calafiori joined Roma as an eight-year-old and spent 12 years at the club, making 18 first-team appearances and scoring one goal before joining Swiss club Basel in 2022.
The Italian spent a year at Basel, primarily playing as a left-back or left wing-back, before joining Bologna in 2023 — where head coach Thiago Motta moved him into a central defensive position. Basel have a sell-on clause between 40 and 50 per cent for Calafiori.
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Riccardo Calafiori, an Italian centre-back in name, hair and pedigree
Calafiori impressed at Bologna, helping the club to a top-four finish in Serie A and a return to the Champions League — a competition in which they had not played since the 1964-65 season.
The defender’s performances at Bologna saw him called up to the Italy national team for the first time. He has been capped five times and started all three group stage matches at this summer’s European Championship, but missed the last 16 defeat to Switzerland through suspension.
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Calafiori is a front-foot, modern-day defender - and would suit Arteta's Arsenal
(Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
David Ornstein
| By David Ornstein
Jul 20, 2024
Arsenal are accelerating their efforts to sign Bologna defender Riccardo Calafiori.
Arsenal are now progressing the situation and looking to complete a deal for the 22-year-old as soon as possible, with other clubs looking for a similar profile this summer.
The Italy international is Mikel Arteta’s top defensive target this summer and is comfortable playing either as a centre-half or at left-back, and impressed at Euro 2024.
Calafiori joined Roma as an eight-year-old and spent 12 years at the club, making | 18 first-team appearances and scoring one goal before joining Swiss club Basel in 2022.
The Italian spent a year at Basel, primarily playing as a left-back or left wing-back, before joining Bologna in 2023 — where head coach Thiago Motta moved him into a central defensive position. Basel have a sell-on clause between 40 and 50 per cent for Calafiori.
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Riccardo Calafiori, an Italian centre-back in name, hair and pedigree
Calafiori impressed at Bologna, helping the club to a top-four finish in Serie A and a return to the Champions League — a competition in which they had not played since the 1964-65 season.
The defender’s performances at Bologna saw him called up to the Italy national team for the first time. He has been capped five times and started all three group stage matches at this summer’s European Championship, but missed the last 16 defeat to Switzerland through suspension.
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Calafiori is a front-foot, modern-day defender - and would suit Arteta's Arsenal
(Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
David Ornstein
|
Trump and Zelensky Speak by Phone as Ukraine Worries About U.S. Backing.txt | By Constant Méheut
Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
July 20, 2024
Former President Donald J. Trump and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, spoke over the phone late this week amid mounting concern in Kyiv that a second Trump administration would spell the end of American support in Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
Ukrainian officials worry that if a re-elected Mr. Trump kept to his vow to end the war quickly — he has suggested that he could end it in one day — it would allow Russia to keep the territory it occupies and leave it in a position to attack Ukraine again.
In a social media post about the call, which took place on Friday, Mr. Trump said that as president he would “bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives.” He said both Russia and Ukraine “will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence.”
Mr. Zelensky said in a statement on Friday that he had underlined in the call “the vital bipartisan and bicameral American support for protecting our nation’s freedom and independence.” He said he and Mr. Trump had agreed “to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting.”
It was the first call between Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump since the former American president left office in 2020. Although the Ukrainian authorities have tried to remain neutral in the U.S. presidential campaign, officials have started building bridges with Mr. Trump’s camp, hoping to shape his views on Ukraine.
Oleksandr Kraiev, the head of the North America Program at Ukrainian Prism, a Kyiv-based think tank, said Ukrainian diplomats had been working on strategies to persuade Mr. Trump to continue supporting Ukraine, mindful that he can be unpredictable in foreign policy. The Republican Party’s platform does not include the word Ukraine, referring only to a broad goal of restoring “peace in Europe.”
Mr. Kraiev said that Kyiv could frame its objectives as in being in line with two of Mr. Trump’s top interests: his image as a strong leader and his defense of the American economy.
“We can connect with Trump on these two specific topics,” Mr. Kraiev said.
| By Constant Méheut
Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
July 20, 2024
Former President Donald J. Trump and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, spoke over the phone late this week amid mounting concern in Kyiv that a second Trump administration would spell the end of American support in Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
Ukrainian officials worry that if a re-elected Mr. Trump kept to his vow to end the war quickly — he has suggested that he could end it in one day — it would allow Russia to keep the territory it occupies and leave it in a position to attack | Ukraine again.
In a social media post about the call, which took place on Friday, Mr. Trump said that as president he would “bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives.” He said both Russia and Ukraine “will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence.”
Mr. Zelensky said in a statement on Friday that he had underlined in the call “the vital bipartisan and bicameral American support for protecting our nation’s freedom and independence.” He said he and Mr. Trump had agreed “to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting.”
It was the first call between Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump since the former American president left office in 2020. Although the Ukrainian authorities have tried to remain neutral in the U.S. presidential campaign, officials have started building bridges with Mr. Trump’s camp, hoping to shape his views on Ukraine.
Oleksandr Kraiev, the head of the North America Program at Ukrainian Prism, a Kyiv-based think tank, said Ukrainian diplomats had been working on strategies to persuade Mr. Trump to continue supporting Ukraine, mindful that he can be unpredictable in foreign policy. The Republican Party’s platform does not include the word Ukraine, referring only to a broad goal of restoring “peace in Europe.”
Mr. Kraiev said that Kyiv could frame its objectives as in being in line with two of Mr. Trump’s top interests: his image as a strong leader and his defense of the American economy.
“We can connect with Trump on these two specific topics,” Mr. Kraiev said.
|
Trump and Vance Held First Joint Rally as New G.O.P. Ticket.txt | By Michael Gold and Simon J. Levien
Reporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
A week after the shooting, Trump leaves unity behind and returns to insults and election denial.
Image
Former President Donald J. Trump, right, and his new running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Saturday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
At his first campaign rally since he survived an assassination attempt last week, former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday launched a litany of attacks that suggested his call for national unity in the wake of the shooting had faded entirely into the background.
Over the course of an almost two-hour speech in Grand Rapids, Mich., Mr. Trump insulted President Biden’s intelligence repeatedly, calling him “stupid” more than once. He said Vice President Kamala Harris was “crazy” and gleefully jeered the Democratic Party’s infighting over Mr. Biden’s political future.
Even as Mr. Trump made numerous false claims accusing his political opponents of widespread election fraud, he presented the continuing push by some Democrats to replace Mr. Biden on their ticket as an anti-democratic effort.
By contrast, Mr. Trump — who falsely insisted he won the 2020 election and whose effort to overturn it spurred a violent attack on the Capitol that threatened the peaceful transfer of power — presented himself as an almost martyr trying to protect the United States from its downfall.
“They keep saying, ‘He’s a threat to democracy,’” Mr. Trump told the crowd of thousands inside the Van Andel Arena. “I’m saying, ‘What the hell did I do with democracy’? Last week, I took a bullet for democracy.”
The line — one of the few additions to a speech that culled from Mr. Trump’s standard rally repertoire — came as Mr. Trump was trying to rebut Democrats’ claims that he was an extremist and distance himself from Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals for a potential second term that would overhaul the federal government.
The Biden campaign has repeatedly tried to tie Mr. Trump to the effort, which has involved Trump allies and former advisers. But Mr. Trump on Saturday criticized the project as the work of the “radical right,” even as he acknowledged that he knew some of those involved.
“They’re seriously extreme, but I don’t know anything about it,” Mr. Trump said of Project 2025 — which he kept calling “Project 25,” even as he has previously referred to it by its full name.
Saturday’s speech was the latest signal that the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump had done little to change his political message. Though his closing convention speech on Thursday opened with a somber call for unity, he reverted quickly to standard rally repertoire, including an aside comparing himself to the gangster Al Capone and a discursive tangent regarding sharks and electric boats.
Mr. Trump did discuss the assassination attempt, in which his ear was struck by a bullet at a rally last week in Butler, Pa., even though he said on Thursday that after his convention speech he would not describe it in detail again.
Sporting a light brown bandage on his ear, smaller than the large white gauze he had been wearing, Mr. Trump once again cited divine intervention, telling the crowd, “I shouldn’t be here.” He offered praise for Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter and rally attendee who was killed in the gunfire, and thanked officials in Butler for their efforts.
But where Mr. Trump was somber and visibly affected in front of the Republican delegates and national network cameras, a moment of seeming vulnerability, on Saturday he at times struck a somewhat lighter tone discussing the shooting.
At one point, referring to a screen showing a chart on immigration that he was pointing to when the shooting began, Mr. Trump joked that “I owe immigration” my life and that the “sign was very good — I think I’m going to sleep with it tonight.”
Before Mr. Trump spoke, his newly chosen running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, took the stage and marveled at the former president’s resilience.
“I find it hard to believe that a week ago an assassin tried to take Donald Trump’s life, and now we have a hell of a crowd to welcome him back on the campaign trail,” Mr. Vance said, in his first joint rally with Mr. Trump since he joined the Republican ticket.
Though the security procedures at the rally were largely unchanged from past Trump rallies, the venue was held indoors after the Trump campaign had largely held events outdoors. There was a heavier police presence than typical inside and outside the building.
Sean Solano, a 22-year-old missionary to Nicaragua, said he had taken one extra precaution in light of the shooting.
“On Wednesday, I prayed over the building,” Mr. Solano, of Cutlerville, Mich., said about the rally’s venue. Echoing several other rally attendees who spoke of Mr. Trump’s survival in religious terms, Mr. Solano added that he thought God had given the former president a chance and that now Mr. Trump would “fight with fury like never before.”
Mr. Trump’s dark message about the pernicious threat to the country posed by undocumented immigrants, Democrats and foreign adversaries, a signature theme from previous rallies, was largely intact. He broadly characterized those crossing the border as “prisoners and people from mental institutions,” whom he again likened to the fictional cannibal Hannibal Lecter. And he promised once more the largest deportation operation in U.S. history if elected.
Mr. Trump also joyously mocked Democrats as they contended with the viability of Mr. Biden’s place as the party’s presidential nominee. Mr. Trump called his rivals “the enemies of democracy” because Democrats who called for Mr. Biden’s replacement would have to answer to the millions of primary votes the president secured over other candidates.
“They have no idea who their candidate is, and neither do we. That’s a problem,” Mr. Trump said in a tone that suggested he thought anything but.
Building on months of attacking Democrats as a threat to democracy, usually based on his false insistence that Mr. Biden has directed all four criminal cases against him, he argued once more that it was his political opponents who were anti-democratic.
“This guy goes, and he gets the votes, and now we’ll take it away,” Mr. Trump scoffed. “That’s democracy.”
Still, Mr. Trump showed little sympathy for Mr. Biden. After mostly, though not entirely, avoiding direct personal attacks against the president in his convention speech, Mr. Trump repeatedly called him unintelligent, saying that he had a low I.Q. compared with other world leaders and that he was incompetent.
He widened his focus to include Ms. Harris, insulting her laugh and calling her “nuts.” He similarly called Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, “crazy,” and then mocked her over her having privately told Mr. Biden that he might not win in November, which he characterized as a sudden display of disloyalty.
“Crazy Nancy,” Mr. Trump said. “Did you see Nancy Pelosi is selling out Biden now? Did you see she turned on him like a dog?”
Republicans, he pointed out, were unified largely behind him. As evidence, Mr. Trump ceded the stage to a display of party unity: Sandy Pensler, a Republican running in Michigan’s Senate primary, took the stage to end his bid and endorse his Trump-endorsed rival, Representative Mike Rogers.
“Unifying the party,” Mr. Trump said as he took back the microphone, “it’s beautiful to watch.”
Michigan is seen as a critical battleground state for both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden in November. It is one of several that Mr. Trump won in 2016 only to lose to Mr. Biden four years later.
The decision to hold Mr. Trump’s first joint rally with Mr. Vance in the state offered another signal of its electoral importance. Mr. Trump, when he announced Mr. Vance’s selection, singled out his ability to win over workers in the state, and Mr. Vance several times in his convention speech mentioned working-class people in Michigan as crucial to the nation.
Mr. Vance gave a well-received 13-minute speech — a small fraction of Mr. Trump’s lengthy remarks — more than an hour before Mr. Trump took the stage. He returned later to introduce the former president to raucous applause, and the two embraced in front of the crowd.
“I chose him because he’s for the worker,” Mr. Trump said after Mr. Vance left the stage. “He’s for the people that work so hard and perhaps weren’t treated like they should have been.”
Theodore Schleifer
Albert Sun
July 21, 2024, 1:27 a.m. ET
July 21, 2024, 1:27 a.m. ET
Theodore Schleifer and Albert Sun
Trump’s conviction and Biden’s poor debate sent big money into the race.
Image
The end of the Republican National Convention on Thursday. Filings with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday showed that the Trump campaign had $128 million on hand as of June 30, while the Biden campaign had about $96 million.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
A pair of seismic events in May and June unleashed gushers of money into the presidential fund-raising race — and that was before an assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump.
New campaign-finance filings released this week revealed the degree to which Mr. Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts on May 30 and Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27 became seminal moments in the fund-raising race. Just how much the attempted assassination on July 13 transformed the money battle will not be known until sometime next month, when additional filings will be made public.
Daily contributions for Biden and Trump
Includes money raised by the campaigns, affiliated joint fund-raising committees and national parties both directly to and through WinRed and ActBlue.
$10 $20 $30 million per dayJan. 2023AprilJulyOct.Jan. 2024AprilJuly
April 4
Trump arraigned in Manhattan criminal case
March 8
State of the Union address
May 30
Trump convicted
June 27
Presidential debate
Source: Federal Election Commission
Excludes unitemized individual contributions and money raised by super PACs.
Mr. Trump entered July in a better financial position than Mr. Biden — and Republicans were able to gain that upper hand largely because of Mr. Trump’s felony conviction.
Mr. Trump has supercharged the Republican National Committee since he became the party’s presumptive nominee in the spring. The R.N.C., which had as little as $9 million in cash on hand at end of January, ended June with $102 million in its coffers, nearly double the $54 million it had at the end of May.
The committee’s cash increase is primarily a downstream effect of an enormous spike in small-dollar fund-raising after Mr. Trump’s conviction, according to filings from campaign committees and data released earlier this week from the Republican fund-raising processing firm WinRed. Mr. Trump and allied Republican groups raised roughly $69 million from May 30 — the day of his conviction — to May 31. The $34.5 million or so raised on each of those days more than doubled the record for the best online fund-raising day of the entire campaign by either party.
Mr. Biden also saw some large fund-raising hauls after Mr. Trump’s conviction, though not nearly at Mr. Trump’s level. Mr. Biden raised a total of $19.2 million with allied Democratic groups in the two days after the conviction, according to the Democratic fund-raising platform ActBlue.
But his best fund-raising days of the race so far came — perhaps surprisingly — after his unsteady debate performance at the end of June. Mr. Biden and his committees raised roughly $28 million over a two-day period between June 27, when the debate took place, and June 28.
While Democrats also received strong fund-raising contributions after Mr. Trump was convicted, the same was not true for Republicans after Mr. Biden’s debate performance. The G.O.P. raised about $11.9 million from June 27 to June 28, only slightly higher than a typical fund-raising day, according to WinRed.
The Trump and Biden campaigns previously had self-reported their combined fund-raising hauls and joint cash-on-hand totals, figures that included money raised by their allied party committees. But neither the Biden nor the Trump team had shared how much of that money was raised or held by the campaigns themselves until Saturday evening.
Mr. Biden and the Democrats out-raised Mr. Trump and the Republicans in June, $127 million to $112 million, according to figures reported by the campaigns. But Republicans overall had about $45 million more on hand at that point than Democrats did, the campaigns have said.
How much cash on hand the campaigns have (in millions)
Figures from filings with the Federal Election Commission do not include unitemized contributions and totals may differ from figures reported by the campaigns.
Biden
Trump
June 2024 This cycle June 2024 This cycle
Raised $123.9 $630.8 $98 $585
Cash on hand $237.2 — $281.1 —
Source: Federal Election Commission
Figures are for the 2024 Biden and Trump presidential campaign committees, their affiliated joint fund raising committees and the R.N.C. and D.N.C. as of the last day of the month. Figures do not include money raised by leadership PACs or super PACs. This cycle began with the announcement of former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign in November 2022 and President Biden’s in April 2023. Figures are adjusted for debt.
On Saturday, fresh filings with the Federal Election Commission showed that the Trump campaign itself had $128 million on hand as of June 30, while the Biden campaign had about $96 million.
The Republican National Committee’s momentum continued into June, when it raised $67 million, more than double the amount it had raised in any other month in the 2024 cycle. That was most likely a delayed effect of Mr. Trump’s conviction at the end of May. The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, raised only $39.2 million during June, and had only $78 million on hand.
Cumulative contributions to Biden and Trump compared with 2020
Includes money raised by the campaigns, affiliated joint fund-raising committees and national parties both directly to and through WinRed and ActBlue.
Source: Federal Election Commission
Excludes unitemized individual contributions and money raised by super PACs.
The Trump campaign gained the lead thanks also to a big gap in spending levels. In June, the Biden campaign spent almost six times as much as the Trump campaign did: roughly $59 million compared with about $10 million. The Biden campaign has been aggressively investing in television advertising — it dropped $48 million on media in June — while the Trump campaign has largely ceded the airwaves.
The presidential race has, of course, been transformed since the figures were finalized on June 30. The first three weeks of July walloped the Biden campaign in the fund-raising sector, as calls grew for Mr. Biden to end his re-election bid. And the attempted assassination on Mr. Trump on July 13 almost certainly propelled historic small-dollar fund-raising, though the campaign has not released updated figures.
The independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. raised just $5.4 million in June — about half of that, $2.5 million, from his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, The New York Times previously reported.
Mr. Kennedy’s campaign had about $5.5 million on hand at the end of June and carried over $3 million in debt into July. But Mr. Kennedy, to dig himself out of the cash crunch, struck a novel deal with the Libertarian National Committee late last week. Even though he is not the Libertarian presidential nominee, he can now raise larger checks in conjunction with the party’s committee, just as Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden can with their parties’ committees.
Simon J. Levien
July 20, 2024, 7:12 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 7:12 p.m. ET
Simon J. Levienreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Trump just finished speaking at the first rally of the new G.O.P. ticket, going for more than 100 minutes after he took the stage. This is the longest Trump rally speech I’ve been to. It was even longer than his record-length speech at the Republican convention that lasted about an hour and a half.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 7:04 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 7:04 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Trump once again made fun of Vice President Kamala Harris, whose name he purposely pronounces wrong, and called her “crazy.” Then, he added, “she’s not as crazy as Nancy Pelosi,” whom he mocked for, in his view, turning on President Biden. Pelosi, the former House speaker, has privately told Biden that she is skeptical that he can win in November.
Simon J. Levien
July 20, 2024, 6:39 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:39 p.m. ET
Simon J. Levienreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Trump called Sandy Pensler, who is running to be a United States senator in Michigan, to the microphone. Pensler announced that he is ending his Senate candidacy. “President Trump endorsed Mike Rogers. Tonight, so am I,” he said.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 6:40 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:40 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Pensler opened by saying he was “inspired” to see Trump, on the convention stage in Milwaukee on Thursday, kiss the helmet of Corey Comperatore, the volunteer fire chief who was killed during the assassination attempt at his rally last weekend.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 6:42 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:42 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
After a four-day display of Republican unity at the Republican National Convention, here we have more evidence of the party coming together. Both Pensler and Rogers are making it clear that they think it’s important to unite — and unite behind Trump — so the Republican Party can win in November.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 6:50 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:50 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
At the conclusion of this segment, Trump says that Rogers is running against “somebody that’s such a bad senator” that he doesn’t remember meeting in the “four years” he was president. But Rogers is running to fill a seat being vacated by a sitting Democratic senator, Debbie Stabenow, and Rogers is running against Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat who was only in office for the final two years of Trump’s presidency.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 6:27 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:27 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Trump repeats that Democrats are allowing immigrants to cross the border illegally in order to get them to vote, a claim that is unsupported by evidence. And he is already sowing doubt about whether the 2024 election will be conducted fairly before a vote has been cast.
Nicholas Nehamas
July 20, 2024, 6:15 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:15 p.m. ET
Nicholas Nehamas
Reporting from Provincetown, Mass.
As Biden recovers from Covid, Harris assumes a starring role on the campaign trail.
Image
Vice President Kamala Harris boarding Air Force Two in Maryland last week.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
As President Biden recuperates from Covid-19, Vice President Kamala Harris has become the standard-bearer of their re-election effort, visiting the battleground states of Michigan and North Carolina this week before headlining a well-attended fund-raiser in Massachusetts on Saturday.
Ms. Harris has assumed the starring role at a time when a growing number of Democratic elected officials are pushing for her to become their party’s nominee, should Mr. Biden drop out. Both voters and donors say they have grown dissatisfied with the president, and the campaign’s fund-raising efforts have sputtered.
With Saturday’s fund-raiser, Ms. Harris sought to juice those flagging numbers, turning to one of the Democrats’ most reliable sources of support, the L.G.B.T.Q. community. She told a crowd of roughly 1,000 people gathered in Provincetown, Mass., that the race against former President Donald J. Trump constituted an existential threat to gay and transgender Americans.
“I know it to be a fundamental fight for freedom,” Ms. Harris said, speaking in a spacious oceanside tent in Provincetown, a resort community in Cape Cod that is seen as a center of gay life in the United States. “The freedom to love who you love and to be who you are, openly and with pride. The freedom to be free from discrimination and bigotry and hate. The freedom to simply be.”
The fund-raiser pulled in more than $2 million, twice the initial estimate, organizers said.
The vice president has lately been thrust into an awkward position: remaining loyal to Mr. Biden while demonstrating that she is ready to take over the top of the ticket if that need arises. On Friday, she joined a call with Democratic donors that seemed to offer them little reassurance. The Biden campaign’s fund-raising from big donors is said to have plummeted this month.
Mr. Biden is recovering well from the virus at his vacation home in Delaware, his doctor said in a letter released by the White House on Saturday. He is expected to resume campaigning this week, according to his aides.
Ms. Harris did not mention Mr. Biden’s political or physical woes at the fund-raiser, calling him “one of the most consequential presidents in American history” and condemning Mr. Trump’s record on L.G.B.T.Q. issues during his time in the White House. She was sometimes interrupted with shouts of “We love you” and “Go get ’em, Kamala.”
Also attending were Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary; Gov. Maura Healey, Democrat of Massachusetts; Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts; and Michelle Wu, the Democratic mayor of Boston. The actors Jennifer Coolidge, Billy Porter and Darren Criss were also at the fund-raiser.
Democrats have been divided about whether to hold an open convention if Mr. Biden withdraws from the race. Black and Hispanic elected officials and party activists have especially pushed for Ms. Harris as the president’s natural successor. The Trump campaign has also been preparing plans for attacks to wield against her.
On Saturday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts and an ally of Mr. Biden, suggested on MSNBC that Democrats should not leapfrog Ms. Harris for another candidate.
“What gives me a lot of hope right now,” Ms. Warren said, “is that if President Biden decides to step back, we have Vice President Kamala Harris, who is ready to step up to unite the party.”
And Representative Mark Takano, Democrat of California, who pulled his support from Mr. Biden in a statement on Saturday, was even more explicit.
“It’s time to pass the torch to Kamala,” Mr. Takano wrote.
Robert Jimison contributed reporting.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 6:08 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:08 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
It seems fair to say that Trump’s call for “national unity” in the wake of last week’s shooting at his rally in Pennsylvania has fully faded. He’s been attacking Democrats over their trade and immigration policies and making personal insults against Biden. He avoided those direct shots, mostly, during his convention speech two days ago.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 5:52 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 5:52 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Vance makes his V.P. debut at a Trump rally in Michigan.
Image
The Trump campaign hopes JD Vance will appeal to blue-collar and middle-class voters in key Rust Belt states.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
In his first campaign event since former President Donald J. Trump anointed him the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Senator JD Vance of Ohio attacked Vice President Kamala Harris for her role in the border crisis as he tried to appeal to voters in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Saturday.
After criticizing Ms. Harris for doing little, in his view, to benefit Americans beyond collecting a check, Mr. Vance sarcastically said he would give the vice president credit for one thing.
“She did serve as border czar during the biggest disaster open border we’ve ever had this country,” Mr. Vance said. “Let’s get President Trump back there, close down that border and bring some common sense of security to this country.”
Saturday’s rally was Mr. Vance’s first major test since Mr. Trump chose him for the Republican ticket: his debut at one of Mr. Trump’s signature rallies as a running mate rather than as a staunch supporter.
His remarks — which at 13 minutes, lasted just a small fraction of a standard Trump speech — helped illustrate the benefits the Trump campaign hopes Mr. Vance will bring to the ticket as he tries to appeal to blue-collar and middle-class voters in key Rust Belt states.
Following the contours of his address to the Republican convention on Wednesday, Mr. Vance recounted his blue-collar roots in Ohio as he attacked the Biden administration for making it harder for people of his background to succeed.
“What is this campaign about if not restoring the American dream for every child in this country?” Mr. Vance, a father of three, asked a crowd of at least a thousand people in Van Andel Arena. “I want your kids to have the same blessed life that I have.”
Much of Mr. Vance’s speech echoed Mr. Trump’s familiar talking points, hardly a surprise given their close political allegiance. Mr. Vance attacked the Biden administration’s handling of the border, arguing, as Mr. Trump has, that it was time to “make America safe again.” He backed Mr. Trump’s protectionist trade policies and encouraged Americans to examine whether they preferred living under Mr. Trump’s or President Biden’s leadership.
And Mr. Vance — who rose to prominence as a media darling who helped explain Mr. Trump’s appeal to working-class voters even as he denounced it — attacked the press as “radical” and “dangerous” over its depictions of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Vance, just five days into his role as a vice-presidential nominee, seemed genuinely awed by the response from the crowd, making off-the-cuff asides about the reception he was getting, particularly as an Ohio resident in the rival state of Michigan.
“I’ve got to be honest,” Mr. Vance said, standing at a lectern adorned with a new “Trump Vance 2024” sign as the crowd waved placards with his name on them. “It’s still a little bit weird to see my name on those signs.”
Danny Shultz, a student from Kalamazoo, Mich., said that he had not heard of Mr. Vance, 39, until Mr. Trump picked him.
But, he said, he thought Mr. Trump made a logical choice: “a younger, more mellow guy” who could balance out Mr. Trump, who at 78 is double Mr. Vance’s age. Mr. Shultz added that he thought Mr. Vance’s speech in Grand Rapids played on his humble background just the right amount.
“I liked how he kept his own experience at the forefront without being obnoxious about it,” Mr. Shultz said.
| By Michael Gold and Simon J. Levien
Reporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
A week after the shooting, Trump leaves unity behind and returns to insults and election denial.
Image
Former President Donald J. Trump, right, and his new running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Saturday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
At his first campaign rally since he survived an assassination attempt last week, former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday launched a litany of attacks that suggested his call for national unity in the wake of the shooting had faded | entirely into the background.
Over the course of an almost two-hour speech in Grand Rapids, Mich., Mr. Trump insulted President Biden’s intelligence repeatedly, calling him “stupid” more than once. He said Vice President Kamala Harris was “crazy” and gleefully jeered the Democratic Party’s infighting over Mr. Biden’s political future.
Even as Mr. Trump made numerous false claims accusing his political opponents of widespread election fraud, he presented the continuing push by some Democrats to replace Mr. Biden on their ticket as an anti-democratic effort.
By contrast, Mr. Trump — who falsely insisted he won the 2020 election and whose effort to overturn it spurred a violent attack on the Capitol that threatened the peaceful transfer of power — presented himself as an almost martyr trying to protect the United States from its downfall.
“They keep saying, ‘He’s a threat to democracy,’” Mr. Trump told the crowd of thousands inside the Van Andel Arena. “I’m saying, ‘What the hell did I do with democracy’? Last week, I took a bullet for democracy.”
The line — one of the few additions to a speech that culled from Mr. Trump’s standard rally repertoire — came as Mr. Trump was trying to rebut Democrats’ claims that he was an extremist and distance himself from Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals for a potential second term that would overhaul the federal government.
The Biden campaign has repeatedly tried to tie Mr. Trump to the effort, which has involved Trump allies and former advisers. But Mr. Trump on Saturday criticized the project as the work of the “radical right,” even as he acknowledged that he knew some of those involved.
“They’re seriously extreme, but I don’t know anything about it,” Mr. Trump said of Project 2025 — which he kept calling “Project 25,” even as he has previously referred to it by its full name.
Saturday’s speech was the latest signal that the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump had done little to change his political message. Though his closing convention speech on Thursday opened with a somber call for unity, he reverted quickly to standard rally repertoire, including an aside comparing himself to the gangster Al Capone and a discursive tangent regarding sharks and electric boats.
Mr. Trump did discuss the assassination attempt, in which his ear was struck by a bullet at a rally last week in Butler, Pa., even though he said on Thursday that after his convention speech he would not describe it in detail again.
Sporting a light brown bandage on his ear, smaller than the large white gauze he had been wearing, Mr. Trump once again cited divine intervention, telling the crowd, “I shouldn’t be here.” He offered praise for Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter and rally attendee who was killed in the gunfire, and thanked officials in Butler for their efforts.
But where Mr. Trump was somber and visibly affected in front of the Republican delegates and national network cameras, a moment of seeming vulnerability, on Saturday he at times struck a somewhat lighter tone discussing the shooting.
At one point, referring to a screen showing a chart on immigration that he was pointing to when the shooting began, Mr. Trump joked that “I owe immigration” my life and that the “sign was very good — I think I’m going to sleep with it tonight.”
Before Mr. Trump spoke, his newly chosen running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, took the stage and marveled at the former president’s resilience.
“I find it hard to believe that a week ago an assassin tried to take Donald Trump’s life, and now we have a hell of a crowd to welcome him back on the campaign trail,” Mr. Vance said, in his first joint rally with Mr. Trump since he joined the Republican ticket.
Though the security procedures at the rally were largely unchanged from past Trump rallies, the venue was held indoors after the Trump campaign had largely held events outdoors. There was a heavier police presence than typical inside and outside the building.
Sean Solano, a 22-year-old missionary to Nicaragua, said he had taken one extra precaution in light of the shooting.
“On Wednesday, I prayed over the building,” Mr. Solano, of Cutlerville, Mich., said about the rally’s venue. Echoing several other rally attendees who spoke of Mr. Trump’s survival in religious terms, Mr. Solano added that he thought God had given the former president a chance and that now Mr. Trump would “fight with fury like never before.”
Mr. Trump’s dark message about the pernicious threat to the country posed by undocumented immigrants, Democrats and foreign adversaries, a signature theme from previous rallies, was largely intact. He broadly characterized those crossing the border as “prisoners and people from mental institutions,” whom he again likened to the fictional cannibal Hannibal Lecter. And he promised once more the largest deportation operation in U.S. history if elected.
Mr. Trump also joyously mocked Democrats as they contended with the viability of Mr. Biden’s place as the party’s presidential nominee. Mr. Trump called his rivals “the enemies of democracy” because Democrats who called for Mr. Biden’s replacement would have to answer to the millions of primary votes the president secured over other candidates.
“They have no idea who their candidate is, and neither do we. That’s a problem,” Mr. Trump said in a tone that suggested he thought anything but.
Building on months of attacking Democrats as a threat to democracy, usually based on his false insistence that Mr. Biden has directed all four criminal cases against him, he argued once more that it was his political opponents who were anti-democratic.
“This guy goes, and he gets the votes, and now we’ll take it away,” Mr. Trump scoffed. “That’s democracy.”
Still, Mr. Trump showed little sympathy for Mr. Biden. After mostly, though not entirely, avoiding direct personal attacks against the president in his convention speech, Mr. Trump repeatedly called him unintelligent, saying that he had a low I.Q. compared with other world leaders and that he was incompetent.
He widened his focus to include Ms. Harris, insulting her laugh and calling her “nuts.” He similarly called Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, “crazy,” and then mocked her over her having privately told Mr. Biden that he might not win in November, which he characterized as a sudden display of disloyalty.
“Crazy Nancy,” Mr. Trump said. “Did you see Nancy Pelosi is selling out Biden now? Did you see she turned on him like a dog?”
Republicans, he pointed out, were unified largely behind him. As evidence, Mr. Trump ceded the stage to a display of party unity: Sandy Pensler, a Republican running in Michigan’s Senate primary, took the stage to end his bid and endorse his Trump-endorsed rival, Representative Mike Rogers.
“Unifying the party,” Mr. Trump said as he took back the microphone, “it’s beautiful to watch.”
Michigan is seen as a critical battleground state for both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden in November. It is one of several that Mr. Trump won in 2016 only to lose to Mr. Biden four years later.
The decision to hold Mr. Trump’s first joint rally with Mr. Vance in the state offered another signal of its electoral importance. Mr. Trump, when he announced Mr. Vance’s selection, singled out his ability to win over workers in the state, and Mr. Vance several times in his convention speech mentioned working-class people in Michigan as crucial to the nation.
Mr. Vance gave a well-received 13-minute speech — a small fraction of Mr. Trump’s lengthy remarks — more than an hour before Mr. Trump took the stage. He returned later to introduce the former president to raucous applause, and the two embraced in front of the crowd.
“I chose him because he’s for the worker,” Mr. Trump said after Mr. Vance left the stage. “He’s for the people that work so hard and perhaps weren’t treated like they should have been.”
Theodore Schleifer
Albert Sun
July 21, 2024, 1:27 a.m. ET
July 21, 2024, 1:27 a.m. ET
Theodore Schleifer and Albert Sun
Trump’s conviction and Biden’s poor debate sent big money into the race.
Image
The end of the Republican National Convention on Thursday. Filings with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday showed that the Trump campaign had $128 million on hand as of June 30, while the Biden campaign had about $96 million.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
A pair of seismic events in May and June unleashed gushers of money into the presidential fund-raising race — and that was before an assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump.
New campaign-finance filings released this week revealed the degree to which Mr. Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts on May 30 and Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27 became seminal moments in the fund-raising race. Just how much the attempted assassination on July 13 transformed the money battle will not be known until sometime next month, when additional filings will be made public.
Daily contributions for Biden and Trump
Includes money raised by the campaigns, affiliated joint fund-raising committees and national parties both directly to and through WinRed and ActBlue.
$10 $20 $30 million per dayJan. 2023AprilJulyOct.Jan. 2024AprilJuly
April 4
Trump arraigned in Manhattan criminal case
March 8
State of the Union address
May 30
Trump convicted
June 27
Presidential debate
Source: Federal Election Commission
Excludes unitemized individual contributions and money raised by super PACs.
Mr. Trump entered July in a better financial position than Mr. Biden — and Republicans were able to gain that upper hand largely because of Mr. Trump’s felony conviction.
Mr. Trump has supercharged the Republican National Committee since he became the party’s presumptive nominee in the spring. The R.N.C., which had as little as $9 million in cash on hand at end of January, ended June with $102 million in its coffers, nearly double the $54 million it had at the end of May.
The committee’s cash increase is primarily a downstream effect of an enormous spike in small-dollar fund-raising after Mr. Trump’s conviction, according to filings from campaign committees and data released earlier this week from the Republican fund-raising processing firm WinRed. Mr. Trump and allied Republican groups raised roughly $69 million from May 30 — the day of his conviction — to May 31. The $34.5 million or so raised on each of those days more than doubled the record for the best online fund-raising day of the entire campaign by either party.
Mr. Biden also saw some large fund-raising hauls after Mr. Trump’s conviction, though not nearly at Mr. Trump’s level. Mr. Biden raised a total of $19.2 million with allied Democratic groups in the two days after the conviction, according to the Democratic fund-raising platform ActBlue.
But his best fund-raising days of the race so far came — perhaps surprisingly — after his unsteady debate performance at the end of June. Mr. Biden and his committees raised roughly $28 million over a two-day period between June 27, when the debate took place, and June 28.
While Democrats also received strong fund-raising contributions after Mr. Trump was convicted, the same was not true for Republicans after Mr. Biden’s debate performance. The G.O.P. raised about $11.9 million from June 27 to June 28, only slightly higher than a typical fund-raising day, according to WinRed.
The Trump and Biden campaigns previously had self-reported their combined fund-raising hauls and joint cash-on-hand totals, figures that included money raised by their allied party committees. But neither the Biden nor the Trump team had shared how much of that money was raised or held by the campaigns themselves until Saturday evening.
Mr. Biden and the Democrats out-raised Mr. Trump and the Republicans in June, $127 million to $112 million, according to figures reported by the campaigns. But Republicans overall had about $45 million more on hand at that point than Democrats did, the campaigns have said.
How much cash on hand the campaigns have (in millions)
Figures from filings with the Federal Election Commission do not include unitemized contributions and totals may differ from figures reported by the campaigns.
Biden
Trump
June 2024 This cycle June 2024 This cycle
Raised $123.9 $630.8 $98 $585
Cash on hand $237.2 — $281.1 —
Source: Federal Election Commission
Figures are for the 2024 Biden and Trump presidential campaign committees, their affiliated joint fund raising committees and the R.N.C. and D.N.C. as of the last day of the month. Figures do not include money raised by leadership PACs or super PACs. This cycle began with the announcement of former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign in November 2022 and President Biden’s in April 2023. Figures are adjusted for debt.
On Saturday, fresh filings with the Federal Election Commission showed that the Trump campaign itself had $128 million on hand as of June 30, while the Biden campaign had about $96 million.
The Republican National Committee’s momentum continued into June, when it raised $67 million, more than double the amount it had raised in any other month in the 2024 cycle. That was most likely a delayed effect of Mr. Trump’s conviction at the end of May. The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, raised only $39.2 million during June, and had only $78 million on hand.
Cumulative contributions to Biden and Trump compared with 2020
Includes money raised by the campaigns, affiliated joint fund-raising committees and national parties both directly to and through WinRed and ActBlue.
Source: Federal Election Commission
Excludes unitemized individual contributions and money raised by super PACs.
The Trump campaign gained the lead thanks also to a big gap in spending levels. In June, the Biden campaign spent almost six times as much as the Trump campaign did: roughly $59 million compared with about $10 million. The Biden campaign has been aggressively investing in television advertising — it dropped $48 million on media in June — while the Trump campaign has largely ceded the airwaves.
The presidential race has, of course, been transformed since the figures were finalized on June 30. The first three weeks of July walloped the Biden campaign in the fund-raising sector, as calls grew for Mr. Biden to end his re-election bid. And the attempted assassination on Mr. Trump on July 13 almost certainly propelled historic small-dollar fund-raising, though the campaign has not released updated figures.
The independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. raised just $5.4 million in June — about half of that, $2.5 million, from his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, The New York Times previously reported.
Mr. Kennedy’s campaign had about $5.5 million on hand at the end of June and carried over $3 million in debt into July. But Mr. Kennedy, to dig himself out of the cash crunch, struck a novel deal with the Libertarian National Committee late last week. Even though he is not the Libertarian presidential nominee, he can now raise larger checks in conjunction with the party’s committee, just as Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden can with their parties’ committees.
Simon J. Levien
July 20, 2024, 7:12 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 7:12 p.m. ET
Simon J. Levienreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Trump just finished speaking at the first rally of the new G.O.P. ticket, going for more than 100 minutes after he took the stage. This is the longest Trump rally speech I’ve been to. It was even longer than his record-length speech at the Republican convention that lasted about an hour and a half.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 7:04 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 7:04 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Trump once again made fun of Vice President Kamala Harris, whose name he purposely pronounces wrong, and called her “crazy.” Then, he added, “she’s not as crazy as Nancy Pelosi,” whom he mocked for, in his view, turning on President Biden. Pelosi, the former House speaker, has privately told Biden that she is skeptical that he can win in November.
Simon J. Levien
July 20, 2024, 6:39 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:39 p.m. ET
Simon J. Levienreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Trump called Sandy Pensler, who is running to be a United States senator in Michigan, to the microphone. Pensler announced that he is ending his Senate candidacy. “President Trump endorsed Mike Rogers. Tonight, so am I,” he said.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 6:40 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:40 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Pensler opened by saying he was “inspired” to see Trump, on the convention stage in Milwaukee on Thursday, kiss the helmet of Corey Comperatore, the volunteer fire chief who was killed during the assassination attempt at his rally last weekend.
Michael Gold
July 20, 2024, 6:42 p.m. ET
July 20, 2024, 6:42 p.m. ET
Michael Goldreporting from Grand Rapids, Mich.
After a four-day display of Republican unity at the Republican National Convention, here we have more evidence of the party coming together. Both Pensler and Rogers are making it clear that they think it’s important to unite — and unite behind Trump — so |
To Deter Day-Trippers, Venice Tested a €5 Entrance Fee. Did Visitors Stay Away?.txt | By Elisabetta Povoledo
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 21, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Italy? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
When Venice introduced a five euro entrance fee in April, officials said the aim was to dissuade day-trippers from visiting at peak times, in a bid to ease the pressure on beleaguered residents forced to share the fragile city’s limited space and public resources.
So did the fee work?
“We are convinced that we limited some peaks,” said Luigi Brugnaro, Venice’s mayor, who called the experiment a “great success.”
But at a news conference on Friday, city officials conceded that a more thorough analysis of the data was necessary before it could definitively be said that the objective had been realized in this test phase.
City officials had singled out 29 peak dates from April through the middle of this month — mostly national holidays and weekends — when single-day travelers arriving in Venice between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. were required to pay the €5 fee (about $5.50).
Over the course of the period, the entrance fee was paid 485,000 times, making the city €2.43 million richer, according to statistics presented.
“Much more than we expected,” Mr. Brugnaro said, adding that it had been estimated that the city would collect about €700,000.
But critics promptly called the pilot project a bust.
“They brag that they raised a lot of money with this contribution, but that shows the opposite,” said Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opposition City Council member, referring to day-tripper traffic. “If you made that much, it means you can’t control it.”
“It’s evidence of a failure,” he said.
City officials said on Friday that because of lack of data it was difficult to compare visitor numbers with previous years. They said a more complete report would be made public in the fall.
Mr. Martini said that city officials had access to comparable cellphone data of people arriving in the city in prior years, and that the available data showed that more people had come to Venice this year on peak days, regardless of the fee.
“They have all the numbers, all of them — they can’t hide,” he said.
Another critic, Franco Migliorini, an architect who researches overtourism, said €5 was too little to “stop anyone.”
“Just about everything in Venice costs more than €5, practically even a coffee,” Mr. Migliorini said.
Venice is one of dozens of cities in Europe, and around the world, grappling with a glut of tourists, and with growing frustrations among locals, that this year led some residents of Barcelona to take to the streets and squirt tourists eating al fresco with water guns.
The wear and tear of mass tourism has been especially felt in Venice, a collection of islands crisscrossed with canals, which is also threatened by climate change and rising seas. Last year, UNESCO, the United Nations’ culture agency, recommended that the city be put on the list of its endangered World Heritage Sites, citing mass tourism as a principal concern, though Venice stayed off the “in danger” list after the access fee was approved.
On the 29 days the fee was levied, all visitors had to register online to receive a QR code. Overnight visitors already pay a tourist tax and were exempt, as were other categories including students, workers and residents of the region.
Officials had warned that transgressors faced steep fines, but a city spokesman said on Friday that none had been issued. Critics said that fines could have been challenged in court, so the city tread lightly.
On Friday, Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official, said that Venice had spearheaded a “cultural revolution” when it came to dealing with mass tourism. The fee program provided precise visitor numbers that allowed officials to plan ahead, and also allowed city officials to interact with visitors before they came, he said.
So will the program continue?
Only after the data has been further examined will city officials decide whether to increase the number of days in which the fee would be levied next year, or to raise the cost, which could double on some days, said Mr. Brugnaro, the mayor.
Looking at one graph, Mr. Brugnaro said that compared with the first weeks, there was a clear decrease in the number of people who paid an entrance fee on peak days during the final days it was in effect. “That means something is there,” he said.
Mr. Martini disagreed. “All it means is that there were fewer people paying the fee, because they knew no one was being fined,” he said.
While the mayor judged the test a success and thanked city officials for working hard to ensure that the experimental phase went smoothly, he said, “Right now I don’t feel much like celebrating.”
This past week, Mr. Brugnaro was placed under investigation, and Renato Boraso, a Venice city councilor, was arrested on charges relating to a real estate deal. Mr. Brugnaro said his “conscience was clean, squeaky clean,” and expressed confidence that prosecutors would clear his name.
Opposition lawmakers have called for the entire city administration to resign, and Mr. Martini said that if the city government fell, the entrance fee was unlikely to be reinstated.
| By Elisabetta Povoledo
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 21, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Italy? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
When Venice introduced a five euro entrance fee in April, officials said the aim was to dissuade day-trippers from visiting at peak times, in a bid to ease the pressure on beleaguered residents forced to share the fragile city’s limited space and public resources.
So did the fee work?
“We are convinced that we | limited some peaks,” said Luigi Brugnaro, Venice’s mayor, who called the experiment a “great success.”
But at a news conference on Friday, city officials conceded that a more thorough analysis of the data was necessary before it could definitively be said that the objective had been realized in this test phase.
City officials had singled out 29 peak dates from April through the middle of this month — mostly national holidays and weekends — when single-day travelers arriving in Venice between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. were required to pay the €5 fee (about $5.50).
Over the course of the period, the entrance fee was paid 485,000 times, making the city €2.43 million richer, according to statistics presented.
“Much more than we expected,” Mr. Brugnaro said, adding that it had been estimated that the city would collect about €700,000.
But critics promptly called the pilot project a bust.
“They brag that they raised a lot of money with this contribution, but that shows the opposite,” said Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opposition City Council member, referring to day-tripper traffic. “If you made that much, it means you can’t control it.”
“It’s evidence of a failure,” he said.
City officials said on Friday that because of lack of data it was difficult to compare visitor numbers with previous years. They said a more complete report would be made public in the fall.
Mr. Martini said that city officials had access to comparable cellphone data of people arriving in the city in prior years, and that the available data showed that more people had come to Venice this year on peak days, regardless of the fee.
“They have all the numbers, all of them — they can’t hide,” he said.
Another critic, Franco Migliorini, an architect who researches overtourism, said €5 was too little to “stop anyone.”
“Just about everything in Venice costs more than €5, practically even a coffee,” Mr. Migliorini said.
Venice is one of dozens of cities in Europe, and around the world, grappling with a glut of tourists, and with growing frustrations among locals, that this year led some residents of Barcelona to take to the streets and squirt tourists eating al fresco with water guns.
The wear and tear of mass tourism has been especially felt in Venice, a collection of islands crisscrossed with canals, which is also threatened by climate change and rising seas. Last year, UNESCO, the United Nations’ culture agency, recommended that the city be put on the list of its endangered World Heritage Sites, citing mass tourism as a principal concern, though Venice stayed off the “in danger” list after the access fee was approved.
On the 29 days the fee was levied, all visitors had to register online to receive a QR code. Overnight visitors already pay a tourist tax and were exempt, as were other categories including students, workers and residents of the region.
Officials had warned that transgressors faced steep fines, but a city spokesman said on Friday that none had been issued. Critics said that fines could have been challenged in court, so the city tread lightly.
On Friday, Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official, said that Venice had spearheaded a “cultural revolution” when it came to dealing with mass tourism. The fee program provided precise visitor numbers that allowed officials to plan ahead, and also allowed city officials to interact with visitors before they came, he said.
So will the program continue?
Only after the data has been further examined will city officials decide whether to increase the number of days in which the fee would be levied next year, or to raise the cost, which could double on some days, said Mr. Brugnaro, the mayor.
Looking at one graph, Mr. Brugnaro said that compared with the first weeks, there was a clear decrease in the number of people who paid an entrance fee on peak days during the final days it was in effect. “That means something is there,” he said.
Mr. Martini disagreed. “All it means is that there were fewer people paying the fee, because they knew no one was being fined,” he said.
While the mayor judged the test a success and thanked city officials for working hard to ensure that the experimental phase went smoothly, he said, “Right now I don’t feel much like celebrating.”
This past week, Mr. Brugnaro was placed under investigation, and Renato Boraso, a Venice city councilor, was arrested on charges relating to a real estate deal. Mr. Brugnaro said his “conscience was clean, squeaky clean,” and expressed confidence that prosecutors would clear his name.
Opposition lawmakers have called for the entire city administration to resign, and Mr. Martini said that if the city government fell, the entrance fee was unlikely to be reinstated.
|
The Conductor Who Bent Music History to His Will.txt | By David Allen
Reporting from Boston and Lenox, Mass.
July 23, 2024Updated 9:42 a.m. ET
There is a passage in Serge Koussevitzky’s final recording of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony that some listeners might hear in horror, but others with a degree of awe.
He recorded the piece in 1949 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, during the last weeks of his 25 years as its music director. About two minutes from the end of the first movement, the symphony is doing its best to keep calm. Flutes and clarinets arc gently, then oboes and horns; the cellos and basses stay constant beneath the nervous skittering of the other strings.
But then the bass begins to pull down. Suddenly the higher strings start to dominate, as anxiety takes hold; that sinking bass becomes inescapable. Tchaikovsky asks for a crescendo. Koussevitzky gives him that, but he also accelerates dramatically into the darkness, as fateful motifs blare. A few seconds later, just as the music seems ready to meet its destiny, Koussevitzky decides to make us wait. Fanfares blaze, entirely out of tempo, only to announce an unwritten silence. And then, savagery. As Tchaikovsky himself described this coda, “no haven exists.”
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.4, first movement
Boston Symphony Orchestra (Pristine)
This is the kind of moment that, in the wrong hands, gives Tchaikovsky a bad name. Koussevitzky was hardly alone in taking liberties with the composer, but many other conductors have at least tried to contain the drama here, rather than let hysteria hang out. Even Wilhelm Furtwängler, who like Koussevitzky sought to follow the spirit implied in a score as much as its explicit text, stayed truer to what Tchaikovsky actually wrote.
But in Koussevitzky’s hands, the effect is shattering. This Tchaikovsky Fourth is irresistible evidence of just how much he and the Boston Symphony achieved in their quarter of a century together. Conviction resounds. The playing is virtuosic, yet not for the sake of display. Every phrase sings. There is formidable power and intensity, but also enough elegance that it feels apt for the writer Harris Goldsmith to have described the Boston strings as “one of the hedonistic delights of Western civilization.” In 1944, the New York Times critic Olin Downes said that Koussevitzky had refined his orchestra into “the most highly perfected and sensitized symphony ensemble in the world.”
ImageA black-and-white historical image shows orchestra members standing onstage with their instruments, wearing black pants, white jackets and bow ties. The conductor holds the hand of Eleanor Roosevelt, who is smiling and facing outward.
Many of Koussevitzky’s contemporaries, however, thought that his legacy would lie not just in the unmatched technical facility that he drilled into his players, but in what he insisted that they perform. As the critic and composer Virgil Thomson wrote in 1947, “His unique position in a world full of excellent conductors, many of them devoted to contemporary music, is that he has played more of it, launched more of it, published more of it and paid for more of it than anybody else living.” His place in history, Thomson concluded, was “already assured and glorious.”
Koussevitzky’s record remains remarkable, as if he bent a significant part of music history to his will. Deploying wealth acquired from his marriage to his second wife, Natalie Ushkova, in 1909 he founded Éditions Russes de Musique, a publishing house that he used to provide financial security for Russian composers, as well as scores for himself build his career. Scriabin, Prokofiev and Stravinsky all benefited. In 1942, in memory of Natalie, he created the Koussevitzky Music Foundation to fund new works. Britten, Messiaen and Martinu received early commissions; its grants currently total 448.
According to the Boston Symphony, the orchestra gave 146 world premieres during his tenure, as well as another 86 U.S. premieres and many, many more performances of recent pieces he thought deserving of an audience. He led more than 300 works written by Americans. To those in his favor, he was a hero. “It is easy to foresee that the story of Serge Koussevitzky and the American composer will some day take on the character of a legend,” said Aaron Copland, a friend. “Here at least is one legend that will have been well founded.”
More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance
The Details Are in the Devil: “Life and Trust,” a new immersive piece of theater from the producers of “Sleep No More,” transports visitors to the Gilded Age through a retrofitted skyscraper in Manhattan.
A Queer Mountain Lion’s Leap: Henry Hoke’s 2023 novel, “Open Throat,” narrated by an animal in peril in the Hollywood Hills, is adapted for a staged reading.
A Secret Theater Society: Years before they ascended to influential leadership roles, these five women worked at the Public Theater and became cheerleaders for each other’s professional dreams.
A New Swan Takes Flight: The rise of the soloist Chloe Misseldine is part of the artistic director Susan Jaffe’s master plan: Start them young and give them time to grow.
Copland: Symphony No.3, finale
Boston Symphony Orchestra (Pristine)
The legend has dimmed. The Boston Symphony has periodically labored to keep the flame alive, and as it tries to recapture its old progressivism under its new president and chief executive, Chad Smith, it is citing Koussevitzky as precedent. The orchestra is celebrating 150 years since his birth and 100 years since his arrival in Boston with an array of online and physical exhibitions, as well concerts and events at Tanglewood, the summer festival and training center he forged in the Berkshires.
Otherwise, Koussevitzky has been left largely to myth. The only serious biography written in English came out 77 years ago. (Its author, the Boston critic Moses Smith, was unsparing enough that Koussevitzky sued to prevent its release.) Newer volumes by the musicologist Victor Yuzefovich still await translation from Russian. On record, Koussevitzky has fared dreadfully. Bafflingly few of his studio recordings are readily available, though Pristine and other labels offer some, along with live broadcasts. Sony, which has lately brought out sets dedicated to the recordings of many a less consequential conductor, hasn’t confirmed a release date for its coming Koussevitzky box.
How to explain this fate, for a man who was once mentioned in the same breath as Toscanini? For one thing, the sound of Koussevitzky’s Boston Symphony did not endure; his successor, Charles Munch, preferred drier, leaner textures. For another, Koussevitzky’s taste for subjectivity was not exactly fashionable in his own time, and it became still less so as fidelity to the letter of a score became an article of faith among musicians. A third plausible reason is rather more disheartening: As classical music buried its head ever more deeply in the past after Koussevitzky’s death, a legacy that looked resolutely forward paid the price.
Koussevitzky was born as Sergei in 1874, in Vyshny Volochyok, Russia, a town on the road from Moscow to St. Petersburg. His parents were klezmer musicians, and he took to the arts young, forcing his way into music school on a promise to learn the double bass. Remarkably, he became Europe’s leading soloist on the instrument before his making his debut as a conductor in Berlin in 1908. “Oh Lord, how happy I would be if only I could play the double bass!” Furtwängler later said. “Had Koussevitzky not mastered this instrument he would never have succeeded in achieving such sonorities from the strings of his orchestra.”
A black-and-white historical image of Serge Koussevitzky standing with his double bass.
Koussevitzky returned to Russia from Germany. He founded his own orchestra and took it on tour along the Volga River on a steamer. In 1920, after Bolsheviks seized his home and part of his fortune, he joined other émigrés in Paris, where he again formed an ensemble and started a concert series. Commissions like Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” confirmed his reputation as a force for new music; he “created a new orchestral tradition for us,” one French critic reflected. Indeed, Koussevitzky’s reputation crossed the Atlantic before he did. Shortly before he arrived in America, the Boston Symphony had to reassure its patrons that he was not “exclusively a modernist, under whose baton the classics will suffer neglect or worse.”
Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel): ‘Bydlo,’ from ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’
Boston Symphony Orchestra (RCA Gold Seal)
Smith’s biography relates that Koussevitzky’s initial years in Boston posed a steep challenge. The Boston Symphony had experienced its fair share of turbulence: the internment of its conductor, Karl Muck, and the firing of 18 German musicians during World War I; the death of its founder, Henry Lee Higginson, in 1919; a strike, in 1920, whose defeat left the musicians unprotected by a labor union until 1942.
If the conductor Pierre Monteux had brought the orchestra close to its old standards by 1924, Koussevitzky faced his own difficulties. Boston had a long season, and he was expected to conduct almost all of it. Musicians picked at his technique, while stories circulated that he could not read a score and employed pianists to play works through so he could learn them. “It is only a pity that there are not more conductors possessed of a similar abysmal ignorance,” noted Downes, the Times critic.
And Koussevitzky was a bully, humiliating his musicians with the threat of dismissal always in the air. “His orchestra, if they didn’t play well, it was a personal insult to him,” recalled the violinist Harry Ellis Dickson, for an oral history project now held in the orchestra’s archives. “He wasn’t a very nice man,” said Phil Kaplan, a flutist. “He was not a gentleman. He was autocratic to the point of nausea, sometimes.” The bassist Willis Page remembered Koussevitzky being furious at a player who had returned from fighting in World War II and told him that the orchestra should embrace democracy. Page said that Koussevitzky responded: “I’m the dictator. I say ‘do,’ and you do.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Koussevitzky had an exorbitant view of the role of the conductor. “We have a great deal of evidence that musical performers have a right to interpret compositions freely,” he said in 1938. “They hold that right from the composer.” Some composers associated with Koussevitzky hated this idea, most notably Stravinsky, but others were grateful for the honor it implied. “The American composer is accustomed to hit-and-run performances of his works,” Howard Hanson wrote. “He is less accustomed to the Koussevitzky performance, a carefully rehearsed and searching realization of the orchestral score.” Several of his recordings sound strikingly free now, including much of his famous Sibelius.
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, finale
Boston Symphony Orchestra (Pristine)
Composers needed somebody to trust in them, Koussevitzky thought, and above all to play their work with audible belief. Broadcast recordings of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Copland’s Third Symphony and Shostakovich’s Ninth have their flaws, but timidity is not among them. Conceiving music as a living art, Koussevitzky performed a composer’s early works if he saw potential in them, then paid for new ones; if he admired the pieces, he repeated them. In 1949, he gave two Carnegie Hall concerts of music by Americans he had supported: Schuman, Barber, Cowell, Piston, Diamond, Fine, Hanson, Harris, Copland and Burlingame Hill all made the bill.
If the list was long, it was limited. Koussevitzky gave genuine experimentalists little exposure, performing Schoenberg, Berg and Webern only rarely, and never Ives, Ruggles or Varèse. He played music by women such as Lili Boulanger, Germaine Tailleferre and Mabel Daniels, yet offered them no consistent backing. Early Tanglewood classes were relatively diverse, but ongoing research by Douglas Shadle has found that Florence Price was far from the only Black composer to receive a cursory note, if any reply at all, when they asked Koussevitzky to play their works. William L. Dawson and William Grant Still had similar luck.
For better and worse, Koussevitzky’s influence ran deep. “Of all the conductors who have come here he will leave the deepest imprint upon the musical evolution of American,” Downes wrote in a tribute upon his death in 1951. That may not still hold true today. But at least we might take note.
| By David Allen
Reporting from Boston and Lenox, Mass.
July 23, 2024Updated 9:42 a.m. ET
There is a passage in Serge Koussevitzky’s final recording of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony that some listeners might hear in horror, but others with a degree of awe.
He recorded the piece in 1949 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, during the last weeks of his 25 years as its music director. About two minutes from the end of the first movement, the symphony is doing its best to keep calm. Fl | utes and clarinets arc gently, then oboes and horns; the cellos and basses stay constant beneath the nervous skittering of the other strings.
But then the bass begins to pull down. Suddenly the higher strings start to dominate, as anxiety takes hold; that sinking bass becomes inescapable. Tchaikovsky asks for a crescendo. Koussevitzky gives him that, but he also accelerates dramatically into the darkness, as fateful motifs blare. A few seconds later, just as the music seems ready to meet its destiny, Koussevitzky decides to make us wait. Fanfares blaze, entirely out of tempo, only to announce an unwritten silence. And then, savagery. As Tchaikovsky himself described this coda, “no haven exists.”
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.4, first movement
Boston Symphony Orchestra (Pristine)
This is the kind of moment that, in the wrong hands, gives Tchaikovsky a bad name. Koussevitzky was hardly alone in taking liberties with the composer, but many other conductors have at least tried to contain the drama here, rather than let hysteria hang out. Even Wilhelm Furtwängler, who like Koussevitzky sought to follow the spirit implied in a score as much as its explicit text, stayed truer to what Tchaikovsky actually wrote.
But in Koussevitzky’s hands, the effect is shattering. This Tchaikovsky Fourth is irresistible evidence of just how much he and the Boston Symphony achieved in their quarter of a century together. Conviction resounds. The playing is virtuosic, yet not for the sake of display. Every phrase sings. There is formidable power and intensity, but also enough elegance that it feels apt for the writer Harris Goldsmith to have described the Boston strings as “one of the hedonistic delights of Western civilization.” In 1944, the New York Times critic Olin Downes said that Koussevitzky had refined his orchestra into “the most highly perfected and sensitized symphony ensemble in the world.”
ImageA black-and-white historical image shows orchestra members standing onstage with their instruments, wearing black pants, white jackets and bow ties. The conductor holds the hand of Eleanor Roosevelt, who is smiling and facing outward.
Many of Koussevitzky’s contemporaries, however, thought that his legacy would lie not just in the unmatched technical facility that he drilled into his players, but in what he insisted that they perform. As the critic and composer Virgil Thomson wrote in 1947, “His unique position in a world full of excellent conductors, many of them devoted to contemporary music, is that he has played more of it, launched more of it, published more of it and paid for more of it than anybody else living.” His place in history, Thomson concluded, was “already assured and glorious.”
Koussevitzky’s record remains remarkable, as if he bent a significant part of music history to his will. Deploying wealth acquired from his marriage to his second wife, Natalie Ushkova, in 1909 he founded Éditions Russes de Musique, a publishing house that he used to provide financial security for Russian composers, as well as scores for himself build his career. Scriabin, Prokofiev and Stravinsky all benefited. In 1942, in memory of Natalie, he created the Koussevitzky Music Foundation to fund new works. Britten, Messiaen and Martinu received early commissions; its grants currently total 448.
According to the Boston Symphony, the orchestra gave 146 world premieres during his tenure, as well as another 86 U.S. premieres and many, many more performances of recent pieces he thought deserving of an audience. He led more than 300 works written by Americans. To those in his favor, he was a hero. “It is easy to foresee that the story of Serge Koussevitzky and the American composer will some day take on the character of a legend,” said Aaron Copland, a friend. “Here at least is one legend that will have been well founded.”
More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance
The Details Are in the Devil: “Life and Trust,” a new immersive piece of theater from the producers of “Sleep No More,” transports visitors to the Gilded Age through a retrofitted skyscraper in Manhattan.
A Queer Mountain Lion’s Leap: Henry Hoke’s 2023 novel, “Open Throat,” narrated by an animal in peril in the Hollywood Hills, is adapted for a staged reading.
A Secret Theater Society: Years before they ascended to influential leadership roles, these five women worked at the Public Theater and became cheerleaders for each other’s professional dreams.
A New Swan Takes Flight: The rise of the soloist Chloe Misseldine is part of the artistic director Susan Jaffe’s master plan: Start them young and give them time to grow.
Copland: Symphony No.3, finale
Boston Symphony Orchestra (Pristine)
The legend has dimmed. The Boston Symphony has periodically labored to keep the flame alive, and as it tries to recapture its old progressivism under its new president and chief executive, Chad Smith, it is citing Koussevitzky as precedent. The orchestra is celebrating 150 years since his birth and 100 years since his arrival in Boston with an array of online and physical exhibitions, as well concerts and events at Tanglewood, the summer festival and training center he forged in the Berkshires.
Otherwise, Koussevitzky has been left largely to myth. The only serious biography written in English came out 77 years ago. (Its author, the Boston critic Moses Smith, was unsparing enough that Koussevitzky sued to prevent its release.) Newer volumes by the musicologist Victor Yuzefovich still await translation from Russian. On record, Koussevitzky has fared dreadfully. Bafflingly few of his studio recordings are readily available, though Pristine and other labels offer some, along with live broadcasts. Sony, which has lately brought out sets dedicated to the recordings of many a less consequential conductor, hasn’t confirmed a release date for its coming Koussevitzky box.
How to explain this fate, for a man who was once mentioned in the same breath as Toscanini? For one thing, the sound of Koussevitzky’s Boston Symphony did not endure; his successor, Charles Munch, preferred drier, leaner textures. For another, Koussevitzky’s taste for subjectivity was not exactly fashionable in his own time, and it became still less so as fidelity to the letter of a score became an article of faith among musicians. A third plausible reason is rather more disheartening: As classical music buried its head ever more deeply in the past after Koussevitzky’s death, a legacy that looked resolutely forward paid the price.
Koussevitzky was born as Sergei in 1874, in Vyshny Volochyok, Russia, a town on the road from Moscow to St. Petersburg. His parents were klezmer musicians, and he took to the arts young, forcing his way into music school on a promise to learn the double bass. Remarkably, he became Europe’s leading soloist on the instrument before his making his debut as a conductor in Berlin in 1908. “Oh Lord, how happy I would be if only I could play the double bass!” Furtwängler later said. “Had Koussevitzky not mastered this instrument he would never have succeeded in achieving such sonorities from the strings of his orchestra.”
A black-and-white historical image of Serge Koussevitzky standing with his double bass.
Koussevitzky returned to Russia from Germany. He founded his own orchestra and took it on tour along the Volga River on a steamer. In 1920, after Bolsheviks seized his home and part of his fortune, he joined other émigrés in Paris, where he again formed an ensemble and started a concert series. Commissions like Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” confirmed his reputation as a force for new music; he “created a new orchestral tradition for us,” one French critic reflected. Indeed, Koussevitzky’s reputation crossed the Atlantic before he did. Shortly before he arrived in America, the Boston Symphony had to reassure its patrons that he was not “exclusively a modernist, under whose baton the classics will suffer neglect or worse.”
Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel): ‘Bydlo,’ from ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’
Boston Symphony Orchestra (RCA Gold Seal)
Smith’s biography relates that Koussevitzky’s initial years in Boston posed a steep challenge. The Boston Symphony had experienced its fair share of turbulence: the internment of its conductor, Karl Muck, and the firing of 18 German musicians during World War I; the death of its founder, Henry Lee Higginson, in 1919; a strike, in 1920, whose defeat left the musicians unprotected by a labor union until 1942.
If the conductor Pierre Monteux had brought the orchestra close to its old standards by 1924, Koussevitzky faced his own difficulties. Boston had a long season, and he was expected to conduct almost all of it. Musicians picked at his technique, while stories circulated that he could not read a score and employed pianists to play works through so he could learn them. “It is only a pity that there are not more conductors possessed of a similar abysmal ignorance,” noted Downes, the Times critic.
And Koussevitzky was a bully, humiliating his musicians with the threat of dismissal always in the air. “His orchestra, if they didn’t play well, it was a personal insult to him,” recalled the violinist Harry Ellis Dickson, for an oral history project now held in the orchestra’s archives. “He wasn’t a very nice man,” said Phil Kaplan, a flutist. “He was not a gentleman. He was autocratic to the point of nausea, sometimes.” The bassist Willis Page remembered Koussevitzky being furious at a player who had returned from fighting in World War II and told him that the orchestra should embrace democracy. Page said that Koussevitzky responded: “I’m the dictator. I say ‘do,’ and you do.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Koussevitzky had an exorbitant view of the role of the conductor. “We have a great deal of evidence that musical performers have a right to interpret compositions freely,” he said in 1938. “They hold that right from the composer.” Some composers associated with Koussevitzky hated this idea, most notably Stravinsky, but others were grateful for the honor it implied. “The American composer is accustomed to hit-and-run performances of his works,” Howard Hanson wrote. “He is less accustomed to the Koussevitzky performance, a carefully rehearsed and searching realization of the orchestral score.” Several of his recordings sound strikingly free now, including much of his famous Sibelius.
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, finale
Boston Symphony Orchestra (Pristine)
Composers needed somebody to trust in them, Koussevitzky thought, and above all to play their work with audible belief. Broadcast recordings of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Copland’s Third Symphony and Shostakovich’s Ninth have their flaws, but timidity is not among them. Conceiving music as a living art, Koussevitzky performed a composer’s early works if he saw potential in them, then paid for new ones; if he admired the pieces, he repeated them. In 1949, he gave two Carnegie Hall concerts of music by Americans he had supported: Schuman, Barber, Cowell, Piston, Diamond, Fine, Hanson, Harris, Copland and Burlingame Hill all made the bill.
If the list was long, it was limited. Koussevitzky gave genuine experimentalists little exposure, performing Schoenberg, Berg and Webern only rarely, and never Ives, Ruggles or Varèse. He played music by women such as Lili Boulanger, Germaine Tailleferre and Mabel Daniels, yet offered them no consistent backing. Early Tanglewood classes were relatively diverse, but ongoing research by Douglas Shadle has found that Florence Price was far from the only Black composer to receive a cursory note, if any reply at all, when they asked Koussevitzky to play their works. William L. Dawson and William Grant Still had similar luck.
For better and worse, Koussevitzky’s influence ran deep. “Of all the conductors who have come here he will leave the deepest imprint upon the musical evolution of American,” Downes wrote in a tribute upon his death in 1951. That may not still hold true today. But at least we might take note.
|
Republican Populists Are Responding to Something Real.txt | By Julius Krein
Mr. Krein is the editor of American Affairs.
Before last week’s Republican convention, Donald Trump seemed to be moving away from the populism that characterized his 2016 campaign. “This time around, the former president isn’t even pretending to stand up to corporate power,” Rogé Karma observed in The Atlantic. “He’s defending big business, cozying up to billionaires, and wooing C.E.O.s.”
When Mr. Trump named Senator JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate, though, pundits quickly concluded that he was doubling down on populism. Mr. Vance has been a leading critic of Reagan-Bush policy orthodoxy in the G.O.P., has expressed skepticism of further corporate tax cuts and has even voiced approval of President Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, whose aggressive antitrust enforcement has angered big business. In his convention speech, Mr. Vance denounced NAFTA and China trade deals and promised to prioritize American workers over multinational corporations.
On the other hand, in a long interview with Bloomberg (conducted in late June) that came out after the announcement of Mr. Vance’s selection, Mr. Trump hardly sounded like a firebrand economic populist. He floated the idea of reducing corporate tax rates to 15 percent and said he’d consider the JPMorgan Chase C.E.O., Jamie Dimon, as a potential Treasury secretary.
Mr. Trump’s own convention speech hardly clarified his policy priorities. He simultaneously promised to cut taxes, leave Social Security unchanged, reduce the deficit, raise tariffs and lower inflation.
Mr. Trump’s Republican Party thus presents a paradox. On the one hand, Mr. Trump has clearly succeeded in uniting the party around him. At the same time, the Republican policy conversation has only grown more diffuse — if not confusing and cacophonous. In other words, Mr. Trump’s consolidated control of the Republican Party has had the surprising effect of making its policies more, not less, unsettled.
We saw plenty of evidence of this throughout the Republican convention and in the party platform. Speakers on the first day alone ranged from anti-union, pro-free-trade, low-taxes Senator Ron Johnson to Teamsters union President Sean O’Brien, who excoriated Amazon, Uber and other giant corporations for exploiting workers and selling out national interests.
The party’s official platform offers divergent planks without any attempt to reconcile them. Commentators have already highlighted a number of apparent contradictions: Tighter labor markets resulting from a crackdown on illegal immigration and “the largest deportation operation in American history,” coupled with more tariffs, would, at least in the immediate term, seem to conflict with the goal of lowering inflation. According to some analysts, including at times Senator Vance, the call to “keep the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency” might inhibit the goal of turning the United States into a “manufacturing superpower.”
Since 2016, pundits and politicians have divided the Republican Party into pro-Trump and anti-Trump, or populist and establishment, factions. These factions are said to have fundamentally different constituencies (the party’s working-class base versus major donors, corporate lobbies and establishment institutions) that pursue fundamentally different ends (MAGA nationalism versus global neoliberalism). The trajectory of the Trump 2024 campaign, however, suggests it may be time to retire, or at least revise, this framing.
G.O.P. factional quarrels still occur, but the combatants no longer contest the party’s first principles or ultimate aims. Mr. Trump cannot be seriously challenged in setting the goals of the party; those who continue to reject him, like Liz Cheney, have simply become irrelevant to Republican politics.
Instead, factional battles are largely confined to disputes over the means to achieve Trumpian goals. Additionally, the lines between factions are blurring. Senator Vance is enthusiastically supported by the party’s economic nationalists, but he is also a favorite of Silicon Valley donors, including Elon Musk, a group otherwise known for libertarian and socially liberal instincts.
In this sense, the Trump G.O.P. is increasingly coming to resemble the Democratic Party of recent decades (leaving aside the convulsions of the current moment). Paralleling Republican fault lines, centrist Democrats can be distinguished from progressive populists, but the two sides seldom question each other’s basic legitimacy in the way that Never Trumpers once sought to purge MAGA populism.
Both Democratic factions, each with its own respectable and sometimes overlapping donor base, typically claim to share the same worldview and primarily debate the means to realizing it. Centrists as well as progressives, for example, claim they want to reduce housing costs for low earners, but centrists tend to argue that relaxing zoning restrictions and environmental permitting reform are better policy tools than rent control and subsidization.
The G.O.P. increasingly replicates these dynamics. As the convention speeches indicate, middle-of-the road Republicans like Senator Tim Scott are now generally happy to follow Mr. Trump’s lead in calling for a revival of U.S. manufacturing and other populist goals. Look closer, however, and there remains a divide over how to get there. Some stick to a conventional conservative tool kit of tax cuts and deregulation; others urge more interventionist measures like tariffs.
But the Republican factional divide differs in key respects from the Democrats’. On the Democratic side, most of the party’s technocrats align firmly with the centrist faction. When it comes to the unglamorous business of governing and staffing bureaucracies, this gives centrist Democrats a significant advantage over both their progressive and Republican rivals. Centrist liberals still tend to think of themselves — and are still often perceived as — the adults in the room. Agree with their policy positions or not, they typically emphasize pragmatism and responsibility over progressives’ moral and ideological purity, and policy rigor over populist bluster.
Among Republicans, by contrast, there are not many competent technocrats in either faction. To be sure, there are more intellectuals and organizations on the populist right than there were eight years ago, and the staffing of a second Trump administration would almost certainly be better organized than in 2017. But populist Republicans still lack institutional depth.
Legacy conservative institutions remain well endowed, but their number of serious policy scholars with credibility among both Republican officeholders and the wider intellectual elite is vanishingly small.
This problem is visible in the party platform, perhaps the clearest indication to date of Mr. Trump’s own policy preferences and the G.O.P.’s center of gravity.
The platform’s 20 bullet points feature many populist economic commitments (“seal the border,” “stop outsourcing,” “no cuts” to Social Security and Medicare). Perhaps surprisingly, the platform does not call for making all of the 2017 tax cuts permanent, mentioning only the expanded standard deduction and child tax credit. But the ensuing 10 chapters of explanatory gloss are light on specifics — the whole document is only 16 pages — with details on the more populist elements virtually nonexistent. There is a vague mention of tariffs, but little in the way of a plan to “turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower” or “modernize our military,” which might involve industrial policy measures or defense procurement reform.
A common response to such omissions is that Mr. Trump has always been a “fake populist,” out to dupe gullible voters with deceptive sloganeering. This explanation seems too glib. Would Mr. Trump, at this point, lose any support for dropping or softening talk of re-shoring and tariffs? It seems unlikely — Republican economic nationalists have nowhere else to turn, while many donors would cheer — and yet these items remain.
Mr. Trump did not hesitate to support softening longstanding G.O.P. commitments to a federal abortion ban or traditional definitions of marriage in this year’s platform. It seems difficult to argue, then, that Mr. Trump’s economic populism is totally insincere, though it remains questionable whether he and his inner circle are capable of developing a coherent agenda, much less carrying out one.
On this point, the Reagan-Bush old guard would still like to claim for itself the mantle of policy seriousness and administrative competence. But its ideological adherence to fundamentally discredited policy positions undermines its credibility. Tax cuts, at least in recent decades, have not paid for themselves. The erosion of the U.S. industrial base is a major problem.
Whether or not one agrees with the solutions offered by right-populists, they are responding to real problems, and on issues such as Social Security, they have also displayed more political realism and flexibility than, say, Bush-era Republicans. Nevertheless, they have not quite established themselves as a new center — among Republicans or in the nation as a whole — and many seem to prefer to cast themselves as insurgents and outsiders rather than assume the responsibilities of a governing establishment.
Here, the G.O.P.’s crosscutting policy impulses arguably reflect deeper challenges that go beyond partisan dynamics. With the rise of China as a peer competitor, increasingly assertive and aligned with Russia, we face a new geopolitical and geoeconomic order. The tailwinds supporting consumption and financial asset appreciation that arose from the unipolar moment after the Cold War — and which covered over U.S. industrial decline — are slowly fading.
America faces many difficult choices in the years ahead that will be costly for any party or politician to confront. More and more, these incoherent policy positions simply point to problems with no easy solutions, and decisions that no one wants to make.
| By Julius Krein
Mr. Krein is the editor of American Affairs.
Before last week’s Republican convention, Donald Trump seemed to be moving away from the populism that characterized his 2016 campaign. “This time around, the former president isn’t even pretending to stand up to corporate power,” Rogé Karma observed in The Atlantic. “He’s defending big business, cozying up to billionaires, and wooing C.E.O.s.”
When Mr. Trump named Senator JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate, though, pundits quickly concluded that he was doubling down on populism. Mr | . Vance has been a leading critic of Reagan-Bush policy orthodoxy in the G.O.P., has expressed skepticism of further corporate tax cuts and has even voiced approval of President Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, whose aggressive antitrust enforcement has angered big business. In his convention speech, Mr. Vance denounced NAFTA and China trade deals and promised to prioritize American workers over multinational corporations.
On the other hand, in a long interview with Bloomberg (conducted in late June) that came out after the announcement of Mr. Vance’s selection, Mr. Trump hardly sounded like a firebrand economic populist. He floated the idea of reducing corporate tax rates to 15 percent and said he’d consider the JPMorgan Chase C.E.O., Jamie Dimon, as a potential Treasury secretary.
Mr. Trump’s own convention speech hardly clarified his policy priorities. He simultaneously promised to cut taxes, leave Social Security unchanged, reduce the deficit, raise tariffs and lower inflation.
Mr. Trump’s Republican Party thus presents a paradox. On the one hand, Mr. Trump has clearly succeeded in uniting the party around him. At the same time, the Republican policy conversation has only grown more diffuse — if not confusing and cacophonous. In other words, Mr. Trump’s consolidated control of the Republican Party has had the surprising effect of making its policies more, not less, unsettled.
We saw plenty of evidence of this throughout the Republican convention and in the party platform. Speakers on the first day alone ranged from anti-union, pro-free-trade, low-taxes Senator Ron Johnson to Teamsters union President Sean O’Brien, who excoriated Amazon, Uber and other giant corporations for exploiting workers and selling out national interests.
The party’s official platform offers divergent planks without any attempt to reconcile them. Commentators have already highlighted a number of apparent contradictions: Tighter labor markets resulting from a crackdown on illegal immigration and “the largest deportation operation in American history,” coupled with more tariffs, would, at least in the immediate term, seem to conflict with the goal of lowering inflation. According to some analysts, including at times Senator Vance, the call to “keep the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency” might inhibit the goal of turning the United States into a “manufacturing superpower.”
Since 2016, pundits and politicians have divided the Republican Party into pro-Trump and anti-Trump, or populist and establishment, factions. These factions are said to have fundamentally different constituencies (the party’s working-class base versus major donors, corporate lobbies and establishment institutions) that pursue fundamentally different ends (MAGA nationalism versus global neoliberalism). The trajectory of the Trump 2024 campaign, however, suggests it may be time to retire, or at least revise, this framing.
G.O.P. factional quarrels still occur, but the combatants no longer contest the party’s first principles or ultimate aims. Mr. Trump cannot be seriously challenged in setting the goals of the party; those who continue to reject him, like Liz Cheney, have simply become irrelevant to Republican politics.
Instead, factional battles are largely confined to disputes over the means to achieve Trumpian goals. Additionally, the lines between factions are blurring. Senator Vance is enthusiastically supported by the party’s economic nationalists, but he is also a favorite of Silicon Valley donors, including Elon Musk, a group otherwise known for libertarian and socially liberal instincts.
In this sense, the Trump G.O.P. is increasingly coming to resemble the Democratic Party of recent decades (leaving aside the convulsions of the current moment). Paralleling Republican fault lines, centrist Democrats can be distinguished from progressive populists, but the two sides seldom question each other’s basic legitimacy in the way that Never Trumpers once sought to purge MAGA populism.
Both Democratic factions, each with its own respectable and sometimes overlapping donor base, typically claim to share the same worldview and primarily debate the means to realizing it. Centrists as well as progressives, for example, claim they want to reduce housing costs for low earners, but centrists tend to argue that relaxing zoning restrictions and environmental permitting reform are better policy tools than rent control and subsidization.
The G.O.P. increasingly replicates these dynamics. As the convention speeches indicate, middle-of-the road Republicans like Senator Tim Scott are now generally happy to follow Mr. Trump’s lead in calling for a revival of U.S. manufacturing and other populist goals. Look closer, however, and there remains a divide over how to get there. Some stick to a conventional conservative tool kit of tax cuts and deregulation; others urge more interventionist measures like tariffs.
But the Republican factional divide differs in key respects from the Democrats’. On the Democratic side, most of the party’s technocrats align firmly with the centrist faction. When it comes to the unglamorous business of governing and staffing bureaucracies, this gives centrist Democrats a significant advantage over both their progressive and Republican rivals. Centrist liberals still tend to think of themselves — and are still often perceived as — the adults in the room. Agree with their policy positions or not, they typically emphasize pragmatism and responsibility over progressives’ moral and ideological purity, and policy rigor over populist bluster.
Among Republicans, by contrast, there are not many competent technocrats in either faction. To be sure, there are more intellectuals and organizations on the populist right than there were eight years ago, and the staffing of a second Trump administration would almost certainly be better organized than in 2017. But populist Republicans still lack institutional depth.
Legacy conservative institutions remain well endowed, but their number of serious policy scholars with credibility among both Republican officeholders and the wider intellectual elite is vanishingly small.
This problem is visible in the party platform, perhaps the clearest indication to date of Mr. Trump’s own policy preferences and the G.O.P.’s center of gravity.
The platform’s 20 bullet points feature many populist economic commitments (“seal the border,” “stop outsourcing,” “no cuts” to Social Security and Medicare). Perhaps surprisingly, the platform does not call for making all of the 2017 tax cuts permanent, mentioning only the expanded standard deduction and child tax credit. But the ensuing 10 chapters of explanatory gloss are light on specifics — the whole document is only 16 pages — with details on the more populist elements virtually nonexistent. There is a vague mention of tariffs, but little in the way of a plan to “turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower” or “modernize our military,” which might involve industrial policy measures or defense procurement reform.
A common response to such omissions is that Mr. Trump has always been a “fake populist,” out to dupe gullible voters with deceptive sloganeering. This explanation seems too glib. Would Mr. Trump, at this point, lose any support for dropping or softening talk of re-shoring and tariffs? It seems unlikely — Republican economic nationalists have nowhere else to turn, while many donors would cheer — and yet these items remain.
Mr. Trump did not hesitate to support softening longstanding G.O.P. commitments to a federal abortion ban or traditional definitions of marriage in this year’s platform. It seems difficult to argue, then, that Mr. Trump’s economic populism is totally insincere, though it remains questionable whether he and his inner circle are capable of developing a coherent agenda, much less carrying out one.
On this point, the Reagan-Bush old guard would still like to claim for itself the mantle of policy seriousness and administrative competence. But its ideological adherence to fundamentally discredited policy positions undermines its credibility. Tax cuts, at least in recent decades, have not paid for themselves. The erosion of the U.S. industrial base is a major problem.
Whether or not one agrees with the solutions offered by right-populists, they are responding to real problems, and on issues such as Social Security, they have also displayed more political realism and flexibility than, say, Bush-era Republicans. Nevertheless, they have not quite established themselves as a new center — among Republicans or in the nation as a whole — and many seem to prefer to cast themselves as insurgents and outsiders rather than assume the responsibilities of a governing establishment.
Here, the G.O.P.’s crosscutting policy impulses arguably reflect deeper challenges that go beyond partisan dynamics. With the rise of China as a peer competitor, increasingly assertive and aligned with Russia, we face a new geopolitical and geoeconomic order. The tailwinds supporting consumption and financial asset appreciation that arose from the unipolar moment after the Cold War — and which covered over U.S. industrial decline — are slowly fading.
America faces many difficult choices in the years ahead that will be costly for any party or politician to confront. More and more, these incoherent policy positions simply point to problems with no easy solutions, and decisions that no one wants to make.
|
What’s the latest on Jasper Johnson’s recruitment, with Kentucky, Alabama, UNC in the mix?.txt | By Kyle Tucker
Jul 20, 2024
NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Jasper Johnson’s recruitment is winding down, with a decision likely coming in the next month, and his commitment could be a litmus test of sorts for three of the biggest brands in college basketball: Kentucky, North Carolina and Alabama. Also known as his parents’ alma mater, the other shade of blue blood and the SEC’s new powerhouse.
Johnson, a top-10 prospect in the 2025 high school class, grew up 15 minutes from Rupp Arena, the son of Dennis, a local legend and former football star at Kentucky. New Wildcats coach Mark Pope badly wants Johnson to become his first five-star commitment, proof Pope can land the kind of elite talent his predecessor, John Calipari, hoarded for the past 15 years. He isn’t taking for granted that a blue-chipper sprouted in the program’s backyard.
“He’s definitely got to get — he wants to get — that first big piece,” Dennis said. “He went to see Jasper play with USA Basketball in Argentina. He sat down with us in his office on a visit and talked for two hours. He called me the other day, and we talked for 45 minutes. He’s made it very, very clear that he wants Jasper to be the first piece of this recruiting class.”
Pope’s problem? This doesn’t appear to be a 2-foot putt. Despite Johnson’s proximity to the program and his family’s allegiance — his mother is “the biggest Kentucky fan,” a cousin of former UK football star Craig Yeast — Johnson grew up a North Carolina basketball fan.
The Pulse Newsletter
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox. Sign up
“We went to Kentucky games when he was young, but he wasn’t just a die-hard,” Dennis said. “He’s a different kid. Being this close, he understands what the lure of Kentucky basketball is, but he just loves watching basketball, period, and he always really liked Carolina. Once he met Hubert Davis, he just thinks he’s a great guy. I talk to that staff every single day. We went to the Carolina-Duke game, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever been to in my life. Him seeing that, being on the front row for that, I think just pricked something in his brain.”
And then there are the rising Tide. Under Nate Oats, Alabama won the SEC in 2021 and 2023, reached the program’s first Final Four last season and has produced six NBA Draft picks in the past four years, including the No. 2 pick, Brandon Miller, in 2023. Oats and his electric offense have become attractive to top transfers and five-star recruits. Now he has a chance to deliver an early blow to the approval rating for Kentucky’s new coach.
Jasper Johnson is being recruited by three of the biggest brands in college basketball: Kentucky, North Carolina and Alabama. (Stu Boyd II / USA Today)
“Their style of play is very big,” Dennis said. “Nate has talked a lot to him about style of play and analytics. We got a chance to talk to Brandon Miller, and he said, ‘I didn’t really become a greater player; it’s just that I stopped taking dumb shots because their analytics helped me know which shots were better.’ And they’re coming off a Final Four. I mean, come on. Nate’s sitting in his office pointing to the draft guys on his wall and the trophies, saying, ‘Listen, you’re not going to be an experiment for me. I’ve already done this.’”
Alabama assistant Preston Murphy is an elite recruiter, and “I’ve talked to Preston every day for two months,” Dennis said.
Pope is being welcomed to the world of big-time recruiting. Johnson has taken official visits to the three biggest contenders, plus Missouri and Illinois, and he might still sneak in an official visit to Arkansas, Calipari’s new home, before the decision. Louisville and Baylor are pushing for visits. Recruiting in these waters, there are no gimmes. Pope happens to be Johnson’s only serious suitor without proof of concept, having won zero NCAA Tournament games and coached zero draft picks.
“That’s always a question mark in my head,” Johnson said.
But that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker.
“The day we went over there for a visit, that night, I went up to his room, and he was in there watching some BYU videos,” Dennis said. “He’s kind of trying to figure it out, envision how they’ll use him. That’s definitely the style he wants to play. It’s going to be super tough to decide because, right now, Alabama, Kentucky and Carolina are probably neck-and-neck.”
Alabama and North Carolina have signed friends and former teammates of Johnson’s. Oats was the first high-major coach to start seriously recruiting him, back in the summer before his freshman season in high school. It’s not hard to understand why Johnson might leave home for college, but there are things those places just can’t offer.
“My mom wants me to stay home,” Johnson said. “She’s proud of me wherever I go, doesn’t really put any pressure on me to stay home. (But) coach Pope has really been pushing to me that I’m one of the best guards in the country, if not the best — that he’s wanting me to stay home but also prioritizing me because I’m one of the best players in the class. He always pitches to me that he wants to win a banner as well, and he sees me coming in and being a big impact from day one. Hearing that is good.”
The Johnson family has been hearing a lot of things lately. Dennis connected with former Kentucky star Jeff Sheppard, whose son, Reed, just traveled the path from homegrown hero to Wildcats star to a one-and-done lottery pick, for advice on how to handle the circus. Sheppard also happens to be Pope’s old roommate at Kentucky.
“He’s been very helpful to us. He always says, ‘Do what’s best for Jasper,’” Dennis said. “It’s almost time. He’ll decide sooner than later. Whether he goes to Kentucky or he doesn’t, I want him to make the best decision for him, where he feels most comfortable. Everybody I see, whether I’m out walking or working out or in the store, talks about Kentucky. But my dad let me make my own decision, and he has to make his own.”
(Top photo: Stu Boyd II / USA Today)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
| By Kyle Tucker
Jul 20, 2024
NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Jasper Johnson’s recruitment is winding down, with a decision likely coming in the next month, and his commitment could be a litmus test of sorts for three of the biggest brands in college basketball: Kentucky, North Carolina and Alabama. Also known as his parents’ alma mater, the other shade of blue blood and the SEC’s new powerhouse.
Johnson, a top-10 prospect in the 2025 high school class, grew up 15 minutes from Rupp Arena, the son | of Dennis, a local legend and former football star at Kentucky. New Wildcats coach Mark Pope badly wants Johnson to become his first five-star commitment, proof Pope can land the kind of elite talent his predecessor, John Calipari, hoarded for the past 15 years. He isn’t taking for granted that a blue-chipper sprouted in the program’s backyard.
“He’s definitely got to get — he wants to get — that first big piece,” Dennis said. “He went to see Jasper play with USA Basketball in Argentina. He sat down with us in his office on a visit and talked for two hours. He called me the other day, and we talked for 45 minutes. He’s made it very, very clear that he wants Jasper to be the first piece of this recruiting class.”
Pope’s problem? This doesn’t appear to be a 2-foot putt. Despite Johnson’s proximity to the program and his family’s allegiance — his mother is “the biggest Kentucky fan,” a cousin of former UK football star Craig Yeast — Johnson grew up a North Carolina basketball fan.
The Pulse Newsletter
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox. Sign up
“We went to Kentucky games when he was young, but he wasn’t just a die-hard,” Dennis said. “He’s a different kid. Being this close, he understands what the lure of Kentucky basketball is, but he just loves watching basketball, period, and he always really liked Carolina. Once he met Hubert Davis, he just thinks he’s a great guy. I talk to that staff every single day. We went to the Carolina-Duke game, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever been to in my life. Him seeing that, being on the front row for that, I think just pricked something in his brain.”
And then there are the rising Tide. Under Nate Oats, Alabama won the SEC in 2021 and 2023, reached the program’s first Final Four last season and has produced six NBA Draft picks in the past four years, including the No. 2 pick, Brandon Miller, in 2023. Oats and his electric offense have become attractive to top transfers and five-star recruits. Now he has a chance to deliver an early blow to the approval rating for Kentucky’s new coach.
Jasper Johnson is being recruited by three of the biggest brands in college basketball: Kentucky, North Carolina and Alabama. (Stu Boyd II / USA Today)
“Their style of play is very big,” Dennis said. “Nate has talked a lot to him about style of play and analytics. We got a chance to talk to Brandon Miller, and he said, ‘I didn’t really become a greater player; it’s just that I stopped taking dumb shots because their analytics helped me know which shots were better.’ And they’re coming off a Final Four. I mean, come on. Nate’s sitting in his office pointing to the draft guys on his wall and the trophies, saying, ‘Listen, you’re not going to be an experiment for me. I’ve already done this.’”
Alabama assistant Preston Murphy is an elite recruiter, and “I’ve talked to Preston every day for two months,” Dennis said.
Pope is being welcomed to the world of big-time recruiting. Johnson has taken official visits to the three biggest contenders, plus Missouri and Illinois, and he might still sneak in an official visit to Arkansas, Calipari’s new home, before the decision. Louisville and Baylor are pushing for visits. Recruiting in these waters, there are no gimmes. Pope happens to be Johnson’s only serious suitor without proof of concept, having won zero NCAA Tournament games and coached zero draft picks.
“That’s always a question mark in my head,” Johnson said.
But that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker.
“The day we went over there for a visit, that night, I went up to his room, and he was in there watching some BYU videos,” Dennis said. “He’s kind of trying to figure it out, envision how they’ll use him. That’s definitely the style he wants to play. It’s going to be super tough to decide because, right now, Alabama, Kentucky and Carolina are probably neck-and-neck.”
Alabama and North Carolina have signed friends and former teammates of Johnson’s. Oats was the first high-major coach to start seriously recruiting him, back in the summer before his freshman season in high school. It’s not hard to understand why Johnson might leave home for college, but there are things those places just can’t offer.
“My mom wants me to stay home,” Johnson said. “She’s proud of me wherever I go, doesn’t really put any pressure on me to stay home. (But) coach Pope has really been pushing to me that I’m one of the best guards in the country, if not the best — that he’s wanting me to stay home but also prioritizing me because I’m one of the best players in the class. He always pitches to me that he wants to win a banner as well, and he sees me coming in and being a big impact from day one. Hearing that is good.”
The Johnson family has been hearing a lot of things lately. Dennis connected with former Kentucky star Jeff Sheppard, whose son, Reed, just traveled the path from homegrown hero to Wildcats star to a one-and-done lottery pick, for advice on how to handle the circus. Sheppard also happens to be Pope’s old roommate at Kentucky.
“He’s been very helpful to us. He always says, ‘Do what’s best for Jasper,’” Dennis said. “It’s almost time. He’ll decide sooner than later. Whether he goes to Kentucky or he doesn’t, I want him to make the best decision for him, where he feels most comfortable. Everybody I see, whether I’m out walking or working out or in the store, talks about Kentucky. But my dad let me make my own decision, and he has to make his own.”
(Top photo: Stu Boyd II / USA Today)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
|
An ‘Awful Event’ for the United States, and an Editor.txt | By David W. Dunlap
July 20, 2024
In the In Times Past column, David W. Dunlap explores New York Times history through artifacts housed in the Museum of The Times.
The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, was an awful event for the United States. But it was truly awful for Henry Jarvis Raymond (1820-1869), the founding editor of The New York Times, a supporter, confidant and biographer of Lincoln whom the president once called “my lieutenant general in politics.”
“AWFUL EVENT,” began the headline atop the front page of The Times on April 15. It continued: “President Lincoln Shot by an Assassin. The Deed Done at Ford’s Theatre Last Night. The Act of a Desperate Rebel. The President Still Alive at Last Accounts. No Hopes Entertained of His Recovery. Attempted Assassination of Secretary Seward. Details of the Dreadful Tragedy.” Heavy black borders framed the columns of type, a sign of mourning.
An original copy of this issue is in the Museum at The Times.
Booth and his co-conspirators hoped to upend the government that night by killing Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward, too. Johnson’s would-be assassin lost his nerve, but the man charged with taking Seward’s life stabbed him several times as he lay in bed at home. He survived.
The vicious attack on Seward may have been almost as traumatic for Raymond as the killing of Lincoln. Seward was Raymond’s good friend and political exemplar. They had joined forces under the Whig Party banner in the 1840s and were instrumental in shaping the new Republican Party that emerged in the 1850s.
Much of Raymond’s influence came from his position at The Times. But he also served — while editing The Times — as speaker of the New York State Assembly, lieutenant governor of New York and a U.S. representative.
(He wouldn’t have stood a chance now. The Times’s Ethical Journalism handbook states: “No staff member may seek public office anywhere. Seeking or serving in public office plainly violates the professional detachment expected of a journalist.”)
Though Raymond played a key role in securing Lincoln’s renomination and re-election in 1864, Seward was his first choice as the Republican presidential nominee in 1860. The last editorial Raymond wrote for The Times, published on June 17, 1869, said of Seward, “The whole of a long life and abilities, such as few men possess, have been given to the service of the country.”
A day later, Raymond died of an apparent stroke, at age 49. Seward survived him by three years.
| By David W. Dunlap
July 20, 2024
In the In Times Past column, David W. Dunlap explores New York Times history through artifacts housed in the Museum of The Times.
The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, was an awful event for the United States. But it was truly awful for Henry Jarvis Raymond (1820-1869), the founding editor of The New York Times, a supporter, confidant and biographer of Lincoln whom the president once called “my lieutenant general in politics | .”
“AWFUL EVENT,” began the headline atop the front page of The Times on April 15. It continued: “President Lincoln Shot by an Assassin. The Deed Done at Ford’s Theatre Last Night. The Act of a Desperate Rebel. The President Still Alive at Last Accounts. No Hopes Entertained of His Recovery. Attempted Assassination of Secretary Seward. Details of the Dreadful Tragedy.” Heavy black borders framed the columns of type, a sign of mourning.
An original copy of this issue is in the Museum at The Times.
Booth and his co-conspirators hoped to upend the government that night by killing Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward, too. Johnson’s would-be assassin lost his nerve, but the man charged with taking Seward’s life stabbed him several times as he lay in bed at home. He survived.
The vicious attack on Seward may have been almost as traumatic for Raymond as the killing of Lincoln. Seward was Raymond’s good friend and political exemplar. They had joined forces under the Whig Party banner in the 1840s and were instrumental in shaping the new Republican Party that emerged in the 1850s.
Much of Raymond’s influence came from his position at The Times. But he also served — while editing The Times — as speaker of the New York State Assembly, lieutenant governor of New York and a U.S. representative.
(He wouldn’t have stood a chance now. The Times’s Ethical Journalism handbook states: “No staff member may seek public office anywhere. Seeking or serving in public office plainly violates the professional detachment expected of a journalist.”)
Though Raymond played a key role in securing Lincoln’s renomination and re-election in 1864, Seward was his first choice as the Republican presidential nominee in 1860. The last editorial Raymond wrote for The Times, published on June 17, 1869, said of Seward, “The whole of a long life and abilities, such as few men possess, have been given to the service of the country.”
A day later, Raymond died of an apparent stroke, at age 49. Seward survived him by three years.
|
Russia Sentences U.S. Journalist in Absentia for Ukraine War Comments.txt | By Neil MacFarquhar
July 15, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Russia? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
A Moscow court on Monday sentenced in absentia Masha Gessen, the Russian-born American journalist, author and New York Times staff member, to eight years in prison over comments they made about atrocities that the Russian military has been accused of committing in Ukraine.
Russian law enforcement officials charged Mx. Gessen, who lives in the United States and uses the pronoun they, in August over a 2022 interview they gave to Yuri Dud, a popular online Russian journalist. They were put on a wanted list in December.
In the interview — which was broadcast on YouTube and has been viewed more than 6.6 million times — they discussed the apparent massacre by Russian forces of hundreds of people in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bucha and others. The corpses of at least 400 civilians were found in Bucha after Russian forces retreated from the city.
Russia’s Basmanny District Court found Mx. Gessen guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian military, an all-too-common tactic against critics as the Kremlin uses the courts to suppress any information about the war that diverges from the official version. Russia has accused Ukraine and its Western allies of staging the Bucha massacre.
It took the court only minutes to issue a conviction, Mx. Gessen said in an interview on Monday. They join various other writers wanted by Russia, including Boris Akunin and Dmitry Glukhovsky, a popular science-fiction writer.
Two American journalists have been detained in Russia.
Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has been imprisoned since March 2023 and is on trial on espionage charges, which the U.S. government, his employer and he all vehemently deny. And Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian American editor for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been detained since December on charges of spreading “false information,” as well as failing to register as a foreign agent. She and her employer have called the accusations baseless.
Mx. Gessen wrote in a statement that the criminal prosecution was meant “to intimidate me and to prevent me from practicing my profession.” They also said, “To oblige a journalist to use only official sources, and even more so to use only sources on one side of a military conflict, means, in effect, to ban journalism.”
Born in Russia, Mx. Gessen, 57, immigrated to the United States as a teenager. They returned to Russia in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to work as a correspondent for various news organizations, but came back to the United States in 2013 in the face of increasing repression against members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
Their 2017 book, “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” won the National Book Award. Their other books include “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin,” published in 2012.
After working for years as a staff writer for The New Yorker, Mx. Gessen joined The Times as an opinion columnist in May 2024. “This conviction obviously violates even the most basic principles of freedom of expression,” Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The Times, said in a statement.
Mx. Gessen last reported from Russia in March 2022, renewing their 10-year Russian passport before leaving so they could fly back immediately, they said, particularly if the current government came to an end.
Now, they said, any return is unlikely given that any government that succeeds President Vladimir V. Putin’s is unlikely to make reversing numerous such sentences a priority.
“It is heartbreaking for me as a person — it’s my home,” Mx. Gessen said. “It is heartbreaking for me as a journalist.”
| By Neil MacFarquhar
July 15, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Russia? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
A Moscow court on Monday sentenced in absentia Masha Gessen, the Russian-born American journalist, author and New York Times staff member, to eight years in prison over comments they made about atrocities that the Russian military has been accused of committing in Ukraine.
Russian law enforcement officials charged Mx. Gessen, who lives in the United States and uses the pronoun they, in August over | a 2022 interview they gave to Yuri Dud, a popular online Russian journalist. They were put on a wanted list in December.
In the interview — which was broadcast on YouTube and has been viewed more than 6.6 million times — they discussed the apparent massacre by Russian forces of hundreds of people in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bucha and others. The corpses of at least 400 civilians were found in Bucha after Russian forces retreated from the city.
Russia’s Basmanny District Court found Mx. Gessen guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian military, an all-too-common tactic against critics as the Kremlin uses the courts to suppress any information about the war that diverges from the official version. Russia has accused Ukraine and its Western allies of staging the Bucha massacre.
It took the court only minutes to issue a conviction, Mx. Gessen said in an interview on Monday. They join various other writers wanted by Russia, including Boris Akunin and Dmitry Glukhovsky, a popular science-fiction writer.
Two American journalists have been detained in Russia.
Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has been imprisoned since March 2023 and is on trial on espionage charges, which the U.S. government, his employer and he all vehemently deny. And Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian American editor for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been detained since December on charges of spreading “false information,” as well as failing to register as a foreign agent. She and her employer have called the accusations baseless.
Mx. Gessen wrote in a statement that the criminal prosecution was meant “to intimidate me and to prevent me from practicing my profession.” They also said, “To oblige a journalist to use only official sources, and even more so to use only sources on one side of a military conflict, means, in effect, to ban journalism.”
Born in Russia, Mx. Gessen, 57, immigrated to the United States as a teenager. They returned to Russia in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to work as a correspondent for various news organizations, but came back to the United States in 2013 in the face of increasing repression against members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
Their 2017 book, “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” won the National Book Award. Their other books include “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin,” published in 2012.
After working for years as a staff writer for The New Yorker, Mx. Gessen joined The Times as an opinion columnist in May 2024. “This conviction obviously violates even the most basic principles of freedom of expression,” Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The Times, said in a statement.
Mx. Gessen last reported from Russia in March 2022, renewing their 10-year Russian passport before leaving so they could fly back immediately, they said, particularly if the current government came to an end.
Now, they said, any return is unlikely given that any government that succeeds President Vladimir V. Putin’s is unlikely to make reversing numerous such sentences a priority.
“It is heartbreaking for me as a person — it’s my home,” Mx. Gessen said. “It is heartbreaking for me as a journalist.”
|
How QAnon Rips Families Apart.txt | By Roxanna Asgarian
Roxanna Asgarian is the author of “We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America.”
July 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
THE QUIET DAMAGE: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family, by Jesselyn Cook
The percentage of Americans who believe in conspiracy theories may not actually be increasing — one recent study suggests the figure has been largely stable, if disturbingly high, over time — but for anyone active on social media during the past few years, it has certainly seemed that way. The pandemic unleashed a perfect storm of conditions: Mass Covid lockdowns fueled mistrust in the government and fears about the vaccine. Americans were stuck at home endlessly scrolling, and social media algorithms were priming more and more people to travel further down the dark reaches of the internet.
It started to become clear that the fantastical beliefs associated with QAnon — for instance, that a secret cabal of elites was engaged in widespread sex trafficking of children — were no longer a fringe phenomenon. Many QAnon supporters were among the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. As journalists and pundits attempted to parse the movement’s threat to American democracy, Jesselyn Cook, an investigative reporter at NBC News, took on another aspect of QAnon’s rise: the fractured families and relationships it has left in its wake.
In “The Quiet Damage,” Cook paints haunting portraits of a diverse group of Americans struggling to pull loved ones back from the cultlike movement. Through the detailed stories of five families that capture the movement’s reach, Cook shows us people who are often written off as crazy by those who haven’t seen QAnon’s disastrous brainwashing effects up close.
Cook uses pseudonyms for her subjects. There’s Doris, an older woman whose ordeal being misdiagnosed with cancer (she turned out not to have the disease) became a gateway to “alternative medicine” influencers peddling anti-vax sentiments and political conspiracies; Kendra, a Black millennial whose childhood experiences of racism while being bused to a white school led her to distrust the government; and Alice, a former Bernie Sanders supporter whose desire for a more peaceful world paradoxically caused her to embrace intolerant and hateful beliefs.
Cook aims to “return some sense of personhood and dignity” to these people, which she says is an essential first step to combating a growing threat; according to a recent poll, one in four Americans harbors some conspiracy beliefs. Vulnerability to conspiracy theories, she points out, has to do with life experience: Systemic injustice and inequality hold wide swaths of Americans in a chokehold, limiting their options to transform their lives.
The cover of “The Quiet Damage,” by Jesselyn Cook, is beige with the title and author’s name in black type framing a photo of a man and child whose faces are partially blocked by the book’s subtitle.
But instead of factual analysis, QAnon provides adherents with the feeling of being right, and of being needed — and that feeling is an intoxicating drug. “The truth is that the truth is almost beside the point,” Cook writes. She cites research suggesting that “harboring grievances — whether they stem from real or perceived offenses — actually makes people feel good.” As people become more committed to conspiracy beliefs, they are often socially ostracized, leading them to seek acceptance in similarly radicalized groups online. It’s wrenching to read about QAnon’s damage to the lives of Cook’s subjects — parents estranged from their kids, elderly people isolated from their friends and family, and young children indoctrinated before their brains are developed enough to question what they’re taught.
What’s missing in “The Quiet Damage” is a concise account of QAnon to orient the reader. This book looks at very recent history and many of the exacerbating factors, including the pandemic and Trump’s presidency, are not far in the rearview. But to a casual observer it might seem that QAnon just kind of appeared in the public consciousness, and Cook doesn’t really explain how or why. Her five human subjects are also largely sympathetic; we don’t meet an avowed white supremacist here, for example, although the movement is known to include them.
Where the book shines is in creating empathy for a group of people frequently dismissed or misunderstood, and for their grieving and divided families. “Without this baseline recognition of their fundamental humanness,” Cook writes of QAnon supporters, “it’s impossible to truly consider what real solutions could look like.”
By delving into the ways people become susceptible to QAnon, Cook uncovers a deeper truth: Many of us go through life with a gaping hole caused by trauma, isolation or shame, and we find healthy and unhealthy ways to fill it. For people like Doris and Kendra, QAnon’s message, however insane it sounds (and is), makes them feel valued and valuable.
“This goes deeper than true versus false, and information itself,” Cook writes. “We need to confront the roots of our collective vulnerability. Because none of us is as immune as we’d like to think.”
THE QUIET DAMAGE: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family | By Jesselyn Cook | Crown | 250 pp. | $30
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Roxanna Asgarian
Roxanna Asgarian is the author of “We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America.”
July 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
THE QUIET DAMAGE: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family, by Jesselyn Cook
The percentage of Americans who believe in conspiracy theories may not actually be increasing — one recent study suggests the figure has been largely stable, if disturb | ingly high, over time — but for anyone active on social media during the past few years, it has certainly seemed that way. The pandemic unleashed a perfect storm of conditions: Mass Covid lockdowns fueled mistrust in the government and fears about the vaccine. Americans were stuck at home endlessly scrolling, and social media algorithms were priming more and more people to travel further down the dark reaches of the internet.
It started to become clear that the fantastical beliefs associated with QAnon — for instance, that a secret cabal of elites was engaged in widespread sex trafficking of children — were no longer a fringe phenomenon. Many QAnon supporters were among the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. As journalists and pundits attempted to parse the movement’s threat to American democracy, Jesselyn Cook, an investigative reporter at NBC News, took on another aspect of QAnon’s rise: the fractured families and relationships it has left in its wake.
In “The Quiet Damage,” Cook paints haunting portraits of a diverse group of Americans struggling to pull loved ones back from the cultlike movement. Through the detailed stories of five families that capture the movement’s reach, Cook shows us people who are often written off as crazy by those who haven’t seen QAnon’s disastrous brainwashing effects up close.
Cook uses pseudonyms for her subjects. There’s Doris, an older woman whose ordeal being misdiagnosed with cancer (she turned out not to have the disease) became a gateway to “alternative medicine” influencers peddling anti-vax sentiments and political conspiracies; Kendra, a Black millennial whose childhood experiences of racism while being bused to a white school led her to distrust the government; and Alice, a former Bernie Sanders supporter whose desire for a more peaceful world paradoxically caused her to embrace intolerant and hateful beliefs.
Cook aims to “return some sense of personhood and dignity” to these people, which she says is an essential first step to combating a growing threat; according to a recent poll, one in four Americans harbors some conspiracy beliefs. Vulnerability to conspiracy theories, she points out, has to do with life experience: Systemic injustice and inequality hold wide swaths of Americans in a chokehold, limiting their options to transform their lives.
The cover of “The Quiet Damage,” by Jesselyn Cook, is beige with the title and author’s name in black type framing a photo of a man and child whose faces are partially blocked by the book’s subtitle.
But instead of factual analysis, QAnon provides adherents with the feeling of being right, and of being needed — and that feeling is an intoxicating drug. “The truth is that the truth is almost beside the point,” Cook writes. She cites research suggesting that “harboring grievances — whether they stem from real or perceived offenses — actually makes people feel good.” As people become more committed to conspiracy beliefs, they are often socially ostracized, leading them to seek acceptance in similarly radicalized groups online. It’s wrenching to read about QAnon’s damage to the lives of Cook’s subjects — parents estranged from their kids, elderly people isolated from their friends and family, and young children indoctrinated before their brains are developed enough to question what they’re taught.
What’s missing in “The Quiet Damage” is a concise account of QAnon to orient the reader. This book looks at very recent history and many of the exacerbating factors, including the pandemic and Trump’s presidency, are not far in the rearview. But to a casual observer it might seem that QAnon just kind of appeared in the public consciousness, and Cook doesn’t really explain how or why. Her five human subjects are also largely sympathetic; we don’t meet an avowed white supremacist here, for example, although the movement is known to include them.
Where the book shines is in creating empathy for a group of people frequently dismissed or misunderstood, and for their grieving and divided families. “Without this baseline recognition of their fundamental humanness,” Cook writes of QAnon supporters, “it’s impossible to truly consider what real solutions could look like.”
By delving into the ways people become susceptible to QAnon, Cook uncovers a deeper truth: Many of us go through life with a gaping hole caused by trauma, isolation or shame, and we find healthy and unhealthy ways to fill it. For people like Doris and Kendra, QAnon’s message, however insane it sounds (and is), makes them feel valued and valuable.
“This goes deeper than true versus false, and information itself,” Cook writes. “We need to confront the roots of our collective vulnerability. Because none of us is as immune as we’d like to think.”
THE QUIET DAMAGE: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family | By Jesselyn Cook | Crown | 250 pp. | $30
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Harris Clinches Majority of Delegates as She Closes In on Nomination.txt | By Shane Goldmacher and Reid J. Epstein
Published July 22, 2024Updated July 23, 2024, 8:59 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
Vice President Kamala Harris moved swiftly to assert herself as the de facto Democratic nominee for president on Monday, her first full day as a candidate, as virtually every potential remaining rival bowed out and she clinched the support of enough delegates to win the nomination.
The Associated Press said late Monday that Ms. Harris had secured the backing of more than the 1,976 delegates needed to capture the nomination in the first round of voting. The pledged support is not binding until the delegates cast their votes, which party officials said would take place between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7.
“When I announced my campaign for president, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. “Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee.” She added, “I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”
Her campaign announced Tuesday morning that it had raised more than $100 million from 1.1 million donors since Sunday afternoon.
With barely more than 100 days until the election, Ms. Harris immediately pressed her case against former President Donald J. Trump during a visit to her new campaign headquarters, invoking her early career as a prosecutor who took on “predators” and “fraudsters.”
“Hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said to cheers.
The vice president compared her day-old campaign to the civil rights and voting rights battles of the past, placing it on a continuum with “abolitionists and suffragettes.” And she said that Mr. Trump’s potential return would undo some of those victories and take the country backward.
“We are not going back,” she said.
Behind the scenes, Ms. Harris was moving just as quickly to take control of a sprawling political apparatus that just a day earlier had belonged to President Biden.
Ms. Harris tapped former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who once oversaw Barack Obama’s vice-presidential vetting, to oversee her choice of a potential running mate, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Two of Ms. Harris’s top political advisers, Sheila Nix and Brian Fallon, joined the Monday morning call of senior staff members on the Biden-turned-Harris campaign — a sign of her team’s widening footprint inside the operation.
Later in Wilmington, Del., Ms. Harris herself told the assembled staff members that she had asked the current campaign leadership, including the chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to stay on and that Ms. O’Malley Dillon had accepted.
“We are one team, one fight,” Ms. Harris said.
Across Washington and beyond, there was widespread talk of whom Ms. Harris might bring in to supplement the current team. A former campaign manager for Mr. Obama, David Plouffe, fueled rumors when he appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and expressed openness to joining the campaign.
“All of us who want to see Kamala Harris elected president and Donald Trump not elected to the White House will do whatever we need to,” said Mr. Plouffe, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Harris’s most immediate task had been to secure the support of enough Democratic delegates to lock down the nomination. A Google form asking delegates to endorse her had circulated among those key Democrats, who include party officials, lawmakers, local activists and volunteers.
The next step in the party’s formal nomination of Ms. Harris will come on Wednesday, when the rules committee of the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to meet to set a date for a virtual roll-call vote of the state delegations. On a call with reporters on Monday night, Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said the party’s presidential nominee would be selected by Aug. 7 to avoid legal risks from ballot deadlines.
“We will deliver a presidential nominee by Aug. 7 of this year,” Mr. Harrison said.
The party’s convention is set to begin on Aug. 19 in Chicago.
Senator Laphonza Butler of California, a key Harris ally who spoke to the vice president on Sunday, said the vice president’s first goal had been “securing the delegates that are necessary and making sure the team is solid.”
“She takes nothing for granted,” Ms. Butler said. “She is going to do the work and she is committed to winning.”
ImageA crowd of people smiling and waving their hands as Kamala Harris, not pictured, speaks.
Ms. Harris spent more than 10 hours on Sunday working the phones, dialing more than 100 party leaders, according to a person briefed on her activity. On her Monday trip to Wilmington, Ms. Harris was accompanied by Tony West, her brother-in-law and a former top Justice Department official who is now the chief legal officer for Uber. Mr. West also spent the weekend with Ms. Harris.
One of the leaders Ms. Harris spoke to on Sunday was the Rev. Al Sharpton, the influential civil rights figure.
“She said, ‘Now I’m going to pick up the baton and go forward and save the legacy of what we are all doing,’” he recalled her telling him.
Mr. Sharpton, who has crossed Mr. Trump for decades in the cutthroat world of New York politics, said he warned Ms. Harris: “You cannot get ready for a prize fight. This is a street fight.”
“‘I’m prepared for that,’” he said she replied.
Any momentum toward a competitive nominating contest appeared to melt away early Monday when a half-dozen Democratic governors quickly fell into line behind Ms. Harris — among them Andy Beshear of Kentucky, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
They were soon followed by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
What had been the Biden re-election website was taken offline, replaced for now by a donation portal for Ms. Harris as a new Harris for President logo was unveiled.
Democrats were delighted by the jolt of energy, with money pouring in after Mr. Biden’s exit.
It wasn’t just small donors, either: The leading pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, which has become a pro-Harris operation, said that it had unlocked $150 million in the last day with $60 million in new pledges, plus $90 million that had previously been frozen while Mr. Biden’s fate hung in the balance.
On Monday, more than 300 past donors to Ms. Harris gathered to discuss how to support her. Among those who spoke was Eleni Kounalakis, the lieutenant governor of California, a longtime Harris backer.
“People are aware it is going to be a battle every day,” Ms. Kounalakis said in a brief interview, “and we are going to be on battlefield every day.”
In a positive sign for her campaign, Ms. Harris appears likely to be publicly embraced by some allies who had shied away from Mr. Biden as he grew more politically toxic.
Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin is set to appear with Ms. Harris at her scheduled rally on Tuesday in Milwaukee, according to Andrew Mamo, a spokesman for Ms. Baldwin. When Mr. Biden held a rally in Madison two weeks ago, Ms. Baldwin held her own event in a different corner of the state 170 miles away.
For his part, Mr. Trump appeared to be somewhat frustrated as he watched news coverage of Democrats lining up behind Ms. Harris. He complained on his social media site that Mr. Biden was being cast as “heroic because he quit!” and that Ms. Harris was “totally failed and insignificant.”
The quick consolidation behind Ms. Harris actually mirrored how the party had first united behind Mr. Biden in 2020 after he won the South Carolina primary election. Then, Mr. Biden went from a candidate struggling for survival to the presumptive nominee within days.
In Washington, the political chatter about whom Ms. Harris might select as her running mate accelerated with the news that she had tapped Mr. Holder to vet her options. He will lead a team from his law firm, Covington & Burling, which will conduct the research.
Running-mate speculation swirled after Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, shared two posts on X that appeared to promote Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, as a possible choice.
Ms. Chavez Rodriguez later deleted the posts. A Harris campaign official said they were made in error.
Meanwhile, the field of potential vice-presidential picks began to take shape. Ms. Whitmer told a TV reporter in Michigan that she would not entertain joining the ticket. Mr. Beshear appeared on “Morning Joe,” a TV show favored by Mr. Biden and many in his orbit. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was due for a round of cable TV interviews on Monday night and Tuesday morning, during which he planned to explain the party’s nominating process and promote his own political biography.
Gretchen Whitmer, left, and Kamala Harris, center, sit at a long table during a discussion on abortion rights with other people seated around them.
Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado said in an interview on CNN that he did not expect a call.
“Look, if they — if they do the polling and it turns out that they need a 49-year-old, balding, gay Jew from Boulder, Colo., they got my number,” he joked.
Still, the challenge of finding a suitable and complementary partner was real. Mr. Biden had long performed most strongly in the northern, heavily white battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
It was not yet clear if or how Ms. Harris would shake up the Electoral College map, as a barrier-breaking candidate — she would be the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to serve as president — who could mobilize more diverse communities across the Sun Belt in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.
Mr. Biden has not been seen in public since he tested positive for Covid last week and returned to his home in Delaware to isolate and recuperate. But on Monday, he dialed into Ms. Harris’s event at what had just been his campaign headquarters, appearing as a disembodied voice to urge her on.
“I am watching you, kid!” Mr. Biden, 81, said to Ms. Harris, 59. “I love ya!”
| By Shane Goldmacher and Reid J. Epstein
Published July 22, 2024Updated July 23, 2024, 8:59 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
Vice President Kamala Harris moved swiftly to assert herself as the de facto Democratic nominee for president on Monday, her first full day as a candidate, as virtually every potential remaining rival bowed out and she clinched the support of enough delegates to win the nomination.
The Associated Press said late | Monday that Ms. Harris had secured the backing of more than the 1,976 delegates needed to capture the nomination in the first round of voting. The pledged support is not binding until the delegates cast their votes, which party officials said would take place between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7.
“When I announced my campaign for president, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. “Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee.” She added, “I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”
Her campaign announced Tuesday morning that it had raised more than $100 million from 1.1 million donors since Sunday afternoon.
With barely more than 100 days until the election, Ms. Harris immediately pressed her case against former President Donald J. Trump during a visit to her new campaign headquarters, invoking her early career as a prosecutor who took on “predators” and “fraudsters.”
“Hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said to cheers.
The vice president compared her day-old campaign to the civil rights and voting rights battles of the past, placing it on a continuum with “abolitionists and suffragettes.” And she said that Mr. Trump’s potential return would undo some of those victories and take the country backward.
“We are not going back,” she said.
Behind the scenes, Ms. Harris was moving just as quickly to take control of a sprawling political apparatus that just a day earlier had belonged to President Biden.
Ms. Harris tapped former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who once oversaw Barack Obama’s vice-presidential vetting, to oversee her choice of a potential running mate, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Two of Ms. Harris’s top political advisers, Sheila Nix and Brian Fallon, joined the Monday morning call of senior staff members on the Biden-turned-Harris campaign — a sign of her team’s widening footprint inside the operation.
Later in Wilmington, Del., Ms. Harris herself told the assembled staff members that she had asked the current campaign leadership, including the chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to stay on and that Ms. O’Malley Dillon had accepted.
“We are one team, one fight,” Ms. Harris said.
Across Washington and beyond, there was widespread talk of whom Ms. Harris might bring in to supplement the current team. A former campaign manager for Mr. Obama, David Plouffe, fueled rumors when he appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and expressed openness to joining the campaign.
“All of us who want to see Kamala Harris elected president and Donald Trump not elected to the White House will do whatever we need to,” said Mr. Plouffe, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Harris’s most immediate task had been to secure the support of enough Democratic delegates to lock down the nomination. A Google form asking delegates to endorse her had circulated among those key Democrats, who include party officials, lawmakers, local activists and volunteers.
The next step in the party’s formal nomination of Ms. Harris will come on Wednesday, when the rules committee of the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to meet to set a date for a virtual roll-call vote of the state delegations. On a call with reporters on Monday night, Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said the party’s presidential nominee would be selected by Aug. 7 to avoid legal risks from ballot deadlines.
“We will deliver a presidential nominee by Aug. 7 of this year,” Mr. Harrison said.
The party’s convention is set to begin on Aug. 19 in Chicago.
Senator Laphonza Butler of California, a key Harris ally who spoke to the vice president on Sunday, said the vice president’s first goal had been “securing the delegates that are necessary and making sure the team is solid.”
“She takes nothing for granted,” Ms. Butler said. “She is going to do the work and she is committed to winning.”
ImageA crowd of people smiling and waving their hands as Kamala Harris, not pictured, speaks.
Ms. Harris spent more than 10 hours on Sunday working the phones, dialing more than 100 party leaders, according to a person briefed on her activity. On her Monday trip to Wilmington, Ms. Harris was accompanied by Tony West, her brother-in-law and a former top Justice Department official who is now the chief legal officer for Uber. Mr. West also spent the weekend with Ms. Harris.
One of the leaders Ms. Harris spoke to on Sunday was the Rev. Al Sharpton, the influential civil rights figure.
“She said, ‘Now I’m going to pick up the baton and go forward and save the legacy of what we are all doing,’” he recalled her telling him.
Mr. Sharpton, who has crossed Mr. Trump for decades in the cutthroat world of New York politics, said he warned Ms. Harris: “You cannot get ready for a prize fight. This is a street fight.”
“‘I’m prepared for that,’” he said she replied.
Any momentum toward a competitive nominating contest appeared to melt away early Monday when a half-dozen Democratic governors quickly fell into line behind Ms. Harris — among them Andy Beshear of Kentucky, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
They were soon followed by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
What had been the Biden re-election website was taken offline, replaced for now by a donation portal for Ms. Harris as a new Harris for President logo was unveiled.
Democrats were delighted by the jolt of energy, with money pouring in after Mr. Biden’s exit.
It wasn’t just small donors, either: The leading pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, which has become a pro-Harris operation, said that it had unlocked $150 million in the last day with $60 million in new pledges, plus $90 million that had previously been frozen while Mr. Biden’s fate hung in the balance.
On Monday, more than 300 past donors to Ms. Harris gathered to discuss how to support her. Among those who spoke was Eleni Kounalakis, the lieutenant governor of California, a longtime Harris backer.
“People are aware it is going to be a battle every day,” Ms. Kounalakis said in a brief interview, “and we are going to be on battlefield every day.”
In a positive sign for her campaign, Ms. Harris appears likely to be publicly embraced by some allies who had shied away from Mr. Biden as he grew more politically toxic.
Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin is set to appear with Ms. Harris at her scheduled rally on Tuesday in Milwaukee, according to Andrew Mamo, a spokesman for Ms. Baldwin. When Mr. Biden held a rally in Madison two weeks ago, Ms. Baldwin held her own event in a different corner of the state 170 miles away.
For his part, Mr. Trump appeared to be somewhat frustrated as he watched news coverage of Democrats lining up behind Ms. Harris. He complained on his social media site that Mr. Biden was being cast as “heroic because he quit!” and that Ms. Harris was “totally failed and insignificant.”
The quick consolidation behind Ms. Harris actually mirrored how the party had first united behind Mr. Biden in 2020 after he won the South Carolina primary election. Then, Mr. Biden went from a candidate struggling for survival to the presumptive nominee within days.
In Washington, the political chatter about whom Ms. Harris might select as her running mate accelerated with the news that she had tapped Mr. Holder to vet her options. He will lead a team from his law firm, Covington & Burling, which will conduct the research.
Running-mate speculation swirled after Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, shared two posts on X that appeared to promote Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, as a possible choice.
Ms. Chavez Rodriguez later deleted the posts. A Harris campaign official said they were made in error.
Meanwhile, the field of potential vice-presidential picks began to take shape. Ms. Whitmer told a TV reporter in Michigan that she would not entertain joining the ticket. Mr. Beshear appeared on “Morning Joe,” a TV show favored by Mr. Biden and many in his orbit. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was due for a round of cable TV interviews on Monday night and Tuesday morning, during which he planned to explain the party’s nominating process and promote his own political biography.
Gretchen Whitmer, left, and Kamala Harris, center, sit at a long table during a discussion on abortion rights with other people seated around them.
Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado said in an interview on CNN that he did not expect a call.
“Look, if they — if they do the polling and it turns out that they need a 49-year-old, balding, gay Jew from Boulder, Colo., they got my number,” he joked.
Still, the challenge of finding a suitable and complementary partner was real. Mr. Biden had long performed most strongly in the northern, heavily white battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
It was not yet clear if or how Ms. Harris would shake up the Electoral College map, as a barrier-breaking candidate — she would be the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to serve as president — who could mobilize more diverse communities across the Sun Belt in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.
Mr. Biden has not been seen in public since he tested positive for Covid last week and returned to his home in Delaware to isolate and recuperate. But on Monday, he dialed into Ms. Harris’s event at what had just been his campaign headquarters, appearing as a disembodied voice to urge her on.
“I am watching you, kid!” Mr. Biden, 81, said to Ms. Harris, 59. “I love ya!”
|
For Dean Phillips, Biden’s Withdrawal Offers ‘Unfulfilling’ Vindication.txt | By Peter Baker
Reporting from Washington
July 23, 2024, 9:33 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
For Dean Phillips, the modern Cassandra of American politics, this I-told-you-so moment brings no joy. A little vindication, yes. Sadness, too, and sympathy for a man who gave his life to public service and deserved a better finale.
But when it comes down to it, Mr. Phillips did tell everyone so, even though no one listened. He said early and often that President Biden was too old to run again, that he could not win, that the Democrats should find someone else to lead them into the election. When no one else picked up the mantle, he tried himself, only to be alternately ignored or pilloried.
So when Mr. Biden stunned the world by pulling out of the race on Sunday, it was a bittersweet moment. Mr. Phillips could tell himself that he had tried to warn the party and at least some people remembered. By the end of the day, his phone had blown up with 1,276 text messages. He could not help wondering what would have happened had Mr. Biden made this decision 18 months ago. “Vindication,” he said, “has never felt so unfulfilling.”
The story of Dean Phillips certainly looks different today than it did even a month ago. Until the world saw a frail and fumbling president on the debate stage on June 27, Mr. Phillips was a little-known third-term congressman from Minnesota whose long-shot challenge of Mr. Biden in the Democratic primaries had been dismissed as a quixotic exercise. Now it looks a little more prophetic.
The point, he said, was to raise the alarm, not to advance his own ambitions. “My mission was to be a Paul Revere, not a George Washington,” he said. “I think that’s been accomplished.”
Mr. Phillips sat down at a Washington hotel on Sunday to discuss his journey just 90 minutes before Mr. Biden announced that he was pulling out. The congressman had just come from the studio of CBS News, where he appeared on “Face the Nation” and discussed his opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal suggesting a secret vote of confidence on the president by House Democrats.
“My first reaction after the debate was surprise that the country was so aghast,” he said, sipping a coffee and wearing a blue suit, white handkerchief and sneakers. “I didn’t see anything in that debate I hadn’t seen the last couple years.”
Mild-mannered and friendly with sweptback brown hair, an easy smile and a multimillion-dollar fortune at his disposal, Mr. Phillips, 55, may have been an unlikely rebel to take on a president with whom he voted 100 percent of the time. In his official biography, he describes himself as an “eternal optimist,” though after the experience of the past year he confesses to a little naïveté.
He never knew his father, who was killed in Vietnam without meeting his son. When his mother remarried, young Dean took the last name of his new stepfather, Edward Phillips, the chief executive of Phillips Distilling Company, known for producing the first American-made brand of schnapps. He also found himself in a family where his adoptive grandmother, Pauline Phillips, was the writer behind the famous Dear Abby advice column.
After earning an undergraduate degree from Brown University and a master’s in business administration from the University of Minnesota, Mr. Phillips joined the family business and later helped build Talenti Gelato into a top ice cream brand. Estimated to be worth $124 million, he beat a five-term House incumbent in 2018 representing a Minnesota district that included the Mall of America and had gone Republican for nearly six decades. He hewed to the political center, joining the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus as well as the House Democratic leadership.
His decision to challenge Mr. Biden had its roots in the president’s visits to Capitol Hill in 2021 to push for his domestic program. What Mr. Phillips saw was what much of the country would see three years later in the disastrous debate that doomed Mr. Biden’s campaign: an aging politician who had trouble articulating his own agenda.
“It was an unmitigated disaster, and it was the first jarring moment for most of us in the caucus,” Mr. Phillips recalled.
By 2023, he came to believe that Mr. Biden could not overcome his decline and beat former President Donald J. Trump. So, brash as it seemed, Mr. Phillips took it upon himself to recruit another Democrat to run against the president.
His calls to Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois went unreturned. No one else seemed willing to jump into the race. So he decided to run, not necessarily expecting to win but because, he said, it might raise the question. “The issue is he’s going to lose,” Mr. Phillips recalled. “So why would we knowingly follow him over the edge? It wasn’t a question of him or his policy. It was a simple issue of winning.”
It was a futile quest. The party had already decided to stick with Mr. Biden, whatever concerns some had, and Mr. Phillips found himself shut out, taken off the ballot in some states, rarely invited on television to make his case. “I was well aware of the consequences,” he said. “I knew the party could not support me. What I was naïve about was how effective the machine would be to deplatform me.”
He collected 24,000 votes in the New Hampshire primary in January, compared with 79,000 write-in votes for Mr. Biden, who was not even on the ballot. By March, Mr. Phillips’s largely self-funded campaign was over, and he dropped out, a little more scarred, a little more jaded and $4 million poorer.
Mr. Biden graciously called to wish him well and invite him to meet. “I would have done the same thing if I were you,” Mr. Phillips recalled the president telling him. Mr. Biden then called each of Mr. Phillips’s adult daughters to say nice things about their father, although the promised invitation never materialized.
“It’s been the saddest part of the whole thing to see a man of great integrity and competency and almost heroic political engagement put in this position,” Mr. Phillips said on Sunday. “It’s sad.” He added: “I want to see him regaled as an American hero, not an American tragedy. So it’s really hard.”
Mr. Phillips left the interview to drive out to Virginia, where he has a farm, and addressed about 100 young people brought from around the country by the National History Academy. Someone interrupted, and a woman came to the front of the auditorium to read the letter just posted online by Mr. Biden announcing he was bowing out. There were “five seconds of just stone-cold silence,” Mr. Phillips recalled.
He said he felt conflicted, satisfied that what he saw as the party’s No. 1 problem had been solved even as he regretted the way it happened — and that it happened so late. He made clear he had no intention of seeking the nomination now, reasoning that Democratic primary voters had a chance to pick him if they had wanted to, and they did not.
So now Mr. Phillips looks ahead to the final six months of his term. He is not running for re-election to his House seat and does not know what might be his path. He said he wanted to work on fixing the system, attacking gerrymandering and other structural issues that promote dysfunction over collaboration.
He has heard from many Democrats expressing regret for not taking him more seriously before or gratitude that he spoke out. That obviously has been gratifying. But, he said, “Real vindication and gratification will come with victory in November.”
| By Peter Baker
Reporting from Washington
July 23, 2024, 9:33 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
For Dean Phillips, the modern Cassandra of American politics, this I-told-you-so moment brings no joy. A little vindication, yes. Sadness, too, and sympathy for a man who gave his life to public service and deserved a better finale.
But when it comes down to it, Mr. Phillips did tell everyone so, even though | no one listened. He said early and often that President Biden was too old to run again, that he could not win, that the Democrats should find someone else to lead them into the election. When no one else picked up the mantle, he tried himself, only to be alternately ignored or pilloried.
So when Mr. Biden stunned the world by pulling out of the race on Sunday, it was a bittersweet moment. Mr. Phillips could tell himself that he had tried to warn the party and at least some people remembered. By the end of the day, his phone had blown up with 1,276 text messages. He could not help wondering what would have happened had Mr. Biden made this decision 18 months ago. “Vindication,” he said, “has never felt so unfulfilling.”
The story of Dean Phillips certainly looks different today than it did even a month ago. Until the world saw a frail and fumbling president on the debate stage on June 27, Mr. Phillips was a little-known third-term congressman from Minnesota whose long-shot challenge of Mr. Biden in the Democratic primaries had been dismissed as a quixotic exercise. Now it looks a little more prophetic.
The point, he said, was to raise the alarm, not to advance his own ambitions. “My mission was to be a Paul Revere, not a George Washington,” he said. “I think that’s been accomplished.”
Mr. Phillips sat down at a Washington hotel on Sunday to discuss his journey just 90 minutes before Mr. Biden announced that he was pulling out. The congressman had just come from the studio of CBS News, where he appeared on “Face the Nation” and discussed his opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal suggesting a secret vote of confidence on the president by House Democrats.
“My first reaction after the debate was surprise that the country was so aghast,” he said, sipping a coffee and wearing a blue suit, white handkerchief and sneakers. “I didn’t see anything in that debate I hadn’t seen the last couple years.”
Mild-mannered and friendly with sweptback brown hair, an easy smile and a multimillion-dollar fortune at his disposal, Mr. Phillips, 55, may have been an unlikely rebel to take on a president with whom he voted 100 percent of the time. In his official biography, he describes himself as an “eternal optimist,” though after the experience of the past year he confesses to a little naïveté.
He never knew his father, who was killed in Vietnam without meeting his son. When his mother remarried, young Dean took the last name of his new stepfather, Edward Phillips, the chief executive of Phillips Distilling Company, known for producing the first American-made brand of schnapps. He also found himself in a family where his adoptive grandmother, Pauline Phillips, was the writer behind the famous Dear Abby advice column.
After earning an undergraduate degree from Brown University and a master’s in business administration from the University of Minnesota, Mr. Phillips joined the family business and later helped build Talenti Gelato into a top ice cream brand. Estimated to be worth $124 million, he beat a five-term House incumbent in 2018 representing a Minnesota district that included the Mall of America and had gone Republican for nearly six decades. He hewed to the political center, joining the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus as well as the House Democratic leadership.
His decision to challenge Mr. Biden had its roots in the president’s visits to Capitol Hill in 2021 to push for his domestic program. What Mr. Phillips saw was what much of the country would see three years later in the disastrous debate that doomed Mr. Biden’s campaign: an aging politician who had trouble articulating his own agenda.
“It was an unmitigated disaster, and it was the first jarring moment for most of us in the caucus,” Mr. Phillips recalled.
By 2023, he came to believe that Mr. Biden could not overcome his decline and beat former President Donald J. Trump. So, brash as it seemed, Mr. Phillips took it upon himself to recruit another Democrat to run against the president.
His calls to Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois went unreturned. No one else seemed willing to jump into the race. So he decided to run, not necessarily expecting to win but because, he said, it might raise the question. “The issue is he’s going to lose,” Mr. Phillips recalled. “So why would we knowingly follow him over the edge? It wasn’t a question of him or his policy. It was a simple issue of winning.”
It was a futile quest. The party had already decided to stick with Mr. Biden, whatever concerns some had, and Mr. Phillips found himself shut out, taken off the ballot in some states, rarely invited on television to make his case. “I was well aware of the consequences,” he said. “I knew the party could not support me. What I was naïve about was how effective the machine would be to deplatform me.”
He collected 24,000 votes in the New Hampshire primary in January, compared with 79,000 write-in votes for Mr. Biden, who was not even on the ballot. By March, Mr. Phillips’s largely self-funded campaign was over, and he dropped out, a little more scarred, a little more jaded and $4 million poorer.
Mr. Biden graciously called to wish him well and invite him to meet. “I would have done the same thing if I were you,” Mr. Phillips recalled the president telling him. Mr. Biden then called each of Mr. Phillips’s adult daughters to say nice things about their father, although the promised invitation never materialized.
“It’s been the saddest part of the whole thing to see a man of great integrity and competency and almost heroic political engagement put in this position,” Mr. Phillips said on Sunday. “It’s sad.” He added: “I want to see him regaled as an American hero, not an American tragedy. So it’s really hard.”
Mr. Phillips left the interview to drive out to Virginia, where he has a farm, and addressed about 100 young people brought from around the country by the National History Academy. Someone interrupted, and a woman came to the front of the auditorium to read the letter just posted online by Mr. Biden announcing he was bowing out. There were “five seconds of just stone-cold silence,” Mr. Phillips recalled.
He said he felt conflicted, satisfied that what he saw as the party’s No. 1 problem had been solved even as he regretted the way it happened — and that it happened so late. He made clear he had no intention of seeking the nomination now, reasoning that Democratic primary voters had a chance to pick him if they had wanted to, and they did not.
So now Mr. Phillips looks ahead to the final six months of his term. He is not running for re-election to his House seat and does not know what might be his path. He said he wanted to work on fixing the system, attacking gerrymandering and other structural issues that promote dysfunction over collaboration.
He has heard from many Democrats expressing regret for not taking him more seriously before or gratitude that he spoke out. That obviously has been gratifying. But, he said, “Real vindication and gratification will come with victory in November.”
|
Indian Americans Become a Political Force, Just as Usha Vance’s Profile Rises.txt | By Amy Qin and Jonathan Wolfe
July 20, 2024
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
When Senator JD Vance became Donald J. Trump’s running mate this week on the Republican presidential ticket, it also marked the first time that an Indian American and practicing Hindu, Usha Vance, stood to become a vice-presidential spouse.
That cemented a remarkable reality: at the current moment, a woman of Indian descent will either serve another term in the White House or be the second lady.
It was the latest milestone for an Indian American community that has emerged as a political powerhouse over the past decade. Kamala Harris in 2021 became the first person of Indian descent, as well as the first woman and Black person, to be vice president. The 2024 presidential cycle is the first one to have featured two Indian American candidates in Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.
And there are now five Indian American members of Congress and nearly 40 Indian Americans in state legislatures — the highest number of any Asian origin group in the country, according to AAPI Data, an organization that collects data about Asian Americans.
It comes alongside another first for Indian Americans: They recently surpassed Chinese Americans to become the largest Asian group in the United States among people who identify with one country of origin, according to a census report released last year. In 2020, nearly 4.4 million people identified as solely Indian. (Chinese people are still the largest group when counting those who identify with multiple countries of origin.)
Most Indians came to the United States after 1965, when a new immigration law removed restrictions that had excluded Asians, Africans and others from the country. The Indian population in the United States has spiked in recent decades, in particular, as American companies in the booming technology sector have sought to hire large numbers of software engineers and computer programmers, drawing some of India’s most-educated workers.
Among Asians in the United States, Indians are the wealthiest and most highly educated origin group on average. And on almost every measure of political and civic engagement, Indian Americans rank at or near the top among Asian groups, a fact that experts largely attribute to their roots in a country with a strong democratic tradition and high usage of English.
“Indian Americans are a growing force in American politics,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and executive director of AAPI Data.
The backs of Usha Vance, in a beige dress, and J.D. Vance, in a dark suit, are seen as they hold hands while standing on a red carpet backstage.
The population boom has been a recent phenomenon. When Ms. Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, arrived in 1958 to pursue a graduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, she was one of only 12,000 Indian immigrants living in the country.
Many Indians who immigrated after the 1965 immigration act came to pursue higher education. That law lifted quotas by country of origin, which had favored Europeans. After completing their studies, many Indians found jobs and were sponsored for legal permanent residency by their employers. Others were brought to the United States by companies and institutions to perform high-skilled jobs.
Mrs. Vance’s father, Krish Chilukuri, is a mechanical engineer who studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, the country’s most prestigious engineering university system. Her mother, Lakshmi Chilukuri, is a biologist and now provost of a college at the University of California, San Diego.
They raised Mrs. Vance and her sister, Shreya, in Rancho Peñasquitos, an upper-middle-class suburb of San Diego, speaking Telugu and English at home. The Chilukuris were part of a close-knit group of six families from southern India. Many of the adults were engineers or educators. Mrs. Vance and her parents did not respond to requests for an interview.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 9:32 a.m. ET37 minutes ago
37 minutes ago
George Clooney endorses Kamala Harris, says Biden is ‘saving democracy.’
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
The families stuck together even as the Indian community in San Diego ballooned from around 200 families in the mid-1980s to about 40,000 people today, mirroring the larger shift in the nation’s Indian population, according to Rami Reddy Mutyala, chairman of Shri Mandir, a local Hindu temple that the Chilukuris occasionally attend.
The women were avid readers and would often gather to discuss novels, while the men traded tips for growing tropical fruits like guavas and mangoes, said Ramesh Rao, a close family friend of the Chilukuris. “There was an obsession to try to see if you can recreate the summertime experiences of India,” Mr. Rao said.
In the past two decades, the growing demand for tech workers has resulted in a new surge of skilled immigrants from India. About 60 percent of Indians in the United States today arrived after 2000. In recent years, the number of Indian migrants illegally crossing the southern border has also spiked. As of 2021, about 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants were in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center.
The growing diversity within the Indian diaspora — which includes different faiths, economic backgrounds and levels of education — has led at times to divisions within the community over issues like caste bias and the Hindu nationalist politics of Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India.
All the while, the community has deepened its engagement with American politics.
Like many first-generation immigrants, the Chilukuris have not been especially vocal about politics, five family friends said. But like most Indian Americans, Mrs. Vance’s parents are Democrats, according to recent voter registration records. In 2017, Lakshmi Chilukuri was also one of more than 2,300 California professors who signed an open letter to Mr. Trump urging him not to withdraw from the Paris accords on climate change.
Since at least 2008, Indian Americans, who have the highest voter turnout rates among Asian groups in presidential elections, have been a reliably Democratic voting bloc. They have long seen the party as more tolerant of different faiths and ethnicities, and more supportive of safety net policies they valued in India, Mr. Ramakrishnan said. Over the years, the Democratic Party has also invested considerable resources in trying to appeal to Asian American voters.
But Indian American support for President Biden has declined, and more Indian Americans are identifying as independents, according to the Asian American Voter Survey released this month.
If Mr. Biden leaves the 2024 race, Ms. Harris would be his likeliest replacement, which would give Indian Americans their first presidential nominee.
Some Republican leaders see an opportunity to make inroads on issues like family, education and immigration. And even as the Republican Party has emphasized its ties to Christianity, some party leaders have tried to appeal to people of other faiths.
Until recently, it was rare to see prominent Indian Americans in the Republican Party who were not Christian. Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana Republican who ran for president in the 2016 cycle, was raised Hindu but has described himself as an “evangelical Catholic.” Ms. Haley, another high-profile Republican, was raised Sikh and later converted to Christianity.
Bobby Jindal, wearing a black suit and red tie, gestures with his right hand as he speaks.
But in an interview last month with Fox and Friends, Mrs. Vance spoke openly about the importance of her Hindu faith in her upbringing. (Mr. Vance was raised Protestant and converted to Catholicism in 2019.) And Mr. Ramaswamy, a classmate of the Vances at Yale Law School and a Trump acolyte, also spoke openly, though carefully, about his Hindu faith on the presidential campaign trail.
Mrs. Vance’s elevated role could also help win over some Indian American voters and donors.
But the recent Asian American Voter Survey also showed that the drop in support for Mr. Biden among Indian Americans has not corresponded with a meaningful uptick in support for Mr. Trump.
Miriam Lobo, a close friend of Mrs. Vance’s parents in San Diego, said that she was thrilled to see that Mrs. Vance, whom she described as a “grounded” and “thoughtful” woman, now had a chance to become the nation’s second lady. Ms. Lobo, an Indian American, has twice hosted Mr. Vance at her house for Christmas in recent years, she said, and called him “simple folk” and “like one of us.”
But she did not mince words when it came to Mr. Vance’s running mate. “I don’t like Donald Trump,” she said. “I’ve never liked him.” She then added, “I think,” and paused for a moment, before continuing: “I don’t like the way he treats people.”
Mrs. Vance herself is something of a political enigma. She was a registered Democrat until at least 2014, according to an online database that includes voter registration records. Even as her husband has gone from a “Never Trump” critic to a fervent supporter of Mr. Trump, she has said little publicly or privately about her own politics, friends said.
At the Republican National Committee on Wednesday night, in her first high-profile appearance since Mr. Vance became the Republican vice-presidential pick, Mrs. Vance spoke lovingly of her husband, describing him as a devoted father and husband who had even learned how to cook Indian food for her mother despite being a “meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.”
But two words were conspicuously missing from her speech: Donald Trump.
| By Amy Qin and Jonathan Wolfe
July 20, 2024
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
When Senator JD Vance became Donald J. Trump’s running mate this week on the Republican presidential ticket, it also marked the first time that an Indian American and practicing Hindu, Usha Vance, stood to become a vice-presidential spouse.
That cemented a remarkable reality: at the current moment, a woman of Indian descent will either serve another term in the White House or be the second lady.
It was the | latest milestone for an Indian American community that has emerged as a political powerhouse over the past decade. Kamala Harris in 2021 became the first person of Indian descent, as well as the first woman and Black person, to be vice president. The 2024 presidential cycle is the first one to have featured two Indian American candidates in Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.
And there are now five Indian American members of Congress and nearly 40 Indian Americans in state legislatures — the highest number of any Asian origin group in the country, according to AAPI Data, an organization that collects data about Asian Americans.
It comes alongside another first for Indian Americans: They recently surpassed Chinese Americans to become the largest Asian group in the United States among people who identify with one country of origin, according to a census report released last year. In 2020, nearly 4.4 million people identified as solely Indian. (Chinese people are still the largest group when counting those who identify with multiple countries of origin.)
Most Indians came to the United States after 1965, when a new immigration law removed restrictions that had excluded Asians, Africans and others from the country. The Indian population in the United States has spiked in recent decades, in particular, as American companies in the booming technology sector have sought to hire large numbers of software engineers and computer programmers, drawing some of India’s most-educated workers.
Among Asians in the United States, Indians are the wealthiest and most highly educated origin group on average. And on almost every measure of political and civic engagement, Indian Americans rank at or near the top among Asian groups, a fact that experts largely attribute to their roots in a country with a strong democratic tradition and high usage of English.
“Indian Americans are a growing force in American politics,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and executive director of AAPI Data.
The backs of Usha Vance, in a beige dress, and J.D. Vance, in a dark suit, are seen as they hold hands while standing on a red carpet backstage.
The population boom has been a recent phenomenon. When Ms. Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, arrived in 1958 to pursue a graduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, she was one of only 12,000 Indian immigrants living in the country.
Many Indians who immigrated after the 1965 immigration act came to pursue higher education. That law lifted quotas by country of origin, which had favored Europeans. After completing their studies, many Indians found jobs and were sponsored for legal permanent residency by their employers. Others were brought to the United States by companies and institutions to perform high-skilled jobs.
Mrs. Vance’s father, Krish Chilukuri, is a mechanical engineer who studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, the country’s most prestigious engineering university system. Her mother, Lakshmi Chilukuri, is a biologist and now provost of a college at the University of California, San Diego.
They raised Mrs. Vance and her sister, Shreya, in Rancho Peñasquitos, an upper-middle-class suburb of San Diego, speaking Telugu and English at home. The Chilukuris were part of a close-knit group of six families from southern India. Many of the adults were engineers or educators. Mrs. Vance and her parents did not respond to requests for an interview.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 9:32 a.m. ET37 minutes ago
37 minutes ago
George Clooney endorses Kamala Harris, says Biden is ‘saving democracy.’
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
The families stuck together even as the Indian community in San Diego ballooned from around 200 families in the mid-1980s to about 40,000 people today, mirroring the larger shift in the nation’s Indian population, according to Rami Reddy Mutyala, chairman of Shri Mandir, a local Hindu temple that the Chilukuris occasionally attend.
The women were avid readers and would often gather to discuss novels, while the men traded tips for growing tropical fruits like guavas and mangoes, said Ramesh Rao, a close family friend of the Chilukuris. “There was an obsession to try to see if you can recreate the summertime experiences of India,” Mr. Rao said.
In the past two decades, the growing demand for tech workers has resulted in a new surge of skilled immigrants from India. About 60 percent of Indians in the United States today arrived after 2000. In recent years, the number of Indian migrants illegally crossing the southern border has also spiked. As of 2021, about 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants were in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center.
The growing diversity within the Indian diaspora — which includes different faiths, economic backgrounds and levels of education — has led at times to divisions within the community over issues like caste bias and the Hindu nationalist politics of Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India.
All the while, the community has deepened its engagement with American politics.
Like many first-generation immigrants, the Chilukuris have not been especially vocal about politics, five family friends said. But like most Indian Americans, Mrs. Vance’s parents are Democrats, according to recent voter registration records. In 2017, Lakshmi Chilukuri was also one of more than 2,300 California professors who signed an open letter to Mr. Trump urging him not to withdraw from the Paris accords on climate change.
Since at least 2008, Indian Americans, who have the highest voter turnout rates among Asian groups in presidential elections, have been a reliably Democratic voting bloc. They have long seen the party as more tolerant of different faiths and ethnicities, and more supportive of safety net policies they valued in India, Mr. Ramakrishnan said. Over the years, the Democratic Party has also invested considerable resources in trying to appeal to Asian American voters.
But Indian American support for President Biden has declined, and more Indian Americans are identifying as independents, according to the Asian American Voter Survey released this month.
If Mr. Biden leaves the 2024 race, Ms. Harris would be his likeliest replacement, which would give Indian Americans their first presidential nominee.
Some Republican leaders see an opportunity to make inroads on issues like family, education and immigration. And even as the Republican Party has emphasized its ties to Christianity, some party leaders have tried to appeal to people of other faiths.
Until recently, it was rare to see prominent Indian Americans in the Republican Party who were not Christian. Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana Republican who ran for president in the 2016 cycle, was raised Hindu but has described himself as an “evangelical Catholic.” Ms. Haley, another high-profile Republican, was raised Sikh and later converted to Christianity.
Bobby Jindal, wearing a black suit and red tie, gestures with his right hand as he speaks.
But in an interview last month with Fox and Friends, Mrs. Vance spoke openly about the importance of her Hindu faith in her upbringing. (Mr. Vance was raised Protestant and converted to Catholicism in 2019.) And Mr. Ramaswamy, a classmate of the Vances at Yale Law School and a Trump acolyte, also spoke openly, though carefully, about his Hindu faith on the presidential campaign trail.
Mrs. Vance’s elevated role could also help win over some Indian American voters and donors.
But the recent Asian American Voter Survey also showed that the drop in support for Mr. Biden among Indian Americans has not corresponded with a meaningful uptick in support for Mr. Trump.
Miriam Lobo, a close friend of Mrs. Vance’s parents in San Diego, said that she was thrilled to see that Mrs. Vance, whom she described as a “grounded” and “thoughtful” woman, now had a chance to become the nation’s second lady. Ms. Lobo, an Indian American, has twice hosted Mr. Vance at her house for Christmas in recent years, she said, and called him “simple folk” and “like one of us.”
But she did not mince words when it came to Mr. Vance’s running mate. “I don’t like Donald Trump,” she said. “I’ve never liked him.” She then added, “I think,” and paused for a moment, before continuing: “I don’t like the way he treats people.”
Mrs. Vance herself is something of a political enigma. She was a registered Democrat until at least 2014, according to an online database that includes voter registration records. Even as her husband has gone from a “Never Trump” critic to a fervent supporter of Mr. Trump, she has said little publicly or privately about her own politics, friends said.
At the Republican National Committee on Wednesday night, in her first high-profile appearance since Mr. Vance became the Republican vice-presidential pick, Mrs. Vance spoke lovingly of her husband, describing him as a devoted father and husband who had even learned how to cook Indian food for her mother despite being a “meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.”
But two words were conspicuously missing from her speech: Donald Trump.
|
Is Bird Flu Spreading Widely to Farm Workers? A Small Study Offers Some Reassurance.txt | By Emily Anthes and Noah Weiland
July 20, 2024
Since an unusual bird flu outbreak was first detected in dairy cows in March, experts have warned that the virus could be infecting more farm workers than have been officially detected. Testing has been severely limited, constraining what health officials know about the ways that the virus is spreading from sick cows and contaminated equipment and how often it is spilling over into humans.
In recent weeks, state and federal officials have been working to unravel part of that mystery: whether silent, undetected infections are occurring in farm workers. Officials in Michigan recently began testing the blood of 35 dairy workers for antibodies to the virus, which would provide evidence of past infection.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shared preliminary results, which showed that none of the workers were carrying antibodies to the virus, known as H5N1. All worked on dairy farms in Michigan that had suffered outbreaks, and many worked directly with sick cows, the agency said.
Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigan’s chief medical executive, noted that the study was small and that the results were not definitive. The farm workers tested were also volunteers, which means that they may not be representative of dairy workers more broadly.
Still, she said, the results suggested that asymptomatic transmission “is likely not widespread, and that this disease is not something that is spreading with minimal contact.”
In its online update, the C.D.C. noted that the results supported its approach to testing, which has focused on symptomatic people who had been in contact with sick animals.
But outside experts were not convinced, noting that much more data was needed.
“If there were a lot of positives, that would have been an absolute cause for alarm, but this is not absolutely reassuring,” said David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We need to look harder for asymptomatic infections before we declare mission accomplished.”
The C.D.C. also announced on Friday that a new cluster of cases in poultry workers in Colorado had grown to six. The workers, who had mild symptoms, were involved in culling chickens on a farm that was battling its own bird flu outbreak. Preliminary sequencing data suggests that the virus may have spread to the poultry farm from a dairy farm.
In total, 10 human cases have been reported in U.S. farm workers since the dairy outbreak began. The first four reported cases — two in Michigan, one in Texas and one in Colorado — all occurred in dairy workers, who may have been infected when they were exposed to milk from sick cows, which contains very high levels of the virus.
But there have been anecdotal reports of additional workers with symptoms. Public health experts say that farm workers often have difficulty accessing medical care and can be hesitant to acknowledge that they feel ill. Experts have also repeatedly warned that testing has been too limited to reveal the full scope of the problem.
As of Friday, at least 62 people had been tested for the virus, according to the C.D.C.
The Michigan study “doesn’t solve the problem of how many symptomatic people are not getting tested,” said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Boston University Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Dr. Bagdasarian and outside experts cautioned that the study’s findings could not be used to make broader assertions about the dynamics of the outbreak. Farm workers who volunteered for the study could have been more careful about their exposure, or more likely to wear personal protective gear, she noted. Fewer than half of the 35 workers in the study reported using masks or goggles, according to the C.D.C.
“This is just the beginning,” Dr. Bagdasarian said. “This is a first study, and it tells us that additional studies are needed.”
So far, the C.D.C. has only been able to fully sequence the flu virus from one of the infected poultry workers in Colorado, the agency said on Friday. But the data suggests that the worker was infected with the same version of the virus that has been circulating in cows. That hints that the virus spread from cows to chickens to people, reinforcing the ongoing challenge involved in controlling the outbreak.
The sample did not have any mutations known to make the virus more transmissible among humans or resistant to antiviral drugs, and the risk to the general public remains low, the agency said.
| By Emily Anthes and Noah Weiland
July 20, 2024
Since an unusual bird flu outbreak was first detected in dairy cows in March, experts have warned that the virus could be infecting more farm workers than have been officially detected. Testing has been severely limited, constraining what health officials know about the ways that the virus is spreading from sick cows and contaminated equipment and how often it is spilling over into humans.
In recent weeks, state and federal officials have been working to unravel part of that mystery: whether silent, undetected infections are occurring in farm workers. Officials in Michigan recently | began testing the blood of 35 dairy workers for antibodies to the virus, which would provide evidence of past infection.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shared preliminary results, which showed that none of the workers were carrying antibodies to the virus, known as H5N1. All worked on dairy farms in Michigan that had suffered outbreaks, and many worked directly with sick cows, the agency said.
Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigan’s chief medical executive, noted that the study was small and that the results were not definitive. The farm workers tested were also volunteers, which means that they may not be representative of dairy workers more broadly.
Still, she said, the results suggested that asymptomatic transmission “is likely not widespread, and that this disease is not something that is spreading with minimal contact.”
In its online update, the C.D.C. noted that the results supported its approach to testing, which has focused on symptomatic people who had been in contact with sick animals.
But outside experts were not convinced, noting that much more data was needed.
“If there were a lot of positives, that would have been an absolute cause for alarm, but this is not absolutely reassuring,” said David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We need to look harder for asymptomatic infections before we declare mission accomplished.”
The C.D.C. also announced on Friday that a new cluster of cases in poultry workers in Colorado had grown to six. The workers, who had mild symptoms, were involved in culling chickens on a farm that was battling its own bird flu outbreak. Preliminary sequencing data suggests that the virus may have spread to the poultry farm from a dairy farm.
In total, 10 human cases have been reported in U.S. farm workers since the dairy outbreak began. The first four reported cases — two in Michigan, one in Texas and one in Colorado — all occurred in dairy workers, who may have been infected when they were exposed to milk from sick cows, which contains very high levels of the virus.
But there have been anecdotal reports of additional workers with symptoms. Public health experts say that farm workers often have difficulty accessing medical care and can be hesitant to acknowledge that they feel ill. Experts have also repeatedly warned that testing has been too limited to reveal the full scope of the problem.
As of Friday, at least 62 people had been tested for the virus, according to the C.D.C.
The Michigan study “doesn’t solve the problem of how many symptomatic people are not getting tested,” said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Boston University Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Dr. Bagdasarian and outside experts cautioned that the study’s findings could not be used to make broader assertions about the dynamics of the outbreak. Farm workers who volunteered for the study could have been more careful about their exposure, or more likely to wear personal protective gear, she noted. Fewer than half of the 35 workers in the study reported using masks or goggles, according to the C.D.C.
“This is just the beginning,” Dr. Bagdasarian said. “This is a first study, and it tells us that additional studies are needed.”
So far, the C.D.C. has only been able to fully sequence the flu virus from one of the infected poultry workers in Colorado, the agency said on Friday. But the data suggests that the worker was infected with the same version of the virus that has been circulating in cows. That hints that the virus spread from cows to chickens to people, reinforcing the ongoing challenge involved in controlling the outbreak.
The sample did not have any mutations known to make the virus more transmissible among humans or resistant to antiviral drugs, and the risk to the general public remains low, the agency said.
|
Hearing Highlights: Secret Service Chief Pummeled by Lawmakers Who Called for Her Resignation.txt |
By Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Committee leaders further pressured Cheatle to step down. Here’s the latest.
The leaders of the House oversight committee called on the Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, to resign after her testimony on Monday in which she repeatedly refused to answer specific questions about the security failures that led to an assassination attempt of former President Donald J. Trump.
Representatives James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the committee, and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the panel, joined several members of the committee in demanding Ms. Cheatle’s resignation.
Ms. Cheatle, appearing before the committee for more than four hours, called the shooting at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa., her agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades. But she cited the continuing investigation when declining to answer queries about the would-be assassin’s access to the warehouse roof from which he fired, how he had managed to bring a firearm to the event, why Mr. Trump was allowed to come onstage despite warnings about a suspicious person and many other details.
Ms. Cheatle did reveal that she had expressed remorse to Mr. Trump. Asked by Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, whether she had apologized to the former president directly, Ms. Cheatle answered that she had.
A spectator at the rally was killed, and the former president and two attendees were injured in the July 13 shooting. In the days since, congressional committees have been investigating missteps by law enforcement before, during and after the attack.
“Because Donald Trump is alive, and thank God he is, you look incompetent,” said Representative Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, calling for President Biden to fire Ms. Cheatle if she did not resign. “If Donald Trump had been killed, you would have looked culpable.”
Here’s what else to know:
Pressure to resign: Mr. Raskin and Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, joined many of their Republican colleagues in pushing for Ms. Cheatle to step down, while Mr. Comer said her agency had become the “face of incompetence.” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, accused the Secret Service of “cutting corners.”
Rebuffed requests: The Secret Service acknowledged on Saturday that it had turned down requests for additional federal resources sought by Mr. Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to the attempted assassination. “For the event in Butler, there were no requests that were denied,” Ms. Cheatle told Congress.
Breakdown in protection: The Secret Service faces questions over why the warehouse used by the shooter to fire at Mr. Trump was not included in the security perimeter zone. Also unclear is why the agency did not assign more local law enforcement officers to work outside the perimeter.
Homeland Security review: The homeland security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, announced on Sunday members of a panel that will conduct an independent 45-day review of the security breakdown at the Trump rally. The Secret Service is a part of the department. President Biden had called for an independent investigation.
During a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, several lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, expressed frustration with Secret Service Director Kimberly A. Cheatle over the number of questions that she would not — or could not — answer.
Many times, Ms. Cheatle said she was waiting for reports to arrive to give her the requested information — nine days after the shooting. She said she was not trying to be evasive, but rather was trying to provide information that was accurate.
The following are some of the questions Ms. Cheatle was asked repeatedly that she did not answer:
Why did the Secret Service not station an agent on the warehouse roof that the gunman used as a sniper’s perch?
Ms. Cheatle was pressed repeatedly on this point. Her most detailed answer was in response to a question from Committee Chairman James Comer, Republican of Kentucky. Ms. Cheatle seemed to indicate that the Secret Service had left the rooftop unmanned on purpose, because, she said, the agency preferred “sterile” — presumably meaning empty — rooftops. Instead, she said, the warehouse rooftop was to receive “overwatch” — meaning law enforcement officers were supposed to watch that rooftop from another, higher perch.
“There was a plan in place to provide overwatch, and we are still looking into responsibilities, and who was going to provide overwatch,” Ms. Cheatle said.
How many Secret Service agents were assigned to protect President Trump in Butler, Pa.?
Ms. Cheatle declined to answer that question, or to say how many officers from other federal law enforcement agencies were on hand to supplement the Secret Service. “We feel that there was a sufficient number of agents assigned,” she told Mr. Comer.
Who decided that the warehouse roof should be outside the Secret Service’s security perimeter for Mr. Trump’s rally?
“I don’t have a specific person to identify for you,” Ms. Cheatle told Rep. Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Later, Rep. Michael Cloud, Republican of Texas, pressed Ms. Cheatle to say whether a Secret Service official had given final approval to the security plan for Mr. Trump’s rally. When Mr. Cloud pressed Ms. Cheatle to identify who had final sign-off, Ms. Cheatle said, “It’s a conjunction of personnel.”
In follow-up questions, she said she would not specify further during the hearing.
Why did the Secret Service allow former President Trump to take the stage, despite people in the crowd pointing out a gunman on the warehouse roof?
“If the detail had been passed information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former president out onto stage,” Ms. Cheatle said.
She said that the Secret Service agents around the president had been aware of a suspicious person, but not a threat. "We are currently still combing through communications, and when communications were passed,” Ms. Cheatle said. She indicated to Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois, that the Secret Service had not considered either pausing the rally or removing Mr. Trump from the stage before the shots were fired.
How did Mr. Crooks get his rifle up onto the warehouse roof? Did he leave it there before the rally?
“I do not have that information at this time,” Ms. Cheatle said.
Rep. Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, responded with the same frustration as other members of Congress.
“You should have come today ready to give us answers. I call upon you to resign today. Today!” Mr. Biggs told Ms. Cheatle.
What additional security steps did the Secret Service take after the U.S. learned about a potential Iranian plot to kill Mr. Trump?
Ms. Cheatle acknowledged that she had been aware of the Iranian threat to the former president, and that she had reviewed the intelligence behind it. But she did not reveal what security measures the Secret Service had put in place to counter the Iranian threat.
During the hearing, Rep. Michael R. Turner of Ohio, who chairs the House intelligence committee, said that the Secret Service had not included the warnings about Iran in its threat assessment for the Butler rally.
The Iranian threat stemmed from Tehran’s desire to avenge the strike ordered by Mr. Trump in January 2020 that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian security and intelligence commander responsible for the killing of American troops in Iraq. Mr. Turner claimed that Christopher A. Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was shocked that the Iranian information was not part of the Security Service threat assessment.
Ms. Cheatle said she thought the security in place at Butler was sufficient to deal with the Iranian threat.
“Is an Iranian assassin more capable than a 20-year-old?” Mr. Turner asked, seemingly sarcastically.
David Fahrenthold
July 22, 2024, 1:35 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
David Fahrenthold
Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, concludes his questioning by saying, “You are a D.E.I. horror story” to Cheatle. D.E.I. stands for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” which are efforts to increase the gender and racial diversity at organizations. That echoes sexist attacks lobbed by others on the right that part of the blame for the assassination attempt lies with efforts to add gender diversity to the Secret Service. Many of those attacks have been made against women working in the detail protecting Trump. No evidence has surfaced to show that those agents acted improperly.
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 1:22 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, says the circumstances of the Butler, Pa., shooting match profiles of some mass shootings in her state and questions why Congress doesn’t hold hearings about the many lives lost to gun violence.
Video player loading
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 1:04 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Representative Jared Moskowitz, Democrat of Florida, compares Cheatle’s performance today to a recent hearing with university presidents that resulted in the presidents resigning.
Campbell Robertson
July 22, 2024, 12:52 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Campbell Robertson
Asked why the event went forward despite repeated warnings of a suspicious person, Cheatle emphasized “the distinction between suspicious behavior and a threat.” This has been a core distinction in these exchanges: Crooks was identified as suspicious by law enforcement officers several times before the shooting but was initially unarmed.
Video player loading
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 12:42 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Cheatle’s comments in a TV interview that a “sloped roof” played a role in the Secret Service’s decision not to place someone on the roof where the gunman opened fire have come under intense scrutiny at this hearing.
Hamed Aleaziz
July 22, 2024, 12:46 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Hamed Aleaziz
Representative Pat Fallon, Republican of Texas, asked Cheatle if there was a written policy on sloped roofs that she could share with the committee. Cheatle said “no.”
Campbell Robertson
July 22, 2024, 12:36 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Campbell Robertson
Under questions from Representative Jake LaTurner, Republican of Kansas, Cheatle said the F.B.I. investigation had found that a local SWAT team spotted Crooks on the roof of a warehouse approximately 18 minutes before Trump took the stage. This differs from the accounts given by some local law enforcement officials, who said Crooks was seen around this time in the area but not on the roof.
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 12:15 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, curses at Cheatle, prompting calls from other lawmakers for decorum.
Campbell Robertson
July 22, 2024, 12:11 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Campbell Robertson
“You’re not making this easy for us,” said Representative Shontel Brown, Democrat of Ohio, after Cheatle would not answer her questions about staffing numbers at the rally.
David Fahrenthold
July 22, 2024, 12:06 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
David Fahrenthold
Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, asked if Crooks had placed the gun on the roof previously. “I do not have that information at this time,” she said. Cheatle has often deflected questions by saying she cannot share some details — but in this case she said she did not know herself.
Hamed Aleaziz
July 22, 2024, 12:00 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Hamed Aleaziz
Ocasio-Cortez argues that law enforcement, after security failures, often sets up investigations that take months and that “corrective action is rarely taken” afterward. Ocasio-Cortez pushed Cheatle to be more “forthright” because the “stakes are too high.”
Video player loading
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 11:51 a.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Lawmakers are frustrated with a lack of answers to questions. Cheatle says she expects to have better answers within 60 days.
Hamed Aleaziz
July 22, 2024, 11:53 a.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Hamed Aleaziz
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, says a 60-day timeline for answers is not acceptable for the public.
Campbell Robertson
July 22, 2024, 11:51 a.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Campbell Robertson
Cheatle said that the rooftop from which Crooks fired his shots was under “overwatch” at the time of the shooting, meaning it was being monitored by law enforcement. She did not say what agency was given responsibility for watching the building, although all of the local and state law enforcement agencies on scene that day have said that they were not given that task by the Secret Service.
David Fahrenthold
July 22, 2024, 11:41 a.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
David Fahrenthold
Representative Michael Cloud, Republican of Texas, joins a series of committee members who appear frustrated by Cheatle, who has declined to answer most substantive questions. “You’re in charge of the investigation of your own failure. So how is anybody in America supposed to be able to trust the results of the investigation as being transparent and genuine?” Cheatle responded by saying she would have answers in the future. “I assure this committee that I will provide answers when we have a full and complete report,” she said. (Homeland Security has said that a bipartisan group of experts will conduct an independent review.)
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Maggie Haberman
July 20, 2024, 10:35 p.m. ETJuly 20, 2024
July 20, 2024, 10:35 p.m. ET
Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman
Secret Service says it denied earlier Trump requests for more federal resources.
A Secret Service agent dashes away while two others turn to look in the direction he is heading. Several onlookers wearing red apparel are in the foreground.
The Secret Service acknowledged on Saturday that it had turned down requests for additional federal resources sought by former President Donald J. Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination last week, a reversal from earlier statements by the agency denying that such requests had been rebuffed.
Almost immediately after a gunman shot at Mr. Trump from a nearby warehouse roof while he spoke at a rally in Butler, Pa., last weekend, the Secret Service faced accusations from Republicans and anonymous law enforcement officials that it had turned down requests for additional agents to secure Mr. Trump’s rallies.
“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional resources and that those were rebuffed,” Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said last Sunday, the day after the shooting.
Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, said on Monday that the accusation that he had issued the denials was “a baseless and irresponsible statement and it is one that is unequivocally false.”
On Saturday, Mr. Guglielmi acknowledged that the Secret Service had turned down some requests for additional federal security assets for Mr. Trump’s detail. Two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that the Trump campaign had been seeking additional resources for the better part of the time that Mr. Trump had been out of office. The denied requests for additional resources were not specifically for the rally in Butler, Mr. Guglielmi said.
U.S. officials previously said the Secret Service had enhanced security for the former president before the Butler rally because it had received information from U.S. intelligence agencies about a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump.
In a statement provided to The New York Times on Saturday, Mr. Guglielmi emphasized that the federal agency works in a “dynamic threat environment” and that, in the instances where the Secret Service could not provide additional resources, they supplemented security for Mr. Trump’s rallies with state and local law enforcement assets or changed its security plans to reduce Mr. Trump’s exposure.
“In some instances where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided, the agency made modifications to ensure the security of the protectee,” Mr. Guglielmi said in the statement. “This may include utilizing state or local partners to provide specialized functions or otherwise identifying alternatives to reduce public exposure of a protectee.”
Mr. Guglielmi said the federal agency is limited in the amount of resources it can dispatch to events. Secret Service officials have for years complained that the agency is stretched thin, particularly during election season, when it must protect the sitting president, multiple candidates and political conventions.
The fact that the service might have rejected earlier requests for additional support was previously reported by The Washington Post.
The admission will only fuel the intense criticism that Secret Service Director Kimberly A. Cheatle is expected to face on Monday when she appears at a hearing with the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
Kimberly A. Cheatle, seen in front of a backdrop with the Secret Service logo, looking to the side.
The Secret Service had already been barraged with questions over why it had excluded from its security zone the warehouse — about 450 feet from the former president — from which the would-be assassin had fired at Mr. Trump on July 13. Mr. Trump, whose right ear was injured in the attack, could be seen touching his ear as popping noises went off, before dropping to the ground and being surrounded by Secret Service agents.
The service did not hold or take part in a public briefing the night of the shooting, while other law enforcement officials held a news conference a few hours after the fact. The service did not hold a public briefing to answer questions in the week after the assassination attempt.
The intensity of the anger between Republicans and top brass at the Washington-based Secret Service after the assassination attempt boiled over during the Republican National Convention. A group of senators chased Ms. Cheatle through Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, saying she was not answering their questions about the shooting.
The Secret Service has faced scrutiny over the way it assigned local law enforcement officers to assist with security at the Butler rally. The agency tasked a sizable contingent of local law enforcement officers with working inside its security perimeter, rather than covering the building where the shooter ended up.
The would-be assassin was able to roam freely outside the perimeter before he took his position on the roof, even though local officers had noticed him acting oddly and notified other law enforcement.
The agency also faced questions as to why it had allowed Mr. Trump to take the stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds, even after receiving information that law enforcement was looking for someone suspicious in the crowd.
In addition to wounding Mr. Trump, the gunman, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa., killed one rally attendee and injured two others. A Secret Service sniper then shot and killed Mr. Crooks. Mr. Mayorkas earlier this week called the incident a “failure” of security, and President Biden has called for an independent review of the security procedures before and after the shooting.
Several Republicans have called on Ms. Cheatle to resign. During Mr. Trump’s speech at the Republican convention on Thursday, he commended the efforts of the agents who rushed to his aid and brought him to safety.
A Trump campaign spokesman declined to comment on the new revelations, pointing only to a post by Mr. Trump on Truth Social after the assassination attempt, in which the former president praised his Secret Service detail for protecting him.
“I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Nonetheless, the Trump political team has been concerned about a lack of support and additional resources for years, and those concerns have only become more acute as Mr. Trump has faced a series of unprecedented situations for a former president, including four criminal arraignments.
A consistent source of stress, according to a campaign official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, has been the lack of sufficient metal detectors to screen attendees. At one rally for Mr. Trump at a park in the South Bronx at the end of May, the official said, the lack of detectors led to a logjam of people waiting to get in.
But service officials were more concerned, the official said, with matters like limiting the number of picnic tables that people could stand on. In another stark example, the official said, the service initially denied a request by the Trump team for metal detectors when the former president attended his youngest son’s high school graduation in May, saying it wasn’t a “political” event. Ultimately, the service relented.
And, at Mr. Trump’s massive outdoor rally earlier that month in the town of Wildwood on the Jersey Shore, a request by the Trump team for specially trained dogs to search the area was denied, the official said.
A crowd of people is seen waiting behind barricades. A roller coaster is behind them.
Often, the official said, the requests were denied in a phone call from service officials, rather than put in writing.
The Secret Service has been battered by controversies for many years. They include one in November 2009, when a Washington couple crashed a state dinner at the White House. Two years later, a man with a semiautomatic rifle fired at the White House from a car parked in front of it, while President Obama’s younger daughter Sasha was at home and his other daughter, Malia, was en route to the building. A service supervisor thought the noise had been a backfiring car and told officers they should stand down.
Last year, an intoxicated man was able to evade the security detail of Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and enter his home at 3 a.m. Mr. Sullivan, who confronted the intruder and made him leave, was not harmed in the breach.
Even how to guard the Republican National Convention site was a source of dispute between convention officials and the Secret Service. Convention officials repeatedly pressed the service to change the area where protests were allowed, fearing clashes between protesters and delegates. The argument lasted for weeks.
The event was designated as a national special security event, a protocol usually used for large-scale functions, including past conventions and the United Nations General Assembly. The designation allowed the service to pull in additional federal resources.
A correction was made on July 21, 2024
:
An earlier version of this article misstated the day on which former President Donald J. Trump spoke at the Republican National Convention. It was Thursday, not Saturday.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
By Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Committee leaders further pressured Cheatle to step down. Here’s the latest.
The leaders of the House oversight committee called on the Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, to resign after her testimony on Monday in which she repeatedly refused to answer specific questions about the security failures that led to an assassination attempt of former President Donald J. Trump.
Representatives James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the committee, and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the panel, joined several members of the committee in demanding Ms | . Cheatle’s resignation.
Ms. Cheatle, appearing before the committee for more than four hours, called the shooting at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa., her agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades. But she cited the continuing investigation when declining to answer queries about the would-be assassin’s access to the warehouse roof from which he fired, how he had managed to bring a firearm to the event, why Mr. Trump was allowed to come onstage despite warnings about a suspicious person and many other details.
Ms. Cheatle did reveal that she had expressed remorse to Mr. Trump. Asked by Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, whether she had apologized to the former president directly, Ms. Cheatle answered that she had.
A spectator at the rally was killed, and the former president and two attendees were injured in the July 13 shooting. In the days since, congressional committees have been investigating missteps by law enforcement before, during and after the attack.
“Because Donald Trump is alive, and thank God he is, you look incompetent,” said Representative Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, calling for President Biden to fire Ms. Cheatle if she did not resign. “If Donald Trump had been killed, you would have looked culpable.”
Here’s what else to know:
Pressure to resign: Mr. Raskin and Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, joined many of their Republican colleagues in pushing for Ms. Cheatle to step down, while Mr. Comer said her agency had become the “face of incompetence.” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, accused the Secret Service of “cutting corners.”
Rebuffed requests: The Secret Service acknowledged on Saturday that it had turned down requests for additional federal resources sought by Mr. Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to the attempted assassination. “For the event in Butler, there were no requests that were denied,” Ms. Cheatle told Congress.
Breakdown in protection: The Secret Service faces questions over why the warehouse used by the shooter to fire at Mr. Trump was not included in the security perimeter zone. Also unclear is why the agency did not assign more local law enforcement officers to work outside the perimeter.
Homeland Security review: The homeland security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, announced on Sunday members of a panel that will conduct an independent 45-day review of the security breakdown at the Trump rally. The Secret Service is a part of the department. President Biden had called for an independent investigation.
During a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, several lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, expressed frustration with Secret Service Director Kimberly A. Cheatle over the number of questions that she would not — or could not — answer.
Many times, Ms. Cheatle said she was waiting for reports to arrive to give her the requested information — nine days after the shooting. She said she was not trying to be evasive, but rather was trying to provide information that was accurate.
The following are some of the questions Ms. Cheatle was asked repeatedly that she did not answer:
Why did the Secret Service not station an agent on the warehouse roof that the gunman used as a sniper’s perch?
Ms. Cheatle was pressed repeatedly on this point. Her most detailed answer was in response to a question from Committee Chairman James Comer, Republican of Kentucky. Ms. Cheatle seemed to indicate that the Secret Service had left the rooftop unmanned on purpose, because, she said, the agency preferred “sterile” — presumably meaning empty — rooftops. Instead, she said, the warehouse rooftop was to receive “overwatch” — meaning law enforcement officers were supposed to watch that rooftop from another, higher perch.
“There was a plan in place to provide overwatch, and we are still looking into responsibilities, and who was going to provide overwatch,” Ms. Cheatle said.
How many Secret Service agents were assigned to protect President Trump in Butler, Pa.?
Ms. Cheatle declined to answer that question, or to say how many officers from other federal law enforcement agencies were on hand to supplement the Secret Service. “We feel that there was a sufficient number of agents assigned,” she told Mr. Comer.
Who decided that the warehouse roof should be outside the Secret Service’s security perimeter for Mr. Trump’s rally?
“I don’t have a specific person to identify for you,” Ms. Cheatle told Rep. Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Later, Rep. Michael Cloud, Republican of Texas, pressed Ms. Cheatle to say whether a Secret Service official had given final approval to the security plan for Mr. Trump’s rally. When Mr. Cloud pressed Ms. Cheatle to identify who had final sign-off, Ms. Cheatle said, “It’s a conjunction of personnel.”
In follow-up questions, she said she would not specify further during the hearing.
Why did the Secret Service allow former President Trump to take the stage, despite people in the crowd pointing out a gunman on the warehouse roof?
“If the detail had been passed information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former president out onto stage,” Ms. Cheatle said.
She said that the Secret Service agents around the president had been aware of a suspicious person, but not a threat. "We are currently still combing through communications, and when communications were passed,” Ms. Cheatle said. She indicated to Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois, that the Secret Service had not considered either pausing the rally or removing Mr. Trump from the stage before the shots were fired.
How did Mr. Crooks get his rifle up onto the warehouse roof? Did he leave it there before the rally?
“I do not have that information at this time,” Ms. Cheatle said.
Rep. Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, responded with the same frustration as other members of Congress.
“You should have come today ready to give us answers. I call upon you to resign today. Today!” Mr. Biggs told Ms. Cheatle.
What additional security steps did the Secret Service take after the U.S. learned about a potential Iranian plot to kill Mr. Trump?
Ms. Cheatle acknowledged that she had been aware of the Iranian threat to the former president, and that she had reviewed the intelligence behind it. But she did not reveal what security measures the Secret Service had put in place to counter the Iranian threat.
During the hearing, Rep. Michael R. Turner of Ohio, who chairs the House intelligence committee, said that the Secret Service had not included the warnings about Iran in its threat assessment for the Butler rally.
The Iranian threat stemmed from Tehran’s desire to avenge the strike ordered by Mr. Trump in January 2020 that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian security and intelligence commander responsible for the killing of American troops in Iraq. Mr. Turner claimed that Christopher A. Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was shocked that the Iranian information was not part of the Security Service threat assessment.
Ms. Cheatle said she thought the security in place at Butler was sufficient to deal with the Iranian threat.
“Is an Iranian assassin more capable than a 20-year-old?” Mr. Turner asked, seemingly sarcastically.
David Fahrenthold
July 22, 2024, 1:35 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
David Fahrenthold
Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, concludes his questioning by saying, “You are a D.E.I. horror story” to Cheatle. D.E.I. stands for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” which are efforts to increase the gender and racial diversity at organizations. That echoes sexist attacks lobbed by others on the right that part of the blame for the assassination attempt lies with efforts to add gender diversity to the Secret Service. Many of those attacks have been made against women working in the detail protecting Trump. No evidence has surfaced to show that those agents acted improperly.
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 1:22 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, says the circumstances of the Butler, Pa., shooting match profiles of some mass shootings in her state and questions why Congress doesn’t hold hearings about the many lives lost to gun violence.
Video player loading
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 1:04 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Representative Jared Moskowitz, Democrat of Florida, compares Cheatle’s performance today to a recent hearing with university presidents that resulted in the presidents resigning.
Campbell Robertson
July 22, 2024, 12:52 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Campbell Robertson
Asked why the event went forward despite repeated warnings of a suspicious person, Cheatle emphasized “the distinction between suspicious behavior and a threat.” This has been a core distinction in these exchanges: Crooks was identified as suspicious by law enforcement officers several times before the shooting but was initially unarmed.
Video player loading
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 12:42 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Cheatle’s comments in a TV interview that a “sloped roof” played a role in the Secret Service’s decision not to place someone on the roof where the gunman opened fire have come under intense scrutiny at this hearing.
Hamed Aleaziz
July 22, 2024, 12:46 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Hamed Aleaziz
Representative Pat Fallon, Republican of Texas, asked Cheatle if there was a written policy on sloped roofs that she could share with the committee. Cheatle said “no.”
Campbell Robertson
July 22, 2024, 12:36 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Campbell Robertson
Under questions from Representative Jake LaTurner, Republican of Kansas, Cheatle said the F.B.I. investigation had found that a local SWAT team spotted Crooks on the roof of a warehouse approximately 18 minutes before Trump took the stage. This differs from the accounts given by some local law enforcement officials, who said Crooks was seen around this time in the area but not on the roof.
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 12:15 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, curses at Cheatle, prompting calls from other lawmakers for decorum.
Campbell Robertson
July 22, 2024, 12:11 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Campbell Robertson
“You’re not making this easy for us,” said Representative Shontel Brown, Democrat of Ohio, after Cheatle would not answer her questions about staffing numbers at the rally.
David Fahrenthold
July 22, 2024, 12:06 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
David Fahrenthold
Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, asked if Crooks had placed the gun on the roof previously. “I do not have that information at this time,” she said. Cheatle has often deflected questions by saying she cannot share some details — but in this case she said she did not know herself.
Hamed Aleaziz
July 22, 2024, 12:00 p.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Hamed Aleaziz
Ocasio-Cortez argues that law enforcement, after security failures, often sets up investigations that take months and that “corrective action is rarely taken” afterward. Ocasio-Cortez pushed Cheatle to be more “forthright” because the “stakes are too high.”
Video player loading
Luke Broadwater
July 22, 2024, 11:51 a.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Luke BroadwaterReporting from Capitol Hill
Lawmakers are frustrated with a lack of answers to questions. Cheatle says she expects to have better answers within 60 days.
Hamed Aleaziz
July 22, 2024, 11:53 a.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Hamed Aleaziz
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, says a 60-day timeline for answers is not acceptable for the public.
Campbell Robertson
July 22, 2024, 11:51 a.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
Campbell Robertson
Cheatle said that the rooftop from which Crooks fired his shots was under “overwatch” at the time of the shooting, meaning it was being monitored by law enforcement. She did not say what agency was given responsibility for watching the building, although all of the local and state law enforcement agencies on scene that day have said that they were not given that task by the Secret Service.
David Fahrenthold
July 22, 2024, 11:41 a.m. ETJuly 22, 2024
July 22, 2024
David Fahrenthold
Representative Michael Cloud, Republican of Texas, joins a series of committee members who appear frustrated by Cheatle, who has declined to answer most substantive questions. “You’re in charge of the investigation of your own failure. So how is anybody in America supposed to be able to trust the results of the investigation as being transparent and genuine?” Cheatle responded by saying she would have answers in the future. “I assure this committee that I will provide answers when we have a full and complete report,” she said. (Homeland Security has said that a bipartisan group of experts will conduct an independent review.)
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Maggie Haberman
July 20, 2024, 10:35 p.m. ETJuly 20, 2024
July 20, 2024, 10:35 p.m. ET
Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman
Secret Service says it denied earlier Trump requests for more federal resources.
A Secret Service agent dashes away while two others turn to look in the direction he is heading. Several onlookers wearing red apparel are in the foreground.
The Secret Service acknowledged on Saturday that it had turned down requests for additional federal resources sought by former President Donald J. Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination last week, a reversal from earlier statements by the agency denying that such requests had been rebuffed.
Almost immediately after a gunman shot at Mr. Trump from a nearby warehouse roof while he spoke at a rally in Butler, Pa., last weekend, the Secret Service faced accusations from Republicans and anonymous law enforcement officials that it had turned down requests for additional agents to secure Mr. Trump’s rallies.
“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional resources and that those were rebuffed,” Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said last Sunday, the day after the shooting.
Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, said on Monday that the accusation that he had issued the denials was “a baseless and irresponsible statement and it is one that is unequivocally false.”
On Saturday, Mr. Guglielmi acknowledged that the Secret Service had turned down some requests for additional federal security assets for Mr. Trump’s detail. Two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that the Trump campaign had been seeking additional resources for the better part of the time that Mr. Trump had been out of office. The denied requests for additional resources were not specifically for the rally in Butler, Mr. Guglielmi said.
U.S. officials previously said the Secret Service had enhanced security for the former president before the Butler rally because it had received information from U.S. intelligence agencies about a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump.
In a statement provided to The New York Times on Saturday, Mr. Guglielmi emphasized that the federal agency works in a “dynamic threat environment” and that, in the instances where the Secret Service could not provide additional resources, they supplemented security for Mr. Trump’s rallies with state and local law enforcement assets or changed its security plans to reduce Mr. Trump’s exposure.
“In some instances where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided, the agency made modifications to ensure the security of the protectee,” Mr. Guglielmi said in the statement. “This may include utilizing state or local partners to provide specialized functions or otherwise identifying alternatives to reduce public exposure of a protectee.”
Mr. Guglielmi said the federal agency is limited in the amount of resources it can dispatch to events. Secret Service officials have for years complained that the agency is stretched thin, particularly during election season, when it must protect the sitting president, multiple candidates and political conventions.
The fact that the service might have rejected earlier requests for additional support was previously reported by |
Blue Jays’ Bo Bichette heads to IL with another right calf strain, expected to miss multiple weeks.txt | By Kaitlyn McGrath
Jul 20, 2024
TORONTO — Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette was placed on the injured list with a right calf strain Saturday. It is the second time Bichette has been on the IL with the injury this season.
Bichette aggravated his calf during the sixth inning of Friday’s loss against the Detroit Tigers while running out of the batter’s box. He went for an MRI on Saturday and the results showed a moderate calf strain. He is expected to miss “multiple weeks,” according to Blue Jays manager John Schneider.
“When we get the results back, we’ll know the timeframe and things like that,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.
The Blue Jays recalled utility infielder Addison Barger from Triple-A Buffalo to take Bichette’s place on the roster. Ernie Clement and Leo Jiménez are expected to get the bulk of work at shortstop with Bichette out.
This is the second time Bichette has hit the IL with a right calf strain within the span of a little over a month. The 26-year-old missed nine games from June 15-24 while on the IL. He missed an additional four games before the All-Star break after reaggravating the injury. The club had hoped the All-Star break had provided enough time for Bichette to rest and recover, but in the team’s first game back, the injury struck again.
The right leg has been a trouble spot for Bichette in recent years. In addition to his right calf, Bichette also suffered injuries to his right knee and quad last season.
“I think knee is a little bit different than soft tissue, but for a guy that plays all the time, you don’t like it to be the same thing over and over,” the Blue Jays manager said.
The injury is another blow to what’s been a tough season for Bichette, who has been slumping at the plate for the majority of the year. His .223 batting average and .597 OPS are well below his career norms and he’s hit only four home runs in 79 games this season.
Bichette’s surprising slowed production is among the reasons the Blue Jays find themselves well outside the American League playoff picture and are projected to be sellers at the MLB trade deadline on July 30.
While Bichette, who is under team control through 2025, has been mentioned in trade speculation, this latest injury should shut down that possibility, and it was remote to begin with.
Required reading
Blue Jays second-half storylines to watch: Difficult trade decisions ahead
As Blue Jays continue losing season, what is there to look forward to in the second half?
| By Kaitlyn McGrath
Jul 20, 2024
TORONTO — Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette was placed on the injured list with a right calf strain Saturday. It is the second time Bichette has been on the IL with the injury this season.
Bichette aggravated his calf during the sixth inning of Friday’s loss against the Detroit Tigers while running out of the batter’s box. He went for an MRI on Saturday and the results showed a moderate calf strain. He is expected to miss “multiple weeks,” according to Blue Jays manager John Schneider | .
“When we get the results back, we’ll know the timeframe and things like that,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.
The Blue Jays recalled utility infielder Addison Barger from Triple-A Buffalo to take Bichette’s place on the roster. Ernie Clement and Leo Jiménez are expected to get the bulk of work at shortstop with Bichette out.
This is the second time Bichette has hit the IL with a right calf strain within the span of a little over a month. The 26-year-old missed nine games from June 15-24 while on the IL. He missed an additional four games before the All-Star break after reaggravating the injury. The club had hoped the All-Star break had provided enough time for Bichette to rest and recover, but in the team’s first game back, the injury struck again.
The right leg has been a trouble spot for Bichette in recent years. In addition to his right calf, Bichette also suffered injuries to his right knee and quad last season.
“I think knee is a little bit different than soft tissue, but for a guy that plays all the time, you don’t like it to be the same thing over and over,” the Blue Jays manager said.
The injury is another blow to what’s been a tough season for Bichette, who has been slumping at the plate for the majority of the year. His .223 batting average and .597 OPS are well below his career norms and he’s hit only four home runs in 79 games this season.
Bichette’s surprising slowed production is among the reasons the Blue Jays find themselves well outside the American League playoff picture and are projected to be sellers at the MLB trade deadline on July 30.
While Bichette, who is under team control through 2025, has been mentioned in trade speculation, this latest injury should shut down that possibility, and it was remote to begin with.
Required reading
Blue Jays second-half storylines to watch: Difficult trade decisions ahead
As Blue Jays continue losing season, what is there to look forward to in the second half?
|
Trump Campaign Prepares Attack Plan for Harris in Case Biden Withdraws.txt | By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
July 20, 2024
Sign up for the Tilt newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data. Get it in your inbox.
Donald J. Trump’s campaign is preparing a major effort to attack Vice President Kamala Harris if President Biden steps aside as the Democratic nominee, including a wave of ads focusing on her record in her current office and in California, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The Trump team has already prepared opposition research books on Ms. Harris, and has similar dossiers on other Democrats who could become the nominee if Mr. Biden were to drop out of the race.
But the bulk of the preparations so far have been focused on Ms. Harris, including a recently concluded poll testing her vulnerabilities in a general election contest, according to the two people. The Trump team’s attention on Ms. Harris is based on its assumption that if Democrats were to bypass the first Black woman to serve as vice president, it would drive even deeper divisions in the party and risk alienating their base of Black voters.
Trump allies have also begun examining the records of Democratic governors who are considered potential running mates for Ms. Harris. Advisers to the former president are paying especially close attention to Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania — the state the Trump campaign is most focused on winning to block the Democrats’ path to the White House.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania talk to reporters in a crowded room. A camera light shines on Ms. Harris.
A Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesman for Ms. Harris, said in a statement: “After tanking the bipartisan border deal, Donald Trump has resorted to lying about the vice president’s record. As a former district attorney and attorney general, she has stood up to fraudsters and felons like Trump her entire career. Trump’s lies won’t stop her from continuing to prosecute the case against him on the biggest issues in this race.”
Since Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27, Mr. Trump and his political operation have softened their criticisms of the president, hoping he stays politically viable until the party formally nominates him and it’s too late to replace him without major legal hurdles. Mr. Trump’s senior team would prefer that Mr. Biden remains in the race, believing his low approval numbers and voters’ widespread doubts about his age and cognitive fitness represent the former president’s best chance at reclaiming the White House.
Joe Biden stands at a lectern in front of an oil painting of a man on a horse, as Kamala Harris looks on from behind him.
After the debate, the Trump team decided to hold back advertising that could further damage Mr. Biden, according to one person briefed on the Trump campaign’s internal discussions, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. A change at the top of the ticket could throw a remarkably stable race into chaos — particularly if Ms. Harris, who would be the first Black woman elected president, were to become the nominee.
Shortly before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this past week, as a growing number of Democrats called for Mr. Biden to leave the race, the Trump team prepared anti-Harris signs and videos to show the delegates in the arena and the television audience at home, according to people briefed on the plans. But they scrapped those plans after a young man tried to assassinate Mr. Trump in Butler, Pa., last Saturday, two days before the start of the convention. With the nation still in shock, the pressure on Mr. Biden to leave the race briefly abated, and the Trump team assumed the Harris contingency plans were no longer necessary.
The Trump campaign was always going to make Ms. Harris, who has repeatedly said that Mr. Biden is the nominee and that they’re running together, part of the story, particularly with Mr. Biden’s visible physical struggles, said Liam Donovan, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee aide.
“But with the prospect of a switch at the top of the ticket, there’s a sudden sense of urgency around defining Kamala Harris and cementing a lackluster image that has long made Democrats queasy,” Mr. Donovan said. But he also noted a potential pitfall for Mr. Trump: “Being the front-runner against another history-making candidate would introduce new risks for a campaign hoping to reap historic gains among Black voters.”
Some Trump aides say privately that Ms. Harris might be better at delivering certain messages than Mr. Biden has been, particularly on abortion rights, an issue that galvanized Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections. And as a former prosecutor, she may be positioned make a sharp argument about Mr. Trump’s criminal indictments, including his conviction in Manhattan on charges that he falsified business records to conceal a hush-money payment to a porn star in 2016.
Trump supporters holding flags and signs, some of which read “Say No to ‘Que Mala’ Harris” and “Kamala Your Silence Is Complicity.”
But they also believe Ms. Harris will have to own every unpopular Biden-era policy, which will cancel out the gains she might make. In particular, the Trump team plans to attack her over the border crisis, one that the president tasked her with finding the “root causes” of. Aides to Ms. Harris have said that Mr. Trump has distorted her role, and have noted that regardless, border crossings have fallen since a Biden administration curtailing of asylum.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 9:32 a.m. ET33 minutes ago
33 minutes ago
George Clooney endorses Kamala Harris, says Biden is ‘saving democracy.’
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
They are also looking to define her based on her tenure as a senator in California and, before that, her time as the state’s attorney general and as the district attorney of San Francisco, where her record during her 2020 presidential campaign was alternately criticized as too conservative, or too lenient toward first-time drug offenders.
According to people briefed on the strategy, if Mr. Biden drops out of the 2024 race but doesn’t resign as president, Republicans will argue that the reasons he quit the race are the same reasons he’s unfit to remain as commander in chief. They will try to tie Ms. Harris to Mr. Biden by claiming there was a broad effort to prevent the public from seeing the president’s deterioration and suggest she was part of that effort.
Republicans running in competitive congressional races are already adopting this message. After Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, called on Mr. Biden to leave the race on Friday, his Republican rival Bernie Moreno posted on X: “If Joe Biden is unfit to run, he is unfit to serve. I am formally calling on Joe Biden to resign the presidency because his continued presence in the situation room is a national security threat. I hope Senator Brown will join me.”
In a statement, Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said bluntly, “While we are rightly considering the implications of the Democrats internal chaos, the real story is the implication that someone is too unhealthy to run but not too unhealthy to serve. That’s absurd.”
Republicans have long criticized Ms. Harris. She has been on the receiving end of similar Republican attacks, particularly about the border and Mr. Biden’s acuity, for years. And despite not rolling out videos or signs, several Republicans made her part of their focus during their convention this week, mentioning her both in conjunction with Mr. Biden and also on her own.
While Democrats are stumbling toward resolution, the Trump campaign has marveled at its position heading into the general election. Mr. Biden’s team has spent tens of millions of dollars in advertising this year, but the president has not gained ground in the race against Mr. Trump. The Trump campaign and its allied outside groups, however, have spent far less and are said to have significant cash reserves for the months ahead.
In the week since the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump, a collection of outside groups run by a former Trump aide, Taylor Budowich, has raised $75 million, according to a person briefed on the amount. Both the Trump campaign and allied groups have been conserving resources, particularly since Mr. Trump had a fund-raising windfall after he was criminally convicted in Manhattan at the end of May.
The super PAC that Mr. Budowich runs, MAGA Inc., has conducted its own opposition research on prospective nominees who might replace Mr. Biden. But the group, like the campaign, assumes Ms. Harris is the likeliest prospect, and officials there have conducted extensive message-testing about her.
A New York Times/Siena College poll last week found Ms. Harris in a slightly stronger position against Mr. Trump than the president. The poll, however, was completed prior to the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump.
Still, Jim Hobart, a pollster whose firm, Public Opinion Strategies, is helping to conduct NBC’s bipartisan poll, said that Ms. Harris is starting from a fairly defined place nationally.
In the most recent survey, he said, “50 percent of voters already have a negative opinion of Harris. Just 32 percent have a positive opinion,” he said. “Could those positive numbers improve if she is the nominee? Sure. But remember, she has never shown herself to be a particularly skilled candidate.”
He pointed to her narrow win in the 2010 attorney general’s race, and the bust that was her presidential campaign in 2020.
The Republican National Committee is closely tracking possible changes on the Democratic ticket, and is leaving open the possibility of lawsuits related to the potential transfer and use of Biden campaign funds, according to one official with knowledge of the matter.
For instance, if a new committee is created for Ms. Harris, and donors who have already donated the $6,600 maximum to the Biden-Harris campaign try to donate to her, Republicans are likely to sue, arguing it’s an over-the-limit donation, the official said. They’re also watching whether Ms. Harris as the presumptive nominee would try to access money before she is formally nominated by her party.
And should the Biden team try something untested, like transferring its money to a super PAC that supports a candidate, a lawsuit is also likely to follow, the official said.
Even if such lawsuits don’t stop the actions, they could gum up the gears of the new Democratic ticket moving forward and highlight the chaos that Democrats have been facing.
| By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
July 20, 2024
Sign up for the Tilt newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data. Get it in your inbox.
Donald J. Trump’s campaign is preparing a major effort to attack Vice President Kamala Harris if President Biden steps aside as the Democratic nominee, including a wave of ads focusing on her record in her current office and in California, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The Trump team has already prepared opposition research books on Ms. Harris, | and has similar dossiers on other Democrats who could become the nominee if Mr. Biden were to drop out of the race.
But the bulk of the preparations so far have been focused on Ms. Harris, including a recently concluded poll testing her vulnerabilities in a general election contest, according to the two people. The Trump team’s attention on Ms. Harris is based on its assumption that if Democrats were to bypass the first Black woman to serve as vice president, it would drive even deeper divisions in the party and risk alienating their base of Black voters.
Trump allies have also begun examining the records of Democratic governors who are considered potential running mates for Ms. Harris. Advisers to the former president are paying especially close attention to Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania — the state the Trump campaign is most focused on winning to block the Democrats’ path to the White House.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania talk to reporters in a crowded room. A camera light shines on Ms. Harris.
A Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesman for Ms. Harris, said in a statement: “After tanking the bipartisan border deal, Donald Trump has resorted to lying about the vice president’s record. As a former district attorney and attorney general, she has stood up to fraudsters and felons like Trump her entire career. Trump’s lies won’t stop her from continuing to prosecute the case against him on the biggest issues in this race.”
Since Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27, Mr. Trump and his political operation have softened their criticisms of the president, hoping he stays politically viable until the party formally nominates him and it’s too late to replace him without major legal hurdles. Mr. Trump’s senior team would prefer that Mr. Biden remains in the race, believing his low approval numbers and voters’ widespread doubts about his age and cognitive fitness represent the former president’s best chance at reclaiming the White House.
Joe Biden stands at a lectern in front of an oil painting of a man on a horse, as Kamala Harris looks on from behind him.
After the debate, the Trump team decided to hold back advertising that could further damage Mr. Biden, according to one person briefed on the Trump campaign’s internal discussions, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. A change at the top of the ticket could throw a remarkably stable race into chaos — particularly if Ms. Harris, who would be the first Black woman elected president, were to become the nominee.
Shortly before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this past week, as a growing number of Democrats called for Mr. Biden to leave the race, the Trump team prepared anti-Harris signs and videos to show the delegates in the arena and the television audience at home, according to people briefed on the plans. But they scrapped those plans after a young man tried to assassinate Mr. Trump in Butler, Pa., last Saturday, two days before the start of the convention. With the nation still in shock, the pressure on Mr. Biden to leave the race briefly abated, and the Trump team assumed the Harris contingency plans were no longer necessary.
The Trump campaign was always going to make Ms. Harris, who has repeatedly said that Mr. Biden is the nominee and that they’re running together, part of the story, particularly with Mr. Biden’s visible physical struggles, said Liam Donovan, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee aide.
“But with the prospect of a switch at the top of the ticket, there’s a sudden sense of urgency around defining Kamala Harris and cementing a lackluster image that has long made Democrats queasy,” Mr. Donovan said. But he also noted a potential pitfall for Mr. Trump: “Being the front-runner against another history-making candidate would introduce new risks for a campaign hoping to reap historic gains among Black voters.”
Some Trump aides say privately that Ms. Harris might be better at delivering certain messages than Mr. Biden has been, particularly on abortion rights, an issue that galvanized Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections. And as a former prosecutor, she may be positioned make a sharp argument about Mr. Trump’s criminal indictments, including his conviction in Manhattan on charges that he falsified business records to conceal a hush-money payment to a porn star in 2016.
Trump supporters holding flags and signs, some of which read “Say No to ‘Que Mala’ Harris” and “Kamala Your Silence Is Complicity.”
But they also believe Ms. Harris will have to own every unpopular Biden-era policy, which will cancel out the gains she might make. In particular, the Trump team plans to attack her over the border crisis, one that the president tasked her with finding the “root causes” of. Aides to Ms. Harris have said that Mr. Trump has distorted her role, and have noted that regardless, border crossings have fallen since a Biden administration curtailing of asylum.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
July 23, 2024, 9:32 a.m. ET33 minutes ago
33 minutes ago
George Clooney endorses Kamala Harris, says Biden is ‘saving democracy.’
Harris is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. Here’s the latest.
Outside groups that support paid family leave plan an ad for Kamala Harris.
They are also looking to define her based on her tenure as a senator in California and, before that, her time as the state’s attorney general and as the district attorney of San Francisco, where her record during her 2020 presidential campaign was alternately criticized as too conservative, or too lenient toward first-time drug offenders.
According to people briefed on the strategy, if Mr. Biden drops out of the 2024 race but doesn’t resign as president, Republicans will argue that the reasons he quit the race are the same reasons he’s unfit to remain as commander in chief. They will try to tie Ms. Harris to Mr. Biden by claiming there was a broad effort to prevent the public from seeing the president’s deterioration and suggest she was part of that effort.
Republicans running in competitive congressional races are already adopting this message. After Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, called on Mr. Biden to leave the race on Friday, his Republican rival Bernie Moreno posted on X: “If Joe Biden is unfit to run, he is unfit to serve. I am formally calling on Joe Biden to resign the presidency because his continued presence in the situation room is a national security threat. I hope Senator Brown will join me.”
In a statement, Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said bluntly, “While we are rightly considering the implications of the Democrats internal chaos, the real story is the implication that someone is too unhealthy to run but not too unhealthy to serve. That’s absurd.”
Republicans have long criticized Ms. Harris. She has been on the receiving end of similar Republican attacks, particularly about the border and Mr. Biden’s acuity, for years. And despite not rolling out videos or signs, several Republicans made her part of their focus during their convention this week, mentioning her both in conjunction with Mr. Biden and also on her own.
While Democrats are stumbling toward resolution, the Trump campaign has marveled at its position heading into the general election. Mr. Biden’s team has spent tens of millions of dollars in advertising this year, but the president has not gained ground in the race against Mr. Trump. The Trump campaign and its allied outside groups, however, have spent far less and are said to have significant cash reserves for the months ahead.
In the week since the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump, a collection of outside groups run by a former Trump aide, Taylor Budowich, has raised $75 million, according to a person briefed on the amount. Both the Trump campaign and allied groups have been conserving resources, particularly since Mr. Trump had a fund-raising windfall after he was criminally convicted in Manhattan at the end of May.
The super PAC that Mr. Budowich runs, MAGA Inc., has conducted its own opposition research on prospective nominees who might replace Mr. Biden. But the group, like the campaign, assumes Ms. Harris is the likeliest prospect, and officials there have conducted extensive message-testing about her.
A New York Times/Siena College poll last week found Ms. Harris in a slightly stronger position against Mr. Trump than the president. The poll, however, was completed prior to the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump.
Still, Jim Hobart, a pollster whose firm, Public Opinion Strategies, is helping to conduct NBC’s bipartisan poll, said that Ms. Harris is starting from a fairly defined place nationally.
In the most recent survey, he said, “50 percent of voters already have a negative opinion of Harris. Just 32 percent have a positive opinion,” he said. “Could those positive numbers improve if she is the nominee? Sure. But remember, she has never shown herself to be a particularly skilled candidate.”
He pointed to her narrow win in the 2010 attorney general’s race, and the bust that was her presidential campaign in 2020.
The Republican National Committee is closely tracking possible changes on the Democratic ticket, and is leaving open the possibility of lawsuits related to the potential transfer and use of Biden campaign funds, according to one official with knowledge of the matter.
For instance, if a new committee is created for Ms. Harris, and donors who have already donated the $6,600 maximum to the Biden-Harris campaign try to donate to her, Republicans are likely to sue, arguing it’s an over-the-limit donation, the official said. They’re also watching whether Ms. Harris as the presumptive nominee would try to access money before she is formally nominated by her party.
And should the Biden team try something untested, like transferring its money to a super PAC that supports a candidate, a lawsuit is also likely to follow, the official said.
Even if such lawsuits don’t stop the actions, they could gum up the gears of the new Democratic ticket moving forward and highlight the chaos that Democrats have been facing.
|
Nebraska secondary coach Evan Cooper leaves Matt Rhule’s staff.txt | By Mitch Sherman
Jul 5, 2024
LINCOLN, Neb. — Secondary coach Evan Cooper, a key piece of coach Matt Rhule’s talent evaluation and development structure, has left the Nebraska staff, a university spokesperson confirmed Friday.
ESPN first reported the news of Cooper’s departure.
Cooper, 37, played for Rhule at Temple. Cooper served two coaching stints with the Owls and followed Rhule to Baylor and the Carolina Panthers. Cooper stayed with the Panthers through the end of the 2022 season after Rhule was fired in October of that year.
At Nebraska, Cooper served as Rhule’s chief evaluator in recruiting. He played a major role in identifying prospects such as wide receiver Jaylen Lloyd, who enjoyed a breakout season as a true freshman last year.
Several players in the secondary under Cooper at Nebraska in 2023 made a jump as the Cornhuskers ranked seventh nationally in yards allowed per play. Defensive backs Tommi Hill, DeShon Singleton and Omar Brown grew into important jobs after playing limited roles under the previous coaching staff in Lincoln.
Nebraska will seek a replacement for Cooper in the final weeks before preseason camp opens. The defense, under second-year coordinator Tony White, is expected to again serve as a strength for the Huskers.
| By Mitch Sherman
Jul 5, 2024
LINCOLN, Neb. — Secondary coach Evan Cooper, a key piece of coach Matt Rhule’s talent evaluation and development structure, has left the Nebraska staff, a university spokesperson confirmed Friday.
ESPN first reported the news of Cooper’s departure.
Cooper, 37, played for Rhule at Temple. Cooper served two coaching stints with the Owls and followed Rhule to Baylor and the Carolina Panthers. Cooper stayed with the Panthers through the end of the 2022 season after Rhule was fired in October of that year.
| At Nebraska, Cooper served as Rhule’s chief evaluator in recruiting. He played a major role in identifying prospects such as wide receiver Jaylen Lloyd, who enjoyed a breakout season as a true freshman last year.
Several players in the secondary under Cooper at Nebraska in 2023 made a jump as the Cornhuskers ranked seventh nationally in yards allowed per play. Defensive backs Tommi Hill, DeShon Singleton and Omar Brown grew into important jobs after playing limited roles under the previous coaching staff in Lincoln.
Nebraska will seek a replacement for Cooper in the final weeks before preseason camp opens. The defense, under second-year coordinator Tony White, is expected to again serve as a strength for the Huskers.
|
Parents of Teen Driver Who Killed Girl in High-Speed Crash Are Sentenced.txt | By Maria Cramer and Claire Fahy
July 22, 2024
A New York couple who bought their 16-year-old son a BMW were sentenced on Monday to three years of probation and 26 weeks of parenting classes after the teenager drove the car at speeds of more than 100 miles an hour, slammed into a truck and killed his passenger, a 14-year-old girl.
The teenager, whose name has not been released because of his age, was arraigned last December on at least a dozen charges, including second-degree manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
He had a junior driver’s license, which prohibited him from driving unsupervised under any circumstances in New York City, when in May 2023 he crashed his red 2005 BMW 325i into the back of a parked UPS truck in the Springfield Gardens neighborhood of Queens, prosecutors said.
The teenage driver survived the crash with minor injuries, but his passenger, Fortune Williams, a freshman at a Springfield Gardens high school, was thrown from the car and pronounced dead at the scene, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors decided to charge the teenager’s father, Sean Smith, 40, and mother, Deo Ramnarine, 43, with endangering the welfare of a child when they learned that the parents had given him the car and allowed him to drive it to school, even after school administrators had warned them that he was too young to drive legally.
The parents were charged with endangering the welfare of their own son, in a case that prosecutors described as “groundbreaking” and “the first of its kind in New York.”
“With this conviction, we have shown that the culpability in a fatal crash can go beyond the driver,” Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, said in a statement. “Parents who provide vehicles to their children and let them drive illegally can be held responsible in the case of tragedies such as this one.”
Mr. Smith, who pleaded guilty in June, apologized during his sentencing hearing in Queens criminal court on Monday.
In court was Fortune’s mother, Keisha Francis, who said she believed Mr. Smith’s remorse was sincere.
“I accept his apology,” she said. But Ms. Francis said she would have preferred that both parents spend a year in jail, the maximum penalty for the charge.
“Their recklessness, it cost my daughter’s life,” Ms. Francis said. “They need to be held accountable.”
Fortune, one of three siblings, had plans to become a doctor and was taking nursing courses in school to prepare for a career in medicine, she said.
Ms. Francis said she visits her daughter’s grave every week and often leaves her red roses, her favorite flower. She still pays Fortune’s cellphone bills so that she can keep listening to her daughter’s voice on her voice mail greeting.
“I don’t think there is healing in this,” Ms. Francis said. “You just learn to cope.”
Mr. Smith pleaded guilty because “he wanted to accept responsibility and move forward for his family and focus on his son’s legal defense,” said his lawyer, James Polk of the Long Island firm Mazzei and Polk. A lawyer for Ms. Ramnarine, who pleaded guilty last month to the endangerment charge and disorderly conduct, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Polk said he believed the decision to prosecute Mr. Smith was “far-reaching” and set a “potentially dangerous legal precedent.”
“They’re attempting to charge someone for an act that he wasn’t present for and that he had no knowledge was occurring,” Mr. Polk said. “It opens the world up to charging people for all sorts of crimes they had no foreseeable way of knowing.”
Julie Rendelman, a defense lawyer and a former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, said the case was highly unusual in New York.
“I’ve never seen it,” she said. But Ms. Rendelman said it was reflective of a trend among prosecutors nationwide who feel more emboldened to bring charges against parents whose children commit crimes.
In April, Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Ethan Crumbley, who killed four teenagers in a shooting at his high school in Oxford, Mich., were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison after they were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors had accused them of giving their son access to a gun and ignoring signs that he might do something violent. Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
While “there is certainly a danger in taking this too far — holding parents criminally responsible for anything their child does,” Ms. Rendelman said, the evidence against the parents in the Queens case appeared strong enough to pursue a prosecution.
Mr. Smith told the police he had bought the car for his son, though he had it registered in his own name, prosecutors said.
On May 17, 2023, Mr. Smith’s son picked up Fortune at her home in Queens, Ms. Francis said.
Ms. Francis, who is a nurse, was working, but her son, then 12, was home at the time. Fortune walked to the car with her arm around her brother, hugged him and told him she would only be gone about 10 minutes, Ms. Francis said.
She got in the car with the teenager, who later told the police they were headed to his grandmother’s house.
Around 6:38 p.m., he was heading west on North Conduit Avenue near 160th Street at 101 miles per hour, prosecutors said. The speed limit was 30 miles per hour.
As he tried to change lanes, prosecutors said, he lost control of the car and hit the truck.
The BMW then spun across the road and struck a tractor-trailer. By then, Fortune had already been flung from the front passenger seat into the back of the UPS truck. The driver of that truck, who was just getting into his truck when the BMW hit it, was thrown to the ground. He was treated for injuries to his leg, chest and face, according to prosecutors.
Mr. Smith told the car’s insurer after the crash that his son had driven the BMW twice with him in the vehicle and that the teenager was a good driver, prosecutors said.
But prosecutors said that school administrators had seen the boy driving to school and had told his parents that they were concerned. He was also given a ticket in November 2022 for driving without a license and while using a portable electronic device, prosecutors said.
Ms. Francis said she recalled seeing the teenager in court during a recent hearing and screaming at him, “You’re the one who killed my daughter.”
The teenager, Ms. Francis said, was quiet and hung his head.
| By Maria Cramer and Claire Fahy
July 22, 2024
A New York couple who bought their 16-year-old son a BMW were sentenced on Monday to three years of probation and 26 weeks of parenting classes after the teenager drove the car at speeds of more than 100 miles an hour, slammed into a truck and killed his passenger, a 14-year-old girl.
The teenager, whose name has not been released because of his age, was arraigned last December on at least a dozen charges, including second-degree manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a | child. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
He had a junior driver’s license, which prohibited him from driving unsupervised under any circumstances in New York City, when in May 2023 he crashed his red 2005 BMW 325i into the back of a parked UPS truck in the Springfield Gardens neighborhood of Queens, prosecutors said.
The teenage driver survived the crash with minor injuries, but his passenger, Fortune Williams, a freshman at a Springfield Gardens high school, was thrown from the car and pronounced dead at the scene, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors decided to charge the teenager’s father, Sean Smith, 40, and mother, Deo Ramnarine, 43, with endangering the welfare of a child when they learned that the parents had given him the car and allowed him to drive it to school, even after school administrators had warned them that he was too young to drive legally.
The parents were charged with endangering the welfare of their own son, in a case that prosecutors described as “groundbreaking” and “the first of its kind in New York.”
“With this conviction, we have shown that the culpability in a fatal crash can go beyond the driver,” Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, said in a statement. “Parents who provide vehicles to their children and let them drive illegally can be held responsible in the case of tragedies such as this one.”
Mr. Smith, who pleaded guilty in June, apologized during his sentencing hearing in Queens criminal court on Monday.
In court was Fortune’s mother, Keisha Francis, who said she believed Mr. Smith’s remorse was sincere.
“I accept his apology,” she said. But Ms. Francis said she would have preferred that both parents spend a year in jail, the maximum penalty for the charge.
“Their recklessness, it cost my daughter’s life,” Ms. Francis said. “They need to be held accountable.”
Fortune, one of three siblings, had plans to become a doctor and was taking nursing courses in school to prepare for a career in medicine, she said.
Ms. Francis said she visits her daughter’s grave every week and often leaves her red roses, her favorite flower. She still pays Fortune’s cellphone bills so that she can keep listening to her daughter’s voice on her voice mail greeting.
“I don’t think there is healing in this,” Ms. Francis said. “You just learn to cope.”
Mr. Smith pleaded guilty because “he wanted to accept responsibility and move forward for his family and focus on his son’s legal defense,” said his lawyer, James Polk of the Long Island firm Mazzei and Polk. A lawyer for Ms. Ramnarine, who pleaded guilty last month to the endangerment charge and disorderly conduct, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Polk said he believed the decision to prosecute Mr. Smith was “far-reaching” and set a “potentially dangerous legal precedent.”
“They’re attempting to charge someone for an act that he wasn’t present for and that he had no knowledge was occurring,” Mr. Polk said. “It opens the world up to charging people for all sorts of crimes they had no foreseeable way of knowing.”
Julie Rendelman, a defense lawyer and a former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, said the case was highly unusual in New York.
“I’ve never seen it,” she said. But Ms. Rendelman said it was reflective of a trend among prosecutors nationwide who feel more emboldened to bring charges against parents whose children commit crimes.
In April, Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Ethan Crumbley, who killed four teenagers in a shooting at his high school in Oxford, Mich., were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison after they were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors had accused them of giving their son access to a gun and ignoring signs that he might do something violent. Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
While “there is certainly a danger in taking this too far — holding parents criminally responsible for anything their child does,” Ms. Rendelman said, the evidence against the parents in the Queens case appeared strong enough to pursue a prosecution.
Mr. Smith told the police he had bought the car for his son, though he had it registered in his own name, prosecutors said.
On May 17, 2023, Mr. Smith’s son picked up Fortune at her home in Queens, Ms. Francis said.
Ms. Francis, who is a nurse, was working, but her son, then 12, was home at the time. Fortune walked to the car with her arm around her brother, hugged him and told him she would only be gone about 10 minutes, Ms. Francis said.
She got in the car with the teenager, who later told the police they were headed to his grandmother’s house.
Around 6:38 p.m., he was heading west on North Conduit Avenue near 160th Street at 101 miles per hour, prosecutors said. The speed limit was 30 miles per hour.
As he tried to change lanes, prosecutors said, he lost control of the car and hit the truck.
The BMW then spun across the road and struck a tractor-trailer. By then, Fortune had already been flung from the front passenger seat into the back of the UPS truck. The driver of that truck, who was just getting into his truck when the BMW hit it, was thrown to the ground. He was treated for injuries to his leg, chest and face, according to prosecutors.
Mr. Smith told the car’s insurer after the crash that his son had driven the BMW twice with him in the vehicle and that the teenager was a good driver, prosecutors said.
But prosecutors said that school administrators had seen the boy driving to school and had told his parents that they were concerned. He was also given a ticket in November 2022 for driving without a license and while using a portable electronic device, prosecutors said.
Ms. Francis said she recalled seeing the teenager in court during a recent hearing and screaming at him, “You’re the one who killed my daughter.”
The teenager, Ms. Francis said, was quiet and hung his head.
|
Utah Officials Backtrack on Untested Execution Drug.txt | By Christina Morales
July 20, 2024
Plans to use an experimental three-drug combination in an upcoming execution in Utah — a cocktail that critics said could inflict serious pain — have been scrapped after state officials said in court documents released Saturday that they would be able to seek an alternative.
Taberon D. Honie, who was convicted of aggravated murder in 1999, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Aug. 8. It would be the first execution conducted by that method in the state in nearly 25 years. The Utah Department of Corrections recommended using an untested three-drug cocktail of ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride when it could not find sodium thiopental, the drug required by Utah law, or other alternatives.
That drug has been challenging to obtain for more than a decade, after Hospira, the only American producer of sodium thiopental, announced it would stop selling it, citing concerns about producing the drug in Italy. But many states across the country where the death penalty is legal have struggled for years to obtain and properly use suitable drugs for lethal injections.
A lawsuit filed last week by Mr. Honie’s lawyer against several Utah prison officials expressed many concerns about the proposed drug cocktail, including that it would not create the anesthesia Mr. Honie needed to be “unconscious, unaware and insensate to pain,” when the potassium chloride, which stops the heart, is administered. The drugs carried the risk “of serious pain and unnecessary suffering,” the lawyer, Eric Zuckerman, wrote in the complaint.
On Friday, Brian Redd, the executive director of the Utah Department of Corrections, agreed instead to obtain the sedative pentobarbital for Mr. Honie’s execution, a drug that is now used by other death penalty states. Mr. Redd also vowed to abandon the idea of using the three-drug combination in any execution if pentobarbital could be supplied.
“We still believe that the three-drug combination would have been effective, but we also recognize we could’ve been caught in a lengthy court battle,” said Glen Mills, a spokesman for the department.
In addition to confronting the difficulty of obtaining lethal drugs, many states have bungled executions with lethal injections. As a result, some have turned to other methods. In January, Alabama became the first state in the nation to carry out an execution by administering nitrogen gas.
Some witnesses said the prisoner writhed on the gurney in pain, though the state’s attorney general called the execution “textbook.” Since then, other states have begun considering the method.
Taberon D. Honie shown against a white wall.
In July 1998, Mr. Honie murdered and sexually assaulted Claudia Benn, his ex-girlfriend’s mother, according to court documents. He stabbed Ms. Benn and slit her throat in the presence of her grandchildren and sexually abused one of the children.
Utah has put to death seven people since it resumed executions in 1977, four of them by lethal injection. The other three were by firing squad, including the most recent execution in Utah, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was put to death in 2010.
“Serious uncertainty still remains about the state’s last-minute execution plan,” Mr. Zuckerman said in a statement. “We are reviewing the information provided by the state and will continue to work to ensure that Mr. Honie’s constitutional rights are protected.”
| By Christina Morales
July 20, 2024
Plans to use an experimental three-drug combination in an upcoming execution in Utah — a cocktail that critics said could inflict serious pain — have been scrapped after state officials said in court documents released Saturday that they would be able to seek an alternative.
Taberon D. Honie, who was convicted of aggravated murder in 1999, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Aug. 8. It would be the first execution conducted by that method in the state in nearly 25 years. The Utah Department of Corrections recommended using | an untested three-drug cocktail of ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride when it could not find sodium thiopental, the drug required by Utah law, or other alternatives.
That drug has been challenging to obtain for more than a decade, after Hospira, the only American producer of sodium thiopental, announced it would stop selling it, citing concerns about producing the drug in Italy. But many states across the country where the death penalty is legal have struggled for years to obtain and properly use suitable drugs for lethal injections.
A lawsuit filed last week by Mr. Honie’s lawyer against several Utah prison officials expressed many concerns about the proposed drug cocktail, including that it would not create the anesthesia Mr. Honie needed to be “unconscious, unaware and insensate to pain,” when the potassium chloride, which stops the heart, is administered. The drugs carried the risk “of serious pain and unnecessary suffering,” the lawyer, Eric Zuckerman, wrote in the complaint.
On Friday, Brian Redd, the executive director of the Utah Department of Corrections, agreed instead to obtain the sedative pentobarbital for Mr. Honie’s execution, a drug that is now used by other death penalty states. Mr. Redd also vowed to abandon the idea of using the three-drug combination in any execution if pentobarbital could be supplied.
“We still believe that the three-drug combination would have been effective, but we also recognize we could’ve been caught in a lengthy court battle,” said Glen Mills, a spokesman for the department.
In addition to confronting the difficulty of obtaining lethal drugs, many states have bungled executions with lethal injections. As a result, some have turned to other methods. In January, Alabama became the first state in the nation to carry out an execution by administering nitrogen gas.
Some witnesses said the prisoner writhed on the gurney in pain, though the state’s attorney general called the execution “textbook.” Since then, other states have begun considering the method.
Taberon D. Honie shown against a white wall.
In July 1998, Mr. Honie murdered and sexually assaulted Claudia Benn, his ex-girlfriend’s mother, according to court documents. He stabbed Ms. Benn and slit her throat in the presence of her grandchildren and sexually abused one of the children.
Utah has put to death seven people since it resumed executions in 1977, four of them by lethal injection. The other three were by firing squad, including the most recent execution in Utah, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was put to death in 2010.
“Serious uncertainty still remains about the state’s last-minute execution plan,” Mr. Zuckerman said in a statement. “We are reviewing the information provided by the state and will continue to work to ensure that Mr. Honie’s constitutional rights are protected.”
|
Why Is My Hairstyle Giving Me a Headache?.txt | By Katie Mogg
July 23, 2024
Q: I wear hairstyles like box braids, cornrows and sleek ponytails, but sometimes they make my head hurt. Why does that happen? Should I be worried?
How you wear your hair is often about more than looking and feeling good. For some people, a hairstyle is a form of self-expression, making a little pain seem worthwhile.
For others, it’s a way to feel connected to cultural heritage, said Dr. Victoria Barbosa, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of Chicago. And sometimes, slicked-back buns or protective styles like summertime braids, which are meant to safeguard your hair from damage, are just convenient, she said.
But any hairdo that involves tugging can trigger what experts call external-traction headaches; and consistent tension can lead to hair loss.
“No one wants to spend their hard-earned money, often hundreds of dollars, on a style that they then have to take down prematurely,” Dr. Barbosa said. “But sometimes it comes to that.”
How Tight Hairstyles Trigger Headaches
Tension headaches cause a dull pain or pressure, or the feeling of a tight band, around your head. But external-traction headaches — which experts previously called ponytail headaches — are primarily felt where hair is pulled, said Dr. Susan Broner, a neurologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
Sporting a high ponytail, for instance, may cause your crown to hurt, while newly installed cornrows could lead to pain across your scalp. This happens because hairstyles can trigger sensitive nerve endings on the scalp, said Dr. Annie Shea, a neurologist at University of Michigan Health.
But these hairstyles won’t cause long-term nerve damage, she said. In most cases, you should feel better within an hour of loosening your hair.
To avoid these headaches altogether, Dr. Shea suggested opting for looser styles. If you need to get hair out of your face, such as during a workout or while cooking, she recommended hair clips and soft headbands.
If you’re wearing tight braids, it’s harder to let your hair down. Box braids — which are installed by parting hair into sections, or boxes, and braiding each one — put tension on hair roots because they typically involve placing hair extensions right at the scalp. Knotless braids, however, feed extensions into the braids in a way that causes less tension, Dr. Barbosa said.
In situations where looser styles aren’t possible, Dr. Shea suggested taking a pain medication like ibuprofen before a hair appointment, or even after the pain sets in.
Still, it’s important to tell your braider if you’re in pain as your hair is being styled, Dr. Barbosa said, “because once the style is in, of course someone can take pain medicine, but that doesn’t change the fact that the style is too tight.”
Long-Term Effects of Tight Hairstyles
Any style that adds friction or tension to the hair can cause it to snap. Regularly using hair ties, for instance, means elastic bands rub against hair “like a little knife,” Dr. Barbosa said.
Traction alopecia, a type of hair loss caused by constant pulling at the hair root, is another risk. Early on, this may look like a receding hairline or patches of hair loss. It may also appear as “acne bumps or flaking on the scalp,” said Dr. Jordan Talia, an assistant professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai.
If someone continues to wear styles that pull at their hair, the condition can worsen, causing scar tissue that may destroy the hair follicle and leave skin shiny and permanently bald.
Anyone can experience traction alopecia, but it’s most prevalent among Black women, specifically those who wear styles with tension, Dr. Barbosa explained. Though it’s unclear why, the risk may also increase for people with chemically straightened hair, experts said.
“It is such a common problem that, even though it’s not normal, it has become the norm,” Dr. Barbosa said.
There are treatment options to manage traction alopecia: Earlier on, a dermatologist may prescribe a topical steroid, or inject steroids into a patient’s scalp to decrease inflammation and prevent scarring, Dr. Talia said. And they might also recommend minoxidil (Rogaine), an over-the-counter topical medication that stimulates hair growth. Oral minoxidil is also available by prescription, which dermatologists use as an off-label therapy for the condition, Dr. Barbosa added. (The Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved any medications for traction alopecia specifically, but topical minoxidil is approved for female- and male-pattern baldness.)
For those with permanent hair loss, hair transplants — which involve harvesting healthy hair follicles from skin on the scalp and transplanting them to where new hair is desired — may be an option, Dr. Barbosa said, though the procedure can cost thousands of dollars.
In general, Dr. Barbosa recommended that people avoid tight styles. When it comes to protective styles like box braids or cornrows, she suggested wearing them only once or twice a year, and for no longer than six weeks at a time.
These hairdos might be protecting your hair “because you’re not having the breakage associated with frequent hair styling,” but they could be damaging your follicles, she said. “Protective hairstyles are not always so protective.”
| By Katie Mogg
July 23, 2024
Q: I wear hairstyles like box braids, cornrows and sleek ponytails, but sometimes they make my head hurt. Why does that happen? Should I be worried?
How you wear your hair is often about more than looking and feeling good. For some people, a hairstyle is a form of self-expression, making a little pain seem worthwhile.
For others, it’s a way to feel connected to cultural heritage, said Dr. Victoria Barbosa, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of Chicago. And sometimes | , slicked-back buns or protective styles like summertime braids, which are meant to safeguard your hair from damage, are just convenient, she said.
But any hairdo that involves tugging can trigger what experts call external-traction headaches; and consistent tension can lead to hair loss.
“No one wants to spend their hard-earned money, often hundreds of dollars, on a style that they then have to take down prematurely,” Dr. Barbosa said. “But sometimes it comes to that.”
How Tight Hairstyles Trigger Headaches
Tension headaches cause a dull pain or pressure, or the feeling of a tight band, around your head. But external-traction headaches — which experts previously called ponytail headaches — are primarily felt where hair is pulled, said Dr. Susan Broner, a neurologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
Sporting a high ponytail, for instance, may cause your crown to hurt, while newly installed cornrows could lead to pain across your scalp. This happens because hairstyles can trigger sensitive nerve endings on the scalp, said Dr. Annie Shea, a neurologist at University of Michigan Health.
But these hairstyles won’t cause long-term nerve damage, she said. In most cases, you should feel better within an hour of loosening your hair.
To avoid these headaches altogether, Dr. Shea suggested opting for looser styles. If you need to get hair out of your face, such as during a workout or while cooking, she recommended hair clips and soft headbands.
If you’re wearing tight braids, it’s harder to let your hair down. Box braids — which are installed by parting hair into sections, or boxes, and braiding each one — put tension on hair roots because they typically involve placing hair extensions right at the scalp. Knotless braids, however, feed extensions into the braids in a way that causes less tension, Dr. Barbosa said.
In situations where looser styles aren’t possible, Dr. Shea suggested taking a pain medication like ibuprofen before a hair appointment, or even after the pain sets in.
Still, it’s important to tell your braider if you’re in pain as your hair is being styled, Dr. Barbosa said, “because once the style is in, of course someone can take pain medicine, but that doesn’t change the fact that the style is too tight.”
Long-Term Effects of Tight Hairstyles
Any style that adds friction or tension to the hair can cause it to snap. Regularly using hair ties, for instance, means elastic bands rub against hair “like a little knife,” Dr. Barbosa said.
Traction alopecia, a type of hair loss caused by constant pulling at the hair root, is another risk. Early on, this may look like a receding hairline or patches of hair loss. It may also appear as “acne bumps or flaking on the scalp,” said Dr. Jordan Talia, an assistant professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai.
If someone continues to wear styles that pull at their hair, the condition can worsen, causing scar tissue that may destroy the hair follicle and leave skin shiny and permanently bald.
Anyone can experience traction alopecia, but it’s most prevalent among Black women, specifically those who wear styles with tension, Dr. Barbosa explained. Though it’s unclear why, the risk may also increase for people with chemically straightened hair, experts said.
“It is such a common problem that, even though it’s not normal, it has become the norm,” Dr. Barbosa said.
There are treatment options to manage traction alopecia: Earlier on, a dermatologist may prescribe a topical steroid, or inject steroids into a patient’s scalp to decrease inflammation and prevent scarring, Dr. Talia said. And they might also recommend minoxidil (Rogaine), an over-the-counter topical medication that stimulates hair growth. Oral minoxidil is also available by prescription, which dermatologists use as an off-label therapy for the condition, Dr. Barbosa added. (The Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved any medications for traction alopecia specifically, but topical minoxidil is approved for female- and male-pattern baldness.)
For those with permanent hair loss, hair transplants — which involve harvesting healthy hair follicles from skin on the scalp and transplanting them to where new hair is desired — may be an option, Dr. Barbosa said, though the procedure can cost thousands of dollars.
In general, Dr. Barbosa recommended that people avoid tight styles. When it comes to protective styles like box braids or cornrows, she suggested wearing them only once or twice a year, and for no longer than six weeks at a time.
These hairdos might be protecting your hair “because you’re not having the breakage associated with frequent hair styling,” but they could be damaging your follicles, she said. “Protective hairstyles are not always so protective.”
|
Noriko Ohara, Who Gave Voice to Nobita in ‘Doraemon,’ Dies at 88.txt | By John Yoon and Hisako Ueno
July 23, 2024Updated 7:54 a.m. ET
Noriko Ohara, the Japanese voice actress who for decades played the role of Nobita in the beloved children’s show “Doraemon,” giving life to a main protagonist in one of the country’s longest-running television shows, has died. She was 88.
Her agency, 81 Produce, said in a statement on Tuesday that she died on July 12 after unsuccessful treatment for an unspecified illness. The statement did not list the place of death or mention surviving family members.
“Doraemon,” the animated series in which the titular robot cat befriends Nobita, a 10-year-old boy struggling at school, is considered a staple among people in Japan. Ms. Ohara’s voice became widely recognizable to many in Japan as she played Nobita from the 1970s to the early 2000s.
She also starred in other popular anime, like “Yatterman,” “Future Boy Conan” and “Heidi, Girl of the Alps,” as well as Japanese-dubbed versions of Western films. Her work won her multiple awards in Japan, including in the Anime Grand Prix and the Seiyu Awards, given to anime voice actors.
She began voicing Nobita, which she described as an intense task, in 1979. The show was broadcast Mondays through Saturdays, and she was frequently required to record seven or eight episodes at a time, she said in a 2017 interview with Cinema Today, a Japanese news site.
“Working on ‘Doraemon’ was like being an athlete,” she said. “I had to build up my stamina.”
She played Nobita until 2005.
Noriko Tobe was born in Tokyo on Oct. 2, 1935, according to her agency. As a child, according to her website, she grew up listening to her parents read or tell her stories. She also dreamed of becoming a writer like Jo March, a character in Louisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women,” after seeing a movie adaptation.
In middle school, she said, she decided to become an actress, like June Allyson, who played Jo in the 1949 adaptation. As an adult, Ms. Ohara voiced the character in a Japanese version of the movie.
“Fifty years later, I became a voice actress and played the role of Jo,” she wrote. “Dreams come true!”
She began her career at a children’s theater company, working in puppet shows and dramas, she said in the 2017 interview. She then worked on dubbing foreign films and television dramas, many from the United States, at a time when Japan was just starting to get introduced to dubbed media.
“I saw things I’d never seen in Japan, like garage doors opening with the flick of a remote control, or freezers and huge vacuum cleaners,” she said in the interview. “I was enjoying American culture, which is said to be 50 years ahead of Japan.”
While dubbing foreign films, she mostly voiced mature, elegant female characters, represented by such actresses as Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine and Catherine Deneuve. But in anime, Ms. Ohara often played boys. In “Doraemon,” it was a lazy and carefree schoolboy.
Outside of her job as a voice actress, she wrote on her website, performed poetry readings at universities, recorded fairy tales and offered classes to voice acting students.
She is survived by her family members, according to the Japanese news media.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news. More about John Yoon
Hisako Ueno is a reporter and researcher based in Tokyo, writing on Japanese politics, business, labor, gender and culture. More about Hisako Ueno
| By John Yoon and Hisako Ueno
July 23, 2024Updated 7:54 a.m. ET
Noriko Ohara, the Japanese voice actress who for decades played the role of Nobita in the beloved children’s show “Doraemon,” giving life to a main protagonist in one of the country’s longest-running television shows, has died. She was 88.
Her agency, 81 Produce, said in a statement on Tuesday that she died on July 12 after unsuccessful treatment for an unspecified illness. The statement did not list the place of death or mention surviving | family members.
“Doraemon,” the animated series in which the titular robot cat befriends Nobita, a 10-year-old boy struggling at school, is considered a staple among people in Japan. Ms. Ohara’s voice became widely recognizable to many in Japan as she played Nobita from the 1970s to the early 2000s.
She also starred in other popular anime, like “Yatterman,” “Future Boy Conan” and “Heidi, Girl of the Alps,” as well as Japanese-dubbed versions of Western films. Her work won her multiple awards in Japan, including in the Anime Grand Prix and the Seiyu Awards, given to anime voice actors.
She began voicing Nobita, which she described as an intense task, in 1979. The show was broadcast Mondays through Saturdays, and she was frequently required to record seven or eight episodes at a time, she said in a 2017 interview with Cinema Today, a Japanese news site.
“Working on ‘Doraemon’ was like being an athlete,” she said. “I had to build up my stamina.”
She played Nobita until 2005.
Noriko Tobe was born in Tokyo on Oct. 2, 1935, according to her agency. As a child, according to her website, she grew up listening to her parents read or tell her stories. She also dreamed of becoming a writer like Jo March, a character in Louisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women,” after seeing a movie adaptation.
In middle school, she said, she decided to become an actress, like June Allyson, who played Jo in the 1949 adaptation. As an adult, Ms. Ohara voiced the character in a Japanese version of the movie.
“Fifty years later, I became a voice actress and played the role of Jo,” she wrote. “Dreams come true!”
She began her career at a children’s theater company, working in puppet shows and dramas, she said in the 2017 interview. She then worked on dubbing foreign films and television dramas, many from the United States, at a time when Japan was just starting to get introduced to dubbed media.
“I saw things I’d never seen in Japan, like garage doors opening with the flick of a remote control, or freezers and huge vacuum cleaners,” she said in the interview. “I was enjoying American culture, which is said to be 50 years ahead of Japan.”
While dubbing foreign films, she mostly voiced mature, elegant female characters, represented by such actresses as Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine and Catherine Deneuve. But in anime, Ms. Ohara often played boys. In “Doraemon,” it was a lazy and carefree schoolboy.
Outside of her job as a voice actress, she wrote on her website, performed poetry readings at universities, recorded fairy tales and offered classes to voice acting students.
She is survived by her family members, according to the Japanese news media.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news. More about John Yoon
Hisako Ueno is a reporter and researcher based in Tokyo, writing on Japanese politics, business, labor, gender and culture. More about Hisako Ueno
|
Jets’ Haason Reddick holds out for start of training camp with contract dispute: Sources.txt | By Zack Rosenblatt, Larry Holder and Dianna Russini
The Haason Reddick contract issue will now linger even longer as the New York Jets edge rusher will not report to the start of training camp, per league sources. Reddick will be subject to a $50,000 fine for every day he misses camp.
The Jets acquired Reddick, 29, from the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason. He’s looking for a new contract as he is set to enter the last year of his deal, which carries a $14.25 million salary in 2024.
He originally inked the three-year, $45 million deal with the Eagles in 2022. Reddick is coming off four consecutive 10-sack seasons, including 27 in the last two years in Philadelphia.
After the trade in March, Reddick told reporters as it relates to his contract that “whatever happens, I’m going to be happy. I’m going to give it my all, no matter what.”
Scoop City Newsletter
Free, daily NFL updates direct to your inbox. Sign up
Reddick didn’t attend any of the Jets’ early summer programs, including mandatory minicamp in June. Jets coach Robert Saleh didn’t express major concern during minicamp when asked about Reddick’s absence, saying at the time, “The guy is a great dude. He’s played (at) a high level at multiple places. He’s a pro and seasoned vet. He’s the last guy I’m worried about will be ready to play football.”
Follow here for live updates from around the league as training camps open.
Sorting through the drama
Reddick made it clear when he was still with the Eagles that he wanted a new contract. That fact didn’t change when they allowed him to seek a trade and then when he eventually was dealt to the Jets.
Even still, the Jets traded for him, let Bryce Huff walk in free agency and traded veteran John Franklin-Myers to the Broncos for peanuts. Reddick became a centerpiece of their pass rush plan.
The issue: Reddick did, in fact, still want a new contract. After he was acquired, the Jets were under the impression that Reddick would still report for offseason workouts and minicamp — and they made it clear they did not intend to sign him to an extension right away, though they were amenable at some point to a restructure of his contract.
Then Reddick didn’t show up for any offseason workouts and incurred fines for not showing up for mandatory minicamp. The Jets still were unsure if he planned to show up for training camp when the team broke for the summer but, alas, he did not report Tuesday and will be subject to $50,000 in fines for every day of training camp he skips.
Reddick has a $14.25 million salary and $15 million cap hit in the final year off his deal, which ranks 19th among edge rushers — even though Reddick has been one of the NFL’s premier pass rushers over the last four years (50.5 sacks) and finished fourth in league’s defensive player of the year voting two years ago with the Eagles.
The most likely outcome here is that, at some point — ideally sooner than later — the Jets agree to some sort of restructure, guaranteeing his salary and/or adding incentives so he can earn more money in 2024.
Of course, Reddick would have to be agreeable to that sort of compromise. — Zack Rosenblatt, Jets beat writer
Jets’ pass rush outlook
Let’s take a look at the AFC’s pass rush landscape to find out how each team stacks up heading into the 2024 season. I dove into the last season’s numbers, via TruMedia and Pro Football Focus, to examine which teams are potentially in the best or worst shape.
Here’s a glimpse at the stats within this study:
Pressure percentage
Sacks
Total pressures
Hits
“Splash plays” per snap (splash plays: sacks, tackles for loss, pressures leading to throwaways, run and pass stuffs, interceptions, forced fumbles, fumble recoveries, passes defended/batted, stops on third and fourth down)
In the charts below, the blue shading is positive and the red shading is negative. Players had to tally at least 200 pass rush snaps last season to qualify for the rankings.
Jets
40.3 (5)
48.0 (7)
243 (14)
101 (14)
Quinnen Williams
16.1 (19)
5.5 (69)
70 (14)
22.1 (46)
Jermaine Johnson II
13.3 (45)
7.5 (46)
56 (35)
19.0 (29)
Haason Reddick
12.7 (53)
11.0 (15)
67 (18)
28.3 (89)
Javon Kinlaw
10.3 (95)
3.5 (108)
31 (104)
43.1 (152)
Solomon Thomas
8.0 (141)
5.0 (78)
17 (156)
38.8 (142)
There’s no doubt the Jets need Reddick to remain the prolific pass rusher that we’ve watched the last few years with the Cardinals, Panthers and Eagles — especially with Huff off to Philadelphia. Reddick has four consecutive seasons with double-digit sacks. Will contract acrimony get on the way of a fifth?
At least New York should feel comfortable with its young core of Quinnen Williams and Jermaine Johnson, the latter of whom found Pro Bowl status after becoming a full-time player in Year 2. After losing Franklin-Myers, the Jets are banking on former 49ers first-rounder Javon Kinlaw to maintain his upward career arc. Kinlaw played every game last year after suiting up for only 10 total regular-season games the previous two years. — Larry Holder, NFL senior writer
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
How do AFC pass rush groups stack up heading into the 2024 season?
Required reading
New York Jets training camp battles, featuring Aaron Rodgers vs. distractions
Pre-training camp NFL Power Rankings: Chiefs and 49ers reign, Texans and Bears on the rise
The 11 players the New York Jets can least afford to lose to injury
(Photo: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
National
Boxing
Bundesliga
Champions League
Championship
College Football
College Sports
Copa America
Copa del Rey
Culture
Europa League
European Championship
FA Cup
Fantasy Baseball
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Hockey
Fantasy Premier League
Formula 1
Gaming
Golf
International Football
La Liga
League Cup
League One
League Two
LNH
Memorabilia & Collectibles
Men's College Basketball
Men's World Cup
Mixed Martial Arts
MLB
MLS
Motorsports
NASCAR
NBA
NFL
NHL
NWSL
Olympics
Opinion
Premier League
Scottish Premiership
Serie A
Football
Sports Betting
Sports Business
Tennis
UK Women's Football
WNBA
Women's College Basketball
Women's Euros
Women's Hockey
Women's World Cup
The Athletic Ink
Podcasts
Headlines
US
Arizona
Atlanta
Baltimore
Bay Area
Boston
Buffalo
Carolina
Chicago
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Columbus
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Houston
Indiana
Jacksonville
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Memphis
Miami
Minnesota
Nashville
New Orleans
New York
Oklahoma
Oregon
Orlando
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Sacramento
San Antonio
San Diego
Seattle
St. Louis
Tampa Bay
Utah
Washington DC
Wisconsin
Canada
Calgary
Edmonton
Montreal
Montréal (français)
Ottawa
Toronto
Vancouver
Winnipeg
Partners
Odds by BetMGM
Tickets by StubHub
Subscribe
Start Subscription
Group Subscriptions
HQ
About Us
Careers
Code of Conduct
Editorial Guidelines
Business Inquiries
Press Inquiries
Support
FAQ
Forgot Password?
Redeem Gift
Contact Us
Terms of Service
Newsletters
The Pulse
The Bounce
The Windup
Prime Tire
Full Time
Until Saturday
Scoop City
The Athletic FC
©2024 The Athletic Media Company, A New York Times Company
Your Privacy Choices
Privacy Policy
Your Ad Choices
Support
Sitemap
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play
| By Zack Rosenblatt, Larry Holder and Dianna Russini
The Haason Reddick contract issue will now linger even longer as the New York Jets edge rusher will not report to the start of training camp, per league sources. Reddick will be subject to a $50,000 fine for every day he misses camp.
The Jets acquired Reddick, 29, from the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason. He’s looking for a new contract as he is set to enter the last year of his deal, which carries a $14.25 million salary in 2024 | .
He originally inked the three-year, $45 million deal with the Eagles in 2022. Reddick is coming off four consecutive 10-sack seasons, including 27 in the last two years in Philadelphia.
After the trade in March, Reddick told reporters as it relates to his contract that “whatever happens, I’m going to be happy. I’m going to give it my all, no matter what.”
Scoop City Newsletter
Free, daily NFL updates direct to your inbox. Sign up
Reddick didn’t attend any of the Jets’ early summer programs, including mandatory minicamp in June. Jets coach Robert Saleh didn’t express major concern during minicamp when asked about Reddick’s absence, saying at the time, “The guy is a great dude. He’s played (at) a high level at multiple places. He’s a pro and seasoned vet. He’s the last guy I’m worried about will be ready to play football.”
Follow here for live updates from around the league as training camps open.
Sorting through the drama
Reddick made it clear when he was still with the Eagles that he wanted a new contract. That fact didn’t change when they allowed him to seek a trade and then when he eventually was dealt to the Jets.
Even still, the Jets traded for him, let Bryce Huff walk in free agency and traded veteran John Franklin-Myers to the Broncos for peanuts. Reddick became a centerpiece of their pass rush plan.
The issue: Reddick did, in fact, still want a new contract. After he was acquired, the Jets were under the impression that Reddick would still report for offseason workouts and minicamp — and they made it clear they did not intend to sign him to an extension right away, though they were amenable at some point to a restructure of his contract.
Then Reddick didn’t show up for any offseason workouts and incurred fines for not showing up for mandatory minicamp. The Jets still were unsure if he planned to show up for training camp when the team broke for the summer but, alas, he did not report Tuesday and will be subject to $50,000 in fines for every day of training camp he skips.
Reddick has a $14.25 million salary and $15 million cap hit in the final year off his deal, which ranks 19th among edge rushers — even though Reddick has been one of the NFL’s premier pass rushers over the last four years (50.5 sacks) and finished fourth in league’s defensive player of the year voting two years ago with the Eagles.
The most likely outcome here is that, at some point — ideally sooner than later — the Jets agree to some sort of restructure, guaranteeing his salary and/or adding incentives so he can earn more money in 2024.
Of course, Reddick would have to be agreeable to that sort of compromise. — Zack Rosenblatt, Jets beat writer
Jets’ pass rush outlook
Let’s take a look at the AFC’s pass rush landscape to find out how each team stacks up heading into the 2024 season. I dove into the last season’s numbers, via TruMedia and Pro Football Focus, to examine which teams are potentially in the best or worst shape.
Here’s a glimpse at the stats within this study:
Pressure percentage
Sacks
Total pressures
Hits
“Splash plays” per snap (splash plays: sacks, tackles for loss, pressures leading to throwaways, run and pass stuffs, interceptions, forced fumbles, fumble recoveries, passes defended/batted, stops on third and fourth down)
In the charts below, the blue shading is positive and the red shading is negative. Players had to tally at least 200 pass rush snaps last season to qualify for the rankings.
Jets
40.3 (5)
48.0 (7)
243 (14)
101 (14)
Quinnen Williams
16.1 (19)
5.5 (69)
70 (14)
22.1 (46)
Jermaine Johnson II
13.3 (45)
7.5 (46)
56 (35)
19.0 (29)
Haason Reddick
12.7 (53)
11.0 (15)
67 (18)
28.3 (89)
Javon Kinlaw
10.3 (95)
3.5 (108)
31 (104)
43.1 (152)
Solomon Thomas
8.0 (141)
5.0 (78)
17 (156)
38.8 (142)
There’s no doubt the Jets need Reddick to remain the prolific pass rusher that we’ve watched the last few years with the Cardinals, Panthers and Eagles — especially with Huff off to Philadelphia. Reddick has four consecutive seasons with double-digit sacks. Will contract acrimony get on the way of a fifth?
At least New York should feel comfortable with its young core of Quinnen Williams and Jermaine Johnson, the latter of whom found Pro Bowl status after becoming a full-time player in Year 2. After losing Franklin-Myers, the Jets are banking on former 49ers first-rounder Javon Kinlaw to maintain his upward career arc. Kinlaw played every game last year after suiting up for only 10 total regular-season games the previous two years. — Larry Holder, NFL senior writer
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
How do AFC pass rush groups stack up heading into the 2024 season?
Required reading
New York Jets training camp battles, featuring Aaron Rodgers vs. distractions
Pre-training camp NFL Power Rankings: Chiefs and 49ers reign, Texans and Bears on the rise
The 11 players the New York Jets can least afford to lose to injury
(Photo: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
National
Boxing
Bundesliga
Champions League
Championship
College Football
College Sports
Copa America
Copa del Rey
Culture
Europa League
European Championship
FA Cup
Fantasy Baseball
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Hockey
Fantasy Premier League
Formula 1
Gaming
Golf
International Football
La Liga
League Cup
League One
League Two
LNH
Memorabilia & Collectibles
Men's College Basketball
Men's World Cup
Mixed Martial Arts
MLB
MLS
Motorsports
NASCAR
NBA
NFL
NHL
NWSL
Olympics
Opinion
Premier League
Scottish Premiership
Serie A
Football
Sports Betting
Sports Business
Tennis
UK Women's Football
WNBA
Women's College Basketball
Women's Euros
Women's Hockey
Women's World Cup
The Athletic Ink
Podcasts
Headlines
US
Arizona
Atlanta
Baltimore
Bay Area
Boston
Buffalo
Carolina
Chicago
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Columbus
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Houston
Indiana
Jacksonville
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Memphis
Miami
Minnesota
Nashville
New Orleans
New York
Oklahoma
Oregon
Orlando
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Sacramento
San Antonio
San Diego
Seattle
St. Louis
Tampa Bay
Utah
Washington DC
Wisconsin
Canada
Calgary
Edmonton
Montreal
Montréal (français)
Ottawa
Toronto
Vancouver
Winnipeg
Partners
Odds by BetMGM
Tickets by StubHub
Subscribe
Start Subscription
Group Subscriptions
HQ
About Us
Careers
Code of Conduct
Editorial Guidelines
Business Inquiries
Press Inquiries
Support
FAQ
Forgot Password?
Redeem Gift
Contact Us
Terms of Service
Newsletters
The Pulse
The Bounce
The Windup
Prime Tire
Full Time
Until Saturday
Scoop City
The Athletic FC
©2024 The Athletic Media Company, A New York Times Company
Your Privacy Choices
Privacy Policy
Your Ad Choices
Support
Sitemap
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play
|
Jeffries Plans to Meet Virtually With Top House Democrats on Biden’s Path Ahead.txt | By Annie Karni
July 5, 2024
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has scheduled a virtual meeting on Sunday with senior House Democrats to discuss President Biden’s candidacy and the path forward, according to a senior official familiar with the plan.
The session, which is to include the ranking members of congressional committees who make up the top echelons of the party in the House, comes at a time of profound worry among Democrats on Capitol Hill about Mr. Biden’s poor performance at last week’s presidential debate. House Democrats have not met as a group since, even as concerns have mounted about Mr. Biden’s viability as a candidate and the impact he could have on his party’s ability to win back control of the chamber and hold the Senate should he remain in the race.
Mr. Jeffries has been in listening mode all week, refraining from pressuring Democrats to rally around the president but also encouraging them not to be rash in their public pronouncements as Mr. Biden and his team determine the best path forward.
But Democrats have begun to splinter. Four in the House — Representatives Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Mike Quigley of Illinois — have called for the president to withdraw, while others have made public their serious concerns about his ability to prevail in the race.
On Friday, Mr. Quigley said he had had a “hard time” getting to the point of urging the president to get out of the race.
But, he told MSNBC, “clearly, the alternative now is a very bleak scenario with, I would say, almost no hope of succeeding — and it doesn’t just affect the White House. It affects all of Congress and our future.”
Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, has been working to organize a meeting of Democrats in his chamber to discuss their concerns about Mr. Biden’s candidacy and what should be done, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the effort who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity.
| By Annie Karni
July 5, 2024
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has scheduled a virtual meeting on Sunday with senior House Democrats to discuss President Biden’s candidacy and the path forward, according to a senior official familiar with the plan.
The session, which is to include the ranking members of congressional committees who make up the top echelons of the party in the House, comes at a time of profound worry among Democrats on Capitol Hill about Mr. Biden’s poor performance at last week’s presidential debate. House Democrats have not met as a group | since, even as concerns have mounted about Mr. Biden’s viability as a candidate and the impact he could have on his party’s ability to win back control of the chamber and hold the Senate should he remain in the race.
Mr. Jeffries has been in listening mode all week, refraining from pressuring Democrats to rally around the president but also encouraging them not to be rash in their public pronouncements as Mr. Biden and his team determine the best path forward.
But Democrats have begun to splinter. Four in the House — Representatives Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Mike Quigley of Illinois — have called for the president to withdraw, while others have made public their serious concerns about his ability to prevail in the race.
On Friday, Mr. Quigley said he had had a “hard time” getting to the point of urging the president to get out of the race.
But, he told MSNBC, “clearly, the alternative now is a very bleak scenario with, I would say, almost no hope of succeeding — and it doesn’t just affect the White House. It affects all of Congress and our future.”
Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, has been working to organize a meeting of Democrats in his chamber to discuss their concerns about Mr. Biden’s candidacy and what should be done, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the effort who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity.
|
In Wilmington, They Like ‘Delaware Joe.’ But They’re Glad He Quit..txt | By Steven Kurutz
Reporting from Wilmington, Del.
July 23, 2024, 8:22 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
As President Biden met with confidants last week to discuss whether he should end his re-election campaign, John Flaherty, a retired government employee, was seated in a booth at Angelo’s Luncheonette in Wilmington, Del., the small city that has been Mr. Biden’s political home base for more than 50 years.
Wearing a Philadelphia Phillies cap, Mr. Flaherty, 73, who worked as a staff assistant to Mr. Biden in the 1980s, invoked the song “The Gambler” to express his opinion of what the president should do.
“As Kenny Rogers said, ‘You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,’” he said.
Shortly after Mr. Biden announced that he had put an end to his bid, Mr. Flaherty weighed in by phone. “I’m glad,” he said. “I think he should enjoy his life after January and spend time with his family.”
He added that he was “happy” that Biden’s withdrawal had left Donald Trump as the oldest major-party presidential nominee. “Biden might be the oldest president,” he said, but now, “Trump will be the oldest candidate” for president.
Wilmington, a city of roughly 71,000, is the site of the Joseph R. Biden Railroad Station, one of the busiest Amtrak stops along the Northeast Corridor, and Mr. Biden’s main residence is in a nearby suburb. But even here, in the world’s most Biden-friendly enclave, Mr. Flaherty was just one of many who believed the president had made the right call.
A sunset portrait of the Christina River, with the skyline of Wilmington, Del., in the background.
Most people I spoke with for this article seemed fond of the president, but pessimistic about his re-election prospects. And everybody, it seemed, had a Joe Biden story.
At Angelo’s, where Mr. Biden used to stop in for meals, I heard about a poster from his 1988 presidential campaign that had pride of place on a wall near the booths. For years, a smiling Mr. Biden, surrounded by his wife and children, looked down on the customers.
Early in the presidency of Donald J. Trump, the poster prompted occasional anti-Biden remarks, according to Nina, a server at the restaurant who did not want to share her last name. And then, at some point, the bickering among the customers over politics grew more heated. Finally, the staff had enough and took the poster down.
“People are jerks,” Nina said, softly, as if not wanting to provoke more arguing.
Even in Wilmington, which propelled a 29-year-old Mr. Biden to the United States Senate in 1972, local pride has met political reality.
He moved with his family from Scranton, Pa., to Wilmington in 1953, at age 10. For 70 years, he has been rooted in this place, and he has shaken thousands of hands in its neighborhoods, from Little Italy to Trolley Square.
One of his most ardent local supporters is Eunice LaFate, an artist who operates LaFate Gallery on Market Street, where she sells her paintings.
Born and raised in Jamaica, Ms. LaFate, 77, moved to Wilmington in 1983 after meeting her husband, a city native who worked for Amtrak. “I saw a banner in a park on a yellow board,” she said, sitting amid her colorful paintings last week. “It said, ‘Wilmington — A Place to Be Somebody.’”
Ms. LaFate spent 12 years working for a bank in town, she said. The shift to becoming a full-time artist and gallerist was inspired, in part, by an encouraging letter she received from then-Senator Biden after one of her paintings had adorned the cover of Out & About, a local entertainment publication.
Ms. LaFate’s Joe Biden story has to do with his son Beau, who died in May 2015, shortly after the death of her husband.
“When his son passed, I stood five hours in a line at the church, waiting to greet him,” Ms. LaFate said. “After the five hours waiting in line, I went up and expressed my condolences. And I mentioned to him I am going through grief myself. The man took time out to console me. It was just, what should I say, so moving. The crowd was waiting, but he took time out.”
A woman sits in an art gallery. There are many paintings hanging on the walls and several others on the floor.
There was no portrait of Mr. Biden on the walls of Ms. LaFate’s gallery, but she went into the back to show me another one she had done — of Kamala Harris, painted after the 2020 election, wearing a white shirt and a black blazer against a pink background.
In an interview the day after Mr. Biden’s announcement, Ms. LaFate seemed happy with the turn of events. “This is where our salad bowl of culture comes into play,” she said. “And Kamala Harris is a very dynamic ingredient in that salad. And she has Jamaican heritage! Her father is Jamaican. So, all of this combined, this is pretty dynamic for me.”
Jerry duPhily, the publisher of Out & About, spoke fondly of the president over lunch last week at the Kozy Korner, another Wilmington spot that Mr. Biden has been known to frequent.
“People go, ‘Why does he come back so much?’” Mr. duPhily, 66, said. “I think he likes it here. He’s comfortable.” But he added that there were concerns. “I think a lot of people are cognizant of, ‘You’re 81, and you lost a step, and we see it,’” he said.
After the announcement, Mr. duPhily said that Mr. Biden had made the right decision, in his view. “Maybe he could have made it a few weeks earlier,” he said. “But someone who has the history he does, which is being a fighter and determined, isn’t just going to walk away from it.”
Mr. duPhily added that he hoped Mr. Biden would build his presidential library in Wilmington, saying, “OK, he’s from Scranton — but he’s Delaware Joe.”
A letter from Mr. Biden to Ms. LaFate on United States Senate letterhead.
Ms. LaFate's portrait of Kamala Harris.
Perhaps more than anyone else, Mike Purzycki, Wilmington’s 57th mayor, a Democrat who ran unopposed by any Republican to win his second term in 2020, knows what Mr. Biden has been going through. A few months ago, he announced that he would not be seeking a third term. (Local term-limit laws allow the city’s mayor to serve 12 years.)
“I’m 79,” Mr. Purzycki said over lunch at Kid Shelleen’s Charcoal House and Saloon, a onetime biker bar turned elevated saloon at the corner of 14th and Scott streets. “I took a look and said, ‘Can I do this four more years?’”
A native of New Jersey, Mr. Purzycki came to the state on a football scholarship to the University of Delaware, where he lived in the same dormitory as Mr. Biden. He worked for IBM, became a real estate developer and served as the executive director of the Riverfront Development Corporation, which turned Wilmington’s blighted riverfront into an area of parks, walking trails, restaurants, stores, nightclubs and new housing.
Once considered a corporate town where the sidewalks roll up at five o’clock, Wilmington now has buzzy restaurants downtown. Transplants from out of state are discovering the beautiful architecture, ample parks and relative affordability, all within an easy drive to bigger cities and beaches. This is the Wilmington to which Mr. Biden will return.
An office tower is reflected in the glass facade of a nearby building.
He will have to figure out how to spend the days after he leaves office. Mr. Purzycki has no easy advice about that.
“I’m struggling,” he said of his own post-retirement plans. “I’m struggling mightily.”
In a statement on Monday, the mayor showed his support for Mr. Biden’s decision to withdraw, writing that the president “has shown himself to be someone who courageously put the welfare of his fellow citizens above personal ambition.”
The headquarters of the now defunct Biden-Harris campaign occupied a nondescript high-rise office building downtown. Last week, there were no big signs out front, no staff members scurrying in and out, nothing to suggest an operation running at full steam. That may change soon.
“It’s the first full day of our campaign,” Ms. Harris posted on social media on Monday morning, “so I’m heading up to Wilmington, DE later to say ‘hello’ to our staff in HQ. One day down. 105 to go. Together, we’re going to win this.”
| By Steven Kurutz
Reporting from Wilmington, Del.
July 23, 2024, 8:22 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
As President Biden met with confidants last week to discuss whether he should end his re-election campaign, John Flaherty, a retired government employee, was seated in a booth at Angelo’s Luncheonette in Wilmington, Del., the small city that has been Mr. Biden’s political home base for more than 5 | 0 years.
Wearing a Philadelphia Phillies cap, Mr. Flaherty, 73, who worked as a staff assistant to Mr. Biden in the 1980s, invoked the song “The Gambler” to express his opinion of what the president should do.
“As Kenny Rogers said, ‘You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,’” he said.
Shortly after Mr. Biden announced that he had put an end to his bid, Mr. Flaherty weighed in by phone. “I’m glad,” he said. “I think he should enjoy his life after January and spend time with his family.”
He added that he was “happy” that Biden’s withdrawal had left Donald Trump as the oldest major-party presidential nominee. “Biden might be the oldest president,” he said, but now, “Trump will be the oldest candidate” for president.
Wilmington, a city of roughly 71,000, is the site of the Joseph R. Biden Railroad Station, one of the busiest Amtrak stops along the Northeast Corridor, and Mr. Biden’s main residence is in a nearby suburb. But even here, in the world’s most Biden-friendly enclave, Mr. Flaherty was just one of many who believed the president had made the right call.
A sunset portrait of the Christina River, with the skyline of Wilmington, Del., in the background.
Most people I spoke with for this article seemed fond of the president, but pessimistic about his re-election prospects. And everybody, it seemed, had a Joe Biden story.
At Angelo’s, where Mr. Biden used to stop in for meals, I heard about a poster from his 1988 presidential campaign that had pride of place on a wall near the booths. For years, a smiling Mr. Biden, surrounded by his wife and children, looked down on the customers.
Early in the presidency of Donald J. Trump, the poster prompted occasional anti-Biden remarks, according to Nina, a server at the restaurant who did not want to share her last name. And then, at some point, the bickering among the customers over politics grew more heated. Finally, the staff had enough and took the poster down.
“People are jerks,” Nina said, softly, as if not wanting to provoke more arguing.
Even in Wilmington, which propelled a 29-year-old Mr. Biden to the United States Senate in 1972, local pride has met political reality.
He moved with his family from Scranton, Pa., to Wilmington in 1953, at age 10. For 70 years, he has been rooted in this place, and he has shaken thousands of hands in its neighborhoods, from Little Italy to Trolley Square.
One of his most ardent local supporters is Eunice LaFate, an artist who operates LaFate Gallery on Market Street, where she sells her paintings.
Born and raised in Jamaica, Ms. LaFate, 77, moved to Wilmington in 1983 after meeting her husband, a city native who worked for Amtrak. “I saw a banner in a park on a yellow board,” she said, sitting amid her colorful paintings last week. “It said, ‘Wilmington — A Place to Be Somebody.’”
Ms. LaFate spent 12 years working for a bank in town, she said. The shift to becoming a full-time artist and gallerist was inspired, in part, by an encouraging letter she received from then-Senator Biden after one of her paintings had adorned the cover of Out & About, a local entertainment publication.
Ms. LaFate’s Joe Biden story has to do with his son Beau, who died in May 2015, shortly after the death of her husband.
“When his son passed, I stood five hours in a line at the church, waiting to greet him,” Ms. LaFate said. “After the five hours waiting in line, I went up and expressed my condolences. And I mentioned to him I am going through grief myself. The man took time out to console me. It was just, what should I say, so moving. The crowd was waiting, but he took time out.”
A woman sits in an art gallery. There are many paintings hanging on the walls and several others on the floor.
There was no portrait of Mr. Biden on the walls of Ms. LaFate’s gallery, but she went into the back to show me another one she had done — of Kamala Harris, painted after the 2020 election, wearing a white shirt and a black blazer against a pink background.
In an interview the day after Mr. Biden’s announcement, Ms. LaFate seemed happy with the turn of events. “This is where our salad bowl of culture comes into play,” she said. “And Kamala Harris is a very dynamic ingredient in that salad. And she has Jamaican heritage! Her father is Jamaican. So, all of this combined, this is pretty dynamic for me.”
Jerry duPhily, the publisher of Out & About, spoke fondly of the president over lunch last week at the Kozy Korner, another Wilmington spot that Mr. Biden has been known to frequent.
“People go, ‘Why does he come back so much?’” Mr. duPhily, 66, said. “I think he likes it here. He’s comfortable.” But he added that there were concerns. “I think a lot of people are cognizant of, ‘You’re 81, and you lost a step, and we see it,’” he said.
After the announcement, Mr. duPhily said that Mr. Biden had made the right decision, in his view. “Maybe he could have made it a few weeks earlier,” he said. “But someone who has the history he does, which is being a fighter and determined, isn’t just going to walk away from it.”
Mr. duPhily added that he hoped Mr. Biden would build his presidential library in Wilmington, saying, “OK, he’s from Scranton — but he’s Delaware Joe.”
A letter from Mr. Biden to Ms. LaFate on United States Senate letterhead.
Ms. LaFate's portrait of Kamala Harris.
Perhaps more than anyone else, Mike Purzycki, Wilmington’s 57th mayor, a Democrat who ran unopposed by any Republican to win his second term in 2020, knows what Mr. Biden has been going through. A few months ago, he announced that he would not be seeking a third term. (Local term-limit laws allow the city’s mayor to serve 12 years.)
“I’m 79,” Mr. Purzycki said over lunch at Kid Shelleen’s Charcoal House and Saloon, a onetime biker bar turned elevated saloon at the corner of 14th and Scott streets. “I took a look and said, ‘Can I do this four more years?’”
A native of New Jersey, Mr. Purzycki came to the state on a football scholarship to the University of Delaware, where he lived in the same dormitory as Mr. Biden. He worked for IBM, became a real estate developer and served as the executive director of the Riverfront Development Corporation, which turned Wilmington’s blighted riverfront into an area of parks, walking trails, restaurants, stores, nightclubs and new housing.
Once considered a corporate town where the sidewalks roll up at five o’clock, Wilmington now has buzzy restaurants downtown. Transplants from out of state are discovering the beautiful architecture, ample parks and relative affordability, all within an easy drive to bigger cities and beaches. This is the Wilmington to which Mr. Biden will return.
An office tower is reflected in the glass facade of a nearby building.
He will have to figure out how to spend the days after he leaves office. Mr. Purzycki has no easy advice about that.
“I’m struggling,” he said of his own post-retirement plans. “I’m struggling mightily.”
In a statement on Monday, the mayor showed his support for Mr. Biden’s decision to withdraw, writing that the president “has shown himself to be someone who courageously put the welfare of his fellow citizens above personal ambition.”
The headquarters of the now defunct Biden-Harris campaign occupied a nondescript high-rise office building downtown. Last week, there were no big signs out front, no staff members scurrying in and out, nothing to suggest an operation running at full steam. That may change soon.
“It’s the first full day of our campaign,” Ms. Harris posted on social media on Monday morning, “so I’m heading up to Wilmington, DE later to say ‘hello’ to our staff in HQ. One day down. 105 to go. Together, we’re going to win this.”
|
Bangladesh Orders Curfew in Effort to Quell Deadly Unrest.txt | By Saif Hasnat and Anupreeta Das
Saif Hasnat reported from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Anupreeta Das from New Delhi.
July 20, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Bangladesh? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
The authorities in Bangladesh have ordered a nationwide curfew and deployed the army as clashes between student-led protesters and the police and paramilitary forces have killed dozens of people and brought Dhaka, the nation’s capital, to a halt.
The curfew, announced late on Friday, was imposed indefinitely, but government officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said the government was hopeful that things would calm down by Monday, although they added that the situation was fluid. Officials said the army was needed to help curb vandalism and restore order.
Across the country, university students have been agitating for weeks about a quota system for government jobs that they say limits their opportunities by benefiting only certain groups, including the families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan.
Officials of the Awami League, the political party led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, have said they want to negotiate with the students. But student leaders have held their ground, refusing to hold talks until the quota system is permanently removed.
The demonstrations at first were peaceful. But public anger against Ms. Hasina grew quickly as police and paramilitary forces tried to disperse the protests with increasing force, including by firing rubber bullets and pellets. Protesters armed with sticks and bats fought with the police and counterprotesters. Casualty counts vary: by Friday, government officials put the death toll at 33, but activists said at least 60 have died.
Facebook and other social media platforms have been awash with videos of violent clashes, and multiple news outlets carried videos showing state buildings that the students had set on fire.
Earlier this week, the government shut down internet connectivity in the name of public safety, saying that such a move was necessary to stop the spread of rumors and disinformation. But it also had the effect of stopping protesters from sharing information and making plans on social media, and choked the flow of information in and out of the country.
As reports of deaths have mounted, human rights groups condemned the security forces’ crackdown and the internet shutdown.
“The unlawful force used against protesters shows a callous disregard for the right to life,” Amnesty International said in a statement on Friday.
The group said that blanket internet shutdowns sow instability and panic: “It is reckless to impede access to information during what has been a week of escalating violence and heavy-handed crackdown on student-led protests across the country.”
This is not the first time that Bangladesh has enforced a curfew. In 2007, an army-backed interim government imposed curfews in six of the country’s largest cities to quash unrest by students demanding an end to emergency rule. The curfew cleared the cities of protesters, forced residents to stay home and briefly shut down mobile phone service.
Anupreeta Das covers India and South Asia for The New York Times. She is based in New Delhi. More about Anupreeta Das
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: Bangladesh Sets Curfew To Quell Deadly Unrest. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
| By Saif Hasnat and Anupreeta Das
Saif Hasnat reported from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Anupreeta Das from New Delhi.
July 20, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Bangladesh? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
The authorities in Bangladesh have ordered a nationwide curfew and deployed the army as clashes between student-led protesters and the police and paramilitary forces have killed dozens of people and brought Dhaka, the nation’s capital, to a halt.
The curfew, | announced late on Friday, was imposed indefinitely, but government officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said the government was hopeful that things would calm down by Monday, although they added that the situation was fluid. Officials said the army was needed to help curb vandalism and restore order.
Across the country, university students have been agitating for weeks about a quota system for government jobs that they say limits their opportunities by benefiting only certain groups, including the families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan.
Officials of the Awami League, the political party led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, have said they want to negotiate with the students. But student leaders have held their ground, refusing to hold talks until the quota system is permanently removed.
The demonstrations at first were peaceful. But public anger against Ms. Hasina grew quickly as police and paramilitary forces tried to disperse the protests with increasing force, including by firing rubber bullets and pellets. Protesters armed with sticks and bats fought with the police and counterprotesters. Casualty counts vary: by Friday, government officials put the death toll at 33, but activists said at least 60 have died.
Facebook and other social media platforms have been awash with videos of violent clashes, and multiple news outlets carried videos showing state buildings that the students had set on fire.
Earlier this week, the government shut down internet connectivity in the name of public safety, saying that such a move was necessary to stop the spread of rumors and disinformation. But it also had the effect of stopping protesters from sharing information and making plans on social media, and choked the flow of information in and out of the country.
As reports of deaths have mounted, human rights groups condemned the security forces’ crackdown and the internet shutdown.
“The unlawful force used against protesters shows a callous disregard for the right to life,” Amnesty International said in a statement on Friday.
The group said that blanket internet shutdowns sow instability and panic: “It is reckless to impede access to information during what has been a week of escalating violence and heavy-handed crackdown on student-led protests across the country.”
This is not the first time that Bangladesh has enforced a curfew. In 2007, an army-backed interim government imposed curfews in six of the country’s largest cities to quash unrest by students demanding an end to emergency rule. The curfew cleared the cities of protesters, forced residents to stay home and briefly shut down mobile phone service.
Anupreeta Das covers India and South Asia for The New York Times. She is based in New Delhi. More about Anupreeta Das
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: Bangladesh Sets Curfew To Quell Deadly Unrest. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
|
Sewage Spill Spoils Summer Plans at Two Los Angeles Beaches.txt | By Derrick Bryson Taylor
July 23, 2024Updated 7:26 a.m. ET
Two Los Angeles-area beaches have been shut down for more than 48 hours — amid an intense heat wave across parts of California — not because of sharks or lack of lifeguards, but because several thousand gallons of untreated sewage have spilled into a nearby creek, stinking up summer plans for beachgoers, officials said.
An estimated 15,000 gallons of sewage was discharged on Saturday afternoon in a neighborhood roughly seven miles east of the Santa Monica Pier, entering the Ballona Creek, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a news release.
“The cause of the sewage discharge was a broken water main that pushed sand into the sewer, causing the blockage,” the agency said.
Parts of Dockweiler State Beach and Venice Beach remained closed, halting any swimming, surfing, and playing in ocean waters.
Heat index forecast for Tuesday
See more detailed maps and charts about the latest heat index forecasts.
Caution
Extreme caution
Danger
Extreme danger
A map showing the highest forecast heat index level in the contiguous United States on Tuesday.
Source: NOAA • Note: Forecast data is as of 8:15 a.m. Eastern on July 23, 2024. Map shows the highest forecast heat index level on Tuesday.
The public health department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday morning, including details on testing and cleanup practices.
“Water contact may cause someone to become ill,” officials said in a detailed description of the closures. “When a beach is closed, the Department of Public Health advises beach users to avoid all contact with ocean water in the closure area and where closure signs are posted.”
It was unclear when the beaches would reopen, but temperatures in parts of Southern California this week were expected to be hot, reaching into the lower 100s. More than 9.5 million people from Southern California to Montana were also under an excessive heat warning, according to the National Weather Service. For some locations, the intense heat was expected to remain at least through Thursday.
Sewage spills that upend beach plans in Los Angeles are not uncommon. More than 14,000 gallons of sewage spilled into the same creek in May, also causing beaches to temporarily close.
There have been other, much larger, sewage spills in Los Angeles, including one in late 2021 when about 8.5 million gallons of untreated sewage spilled into a flood-control waterway. That spill, which was caused by a collapsed concrete pipe, forced at least five beaches to temporarily close.
| By Derrick Bryson Taylor
July 23, 2024Updated 7:26 a.m. ET
Two Los Angeles-area beaches have been shut down for more than 48 hours — amid an intense heat wave across parts of California — not because of sharks or lack of lifeguards, but because several thousand gallons of untreated sewage have spilled into a nearby creek, stinking up summer plans for beachgoers, officials said.
An estimated 15,000 gallons of sewage was discharged on Saturday afternoon in a neighborhood roughly seven miles east of the Santa Monica Pier, entering the Ballona | Creek, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a news release.
“The cause of the sewage discharge was a broken water main that pushed sand into the sewer, causing the blockage,” the agency said.
Parts of Dockweiler State Beach and Venice Beach remained closed, halting any swimming, surfing, and playing in ocean waters.
Heat index forecast for Tuesday
See more detailed maps and charts about the latest heat index forecasts.
Caution
Extreme caution
Danger
Extreme danger
A map showing the highest forecast heat index level in the contiguous United States on Tuesday.
Source: NOAA • Note: Forecast data is as of 8:15 a.m. Eastern on July 23, 2024. Map shows the highest forecast heat index level on Tuesday.
The public health department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday morning, including details on testing and cleanup practices.
“Water contact may cause someone to become ill,” officials said in a detailed description of the closures. “When a beach is closed, the Department of Public Health advises beach users to avoid all contact with ocean water in the closure area and where closure signs are posted.”
It was unclear when the beaches would reopen, but temperatures in parts of Southern California this week were expected to be hot, reaching into the lower 100s. More than 9.5 million people from Southern California to Montana were also under an excessive heat warning, according to the National Weather Service. For some locations, the intense heat was expected to remain at least through Thursday.
Sewage spills that upend beach plans in Los Angeles are not uncommon. More than 14,000 gallons of sewage spilled into the same creek in May, also causing beaches to temporarily close.
There have been other, much larger, sewage spills in Los Angeles, including one in late 2021 when about 8.5 million gallons of untreated sewage spilled into a flood-control waterway. That spill, which was caused by a collapsed concrete pipe, forced at least five beaches to temporarily close.
|
Transcript: Ezra Klein Debriefs the 2024 Republican National Convention.txt |
Skip to content
Skip to site index
Podcasts
For more audio journalism and storytelling, download New York Times Audio, a new iOS app available for news subscribers.
The Ezra Klein Show
Transcript: Ezra Klein Debriefs the 2024 Republican National Convention
July 20, 2024
Real conversations. Ideas that matter. So many book recommendations.
Listen to “The Ezra Klein Show”: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, How to Listen
Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation about something that matters, like today’s episode debriefing the 2024 Republican National Convention with Claire Gordon. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcripts of our episodes are made available as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.
I Watched the Republican Convention. The Democrats Can Still Win.
Ezra Klein discusses the anti-system populism on display at the 2024 G.O.P. convention — and what this might mean for the Democrats.
transcript
0:00/49:29
I Watched the Republican Convention. The Democrats Can Still Win.
Ezra Klein discusses the anti-system populism on display at the 2024 G.O.P. convention — and what this might mean for the Democrats.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ezra klein
From New York Times Opinion, this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”
It is Friday, July 19. It is the morning after the final night of the Republican National Convention. And there is a lot to say about who the Republicans are showing themselves to be or showing themselves to want to be, a lot to say about what is about to happen potentially with the Democrats and Joe Biden. And so I’m joined by my great showrunner and senior editor, Claire Gordon, who is going to turn the tables on me a bit and ask the questions today. So, Claire, thank you so much for being here.
claire gordon
It is my pleasure. And I’ll just start right there with what stands out to you as different about Trump and the Republican Party’s sales pitch in 2024 compared to last time?
ezra klein
What was interesting to me across the Republican Convention and something I see some of my liberal friends honestly grappling with and some of them still trying to deny, is that the Republican Party itself is changing. It is coming into line behind the thing that it thinks Donald Trump is.
Whether that’s a thing Donald Trump actually is, is something we should talk about, because I am unconvinced. And I think you saw this on the final night of the convention. For all the talk in the nights leading up to it of economic populism, for all that you had a union president speaking on the first night, for all of J.D. Vance’s attacks on Wall Street in his speech, the night of Donald Trump was not a night of full-throated economic populism. It was a night of full-throated showmanship and entertainment.
He was introduced by Dana White, the head of the U.F.C. Hulk Hogan gave, I think, undoubtedly, the night’s best speech. It was campy, and it was strange, and it was entertaining. But it understood that the root of Donald Trump’s politics are as a showman, as a reality television star, as a W.W.E. Hall of Famer.
There was a lot of talk about Donald Trump’s golf game. If you didn’t tune in for the early speeches, I think you’d be surprised how much talk there was about Donald Trump’s golf game. The fact that he loves music. I thought it was very funny that Tucker Carlson ended up opening up for the general manager of Donald Trump’s golf club. Kid Rock gave a performance.
A friend of mine said to me that it felt like watching Donald Trump’s Vegas residency. And I think that’s right. Once Trump got into his own speech after he moved through the period of talking about the assassination attempt, which was, I would say, an interesting, in some cases, bizarre, way that he opened it up, he sort of spoke about himself like he was like a bard from the future, telling the story of Donald Trump and the sort of, “It was a warm day.”
I would say the way Trump spoke about it, it felt to me like a shift had happened in him. Not towards serenity, not towards an expansive perspective or a calmness, but so many people in Trump’s base have told him that he is godly, that he is God-sent, that he is here on a mission of God.
And I think Trump enjoyed that support. And now I think Trump shares that perspective. I think his sense of being chosen has settled into him in a different way, which you can imagine that playing out in many ways, some of them dangerous.
When he got into his own speech, it was just Trump. It wasn’t even very good Donald Trump. It wasn’t like one of his better rallies, but it was just him. It was rambley. It was long. It was just truly full of bullshit, so much that it feels like it overwhelms the capacity of the fact-checker.
There’s so much emphasis, for instance, on energy production, but America is currently producing more crude oil than any country ever has in the history of the entire world. That includes the United States under Donald Trump. And it didn’t feel to me like a speech where they said to themselves, people are tuning in here who are uncertain about Donald Trump, but giving him a second chance. And we’ve got to convince them.
Across quite a bit of the Republican National Convention, this felt like base turnout. It felt like an effort to solidify an ideological change that we can talk about that is happening. But it didn’t feel like an effort to persuade, to present a face that somebody who is modestly pro-choice but doesn’t really like Democrats and is upset about inflation and lives in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t aimed at them. It felt to me, for them, like a pretty profound missed opportunity.
A lot for Democrats I’m talking to, a lot of the sense of Trump’s inevitability that had begun to take hold among some of the party — shattered. And they watched him, and they remembered, oh, this guy is completely beatable and has actually never won the popular vote in an election ever.
claire gordon
That’s interesting to hear you say that. And I just want to spend a moment on the divine intervention, messianic piece of this and just play a moment so folks can hear a taste of it.
archived recording (donald trump)
I’m not supposed to be here tonight. I’m not supposed to be here.
archived recording 1
(CHANTING) Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
archived recording (donald trump)
Thank you. But I’m not. And I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God.
[CHEERING]
claire gordon
So, in the first part of that speech, you also the camera pans, and people have tears streaming down their face as he’s describing events of that day. America is a religious country. Do you not think that there is power to that message?
ezra klein
I don’t think for an election, there is power to that message. I’m a little bit uncomfortable talking about that message in terms of whether or not it will win Trump a point and a half in Michigan, because I think there is an authenticity to what he is going through here. People who go through near-death experiences of that nature do emerge changed. They do emerge with a sense, sometimes, of destiny, a sense of needing to focus on other things in their life.
I don’t want to comment or pretend that I know what that has meant to Donald Trump or how he feels about it, but I wouldn’t frame it really as a political message. I mean, we will see. I think the iconography of the image of him with his fist up is obviously going to be a huge dimension of the Trump campaign this year. I’m sure we will see it on a lot of merch and signs and stickers and so on.
To the degree it does reflect a message that they are trying to push, you heard this from other speakers, which is that — and this is an odd mythologizing of him to me, but nevertheless, that Donald Trump doesn’t need to be doing any of this. That Donald Trump was rich, he was happy, he was a celebrity.
And for your sins and on your behalf, he entered the grime and the difficulty and the challenge of politics. And he was slandered, and he was persecuted. And he was mocked, and he had an election stolen from him. And then he had the Justice Department and the New York prosecutors and the Georgia prosecutors go after him. They tried to throw him in jail, and they’ve tried to impoverish him. And then they tried to kill him. Possibly, some shadowy they is sending lone shooters now.
That sense of paranoia, that sense that this is a movement that is under genuine persecution, and if Donald Trump cannot win the election, it might be stamped out — it was odd because it permeated a convention that, at the same time, was completely convinced of its victory, of how many votes it would get, of the fact that it was actually the dominant now force in American politics.
But that, I think, is a real message, right? The message is not so much about the shooting. The message is more about, actually, the court cases against Donald Trump and the sense that he has been persecuted. They have been persecuted, but they have withstood it.
And that strength shows something fundamental about him, about them, about the way they would govern, about what this movement is made of, and also, the threat, in their minds, that it represents to a corrupt status quo, ruling class, regime — whatever you want to call it.
claire gordon
And at the same time, they’re trying to be more inclusive and very explicitly reaching out to parts of what’s traditionally been the Democrats’ coalition, like Black voters. So here’s Vivek Ramaswamy.
archived recording (vivek ramaswamy)
Our message to Black Americans is this. The media has tried to convince you for decades that Republicans don’t care about your communities. But we do. We want for you what we want for every American — safe neighborhoods, clean streets, good jobs, a better life for your children, and a justice system that treats everyone equally, regardless of your skin color and regardless of your political beliefs.
[CHEERING]
claire gordon
I mean, so you heard themes like that over and over again, people talking about this is a big tent party, and it doesn’t matter what race you are. What’s going on here? Why is it that Trump, of all recent Republican presidential nominees, Trump with his record of racist statements, why does it seem like he can make this play for Black voters?
ezra klein
Let me say a couple of things about this, and not just about Black voters, but about something happening across the R.N.C. that I am sincerely in favor of. Across the Republican National Convention, you saw the Republican Party making a genuine effort to appeal to union voters, to Black voters, to Hispanic voters.
And I have studied political polarization in incredibly deep detail. I wrote a book on it that came out in 2020, “Why We’re Polarized.” And one of the points of that book is that to say a country is polarized doesn’t actually give you that much information. The question is, what is it polarized over? And one thing we were seeing at this convention is the nature, the locus of American polarization, is changing.
So if you go back to the 2012 convention, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, the sort of voter in Mitt Romney’s mind at that convention, I think, is like a small business owner, an entrepreneur, the sort of winners of American life who the rest of us are supposed to look at aspirationally.
And the voter in mind at this convention was very different — was not wealthy, I think, was not necessarily white, maybe even joined a union. I think it is good for the politics around organized labor, around race to depolarize. And I do think there was an effort being made in that direction here. Does that take away from the fact that Donald Trump had a deeply anti-union National Labor Relations Board in his first term? No, but maybe it would be somewhat different in his second term.
I think it is good what the Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien, did. If I were a union president and my job was to help my members, I would want there to be entry for me in a Republican administration, right? That is the job. I don’t think the fact that organized labor is simply a kind of arm of the Democratic coalition has actually been good for it. Democrats don’t hold power in enough places enough of the time.
And Trump splits politics on different lines than it was split under someone like Romney or Ryan. His appeal, the way he shows up to people, it’s a very cultural appeal. He frontloads issues like immigration. He frontloads a way of talking and speaking and a kind of antagonism and sense of resentment that is very class oriented, very — depending on how you frame class, not just about wealth, right? There are many, many wealthy Donald Trump supporters.
And it should not go without notice that the scion of the MAGA movement now is a Yale law graduate who went to work immediately in venture capital. J.D. Vance, whatever else you want to say about him, is a convert to the class war.
But there are many union members and many Black and Hispanic voters who share this kind of politics, share some of these views on trade, share these views on immigration, right? This is something the Democratic Party, I think, really got wrong for itself. It listened to highly ideological groups claiming to represent Black and Hispanic voters, and it turned out they did not represent nearly the full range of opinion. There was a lot of effort at suppression of support for Republicans. And when suppression breaks, it often kind of breaks all at once.
And so, Trump, in offering a much more cultural appeal that replicates itself in nontraditional media, I mean, it’s a sort of very pro-Trumpy world, I think, at this point, in sports talk radio, in a lot of the big YouTube shows. He’s just pulling different people, and he noticed he’s pulling different people, right? He is excited about the fact that he’s pulling different people. And now he is leaning in to the parts of his own movement that he thinks can appeal to them.
And for all of the unhealthy things I saw at the Republican National Convention, I think that thing is healthy. I think it would be good for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to both be competing for organized labor, for Black voters, for Hispanic voters, rather than taking them for granted.
At the same time, the locus of polarization itself is changing. It’s not going away. The polarization is over the system itself, right? Are we a democracy? Are American institutions, in any way, trustworthy, right? J.D. Vance has talked about firing every midlevel bureaucrat and replacing them with, as he sometimes puts it, like their people.
Donald Trump talked about — offhandedly, but extremely, extremely bluntly, definitively— how he believes the election was stolen from him. They’re going to make it impossible to steal again. We’re never going to let something like that 2020 result happen again. There was no doubt about that at the Republican Party.
So in some ways, we’ve slipped down into a deeper form of polarization over the fundamentals of the system itself. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama were not divided over the question of American institutions, over whether or not election results should be or would be considered legitimate.
claire gordon
So when you talk about Democrats and Republicans becoming polarized over democracy, Trump and his supporters think that the Democrats are going to try to steal this election. Democrats fear that Trump is going to try to steal this election. Democrats fear that Trump is going to weaponize the D.O.J., and Trump and his supporters feel like the Democrats are weaponizing the D.O.J.. Is it that they’re polarized and that they have different values on these issues, or is it just that they are mirror images of each other?
ezra klein
So the thing about Donald Trump is that he acts in ways that force systems to react against him. When you try to fundamentally invalidate elections, the system is going to have to do something about that. And then he says, look, the system is against me. They’re treating me in a way no one has ever been treated before. Doesn’t this just prove what I’ve been saying all along? And it doesn’t, but there are ways in which it looks like that to people.
I am not personally a fan of the New York case against Donald Trump. On the letter of the law, he did everything he’s accused of doing. I think that the sort of bankshot theory of law applied there, where you are taking a business documents misdemeanor and elevating it to a felony by attaching it to a campaign finance violation, in terms of the explosiveness of prosecuting an ex-president, I think that was not the strongest case.
The sort of profusion of cases created a kind of appearance. Even though it reflects Donald Trump doing a lot of things wrong and a lot of things lawlessly, it did create an appearance of something unusual happening here that I think a lot of people, and certainly, people sympathetic to him, were all too willing to buy into. And it has created, then, this deeper form of polarization.
There’s also a thing happening behind Trump himself, which you see in J.D. Vance, you see in a lot of these people, which is that over the last 10-ish years, Republicans, conservatives, particularly sort of populist conservatives, feel that the institutions of American life became biased, arrayed, weaponized against them. The universities, but they had been out of power in the universities for a long time. # But during the sort of post-Ferguson period, the post-George Floyd period, the #MeToo period, a feeling that businesses had become woke, businesses had become an arm of not necessarily the Democratic Party, although they might say that, but I would say more like a liberal, cultural, and institutional dominance.
And it also reflects compositional differences in America. We’ve had a lot of educational polarization. So it actually is the case that people with college degrees, post-grad degrees, who are at the top of a lot of these institutions, are more monolithically liberal than they used to be, not actually monolithically liberal. And you certainly find many, many, many rich Republican businessmen, rich Republican or at least powerful Republican faith leaders, right? Churches are still a very powerful institution in American life.
So the extent of this can be overstated, but the sense that Republicans have lost their representation in a lot of these institutions is very real on the Republican side. And it’s much more a feeling of being culturally on the outs, right? It’s not a feeling that all these institutions have a strong view about single-payer health care, but that they have strong cultural views about race, about gender.
And the things that are more traditionally Christian and conservative views have become almost unsayable, right? I mean, we went in a very short period in American life from gay marriage being an issue that it would be lethal to run on as a national politician — that would have been true in 2000, would have been true in 2004 — Barack Obama believed it to be true in 2008 — to you can’t even really, at a high level in American life, be against gay marriage.
Forget running on it or trying to do anything about it, but just to oppose it would put you culturally in a very difficult place. Now, I’m obviously a deep supporter of gay marriage, but that has created a backlash in a sense of persecution.
So I think all these things kind of braid together in where Republicans have gone and have also led to this sort of economic populist pressure there, this sense of free speech being a major issue there, right? When people feel like they are losing their footing and their grip on the institutions that wield power, that’s a frightening thing. And I think as much as I disagree on a lot of the particulars, it is worth taking seriously that it has frightened many on the right.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
claire gordon
So let’s talk about J.D. Vance. The convention started off with the announcement that Trump was picking him as his V.P. And a lot of the liberal conversation after that was sort of focused on the comments that J.D. Vance had made during Trump’s 2016 run for office, calling him “cultural heroin” and that maybe he was America’s Hitler, and just trying to puzzle over the fact that this was now Trump’s running mate. And was this just crass political opportunism on the part of J.D. Vance that he had this wild Trumpian makeover? You have said that you think that’s the wrong way to understand Vance. So, what’s wrong with it?
ezra klein
I just don’t think it’s true. I mean, I think the particulars are true in the sense that he did say all those things about Trump, although, remember, he said he might be America’s Hitler. That was one of the possibilities.
Look, I interviewed J.D. Vance in his “Hillbilly Elegy” period, and he was a very different guy. And he wasn’t just a different guy in what he thought. He was a different guy in temperament, in openness, right? He was a guy who believed deeply in civility, who believed deeply in what you might call sort of political and civic virtues.
And what led Vance to his current level of antagonism and contempt and fury is interesting. And I have my theories on it, as anybody might. But I need extraordinary evidence, and a lot of people disagree with me about this. And that’s totally fine. People are going to find this unconvincing. I need a lot of evidence before I will believe somebody is acting in an extended way insincerely. People have a lot of difficulty maintaining high levels of cognitive dissonance for very long.
So what happens is people go through these conversions. I think the way they normally go through it is not by first converting to Trump. It is by converting to a hatred of his enemies. You’re not pro-Trump, you’re anti-anti-Trump. I think that is where J.D. Vance started. Here’s this guy, Donald Trump. The kinds of people Vance grew up with, the kinds of people who he is sort of describing in his book, the kinds of people he understands himself to be politically on the side of, they all love Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the media, the institutions, they hate Donald Trump. They see nothing good in Donald Trump at all. And in fact, they are showering Donald Trump and maybe even the people who back him with contempt, with derision. They’re deplorables. And that opens up a wedge, right? Who are you going to side with? And once you kind of fall into the other side of that, I’m with these people. And yeah, Trump has his flaws, but there’s some reason all these people are turning to him.
And this happens to a lot of people. I mean, a lot of these kind of tech billionaires and VCs have gone through this, right? They’ve gone through it, I think, for different reasons. But once you start going into a different group of people and hearing different things, then the conversion process can accelerate. And when people convert, I mean, we have an old saying about this — the zeal of the convert, the zeal of the newly converted.
When people convert, they, many times, end up going further than the people who were there all along. Right? I feel this about some of my Never Trumper friends, who were hardcore Republicans just a couple of years ago. And even though I’ve been a liberal my entire life, I feel they are much more down the line Democrats now than I would even think of being.
They sort of have the zeal of the convert. They see fully now the Republican Party’s malignancy. They all of a sudden have totally different views on not just Donald Trump, but health care, taxation, foreign policy. Like, all these things they once believed, they’re now just like down the line Biden Democrats.
I think this happened to Vance. And I do think that there was opportunism in it. I think that he had political ambitions. And so he became the thing he needed to become to win in Ohio. It is worth noting, by the way, that Vance is not like a political juggernaut in Ohio. He underperformed the state’s Republican governor by a very, very, very significant margin.
Vance, I think, in part because he has the zeal of the convert, in part because he is so angry at the people who he once saw as his friends — I mean, Vance said at one point about me and David Brooks, he’s like, they just lost their minds. They changed so much in the Trump administration. And I would say, I didn’t change at all. Everything that I believed when J.D. Vance and I were both talking about the same things and both thought Donald Trump was bad at the same time, I just kept believing, and Vance moved. But I take what Vance — has happened to him. I think the way this happens to people is honest inside of them, and I think it is very hard to understand them if you don’t take that seriously.
The other thing I will say about Vance is that the place where his conversion is most stark is cultural, temperamental, the contemptuous way he speaks of the people he disagrees with, that the Democratic Party is just ruled by childless cat ladies who hate their lives. There’s an ugliness that has emerged in him that genuinely saddens me, right? It’s a way of trading away important parts of your soul to be part of the movement you want to be part of, right?
When I say it’s sincere, it doesn’t mean I don’t think it — worse than depressing, I think, in a way, cowardly. Like, it is hard to maintain a certain level of political virtue in a time when that has been lost. And there are people in Vance’s movement who do it, and he doesn’t. But that has happened to a lot of people who have bent the knee to Donald Trump, only to find that they actually like being on the floor.
claire gordon
So I want to play a clip of J.D. Vance’s speech at the convention. And in this speech, he did something which I don’t think you hear Trump do very often.
archived recording (j.d. vance)
Like a lot of people, we came from the mountains of Appalachia into the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
[CHEERING]
Now, that’s Kentucky coal country, one of the 10 —
[CHEERING]
Now, it’s one of the 10 poorest counties in the entire United States of America. They are very hard-working people, and they’re very good people. They’re the kind of people who would give you the shirt off their back, even if they can’t afford enough to eat.
And our media calls them privileged and looks down on them. But they love this country, not only because it’s a good idea, but because in their bones, they know that this is their home, and it will be their children’s home. And they would die fighting to protect it.
[CHEERING]
claire gordon
And what he was doing there — and he was talking before that about how America isn’t just an idea — it was this clear articulation of just, like, what it means to be an American, which I think Trump has vowed do that a lot, but I don’t think he does it as clearly and explicitly as Vance did in that speech. So I’m curious what you make of that.
ezra klein
One thing to understand about Vance is that he’s not just a convert to Trumpism. He’s a convert to something that’s called national conservatism. And that whole back part of the speech, which, if you listen to it, he talks about when he proposed to his wife, he had law school debt and a cemetery plot in Kentucky.
And in this town, he’s talking about — who are also buried in this plot he’s talking about — is that, to them, America is not a creedal nation that asks for the whole world’s huddled, hungry, tired, and poor. America is a land. They are its people. It is their land. They own it. And they will die to defend it.
The National Conservatism Conference, I believe it was in Washington, DC. And one of the things I did before the convention was I listened to J.D. Vance’s speech at that conference. And that speech is hard-edged, and it’s ideological. And that whole riff he gives, he gives there. This is his riff. And this is the whole point of national conservatism.
J.D. Vance in a thing that I think is a somewhat unresolved contradiction in his thought, both the national conservative speech he gives and then, briefly, in the speech he gives here, he talks about how his wife, whose parents are immigrants, how they’ve given so much to the country. But in the speech he gives at the conservative conference, he talks about how it’s indisputable that immigrants make countries poorer, they harm countries.
So, the sense of how Vance navigates this is complicated and I think reflects a later in life conversion to the view that immigrants weaken nations. And the way they weaken nations is because they weaken the fundamental identity of the nation. Right now, he wants to talk about how immigrants harm housing prices, how the reason housing prices have gone up is the competition from, as he put it in the speech, “illegal aliens.”
I think as somebody who is currently writing a book heavily about housing prices and what has happened to them, the idea that immigrants, undocumented or otherwise, are the reason housing prices have done what they have done is absurd, actually. It’s just like not the right way to think about it and also just reflects a complete absence of taking it seriously.
We could just build as many homes as we want. We know how to build apartment buildings. If we’re not building them, the supply is constrained. And the fact that that’s not J.D. Vance’s view, right, that he wants to say, oh, all these problems are really the immigrants, is because what he wants to do is use the problems to have fewer immigrants and to deport people who are here now.
But what Vance is, is a national conservative. What national conservatives are, are conservatives who are much more focused on the question of the nation, not as an idea, but the people who exist here now, and what their perceived cultural and material needs are, and the way those and the national identity are threatened by people coming in.
And that is the factional fight he is in, in the Republican Party, because the Republican Party traditionally has been very pro-immigrant. They’ve believed in a lot of integration for America all around the world. They’ve believed in a lot of integration of American labor. Some of that did not go well at all, right? That’s some of the Donald Trump trade critique and the J.D. Vance trade critique.
But you have to understand there is being something cohesive at the bottom of this. It’s not just like a random assortment of policies. And the thing at the bottom of it is a very different idea of what America is and who it is for. And it’s a movement from the idea that if you think about the ‘04 Republican Convention with George W. Bush, America as this nation of ideas. And it wants to spread those ideas around the world to a much more confined vision of America as the people who are here now.
And by the way, only really some of them, right? When Hulk Hogan, in some ways, had the most honest line of the night when he said all the real Americans will be called Trumpites, and there will be all these Trumpites running around, and I was like, wow, he just took the whole subtext of this entire convention and made it text in one line.
But this is the ideological movement that Vance has made his name in that he has come out of. And that I think before he was even fully a convert to Donald Trump, given all he had said about him, he was a convert to this way of thinking. And this way of thinking has come to understand Donald Trump as like their mystic leader.
Donald Trump might not have every policy view they have. He might not be good at running things in the way they would want him to be. He might not be like the deep religious figure they want him to be, but they sort of see him as like the ayatollah of national conservatism, right?
He has this kind of mystical understanding of the common man, the land, the country, its identity, and he has all the right enemies. And so he is their leader. And they’ll do the work, coming up behind him with the notepad and the abacus to turn his poetry into the prose of governance.
claire gordon
I mean, you call this a factional fight, but watching the convention, one thing that a person can’t understate is that immigration was the big theme and a lot of emotion, a lot of rage about it. Hasn’t that faction won? Isn’t that the defining identity in the Republican Party?
ezra klein
It has definitely won on immigration. There’s no doubt about that. It hasn’t won on everything, though. J.D. Vance is up there talking about how America has been serving Wall Street and the banking class. And Donald Trump is telling Bloomberg, where he very happily sat for an extended interview, about how he thinks Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, is great and how he’d really like to consider him for Treasury Secretary.
And noting that Donald Trump, again, the ayatollah of national conservatism, who did he make his National Economics Council director when he came in, in 2017? Gary Cohn, the former head of Goldman Sachs. There are a lot of places here in terms of what this sort of intuitions and any ideological decisions of this group are that Donald Trump doesn’t agree with.
One of the big fights that is coming in the Republican Party — maybe it has already been decided, but a lot of Republicans don’t believe what Donald Trump and J.D. Vance seem to believe about Ukraine and about the world, more broadly. They both emerge out of an isolationist strain in the Republican Party. Like, why spend money elsewhere in the world when we could be spending it here to rebuild our industrial base, to help our people? What are we doing in all these external fights?
But a lot of Republicans do want to support Ukraine. They believe that strongly. A lot of Republicans do want a more confrontational and interventionist posture. That fight has not been won in the Republican Party, though naming Vance has certainly given the more isolationist, restrained, whatever you want to call it, faction, an upper hand that they maybe weren’t totally expecting.
So, on immigration, I think on rhetoric, I mean, there’s no doubt who is winning. But note, too, that Nikki Haley, who is, I think, the Republican — was the Republican running in the 2024 primaries who most represented the sort of pre-Trump Republican Party, aside from Trump, she did the best, and I think if Trump and Vance lose, would be considered a very potentially significant frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2028.
So I wouldn’t be sure that this is done, but I would say that the older version of the Republican Party is very much back on its heels at the moment. In some respects, I will say they are not on their heels at all on taxes, where Donald Trump is still just saying he’s going to use whatever money he can raise from tariffs, not just to extend his own tax cuts, but to cut corporate taxation even more deeply.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
claire gordon
OK, Ezra, while I have you, in order to beat this, the Democrats need to figure out who their nominee is going to be. You’ve been doing a lot of reporting on this, I know. What can you tell us?
ezra klein
We’re talking again on Friday. This has been an enormously fluid situation. The consensus among people I have spoken to who are high up in the Democratic Party and the kinds of people putting pressure on and who are around Joe Biden, the feeling is Biden is starting to recognize that his position may not be recoverable.
The key thing here is that over a compressed period of time, Speaker Jeffries went to him and said the Democratic House members believe you should step aside, that that would be the best thing for the party and the country. Chuck Schumer went to him and said the same thing. Nancy Pelosi went to him and said the same thing. It leaked from around Obama into the press that Obama is telling people that Biden’s path has really narrowed to a very, very, very narrow path to re-election.
Biden is angry. He feels abandoned by people he felt were his friends. He’s not entirely wrong with that, though I would say this is partially because he has put them all in a very bad position. The idea that he holds no agency here, I think, is not reasonable.
And so we’re in a very tricky spot here. There’s been a lot of rumors and thought that he might drop out as early as very early in this coming week. But everything is a rumor. Everything is a anonymous source. Everything right now is also dependent on the decisions he ends up making.
Other things I would say is that for all that I’ve been a proponent of an open convention in my talks with the kinds of Democrats who are very involved here, I don’t think there’s appetite or time for that in their view. I will say Kamala Harris has been extremely impressive every day since the debate. She has not misplaced a foot. And if you watch some of the speeches she’s been giving, which I’ve been doing, she’s been extremely good on the stump.
And so in the sense that there is a kind of quiet audition happening behind the scenes here, she is showing everybody in the party that she seems good enough for the bet. Maybe she’s not who they would draft out of an open field at this exact moment, but they don’t really have an open draft.
If Biden drops out sometime over the following week, the time period until the convention is very, very, very short. And so the pressure to unite around Harris and have her pick a vice presidential nominee is going to be very, very, very strong. That’s what I would now kind of expect to happen would be my modal case.
I think the things that Democrats are weighing and Biden is weighing himself is Biden’s outside hope. I think the thing he believes might be possible here is if he just holds on and goes to the Democratic Convention, and the party really has no choice, it will unite behind him. It just can’t do anything else. And then he’ll have the party, and he believes he can win. And he’ll take on Donald Trump, and he’ll win this thing.
Problem is his polling is really, really bad. Right now, Donald Trump needs to win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Those are the only states in play that he really needs to win. Biden, given the polling we have, needs to worry about winning not just those, but Minnesota, New Mexico, Maine.
There are a series of states that Biden should not have to think about as competitive that his position has degraded in, Virginia being another, so significantly that, I mean, he could get electorally wiped out. I mean, Arizona, Georgia — out of reach now. Nobody thinks he’s going to win them. North Carolina — out of reach.
So this is a problem. The money has dried up. His map is actually huge. He needs to play not in three states, but in a very significant number of quite expensive media markets. And I mean, he also doesn’t want to lose, right? And so there’s a question of how much he understands that he is probably headed for a loss.
But there’s strange things happening in the party right now. Who have been Biden’s most ardent backers? Bernie Sanders and A.O.C. And Sanders gave a very damaging, I think, for Biden interview to The New Yorker, to Isaac Chotiner, where he basically says to Chotiner, being pressed, like, look, yeah, Biden keeps forgetting names. He can’t always string three sentences together, but at least his agenda is good. And that’s not a very strong defense.
A.O.C.‘s defense is interesting, and I’ve invited her on the show. I haven’t heard back from her people. But A.O.C. went to Instagram and gave this long defense and basically said, look, there’s peril if we do anything here. There isn’t unity on how to replace Biden. If it’d be Harris, it would be an open convention. We could fall into chaos.
I genuinely found A.O.C.‘s perspective here surprising, in part because she’s somebody who is typically very comfortable with high levels of risk. She’s somebody who wants to do a very rapid, complete re-industrialisation of the entire energetic base of the American, even global, economy. She supports health care plans that would abolish all private insurance. I mean, she’s somebody who, in a lot of her politics, is willing to court a certain level of political chaos. But people feel different ways about different political questions.
The thing I did not hear her make a good argument for that I would like to hear her make a good argument for is that Biden can win. So I think to Democrats who looked at Trump’s kind of rambling speech, they see Trump as beatable. They look at Vance. Vance is very, very, very anti-abortion. He’s talked about wanting a national abortion ban. They see Vance as beatable.
They see Vance as a politically weak pick for Trump, right? If Trump had picked Doug Burgum or Marco Rubio, that would have scared Democrats a lot more. And they worry simply that Biden cannot prosecute the case such that he can beat Trump. But Biden also looked at Trump and probably thought he was beatable and wants to be the one to do it.
So, it’s tough. The other thing I will say is that if Biden does not drop out early in the week, I think you should expect a lot more Democrats to begin going public. The feeling right now is that they are trying to talk to him privately, but if he does not react to that, they are turning up the pressure publicly because that is what he appears to actually be reacting to. Even Morning Joe has started talking about maybe he needs to drop out, and they’ve been his strongest supporters.
So, it’s a pretty ugly and difficult moment in the Democratic Party that I think would cohere into a lot of unity if he stepped aside. He would be treated as like a hero and a patriot who did the kind of country first thing Donald Trump would never do. And I think there’d be a lot of relief uniting around a Harris-Whitmer, Harris-Shapiro, Harris-Beshear, Harris-Cooper ticket.
But the Democrats have to get there first. And whether how likely that is, I mean, at this point, I think it is reasonably above 50 percent. But it definitely changes by the hour and by which anonymous sources you’re hearing quoted in which outlet.
claire gordon
You just said that the Republicans look beatable. You started the conversation this way. But also, the Republicans have this incredibly strong, emotional, potent message on immigration. And voters say that they trust the Republicans to handle that issue. Republicans have been making gains in these nontraditional voters for them. Do you think that the Democrats really have a message, a clear message that can beat what the Republicans are offering?
ezra klein
No. I mean, I will say that they don’t have a clear message. I do they have a message that can beat what the Republicans are offering. And I mean, this is a sort of case that the Democratic optimists have been making for a long time. Democrats beat Trump. I mean, they beat him in the popular vote in 2016, but he won the electoral college.
They wrecked Republicans under Trump in 2018. They wrecked Republicans in 2020. In 2022, they, by all accounts, should have lost, but won seats in the Senate. They won governorships. They made gains in states. And they held down their losses in the House in a way nobody really thought likely, given how high inflation was.
The message isn’t all that different. The Republican Party believes a lot of things that most Americans don’t believe, and a lot of people feel that the Republican Party is dangerous. Their views on abortion — their immigration views are not popular. A mass deportation effort, when people think about what that might be, like, large internal security forces going house to house. And by the way, there was a big bipartisan immigration deal that Donald Trump killed. There was an effort to make all this better, and Donald Trump stopped it. The Republicans are extremely vulnerable.
And it is telling that Donald Trump running against a man, an incumbent president, who has a job approval rating in the 30s, who 80 percent of Americans, in some polls, believe doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to serve as president again, Donald Trump has been two points ahead nationally and about two points ahead, depending on the state you’re looking at, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.
These two candidates are so weak, they are so weak. They’re like the only two people who could beat the other one. Donald Trump is not a strong candidate. And this Republican convention, it was unified, but not unified in a way that was reaching out to swing voters. It’s unified in a way that was a factional fight within the Republican Party.
J.D. Vance is great on Fox News. But the sort of contempt he sprays at his political antagonists is a political problem. Like, one of my lines on Vance is he understands why Trump won in 2016, but he doesn’t understand why he lost in 2020. Somebody like Marco Rubio does. There are other figures in the party who do.
Vance has run a political approach, has run a sort of personal political campaign, to become the leader of the MAGA movement. And that worked. That is different than campaigning to win over the people who, in Pennsylvania, love Governor Josh Shapiro and voted for him overwhelmingly against a MAGA opponent. The people in Pennsylvania who voted for John Fetterman, despite he was deeply incapacitated then by a stroke, over Dr. Oz. The people in Michigan who voted for Gretchen Whitmer, the people in Wisconsin who voted for Tony Evers.
And we see them in polls because we see Democratic Senate candidates running far ahead of Joe Biden. There is a significant part of the electorate that does not particularly want to vote for Donald Trump again, is very open to voting for a Democrat, but is not going to vote for Joe Biden because they don’t think he’s up to the job, or they blame him for inflation or something else.
Democrats should put forward a candidate who appeals to this crucial part of the electorate. Give them a candidate for whom, when they look at that candidate, they think, yeah, that’s a normal, smart, hardworking, decent, compassionate person who is up to the job of the presidency. The Democratic Party has a lot of those people in the party. I think Vice President Harris is one of those people.
The Democrats’ theory was that Donald Trump was going to lose the election, not that Joe Biden was going to win it. The thing that they are risking here is that they are going to lose the election, not that Donald Trump is going to win it. It would be nice for them to try to win the election. I just want to play a clip before we end of just Vice President Harris delivering her line on Trump the other day at a speech.
archived recording (kamala harris)
In recent days, they’ve been trying to portray themselves as the party of unity. But here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. If you claim to stand for unity, you need to do more than just use the word.
[CHEERING]
You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda that deprives whole groups of Americans of basic freedoms, opportunity and dignity.
[CHEERING]
You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are intent on taking reproductive freedoms from the people of America and the women of America.
[CHEERING]
Trying to ban abortion nationwide, as they do, and restrict access to I.V.F. and contraception, as their plan calls for. You cannot claim to be for unity if you try to overturn a free and fair election —
[CHEERING]
— and threaten — and threaten to terminate the United States Constitution. And you cannot claim to be for unity when your entire economic agenda is designed to prioritize billionaires and big corporations over the middle class.
[APPLAUSE]
We’re too busy watching what you’re doing to hear what you’re saying.
ezra klein
Look, if Joe Biden could do that, that effectively, I think he could win. The fact that Harris can do that, that effectively, I think she can win. The Republican Party has not put forward a popular strong ticket and agenda. They are looking strong because the Democrats are looking weak.
But if the Democrats decide to overhaul this and develop a strong ticket and message, and they have still the time to do that, I think that the overconfidence of the Republican Convention and Party right now is going to prove to be a real mistake. I think the Vance pick can might ultimately prove to be a real mistake. They’re acting like they have won this election, but they have not.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker, Jack McCordick and Kristin Lin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
EZRA KLEIN: From New York Times Opinion, this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”
It is Friday, July 19. It is the morning after the final night of the Republican National Convention. And there is a lot to say about who the Republicans are showing themselves to be or showing themselves to want to be, a lot to say about what is about to happen potentially with the Democrats and Joe Biden. And so I’m joined by my great showrunner and senior editor, Claire Gordon, who is going to turn the tables on me a bit and ask the questions today. So, Claire, thank you so much for being here.
CLAIRE GORDON: It is my pleasure. And I’ll just start right there with what stands out to you as different about Trump and the Republican Party’s sales pitch in 2024 compared to last time?
EZRA KLEIN: What was interesting to me across the Republican Convention and something I see some of my liberal friends honestly grappling with and some of them still trying to deny, is that the Republican Party itself is changing. It is coming into line behind the thing that it thinks Donald Trump is.
Whether that’s a thing Donald Trump actually is, is something we should talk about, because I am unconvinced. And I think you saw this on the final night of the convention. For all the talk in the nights leading up to it of economic populism, for all that you had a union president speaking on the first night, for all of J.D. Vance’s attacks on Wall Street in his speech, the night of Donald Trump was not a night of full-throated economic populism. It was a night of full-throated showmanship and entertainment.
He was introduced by Dana White, the head of the U.F.C. Hulk Hogan gave, I think, undoubtedly, the night’s best speech. It was campy, and it was strange, and it was entertaining. But it understood that the root of Donald Trump’s politics are as a showman, as a reality television star, as a W.W.E. Hall of Famer.
There was a lot of talk about Donald Trump’s golf game. If you didn’t tune in for the early speeches, I think you’d be surprised how much talk there was about Donald Trump’s golf game. The fact that he loves music. I thought it was very funny that Tucker Carlson ended up opening up for the general manager of Donald Trump’s golf club. Kid Rock gave a performance.
A friend of mine said to me that it felt like watching Donald Trump’s Vegas residency. And I think that’s right. Once Trump got into his own speech after he moved through the period of talking about the assassination attempt, which was, I would say, an interesting, in some cases, bizarre, way that he opened it up, he sort of spoke about himself like he was like a bard from the future, telling the story of Donald Trump and the sort of, “It was a warm day.”
I would say the way Trump spoke about it, it felt to me like a shift had happened in him. Not towards serenity, not towards an expansive perspective or a calmness, but so many people in Trump’s base have told him that he is godly, that he is God-sent, that he is here on a mission of God.
And I think Trump enjoyed that support. And now I think Trump shares that perspective. I think his sense of being chosen has settled into him in a different way, which you can imagine that playing out in many ways, some of them dangerous.
When he got into his own speech, it was just Trump. It wasn’t even very good Donald Trump. It wasn’t like one of his better rallies, but it was just him. It was rambley. It was long. It was just truly full of bullshit, so much that it feels like it overwhelms the capacity of the fact-checker.
There’s so much emphasis, for instance, on energy production, but America is currently producing more crude oil than any country ever has in the history of the entire world. That includes the United States under Donald Trump. And it didn’t feel to me like a speech where they said to themselves, people are tuning in here who are uncertain about Donald Trump, but giving him a second chance. And we’ve got to convince them.
Across quite a bit of the Republican National Convention, this felt like base turnout. It felt like an effort to solidify an ideological change that we can talk about that is happening. But it didn’t feel like an effort to persuade, to present a face that somebody who is modestly pro-choice but doesn’t really like Democrats and is upset about inflation and lives in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t aimed at them. It felt to me, for them, like a pretty profound missed opportunity.
A lot for Democrats I’m talking to, a lot of the sense of Trump’s inevitability that had begun to take hold among some of the party — shattered. And they watched him, and they remembered, oh, this guy is completely beatable and has actually never won the popular vote in an election ever.
CLAIRE GORDON: That’s interesting to hear you say that. And I just want to spend a moment on the divine intervention, messianic piece of this and just play a moment so folks can hear a taste of it.
^ARCHIVED RECORDING (DONALD TRUMP)^: I’m not supposed to be here tonight. I’m not supposed to be here.
^ARCHIVED RECORDING 1^: (CHANTING) Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
^ARCHIVED RECORDING (DONALD TRUMP)^: Thank you. But I’m not. And I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God.
[CHEERING]
CLAIRE GORDON: So, in the first part of that speech, you also the camera pans, and people have tears streaming down their face as he’s describing events of that day. America is a religious country. Do you not think that there is power to that message?
EZRA KLEIN: I don’t think for an election, there is power to that message. I’m a little bit uncomfortable talking about that message in terms of whether or not it will win Trump a point and a half in Michigan, because I think there is an authenticity to what he is going through here. People who go through near-death experiences of that nature do emerge changed. They do emerge with a sense, sometimes, of destiny, a sense of needing to focus on other things in their life.
I don’t want to comment or pretend that I know what that has meant to Donald Trump or how he feels about it, but I wouldn’t frame it really as a political message. I mean, we will see. I think the iconography of the image of him with his fist up is obviously going to be a huge dimension of the Trump campaign this year. I’m sure we will see it on a lot of merch and signs and stickers and so on.
To the degree it does reflect a message that they are trying to push, you heard this from other speakers, which is that — and this is an odd mythologizing of him to me, but nevertheless, that Donald Trump doesn’t need to be doing any of this. That Donald Trump was rich, he was happy, he was a celebrity.
And for your sins and on your behalf, he entered the grime and the difficulty and the challenge of politics. And he was slandered, and he was persecuted. And he was mocked, and he had an election stolen from him. And then he had the Justice Department and the New York prosecutors and the Georgia prosecutors go after him. They tried to throw him in jail, and they’ve tried to impoverish him. And then they tried to kill him. Possibly, some shadowy they is sending lone shooters now.
That sense of paranoia, that sense that this is a movement that is under genuine persecution, and if Donald Trump cannot win the election, it might be stamped out — it was odd because it permeated a convention that, at the same time, was completely convinced of its victory, of how many votes it would get, of the fact that it was actually the dominant now force in American politics.
But that, I think, is a real message, right? The message is not so much about the shooting. The message is more about, actually, the court cases against Donald Trump and the sense that he has been persecuted. They have been persecuted, but they have withstood it.
And that strength shows something fundamental about him, about them, about the way they would govern, about what this movement is made of, and also, the threat, in their minds, that it represents to a corrupt status quo, ruling class, regime — whatever you want to call it.
CLAIRE GORDON: And at the same time, they’re trying to be more inclusive and very explicitly reaching out to parts of what’s traditionally been the Democrats’ coalition, like Black voters. So here’s Vivek Ramaswamy.
^ARCHIVED RECORDING (VIVEK RAMASWAMY)^: Our message to Black Americans is this. The media has tried to convince you for decades that Republicans don’t care about your communities. But we do. We want for you what we want for every American — safe neighborhoods, clean streets, good jobs, a better life for your children, and a justice system that treats everyone equally, regardless of your skin color and regardless of your political beliefs.
[CHEERING]
CLAIRE GORDON: I mean, so you heard themes like that over and over again, people talking about this is a big tent party, and it doesn’t matter what race you are. What’s going on here? Why is it that Trump, of all recent Republican presidential nominees, Trump with his record of racist statements, why does it seem like he can make this play for Black voters?
EZRA KLEIN: Let me say a couple of things about this, and not just about Black voters, but about something happening across the R.N.C. that I am sincerely in favor of. Across the Republican National Convention, you saw the Republican Party making a genuine effort to appeal to union voters, to Black voters, to Hispanic voters.
And I have studied political polarization in incredibly deep detail. I wrote a book on it that came out in 2020, “Why We’re Polarized.” And one of the points of that book is that to say a country is polarized doesn’t actually give you that much information. The question is, what is it polarized over? And one thing we were seeing at this convention is the nature, the locus of American polarization, is changing.
So if you go back to the 2012 convention, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, the sort of voter in Mitt Romney’s mind at that convention, I think, is like a small business owner, an entrepreneur, the sort of winners of American life who the rest of us are supposed to look at aspirationally.
And the voter in mind at this convention was very different — was not wealthy, I think, was not necessarily white, maybe even joined a union. I think it is good for the politics around organized labor, around race to depolarize. And I do think there was an effort being made in that direction here.
Does that take away from the fact that Donald Trump had a deeply anti-union National Labor Relations Board in his first term? No, but maybe it would be somewhat different in his second term.
I think it is good what the Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien, did. If I were a union president and my job was to help my members, I would want there to be entry for me in a Republican administration, right? That is the job. I don’t think the fact that organized labor is simply a kind of arm of the Democratic coalition has actually been good for it. Democrats don’t hold power in enough places enough of the time.
And Trump splits politics on different lines than it was split under someone like Romney or Ryan. His appeal, the way he shows up to people, it’s a very cultural appeal. He frontloads issues like immigration. He frontloads a way of talking and speaking and a kind of antagonism and sense of resentment that is very class oriented, very — depending on how you frame class, not just about wealth, right? There are many, many wealthy Donald Trump supporters.
And it should not go without notice that the scion of the MAGA movement now is a Yale law graduate who went to work immediately in venture capital. J.D. Vance, whatever else you want to say about him, is a convert to the class war.
But there are many union members and many Black and Hispanic voters who share this kind of politics, share some of these views on trade, share these views on immigration, right? This is something the Democratic Party, I think, really got wrong for itself. It listened to highly ideological groups claiming to represent Black and Hispanic voters, and it turned out they did not represent nearly the full range of opinion. There was a lot of effort at suppression of support for Republicans. And when suppression breaks, it often kind of breaks all at once.
And so, Trump, in offering a much more cultural appeal that replicates itself in nontraditional media, I mean, it’s a sort of very pro-Trumpy world, I think, at this point, in sports talk radio, in a lot of the big YouTube shows. He’s just pulling different people, and he noticed he’s pulling different people, right? He is excited about the fact that he’s pulling different people. And now he is leaning in to the parts of his own movement that he thinks can appeal to them.
And for all of the unhealthy things I saw at the Republican National Convention, I think that thing is healthy. I think it would be good for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to both be competing for organized labor, for Black voters, for Hispanic voters, rather than taking them for granted.
At the same time, the locus of polarization itself is changing. It’s not going away. The polarization is over the system itself, right? Are we a democracy? Are American institutions, in any way, trustworthy, right? J.D. Vance has talked about firing every midlevel bureaucrat and replacing them with, as he sometimes puts it, like their people.
Donald Trump talked about — offhandedly, but extremely, extremely bluntly, definitively — how he believes the election was stolen from him. They’re going to make it impossible to steal again. We’re never going to let something like that 2020 result happen again. There was no doubt about that at the Republican Party.
So in some ways, we’ve slipped down into a deeper form of polarization over the fundamentals of the system itself. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama were not divided over the question of American institutions, over whether or not election results should be or would be considered legitimate.
CLAIRE GORDON: So when you talk about Democrats and Republicans becoming polarized over democracy, Trump and his supporters think that the Democrats are going to try to steal this election. Democrats fear that Trump is going to try to steal this election. Democrats fear that Trump is going to weaponize the D.O.J., and Trump and his supporters feel like the Democrats are weaponizing the D.O.J.. Is it that they’re polarized and that they have different values on these issues, or is it just that they are mirror images of each other?
EZRA KLEIN: So the thing about Donald Trump is that he acts in ways that force systems to react against him. When you try to fundamentally invalidate elections, the system is going to have to do something about that. And then he says, look, the system is against me. They’re treating me in a way no one has ever been treated before. Doesn’t this just prove what I’ve been saying all along? And it doesn’t, but there are ways in which it looks like that to people.
I am not personally a fan of the New York case against Donald Trump. On the letter of the law, he did everything he’s accused of doing. I think that the sort of bankshot theory of law applied there, where you are taking a business documents misdemeanor and elevating it to a felony by attaching it to a campaign finance violation, in terms of the explosiveness of prosecuting an ex-president, I think that was not the strongest case.
The sort of profusion of cases created a kind of appearance. Even though it reflects Donald Trump doing a lot of things wrong and a lot of things lawlessly, it did create an appearance of something unusual happening here that I think a lot of people, and certainly, people sympathetic to him, were all too willing to buy into. And it has created, then, this deeper form of polarization.
There’s also a thing happening behind Trump himself, which you see in J.D. Vance, you see in a lot of these people, which is that over the last 10-ish years, Republicans, conservatives, particularly sort of populist conservatives, feel that the institutions of American life became biased, arrayed, weaponized against them.
The universities, but they had been out of power in the universities for a long time. But during the sort of post-Ferguson period, the post-George Floyd period, the #MeToo period, a feeling that businesses had become woke, businesses had become an arm of not necessarily the Democratic Party, although they might say that, but I would say more like a liberal, cultural, and institutional dominance.
And it also reflects compositional differences in America. We’ve had a lot of educational polarization. So it actually is the case that people with college degrees, post-grad degrees, who are at the top of a lot of these institutions, are more monolithically liberal than they used to be, not actually monolithically liberal. And you certainly find many, many, many rich Republican businessmen, rich Republican or at least powerful Republican faith leaders, right? Churches are still a very powerful institution in American life.
So the extent of this can be overstated, but the sense that Republicans have lost their representation in a lot of these institutions is very real on the Republican side. And it’s much more a feeling of being culturally on the outs, right? It’s not a feeling that all these institutions have a strong view about single-payer health care, but that they have strong cultural views about race, about gender.
And the things that are more traditionally Christian and conservative views have become almost unsayable, right? I mean, we went in a very short period in American life from gay marriage being an issue that it would be lethal to run on as a national politician — that would have been true in 2000, would have been true in 2004 — Barack Obama believed it to be true in 2008 — to you can’t even really, at a high level in American life, be against gay marriage.
Forget running on it or trying to do anything about it, but just to oppose it would put you culturally in a very difficult place. Now, I’m obviously a deep supporter of gay marriage, but that has created a backlash in a sense of persecution.
So I think all these things kind of braid together in where Republicans have gone and have also led to this sort of economic populist pressure there, this sense of free speech being a major issue there, right? When people feel like they are losing their footing and their grip on the institutions that wield power, that’s a frightening thing. And I think as much as I disagree on a lot of the particulars, it is worth taking seriously that it has frightened many on the right.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CLAIRE GORDON: So let’s talk about J.D. Vance. The convention started off with the announcement that Trump was picking him as his V.P. And a lot of the liberal conversation after that was sort of focused on the comments that J.D. Vance had made during Trump’s 2016 run for office, calling him “cultural heroin” and that maybe he was America’s Hitler, and just trying to puzzle over the fact that this was now Trump’s running mate. And was this just crass political opportunism on the part of J.D. Vance that he had this wild Trumpian makeover? You have said that you think that’s the wrong way to understand Vance. So, what’s wrong with it?
EZRA KLEIN: I just don’t think it’s true. I mean, I think the particulars are true in the sense that he did say all those things about Trump, although, remember, he said he might be America’s Hitler. That was one of the possibilities.
Look, I interviewed J.D. Vance in his “Hillbilly Elegy” period, and he was a very different guy. And he wasn’t just a different guy in what he thought. He was a different guy in temperament, in openness, right? He was a guy who believed deeply in civility, who believed deeply in what you might call sort of political and civic virtues.
And what led Vance to his current level of antagonism and contempt and fury is interesting. And I have my theories on it, as anybody might. But I need extraordinary evidence, and a lot of people disagree with me about this. And that’s totally fine. People are going to find this unconvincing. I need a lot of evidence before I will believe somebody is acting in an extended way insincerely. People have a lot of difficulty maintaining high levels of cognitive dissonance for very long.
So what happens is people go through these conversions. I think the way they normally go through it is not by first converting to Trump. It is by converting to a hatred of his enemies. You’re not pro-Trump, you’re anti-anti-Trump. I think that is where J.D. Vance started. Here’s this guy, Donald Trump. The kinds of people Vance grew up with, the kinds of people who he is sort of describing in his book, the kinds of people he understands himself to be politically on the side of, they all love Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the media, the institutions, they hate Donald Trump. They see nothing good in Donald Trump at all. And in fact, they are showering Donald Trump and maybe even the people who back him with contempt, with derision. They’re deplorables. And that opens up a wedge, right? Who are you going to side with? And once you kind of fall into the other side of that, I’m with these people. And yeah, Trump has his flaws, but there’s some reason all these people are turning to him.
And this happens to a lot of people. I mean, a lot of these kind of tech billionaires and VCs have gone through this, right? They’ve gone through it, I think, for different reasons. But once you start going into a different group of people and hearing different things, then the conversion process can accelerate. And when people convert, I mean, we have an old saying about this — the zeal of the convert, the zeal of the newly converted.
When people convert, they, many times, end up going further than the people who were there all along. Right? I feel this about some of my Never Trumper friends, who were hardcore Republicans just a couple of years ago. And even though I’ve been a liberal my entire life, I feel they are much more down the line Democrats now than I would even think of being.
They sort of have the zeal of the convert. They see fully now the Republican Party’s malignancy. They all of a sudden have totally different views on not just Donald Trump, but health care, taxation, foreign policy. Like, all these things they once believed, they’re now just like down the line Biden Democrats.
I think this happened to Vance. And I do think that there was opportunism in it. I think that he had political ambitions. And so he became the thing he needed to become to win in Ohio. It is worth noting, by the way, that Vance is not like a political juggernaut in Ohio. He underperformed the state’s Republican governor by a very, very, very significant margin.
Vance, I think, in part because he has the zeal of the convert, in part because he is so angry at the people who he once saw as his friends — I mean, Vance said at one point about me and David Brooks, he’s like, they just lost their minds. They changed so much in the Trump administration.
And I would say, I didn’t change at all. Everything that I believed when J.D. Vance and I were both talking about the same things and both thought Donald Trump was bad at the same time, I just kept believing, and Vance moved. But I take what Vance — has happened to him. I think the way this happens to people is honest inside of them, and I think it is very hard to understand them if you don’t take that seriously.
The other thing I will say about Vance is that the place where his conversion is most stark is cultural, temperamental, the contemptuous way he speaks of the people he disagrees with, that the Democratic Party is just ruled by childless cat ladies who hate their lives. There’s an ugliness that has emerged in him that genuinely saddens me, right? It’s a way of trading away important parts of your soul to be part of the movement you want to be part of, right?
When I say it’s sincere, it doesn’t mean I don’t think it — worse than depressing, I think, in a way, cowardly. Like, it is hard to maintain a certain level of political virtue in a time when that has been lost. And there are people in Vance’s movement who do it, and he doesn’t. But that has happened to a lot of people who have bent the knee to Donald Trump, only to find that they actually like being on the floor.
CLAIRE GORDON: So I want to play a clip of J.D. Vance’s speech at the convention. And in this speech, he did something which I don’t think you hear Trump do very often.
^ARCHIVED RECORDING (J.D. VANCE)^: Like a lot of people, we came from the mountains of Appalachia into the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
[CHEERING]
Now, that’s Kentucky coal country, one of the 10 —
[CHEERING]
Now, it’s one of the 10 poorest counties in the entire United States of America. They are very hard-working people, and they’re very good people. They’re the kind of people who would give you the shirt off their back, even if they can’t afford enough to eat.
And our media calls them privileged and looks down on them. But they love this country, not only because it’s a good idea, but because in their bones, they know that this is their home, and it will be their children’s home. And they would die fighting to protect it.
[CHEERING]
CLAIRE GORDON: And what he was doing there — and he was talking before that about how America isn’t just an idea — it was this clear articulation of just, like, what it means to be an American, which I think Trump has vowed do that a lot, but I don’t think he does it as clearly and explicitly as Vance did in that speech. So I’m curious what you make of that.
EZRA KLEIN: One thing to understand about Vance is that he’s not just a convert to Trumpism. He’s a convert to something that’s called national conservatism. And that whole back part of the speech, which, if you listen to it, he talks about when he proposed to his wife, he had law school debt and a cemetery plot in Kentucky.
And in this town, he’s talking about — who are also buried in this plot he’s talking about — is that, to them, America is not a creedal nation that asks for the whole world’s huddled, hungry, tired, and poor. America is a land. They are its people. It is their land. They own it. And they will die to defend it.
The National Conservatism Conference, I believe it was in Washington, DC. And one of the things I did before the convention was I listened to J.D. Vance’s speech at that conference. And that speech is hard-edged, and it’s ideological. And that whole riff he gives, he gives there. This is his riff. And this is the whole point of national conservatism.
J.D. Vance in a thing that I think is a somewhat unresolved contradiction in his thought, both the national conservative speech he gives and then, briefly, in the speech he gives here, he talks about how his wife, whose parents are immigrants, how they’ve given so much to the country. But in the speech he gives at the conservative conference, he talks about how it’s indisputable that immigrants make countries poorer, they harm countries.
So, the sense of how Vance navigates this is complicated and I think reflects a later in life conversion to the view that immigrants weaken nations. And the way they weaken nations is because they weaken the fundamental identity of the nation. Right now, he wants to talk about how immigrants harm housing prices, how the reason housing prices have gone up is the competition from, as he put it in the speech, “illegal aliens.”
I think as somebody who is currently writing a book heavily about housing prices and what has happened to them, the idea that immigrants, undocumented or otherwise, are the reason housing prices have done what they have done is absurd, actually. It’s just like not the right way to think about it and also just reflects a complete absence of taking it seriously.
We could just build as many homes as we want. We know how to build apartment buildings. If we’re not building them, the supply is constrained. And the fact that that’s not J.D. Vance’s view, right, that he wants to say, oh, all these problems are really the immigrants, is because what he wants to do is use the problems to have fewer immigrants and to deport people who are here now.
But what Vance is, is a national conservative. What national conservatives are, are conservatives who are much more focused on the question of the nation, not as an idea, but the people who exist here now, and what their perceived cultural and material needs are, and the way those and the national identity are threatened by people coming in.
And that is the factional fight he is in, in the Republican Party, because the Republican Party traditionally has been very pro-immigrant. They’ve believed in a lot of integration for America all around the world. They’ve believed in a lot of integration of American labor. Some of that did not go well at all, right? That’s some of the Donald Trump trade critique and the J.D. Vance trade critique.
But you have to understand there is being something cohesive at the bottom of this. It’s not just like a random assortment of policies. And the thing at the bottom of it is a very different idea of what America is and who it is for. And it’s a movement from the idea that if you think about the ’04 Republican Convention with George W. Bush, America as this nation of ideas. And it wants to spread those ideas around the world to a much more confined vision of America as the people who are here now.
And by the way, only really some of them, right? When Hulk Hogan, in some ways, had the most honest line of the night when he said all the real Americans will be called Trumpites, and there will be all these Trumpites running around, and I was like, wow, he just took the whole subtext of this entire convention and made it text in one line.
But this is the ideological movement that Vance has made his name in that he has come out of. And that I think before he was even fully a convert to Donald Trump, given all he had said about him, he was a convert to this way of thinking. And this way of thinking has come to understand Donald Trump as like their mystic leader.
Donald Trump might not have every policy view they have. He might not be good at running things in the way they would want him to be. He might not be like the deep religious figure they want him to be, but they sort of see him as like the ayatollah of national conservatism, right?
He has this kind of mystical understanding of the common man, the land, the country, its identity, and he has all the right enemies. And so he is their leader. And they’ll do the work, coming up behind him with the notepad and the abacus to turn his poetry into the prose of governance.
CLAIRE GORDON: I mean, you call this a factional fight, but watching the convention, one thing that a person can’t understate is that immigration was the big theme and a lot of emotion, a lot of rage about it. Hasn’t that faction won? Isn’t that the defining identity in the Republican Party?
EZRA KLEIN: It has definitely won on immigration. There’s no doubt about that. It hasn’t won on everything, though. J.D. Vance is up there talking about how America has been serving Wall Street and the banking class. And Donald Trump is telling Bloomberg, where he very happily sat for an extended interview, about how he thinks Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, is great and how he’d really like to consider him for Treasury Secretary.
And noting that Donald Trump, again, the ayatollah of national conservatism, who did he make his National Economics Council director when he came in, in 2017? Gary Cohn, the former head of Goldman Sachs. There are a lot of places here in terms of what this sort of intuitions and any ideological decisions of this group are that Donald Trump doesn’t agree with.
One of the big fights that is coming in the Republican Party — maybe it has already been decided, but a lot of Republicans don’t believe what Donald Trump and J.D. Vance seem to believe about Ukraine and about the world, more broadly. They both emerge out of an isolationist strain in the Republican Party. Like, why spend money elsewhere in the world when we could be spending it here to rebuild our industrial base, to help our people? What are we doing in all these external fights?
But a lot of Republicans do want to support Ukraine. They believe that strongly. A lot of Republicans do want a more confrontational and interventionist posture. That fight has not been won in the Republican Party, though naming Vance has certainly given the more isolationist, restrained, whatever you want to call it, faction, an upper hand that they maybe weren’t totally expecting.
So, on immigration, I think on rhetoric, I mean, there’s no doubt who is winning. But note, too, that Nikki Haley, who is, I think, the Republican — was the Republican running in the 2024 primaries who most represented the sort of pre-Trump Republican Party, aside from Trump, she did the best, and I think if Trump and Vance lose, would be considered a very potentially significant frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2028.
So I wouldn’t be sure that this is done, but I would say that the older version of the Republican Party is very much back on its heels at the moment. In some respects, I will say they are not on their heels at all on taxes, where Donald Trump is still just saying he’s going to use whatever money he can raise from tariffs, not just to extend his own tax cuts, but to cut corporate taxation even more deeply.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CLAIRE GORDON: OK, Ezra, while I have you, in order to beat this, the Democrats need to figure out who their nominee is going to be. You’ve been doing a lot of reporting on this, I know. What can you tell us?
EZRA KLEIN: We’re talking again on Friday. This has been an enormously fluid situation. The consensus among people I have spoken to who are high up in the Democratic Party and the kinds of people putting pressure on and who are around Joe Biden, the feeling is Biden is starting to recognize that his position may not be recoverable.
The key thing here is that over a compressed period of time, Speaker Jeffries went to him and said the Democratic House members believe you should step aside, that that would be the best thing for the party and the country. Chuck Schumer went to him and said the same thing. Nancy Pelosi went to him and said the same thing. It leaked from around Obama into the press that Obama is telling people that Biden’s path has really narrowed to a very, very, very narrow path to re-election.
Biden is angry. He feels abandoned by people he felt were his friends. He’s not entirely wrong with that, though I would say this is partially because he has put them all in a very bad position. The idea that he holds no agency here, I think, is not reasonable.
And so we’re in a very tricky spot here. There’s been a lot of rumors and thought that he might drop out as early as very early in this coming week. But everything is a rumor. Everything is a anonymous source. Everything right now is also dependent on the decisions he ends up making.
Other things I would say is that for all that I’ve been a proponent of an open convention in my talks with the kinds of Democrats who are very involved here, I don’t think there’s appetite or time for that in their view. I will say Kamala Harris has been extremely impressive every day since the debate. She has not misplaced a foot. And if you watch some of the speeches she’s been giving, which I’ve been doing, she’s been extremely good on the stump.
And so in the sense that there is a kind of quiet audition happening behind the scenes here, she is showing everybody in the party that she seems good enough for the bet. Maybe she’s not who they would draft out of an open field at this exact moment, but they don’t really have an open draft.
If Biden drops out sometime over the following week, the time period until the convention is very, very, very short. And so the pressure to unite around Harris and have her pick a vice presidential nominee is going to be very, very, very strong. That’s what I would now kind of expect to happen would be my modal case.
I think the things that Democrats are weighing and Biden is weighing himself is Biden’s outside hope. I think the thing he believes might be possible here is if he just holds on and goes to the Democratic Convention, and the party really has no choice, it will unite behind him. It just can’t do anything else. And then he’ll have the party, and he believes he can win. And he’ll take on Donald Trump, and he’ll win this thing.
Problem is his polling is really, really bad. Right now, Donald Trump needs to win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Those are the only states in play that he really needs to win. Biden, given the polling we have, needs to worry about winning not just those, but Minnesota, New Mexico, Maine.
There are a series of states that Biden should not have to think about as competitive that his position has degraded in, Virginia being another, so significantly that, I mean, he could get electorally wiped out. I mean, Arizona, Georgia — out of reach now. Nobody thinks he’s going to win them. North Carolina — out of reach.
So this is a problem. The money has dried up. His map is actually huge. He needs to play not in three states, but in a very significant number of quite expensive media markets. And I mean, he also doesn’t want to lose, right? And so there’s a question of how much he understands that he is probably headed for a loss.
But there’s strange things happening in the party right now. Who have been Biden’s most ardent backers? Bernie Sanders and A.O.C. And Sanders gave a very damaging, I think, for Biden interview to The New Yorker, to Isaac Chotiner, where he basically says to Chotiner, being pressed, like, look, yeah, Biden keeps forgetting names. He can’t always string three sentences together, but at least his agenda is good. And that’s not a very strong defense.
A.O.C.’s defense is interesting, and I’ve invited her on the show. I haven’t heard back from her people. But A.O.C. went to Instagram and gave this long defense and basically said, look, there’s peril if we do anything here. There isn’t unity on how to replace Biden. If it’d be Harris, it would be an open convention. We could fall into chaos.
I genuinely found A.O.C.’s perspective here surprising, in part because she’s somebody who is typically very comfortable with high levels of risk. She’s somebody who wants to do a very rapid, complete re-industrialisation of the entire energetic base of the American, even global, economy. She supports health care plans that would abolish all private insurance. I mean, she’s somebody who, in a lot of her politics, is willing to court a certain level of political chaos. But people feel different ways about different political questions.
The thing I did not hear her make a good argument for that I would like to hear her make a good argument for is that Biden can win. So I think to Democrats who looked at Trump’s kind of rambling speech, they see Trump as beatable. They look at Vance. Vance is very, very, very anti-abortion. He’s talked about wanting a national abortion ban. They see Vance as beatable.
They see Vance as a politically weak pick for Trump, right? If Trump had picked Doug Burgum or Marco Rubio, that would have scared Democrats a lot more. And they worry simply that Biden cannot prosecute the case such that he can beat Trump. But Biden also looked at Trump and probably thought he was beatable and wants to be the one to do it.
So, it’s tough. The other thing I will say is that if Biden does not drop out early in the week, I think you should expect a lot more Democrats to begin going public. The feeling right now is that they are trying to talk to him privately, but if he does not react to that, they are turning up the pressure publicly because that is what he appears to actually be reacting to. Even Morning Joe has started talking about maybe he needs to drop out, and they’ve been his strongest supporters.
So, it’s a pretty ugly and difficult moment in the Democratic Party that I think would cohere into a lot of unity if he stepped aside. He would be treated as like a hero and a patriot who did the kind of country first thing Donald Trump would never do. And I think there’d be a lot of relief uniting around a Harris-Whitmer, Harris-Shapiro, Harris-Beshear, Harris-Cooper ticket.
But the Democrats have to get there first. And whether how likely that is, I mean, at this point, I think it is reasonably above 50 percent. But it definitely changes by the hour and by which anonymous sources you’re hearing quoted in which outlet.
CLAIRE GORDON: You just said that the Republicans look beatable. You started the conversation this way. But also, the Republicans have this incredibly strong, emotional, potent message on immigration. And voters say that they trust the Republicans to handle that issue. Republicans have been making gains in these nontraditional voters for them. Do you think that the Democrats really have a message, a clear message that can beat what the Republicans are offering?
EZRA KLEIN: No. I mean, I will say that they don’t have a clear message. I do they have a message that can beat what the Republicans are offering. And I mean, this is a sort of case that the Democratic optimists have been making for a long time. Democrats beat Trump. I mean, they beat him in the popular vote in 2016, but he won the electoral college.
They wrecked Republicans under Trump in 2018. They wrecked Republicans in 2020. In 2022, they, by all accounts, should have lost, but won seats in the Senate. They won governorships. They made gains in states. And they held down their losses in the House in a way nobody really thought likely, given how high inflation was.
The message isn’t all that different. The Republican Party believes a lot of things that most Americans don’t believe, and a lot of people feel that the Republican Party is dangerous. Their views on abortion — their immigration views are not popular. A mass deportation effort, when people think about what that might be, like, large internal security forces going house to house. And by the way, there was a big bipartisan immigration deal that Donald Trump killed. There was an effort to make all this better, and Donald Trump stopped it. The Republicans are extremely vulnerable.
And it is telling that Donald Trump running against a man, an incumbent president, who has a job approval rating in the 30s, who 80 percent of Americans, in some polls, believe doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to serve as president again, Donald Trump has been two points ahead nationally and about two points ahead, depending on the state you’re looking at, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.
These two candidates are so weak, they are so weak. They’re like the only two people who could beat the other one. Donald Trump is not a strong candidate. And this Republican convention, it was unified, but not unified in a way that was reaching out to swing voters. It’s unified in a way that was a factional fight within the Republican Party.
J.D. Vance is great on Fox News. But the sort of contempt he sprays at his political antagonists is a political problem. Like, one of my lines on Vance is he understands why Trump won in 2016, but he doesn’t understand why he lost in 2020. Somebody like Marco Rubio does. There are other figures in the party who do.
Vance has run a political approach, has run a sort of personal political campaign, to become the leader of the MAGA movement. And that worked. That is different than campaigning to win over the people who, in Pennsylvania, love Governor Josh Shapiro and voted for him overwhelmingly against a MAGA opponent. The people in Pennsylvania who voted for John Fetterman, despite he was deeply incapacitated then by a stroke, over Dr. Oz. The people in Michigan who voted for Gretchen Whitmer, the people in Wisconsin who voted for Tony Evers.
And we see them in polls because we see Democratic Senate candidates running far ahead of Joe Biden. There is a significant part of the electorate that does not particularly want to vote for Donald Trump again, is very open to voting for a Democrat, but is not going to vote for Joe Biden because they don’t think he’s up to the job, or they blame him for inflation or something else.
Democrats should put forward a candidate who appeals to this crucial part of the electorate. Give them a candidate for whom, when they look at that candidate, they think, yeah, that’s a normal, smart, hardworking, decent, compassionate person who is up to the job of the presidency. The Democratic Party has a lot of those people in the party. I think Vice President Harris is one of those people.
The Democrats’ theory was that Donald Trump was going to lose the election, not that Joe Biden was going to win it. The thing that they are risking here is that they are going to lose the election, not that Donald Trump is going to win it. It would be nice for them to try to win the election. I just want to play a clip before we end of just Vice President Harris delivering her line on Trump the other day at a speech.
^ARCHIVED RECORDING (KAMALA HARRIS)^: In recent days, they’ve been trying to portray themselves as the party of unity. But here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. If you claim to stand for unity, you need to do more than just use the word.
[CHEERING]
You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda that deprives whole groups of Americans of basic freedoms, opportunity and dignity.
[CHEERING]
You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are intent on taking reproductive freedoms from the people of America and the women of America.
[CHEERING]
Trying to ban abortion nationwide, as they do, and restrict access to I.V.F. and contraception, as their plan calls for. You cannot claim to be for unity if you try to overturn a free and fair election —
[CHEERING]
— and threaten — and threaten to terminate the United States Constitution. And you cannot claim to be for unity when your entire economic agenda is designed to prioritize billionaires and big corporations over the middle class.
[APPLAUSE]
We’re too busy watching what you’re doing to hear what you’re saying.
EZRA KLEIN: Look, if Joe Biden could do that, that effectively, I think he could win. The fact that Harris can do that, that effectively, I think she can win. The Republican Party has not put forward a popular strong ticket and agenda. They are looking strong because the Democrats are looking weak.
But if the Democrats decide to overhaul this and develop a strong ticket and message, and they have still the time to do that, I think that the overconfidence of the Republican Convention and Party right now is going to prove to be a real mistake. I think the Vance pick can might ultimately prove to be a real mistake. They’re acting like they have won this election, but they have not.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker, Jack McCordick and Kristin Lin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Skip to content
Skip to site index
Podcasts
For more audio journalism and storytelling, download New York Times Audio, a new iOS app available for news subscribers.
The Ezra Klein Show
Transcript: Ezra Klein Debriefs the 2024 Republican National Convention
July 20, 2024
Real conversations. Ideas that matter. So many book recommendations.
Listen to “The Ezra Klein Show”: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, How to Listen
Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation about | something that matters, like today’s episode debriefing the 2024 Republican National Convention with Claire Gordon. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcripts of our episodes are made available as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.
I Watched the Republican Convention. The Democrats Can Still Win.
Ezra Klein discusses the anti-system populism on display at the 2024 G.O.P. convention — and what this might mean for the Democrats.
transcript
0:00/49:29
I Watched the Republican Convention. The Democrats Can Still Win.
Ezra Klein discusses the anti-system populism on display at the 2024 G.O.P. convention — and what this might mean for the Democrats.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ezra klein
From New York Times Opinion, this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”
It is Friday, July 19. It is the morning after the final night of the Republican National Convention. And there is a lot to say about who the Republicans are showing themselves to be or showing themselves to want to be, a lot to say about what is about to happen potentially with the Democrats and Joe Biden. And so I’m joined by my great showrunner and senior editor, Claire Gordon, who is going to turn the tables on me a bit and ask the questions today. So, Claire, thank you so much for being here.
claire gordon
It is my pleasure. And I’ll just start right there with what stands out to you as different about Trump and the Republican Party’s sales pitch in 2024 compared to last time?
ezra klein
What was interesting to me across the Republican Convention and something I see some of my liberal friends honestly grappling with and some of them still trying to deny, is that the Republican Party itself is changing. It is coming into line behind the thing that it thinks Donald Trump is.
Whether that’s a thing Donald Trump actually is, is something we should talk about, because I am unconvinced. And I think you saw this on the final night of the convention. For all the talk in the nights leading up to it of economic populism, for all that you had a union president speaking on the first night, for all of J.D. Vance’s attacks on Wall Street in his speech, the night of Donald Trump was not a night of full-throated economic populism. It was a night of full-throated showmanship and entertainment.
He was introduced by Dana White, the head of the U.F.C. Hulk Hogan gave, I think, undoubtedly, the night’s best speech. It was campy, and it was strange, and it was entertaining. But it understood that the root of Donald Trump’s politics are as a showman, as a reality television star, as a W.W.E. Hall of Famer.
There was a lot of talk about Donald Trump’s golf game. If you didn’t tune in for the early speeches, I think you’d be surprised how much talk there was about Donald Trump’s golf game. The fact that he loves music. I thought it was very funny that Tucker Carlson ended up opening up for the general manager of Donald Trump’s golf club. Kid Rock gave a performance.
A friend of mine said to me that it felt like watching Donald Trump’s Vegas residency. And I think that’s right. Once Trump got into his own speech after he moved through the period of talking about the assassination attempt, which was, I would say, an interesting, in some cases, bizarre, way that he opened it up, he sort of spoke about himself like he was like a bard from the future, telling the story of Donald Trump and the sort of, “It was a warm day.”
I would say the way Trump spoke about it, it felt to me like a shift had happened in him. Not towards serenity, not towards an expansive perspective or a calmness, but so many people in Trump’s base have told him that he is godly, that he is God-sent, that he is here on a mission of God.
And I think Trump enjoyed that support. And now I think Trump shares that perspective. I think his sense of being chosen has settled into him in a different way, which you can imagine that playing out in many ways, some of them dangerous.
When he got into his own speech, it was just Trump. It wasn’t even very good Donald Trump. It wasn’t like one of his better rallies, but it was just him. It was rambley. It was long. It was just truly full of bullshit, so much that it feels like it overwhelms the capacity of the fact-checker.
There’s so much emphasis, for instance, on energy production, but America is currently producing more crude oil than any country ever has in the history of the entire world. That includes the United States under Donald Trump. And it didn’t feel to me like a speech where they said to themselves, people are tuning in here who are uncertain about Donald Trump, but giving him a second chance. And we’ve got to convince them.
Across quite a bit of the Republican National Convention, this felt like base turnout. It felt like an effort to solidify an ideological change that we can talk about that is happening. But it didn’t feel like an effort to persuade, to present a face that somebody who is modestly pro-choice but doesn’t really like Democrats and is upset about inflation and lives in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t aimed at them. It felt to me, for them, like a pretty profound missed opportunity.
A lot for Democrats I’m talking to, a lot of the sense of Trump’s inevitability that had begun to take hold among some of the party — shattered. And they watched him, and they remembered, oh, this guy is completely beatable and has actually never won the popular vote in an election ever.
claire gordon
That’s interesting to hear you say that. And I just want to spend a moment on the divine intervention, messianic piece of this and just play a moment so folks can hear a taste of it.
archived recording (donald trump)
I’m not supposed to be here tonight. I’m not supposed to be here.
archived recording 1
(CHANTING) Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
archived recording (donald trump)
Thank you. But I’m not. And I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God.
[CHEERING]
claire gordon
So, in the first part of that speech, you also the camera pans, and people have tears streaming down their face as he’s describing events of that day. America is a religious country. Do you not think that there is power to that message?
ezra klein
I don’t think for an election, there is power to that message. I’m a little bit uncomfortable talking about that message in terms of whether or not it will win Trump a point and a half in Michigan, because I think there is an authenticity to what he is going through here. People who go through near-death experiences of that nature do emerge changed. They do emerge with a sense, sometimes, of destiny, a sense of needing to focus on other things in their life.
I don’t want to comment or pretend that I know what that has meant to Donald Trump or how he feels about it, but I wouldn’t frame it really as a political message. I mean, we will see. I think the iconography of the image of him with his fist up is obviously going to be a huge dimension of the Trump campaign this year. I’m sure we will see it on a lot of merch and signs and stickers and so on.
To the degree it does reflect a message that they are trying to push, you heard this from other speakers, which is that — and this is an odd mythologizing of him to me, but nevertheless, that Donald Trump doesn’t need to be doing any of this. That Donald Trump was rich, he was happy, he was a celebrity.
And for your sins and on your behalf, he entered the grime and the difficulty and the challenge of politics. And he was slandered, and he was persecuted. And he was mocked, and he had an election stolen from him. And then he had the Justice Department and the New York prosecutors and the Georgia prosecutors go after him. They tried to throw him in jail, and they’ve tried to impoverish him. And then they tried to kill him. Possibly, some shadowy they is sending lone shooters now.
That sense of paranoia, that sense that this is a movement that is under genuine persecution, and if Donald Trump cannot win the election, it might be stamped out — it was odd because it permeated a convention that, at the same time, was completely convinced of its victory, of how many votes it would get, of the fact that it was actually the dominant now force in American politics.
But that, I think, is a real message, right? The message is not so much about the shooting. The message is more about, actually, the court cases against Donald Trump and the sense that he has been persecuted. They have been persecuted, but they have withstood it.
And that strength shows something fundamental about him, about them, about the way they would govern, about what this movement is made of, and also, the threat, in their minds, that it represents to a corrupt status quo, ruling class, regime — whatever you want to call it.
claire gordon
And at the same time, they’re trying to be more inclusive and very explicitly reaching out to parts of what’s traditionally been the Democrats’ coalition, like Black voters. So here’s Vivek Ramaswamy.
archived recording (vivek ramaswamy)
Our message to Black Americans is this. The media has tried to convince you for decades that Republicans don’t care about your communities. But we do. We want for you what we want for every American — safe neighborhoods, clean streets, good jobs, a better life for your children, and a justice system that treats everyone equally, regardless of your skin color and regardless of your political beliefs.
[CHEERING]
claire gordon
I mean, so you heard themes like that over and over again, people talking about this is a big tent party, and it doesn’t matter what race you are. What’s going on here? Why is it that Trump, of all recent Republican presidential nominees, Trump with his record of racist statements, why does it seem like he can make this play for Black voters?
ezra klein
Let me say a couple of things about this, and not just about Black voters, but about something happening across the R.N.C. that I am sincerely in favor of. Across the Republican National Convention, you saw the Republican Party making a genuine effort to appeal to union voters, to Black voters, to Hispanic voters.
And I have studied political polarization in incredibly deep detail. I wrote a book on it that came out in 2020, “Why We’re Polarized.” And one of the points of that book is that to say a country is polarized doesn’t actually give you that much information. The question is, what is it polarized over? And one thing we were seeing at this convention is the nature, the locus of American polarization, is changing.
So if you go back to the 2012 convention, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, the sort of voter in Mitt Romney’s mind at that convention, I think, is like a small business owner, an entrepreneur, the sort of winners of American life who the rest of us are supposed to look at aspirationally.
And the voter in mind at this convention was very different — was not wealthy, I think, was not necessarily white, maybe even joined a union. I think it is good for the politics around organized labor, around race to depolarize. And I do think there was an effort being made in that direction here. Does that take away from the fact that Donald Trump had a deeply anti-union National Labor Relations Board in his first term? No, but maybe it would be somewhat different in his second term.
I think it is good what the Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien, did. If I were a union president and my job was to help my members, I would want there to be entry for me in a Republican administration, right? That is the job. I don’t think the fact that organized labor is simply a kind of arm of the Democratic coalition has actually been good for it. Democrats don’t hold power in enough places enough of the time.
And Trump splits politics on different lines than it was split under someone like Romney or Ryan. His appeal, the way he shows up to people, it’s a very cultural appeal. He frontloads issues like immigration. He frontloads a way of talking and speaking and a kind of antagonism and sense of resentment that is very class oriented, very — depending on how you frame class, not just about wealth, right? There are many, many wealthy Donald Trump supporters.
And it should not go without notice that the scion of the MAGA movement now is a Yale law graduate who went to work immediately in venture capital. J.D. Vance, whatever else you want to say about him, is a convert to the class war.
But there are many union members and many Black and Hispanic voters who share this kind of politics, share some of these views on trade, share these views on immigration, right? This is something the Democratic Party, I think, really got wrong for itself. It listened to highly ideological groups claiming to represent Black and Hispanic voters, and it turned out they did not represent nearly the full range of opinion. There was a lot of effort at suppression of support for Republicans. And when suppression breaks, it often kind of breaks all at once.
And so, Trump, in offering a much more cultural appeal that replicates itself in nontraditional media, I mean, it’s a sort of very pro-Trumpy world, I think, at this point, in sports talk radio, in a lot of the big YouTube shows. He’s just pulling different people, and he noticed he’s pulling different people, right? He is excited about the fact that he’s pulling different people. And now he is leaning in to the parts of his own movement that he thinks can appeal to them.
And for all of the unhealthy things I saw at the Republican National Convention, I think that thing is healthy. I think it would be good for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to both be competing for organized labor, for Black voters, for Hispanic voters, rather than taking them for granted.
At the same time, the locus of polarization itself is changing. It’s not going away. The polarization is over the system itself, right? Are we a democracy? Are American institutions, in any way, trustworthy, right? J.D. Vance has talked about firing every midlevel bureaucrat and replacing them with, as he sometimes puts it, like their people.
Donald Trump talked about — offhandedly, but extremely, extremely bluntly, definitively— how he believes the election was stolen from him. They’re going to make it impossible to steal again. We’re never going to let something like that 2020 result happen again. There was no doubt about that at the Republican Party.
So in some ways, we’ve slipped down into a deeper form of polarization over the fundamentals of the system itself. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama were not divided over the question of American institutions, over whether or not election results should be or would be considered legitimate.
claire gordon
So when you talk about Democrats and Republicans becoming polarized over democracy, Trump and his supporters think that the Democrats are going to try to steal this election. Democrats fear that Trump is going to try to steal this election. Democrats fear that Trump is going to weaponize the D.O.J., and Trump and his supporters feel like the Democrats are weaponizing the D.O.J.. Is it that they’re polarized and that they have different values on these issues, or is it just that they are mirror images of each other?
ezra klein
So the thing about Donald Trump is that he acts in ways that force systems to react against him. When you try to fundamentally invalidate elections, the system is going to have to do something about that. And then he says, look, the system is against me. They’re treating me in a way no one has ever been treated before. Doesn’t this just prove what I’ve been saying all along? And it doesn’t, but there are ways in which it looks like that to people.
I am not personally a fan of the New York case against Donald Trump. On the letter of the law, he did everything he’s accused of doing. I think that the sort of bankshot theory of law applied there, where you are taking a business documents misdemeanor and elevating it to a felony by attaching it to a campaign finance violation, in terms of the explosiveness of prosecuting an ex-president, I think that was not the strongest case.
The sort of profusion of cases created a kind of appearance. Even though it reflects Donald Trump doing a lot of things wrong and a lot of things lawlessly, it did create an appearance of something unusual happening here that I think a lot of people, and certainly, people sympathetic to him, were all too willing to buy into. And it has created, then, this deeper form of polarization.
There’s also a thing happening behind Trump himself, which you see in J.D. Vance, you see in a lot of these people, which is that over the last 10-ish years, Republicans, conservatives, particularly sort of populist conservatives, feel that the institutions of American life became biased, arrayed, weaponized against them. The universities, but they had been out of power in the universities for a long time. # But during the sort of post-Ferguson period, the post-George Floyd period, the #MeToo period, a feeling that businesses had become woke, businesses had become an arm of not necessarily the Democratic Party, although they might say that, but I would say more like a liberal, cultural, and institutional dominance.
And it also reflects compositional differences in America. We’ve had a lot of educational polarization. So it actually is the case that people with college degrees, post-grad degrees, who are at the top of a lot of these institutions, are more monolithically liberal than they used to be, not actually monolithically liberal. And you certainly find many, many, many rich Republican businessmen, rich Republican or at least powerful Republican faith leaders, right? Churches are still a very powerful |
Here’s the Hope if Biden Withdraws.txt |
By Nicholas Kristof
Opinion Columnist
An assassination attempt. An official Republican presidential nominee who is also the most polarizing figure in modern American history. Growing talk that Donald Trump could win in a landslide. His anointing of an heir to realign the parties and sustain Trumpism for years to come. And in the middle of it all, tormented by polls and criticism, able to change the entire dynamic only by sacrificing himself: Biden Agonistes.
What a week! It feels like August 1914, a fulcrum in the sweep of events. These days may have moved the arc of America and the world, with history lurching in competing directions in ways that may shape our course for decades.
“There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen,” Lenin is widely quoted as saying. In fact, he probably didn’t say it; please excuse my effort at fact-checking as a token pushback to our Leninist dialectic of exaggerations, deceptions and conspiracy theories that were all highlighted this week.
To me, the tumult raised fears but also offered hopes and potential turning points — the most significant of which is the prospect of President Biden withdrawing from the race, as it seems he’s considering. Trump had a triumphant and exultant week, but his acceptance speech also underscored his lack of discipline and tendency to hail himself as America’s Caesar. The polls showed his strength against Biden, but his speech also suggested a Biden-like incoherence — a phrase that is somewhat unfair to Biden — and a path to a Democratic victory that might even shake the G.O.P. out of its cultish reverence for Trump.
Biden can borrow the language of President Lyndon Johnson, who on Sunday, March 31, 1968, stunned the nation in a television address, announcing, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” That won Johnson rare praise; in 2024, such a statement might avert disaster in November.
The transcendent problem for America is not Trump himself but the larger poisons, divisions, inequalities and frustrations that he has exploited and that this month came to a head. These are not unique to the United States, for similar forces led to Brexit in Britain, to Marine Le Pen’s rise in France and to a prime minister in Italy whose party has neo-fascist roots. To me, today’s toxins seem to be an echo of the rages that tore apart America and Europe in the 1960s but that ultimately ran their course and allowed us to recover. It’s far from inevitable, but at the end of this week I could squint and see a path ahead that navigates a dangerous autumn but that ultimately repudiates extremism and leads to a new American recovery.
We’re caught in a historical crisis, but think of it this way: The Chinese term for crisis, 危机, or weiji, is made up of the characters for danger (wei) and for opportunity (ji). So we’re in a period of great danger but also one pregnant with opportunity for a new path — if we can seize it.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
The assassination attempt, like so much else, should be a wake-up call. It was a near miss for Trump but also for America. It’s easy to imagine riots if the bullet had killed the candidate. It reminds us again of the need for less militant rhetoric and for more sensible gun policies.
As it was, the shooting’s aftermath underscored the penchant for conspiracy theories on both right and left, reflecting our national antagonisms and distrust. Representative Mike Collins, a Republican from Georgia, posted that “Joe Biden sent the orders.” Alex Jones blamed the “deep state,” and Elon Musk suggested (in a post viewed 92 million times) a possibility that “deliberate” action by the Secret Service might have allowed the shooting.
Conversely, some on the left immediately suspected that the assassination attempt was staged. Each side was willing to believe the worst of the other — and to spread untruths.
The shooting reflected undercurrents of violence stirring in our nation, where we not only possess intense political hatreds but also probably have more firearms (perhaps 400 million, though nobody knows) than people (340 million). A horrifying but credible poll this spring found that one-fifth of adults believe that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.”
More Republicans than Democrats took that position. Liberals tend to be quite certain that they are the peaceful ones, but a University of Chicago study by a terrorism expert, Robert Pape, found that more Americans support violence to resist Trump (10 percent) than to back him (7 percent).
The implication is that we on the liberal side, as well as conservatives, need to be more careful to avoid heated rhetoric and bellicose metaphors (like Biden’s call to “put Trump in a bull’s-eye”) that can erode norms and incite violence.
One thing Americans haven’t worried enough about is the risk of extreme polarization and impunity driving political violence. The impunity can come about through law enforcement turning a blind eye (as happened during attacks on civil rights workers in the 1960s), or it can be that juries might have one or more members who refuse to convict because they believe violence is justified.
Such impunity would incentivize more violence and then counter-violence, in cycles that would drive more polarization and impunity and then become difficult to reverse.
But perhaps, after the assassination attempt, we’ll be more cautious and aware.
One of the most pivotal events this week was Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate, for that clarified the future of Trumpism and may have given it a more sustainable path.
Whatever one thinks of Vance, he is very intelligent and capable. At 39, he could be a dominant figure in the G.O.P. for decades to come. Moreover, while Trump has impulses, Vance has an ideology, and I can easily imagine Vance working painstakingly to make Trumpism more effective.
A political realignment has already been underway in America, turning Democrats into the party of the educated and driving many working-class voters to the G.O.P., and Vance seems determined to accelerate it. Instead of denouncing unions, Republicans invited the president of the Teamsters to address the convention, and Vance is unusual in the Republican Party with his support for a higher minimum wage and for stronger antitrust efforts, including breaking up Google and sponsoring the Stop Subsidizing Giant Mergers Act.
In his acceptance on Wednesday evening of the nomination by the party that was once the home of Wall Street and big business, Vance denounced “Wall Street barons” for crashing the economy. He called for “a leader who’s not in the pocket of big business but answers to the working man, union and nonunion alike.”
Many working-class Americans are angry at elites, and they have a right to be. Banks were rescued in the 2008 financial crisis, but 10 million people were allowed to lose their homes. Blue-collar wages have stagnated. We accept that poor children will attend poor schools. We embrace trade policies that move factories abroad but don’t try adequately to support the workers or withered communities left behind. Neither party has acted with nearly enough resolve as more than 100,000 Americans die of overdoses annually. I’m a full-throated supporter of more aid to Ukraine, but I understand how left-behind Americans feel that Washington cares more about Ukrainians than it does about them.
Trump and Vance’s policies would make matters worse, I believe, but the last week showed how much they are reaching out to working-class voters that Democrats have too often condescended to. My secret hope is that as they see Republicans winning over working-class voters, Democrats will compete more for them, be less patronizing, be less inclined to dismiss all Trump voters as bigots and work harder to lift them up.
It seemed for much of the past week that we should brace ourselves for four more years of President Trump, and I began weighing the effects. Would Ukraine survive? Would a resurgent and victorious Russia move next on Moldova? Would America pull out of NATO? Would China, seeing America’s allies quarreling and a weakened commitment to global security, move on Taiwan?
At home, would America’s civil service be politicized? Would the military be ordered to suppress protesters or to attack narcotics sites in Mexico? Would millions of undocumented workers in the United States be forced abroad? Would abortion rights be further restricted, and doctors jailed? Would Supreme Court justices be replaced with youthful versions of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, cementing a far-right court for decades to come? Would democracy erode, fostering a Budapest-on-the-Potomac?
Yet at week’s end, as Democrats contemplated the likelihood that Trump would win the White House and perhaps carry with him both houses of Congress, pressure grew on Biden to withdraw. By the Friday deadline for this column, there were signs that Biden was considering retiring from the race.
If Biden does withdraw, that will mark another cataclysm. The last time something parallel happened was Johnson’s withdrawal in 1968. That suggests that this moment of upheaval may drag on, and that’s particularly true if there is an open convention rather than a coronation of the vice president.
I’ve suggested that the strongest pairing might be Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey as her running mate. They could run as outsiders and might have an advantage in swing states — and then it would be Democrats sternly raising questions about their rival’s age and mental lapses. As unsettling as this moment is, it is also laden with opportunity.
If in the end Trump loses in November, that would mean Republicans had won the popular vote only once (in 2004) since 1989, and there would probably be calls for the G.O.P. to end the cult of Trump and return to normalcy. In some ways, the forced resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974 ended not only the Watergate scandal but also the entire chapter of poisonous discord that encompassed Vietnam, urban riots and assassinations. It ushered in a time of healing and national cleansing. Let’s hope we can find our own off-ramp from our age of extremism, polarization and division.
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, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads.
Nicholas Kristof became a columnist for The Times Opinion desk in 2001 and has won two Pulitzer Prizes. His new memoir is “Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life.” @NickKristof
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section SR, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: The Opportunity of a Near Miss. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
By Nicholas Kristof
Opinion Columnist
An assassination attempt. An official Republican presidential nominee who is also the most polarizing figure in modern American history. Growing talk that Donald Trump could win in a landslide. His anointing of an heir to realign the parties and sustain Trumpism for years to come. And in the middle of it all, tormented by polls and criticism, able to change the entire dynamic only by sacrificing himself: Biden Agonistes.
What a week! It feels like August 1914, a fulcrum in the sweep of events. These days may have moved the | arc of America and the world, with history lurching in competing directions in ways that may shape our course for decades.
“There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen,” Lenin is widely quoted as saying. In fact, he probably didn’t say it; please excuse my effort at fact-checking as a token pushback to our Leninist dialectic of exaggerations, deceptions and conspiracy theories that were all highlighted this week.
To me, the tumult raised fears but also offered hopes and potential turning points — the most significant of which is the prospect of President Biden withdrawing from the race, as it seems he’s considering. Trump had a triumphant and exultant week, but his acceptance speech also underscored his lack of discipline and tendency to hail himself as America’s Caesar. The polls showed his strength against Biden, but his speech also suggested a Biden-like incoherence — a phrase that is somewhat unfair to Biden — and a path to a Democratic victory that might even shake the G.O.P. out of its cultish reverence for Trump.
Biden can borrow the language of President Lyndon Johnson, who on Sunday, March 31, 1968, stunned the nation in a television address, announcing, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” That won Johnson rare praise; in 2024, such a statement might avert disaster in November.
The transcendent problem for America is not Trump himself but the larger poisons, divisions, inequalities and frustrations that he has exploited and that this month came to a head. These are not unique to the United States, for similar forces led to Brexit in Britain, to Marine Le Pen’s rise in France and to a prime minister in Italy whose party has neo-fascist roots. To me, today’s toxins seem to be an echo of the rages that tore apart America and Europe in the 1960s but that ultimately ran their course and allowed us to recover. It’s far from inevitable, but at the end of this week I could squint and see a path ahead that navigates a dangerous autumn but that ultimately repudiates extremism and leads to a new American recovery.
We’re caught in a historical crisis, but think of it this way: The Chinese term for crisis, 危机, or weiji, is made up of the characters for danger (wei) and for opportunity (ji). So we’re in a period of great danger but also one pregnant with opportunity for a new path — if we can seize it.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
The assassination attempt, like so much else, should be a wake-up call. It was a near miss for Trump but also for America. It’s easy to imagine riots if the bullet had killed the candidate. It reminds us again of the need for less militant rhetoric and for more sensible gun policies.
As it was, the shooting’s aftermath underscored the penchant for conspiracy theories on both right and left, reflecting our national antagonisms and distrust. Representative Mike Collins, a Republican from Georgia, posted that “Joe Biden sent the orders.” Alex Jones blamed the “deep state,” and Elon Musk suggested (in a post viewed 92 million times) a possibility that “deliberate” action by the Secret Service might have allowed the shooting.
Conversely, some on the left immediately suspected that the assassination attempt was staged. Each side was willing to believe the worst of the other — and to spread untruths.
The shooting reflected undercurrents of violence stirring in our nation, where we not only possess intense political hatreds but also probably have more firearms (perhaps 400 million, though nobody knows) than people (340 million). A horrifying but credible poll this spring found that one-fifth of adults believe that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.”
More Republicans than Democrats took that position. Liberals tend to be quite certain that they are the peaceful ones, but a University of Chicago study by a terrorism expert, Robert Pape, found that more Americans support violence to resist Trump (10 percent) than to back him (7 percent).
The implication is that we on the liberal side, as well as conservatives, need to be more careful to avoid heated rhetoric and bellicose metaphors (like Biden’s call to “put Trump in a bull’s-eye”) that can erode norms and incite violence.
One thing Americans haven’t worried enough about is the risk of extreme polarization and impunity driving political violence. The impunity can come about through law enforcement turning a blind eye (as happened during attacks on civil rights workers in the 1960s), or it can be that juries might have one or more members who refuse to convict because they believe violence is justified.
Such impunity would incentivize more violence and then counter-violence, in cycles that would drive more polarization and impunity and then become difficult to reverse.
But perhaps, after the assassination attempt, we’ll be more cautious and aware.
One of the most pivotal events this week was Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate, for that clarified the future of Trumpism and may have given it a more sustainable path.
Whatever one thinks of Vance, he is very intelligent and capable. At 39, he could be a dominant figure in the G.O.P. for decades to come. Moreover, while Trump has impulses, Vance has an ideology, and I can easily imagine Vance working painstakingly to make Trumpism more effective.
A political realignment has already been underway in America, turning Democrats into the party of the educated and driving many working-class voters to the G.O.P., and Vance seems determined to accelerate it. Instead of denouncing unions, Republicans invited the president of the Teamsters to address the convention, and Vance is unusual in the Republican Party with his support for a higher minimum wage and for stronger antitrust efforts, including breaking up Google and sponsoring the Stop Subsidizing Giant Mergers Act.
In his acceptance on Wednesday evening of the nomination by the party that was once the home of Wall Street and big business, Vance denounced “Wall Street barons” for crashing the economy. He called for “a leader who’s not in the pocket of big business but answers to the working man, union and nonunion alike.”
Many working-class Americans are angry at elites, and they have a right to be. Banks were rescued in the 2008 financial crisis, but 10 million people were allowed to lose their homes. Blue-collar wages have stagnated. We accept that poor children will attend poor schools. We embrace trade policies that move factories abroad but don’t try adequately to support the workers or withered communities left behind. Neither party has acted with nearly enough resolve as more than 100,000 Americans die of overdoses annually. I’m a full-throated supporter of more aid to Ukraine, but I understand how left-behind Americans feel that Washington cares more about Ukrainians than it does about them.
Trump and Vance’s policies would make matters worse, I believe, but the last week showed how much they are reaching out to working-class voters that Democrats have too often condescended to. My secret hope is that as they see Republicans winning over working-class voters, Democrats will compete more for them, be less patronizing, be less inclined to dismiss all Trump voters as bigots and work harder to lift them up.
It seemed for much of the past week that we should brace ourselves for four more years of President Trump, and I began weighing the effects. Would Ukraine survive? Would a resurgent and victorious Russia move next on Moldova? Would America pull out of NATO? Would China, seeing America’s allies quarreling and a weakened commitment to global security, move on Taiwan?
At home, would America’s civil service be politicized? Would the military be ordered to suppress protesters or to attack narcotics sites in Mexico? Would millions of undocumented workers in the United States be forced abroad? Would abortion rights be further restricted, and doctors jailed? Would Supreme Court justices be replaced with youthful versions of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, cementing a far-right court for decades to come? Would democracy erode, fostering a Budapest-on-the-Potomac?
Yet at week’s end, as Democrats contemplated the likelihood that Trump would win the White House and perhaps carry with him both houses of Congress, pressure grew on Biden to withdraw. By the Friday deadline for this column, there were signs that Biden was considering retiring from the race.
If Biden does withdraw, that will mark another cataclysm. The last time something parallel happened was Johnson’s withdrawal in 1968. That suggests that this moment of upheaval may drag on, and that’s particularly true if there is an open convention rather than a coronation of the vice president.
I’ve suggested that the strongest pairing might be Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey as her running mate. They could run as outsiders and might have an advantage in swing states — and then it would be Democrats sternly raising questions about their rival’s age and mental lapses. As unsettling as this moment is, it is also laden with opportunity.
If in the end Trump loses in November, that would mean Republicans had won the popular vote only once (in 2004) since 1989, and there would probably be calls for the G.O.P. to end the cult of Trump and return to normalcy. In some ways, the forced resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974 ended not only the Watergate scandal but also the entire chapter of poisonous discord that encompassed Vietnam, urban riots and assassinations. It ushered in a time of healing and national cleansing. Let’s hope we can find our own off-ramp from our age of extremism, polarization and division.
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, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads.
Nicholas Kristof became a columnist for The Times Opinion desk in 2001 and has won two Pulitzer Prizes. His new memoir is “Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life.” @NickKristof
A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Section SR, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: The Opportunity of a Near Miss. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
How Americans Justify Political Violence.txt | By Charles Homans
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 22, 2024
In August 2022, I attended a gathering of right-wing grassroots organizations at a horse-show complex in Bloomsburg, Pa., a few hours’ drive east of where Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt last weekend. Everyone who went up to speak believed the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump, and now they were discussing what to do about it.
An evangelical pastor opened the meeting with the story of a pastor who fought alongside members of his congregation in the first days of the American Revolution. “Here’s a preacher training his people how to fight this ungodliness and wickedness, a real dictatorship,” he told the crowd. “Well, I talk to a lot of preachers today,” he went on, who were willing to “take up arms if they have to. And you know as well as I do, with what is coming, we may have to. Right? We don’t want to. But we may have to. And I believe the Second Amendment says we can.” Out in the crowd, a man had a sign depicting a rifle between a flag and a cross above the words “God, Guns, Guts! Keep AMERICA Free.”
Among the world’s historically stable democracies, America has a particularly complicated relationship with the idea of political violence. This is, after all, a country born out of violent struggle, as the T-shirts and bumper stickers and speeches at any Republican event endlessly attest. This is also a country where the major expansions of civil rights, from Emancipation to desegregation, happened under the fact or threat of state violence, and where few on the left are willing to categorically condemn violent protest in the name of social justice. It is a country where many still nod at Thomas Jefferson’s aphorism that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” or to Malcolm X vowing “by any means necessary.”
The language changed, briefly, after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Immediately after Trump survived the shooting at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pa., both he and President Biden, two men who detest each other, spoke of unity. Biden, in a statement, said, “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.” Trump told The Washington Examiner that he was rewriting his convention speech to focus on national unity, not Biden. “It is a chance to bring the country together,” he said. “I was given that chance.” But the truce didn’t even last the duration of the speech.
ImageFormer President Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents after being shot during his campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
If condemnations of violent political speech ring hollow in the United States, it’s because they are. This is a country where the language of violence has become too deeply entangled with politics to disentangle with a few pro forma statements, and where a growing share of Americans are comfortable not just with rhetoric but with potential action. “They shot first!” a rallygoer in Butler told a BBC reporter immediately after the shooting. “This is [expletive] war!” A field director for Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democratic representative and former chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, was fired after posting on Facebook, “I don’t condone violence but please get you some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time ooops that wasn’t me talking.” Liberal social media was awash in speculation that the whole thing had been staged.
In a June survey, the political scientists Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason, who have conducted a yearslong study exploring American attitudes toward political violence, found that about 20 percent of respondents believed that political violence, defined very broadly, was at least sometimes justified. (Other researchers, using different methodologies and narrower definitions of violence, have found lower numbers.) A full 60 percent — up from 40 percent four years ago — believed it was at least sometimes justified if people from the other political party committed an act of violence first, figures that varied little between Republicans and Democrats. In their discomfiting 2022 book “Radical American Partisanship,” they argue that “rather than asking whether Americans support political violence, the better question is when.”
We can argue endlessly about how much Americans mean these things when they say them in part because such words are acted on so rarely here. The end of Trump’s presidency, when thousands of his supporters at the U.S. Capitol finally made good on the language of political violence that had been deeply marrowed into his political messaging since the first days of his 2016 campaign, was an emphatic exception to the rule. But even just a year and a half later, listening to the preacher’s exhortations in that horse barn, from the back of a largely retirement-age crowd sunk deep in sagging camping chairs, the distance between talk and action seemed significant.
America is a country where college students occupy campus lawns in kaffiyehs but only until summer internships start, where suburban militia members outfit themselves with body armor and military-style AR-15s borrowed from wars they never served in. We are a comfortable and sheltered people who talk a big game that is usually just talk. Until someone throws a Molotov cocktail through a storefront, or storms the Capitol, or tries to kill a former president.
‘It Is Right to Kill Them’
Assassination attempts against major political figures happen rarely enough in the United States that they are shocking, but not so rarely that we don’t know the drill.
After Trump’s shooting, Republicans were quick to point to Biden’s statement, on a call with donors, that “It’s time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye,” and to blame years of claims that Trump posed a threat to American democracy. “Don’t tell me they didn’t know exactly what they were doing with this crap,” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, wrote on X after the shooting.
Trump’s opponents were quick to point out that all of this paled in comparison to what Trump himself had said for years. On the campaign trail, he regularly describes Biden as a “fascist” and has accused the president of perpetrating a “conspiracy to overthrow democracy.” Not long ago, he shared on social media a video of a pickup truck decorated to look like its owner had hogtied Biden in the flatbed.
But assassination attempts fit our expectations of ideological cause and effect less neatly than the other forms of political violence — white supremacist terror campaigns, urban riots, militia plots — that have marked the country’s modern history. President John F. Kennedy’s death in Dallas was preceded by an escalating climate of right-wing extremism and conspiracism in the city, but his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a Marxist. When Gabby Giffords was shot in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011, the rhetoric of the Tea Party class of Republican politicians was quickly blamed. But her shooter seemed animated by a mix of mental illness and inchoate, basically nonpartisan hatred for the government.
In the case of Trump’s shooter, Thomas Crooks, what little evidence investigators have so far turned up regarding his politics has been contradictory and inconclusive. He was a registered Republican who made a small donation to a liberal organization at the age of 17. In the days before the shooting, he searched on his phone for images of both presidential candidates, and for the dates of both the Butler rally and the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
Shooting victims are helped in the aftermath of John Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt on President Reagan.
Even when presidential assassins have espoused clear ideologies, there has always been the nagging sense that the ideological explanation is insufficient. As stated motives go, it doesn’t get much clearer than those of Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assassinated President William McKinley in 1901. “I don’t believe in the republican form of government, and I don’t believe we should have any rulers,” he told doctors in his first interview after his arrest. “It is right to kill them. I had that idea when I shot the president, and that is why I was there.” Walter Channing, a famous psychiatrist of the era, reviewed these statements and simply refused to believe them. In an assessment for a scientific journal, he wrote that Czolgosz’s political views were not an “adequate explanation” and argued that “insanity appears to me the most reasonable and logical explanation of the crime.”
Maybe — but there’s something a little convenient about this. There have been mostly apolitical assassins and would-be assassins, such as John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in an attempt to impress the actor Jodie Foster. The reluctance to believe the killers who do see themselves in political terms, and the impulse to chalk their actions up to insanity or, in the case of Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 assassin, to occlude them with conspiracy theories, suggests a subconscious awareness of the essential hypocrisy that many Americans hold when it comes to political violence.
People reading newspapers about the assassination of President Kennedy.
In February 2021, Kalmoe and Mason, the political scientists, asked a sample of Americans whether it was justified for members of their party to kill opposing political leaders to advance their political goals. Twelve percent of Republicans and 11 percent of Democrats replied that it was. “Generalizing to the population of American partisans,” they write, “means roughly 20 million who endorse assassinating U.S. leaders.”
The Rise of ‘Moral Disengagement’
If the acceptance of political violence in America has been with us since the beginning, its contours have changed, in important and alarming ways. Since the 1990s, as Americans have sorted themselves into sharply diverging ideological and cultural camps along partisan lines, citizens on opposite sides of this divide have come to think of each other in decreasingly human terms. In 2017, Kalmoe and Mason found that 60 percent of Republicans and Democrats believed that the other party was a “threat”; 40 percent believed it was “evil”; 20 percent believed its members were “not human.” All three figures rose over Trump’s presidency — more for Republicans than Democrats, but not by much.
The result is a climate of what Kalmoe and Mason call “moral disengagement.” It is not violence, but an essential precursor, and it has reshaped the language of political violence in this country — and its targets. Rhetoric that two or three decades ago might have been directed at the federal government is now directed at other partisans, too.
You would imagine that a morally disengaged country would be less shocked by actual political violence when it occurs — and that surely explains the speed at which the country has moved on from shock over the assassination attempt at Trump’s rally to assimilating it into the prevailing narratives. On Monday night, I stood on an upper-deck balcony at the Republican National Convention when Trump made his first public appearance since the shooting. As he looked out upon the crowd from his box seat, an entire arena of Republicans, many of them with raised fists, chanted back at him the words he mouthed as he was hustled off the stage, blood streaking down his face, barely two days before: “Fight! Fight!”
Several hours after that instantly indelible image spread to every corner of the internet, I received a 20-second video sent by Zach Scherer, a young activist I met at the meeting in Pennsylvania two years ago. Scherer was still in high school during the 2020 election, and, believing it was stolen from Trump, threw himself into organizing a local activist group inspired by the “Stop the Steal” crusade. He lived in Butler, Pa., and moments after news of the shooting flashed across my phone, I called him, guessing he might be there.
Audience members in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pa.
“Watched the whole thing unfold,” he texted several hours later. He had been sitting just to Trump’s right — close enough that in the photos he took on his phone in the next chaotic minutes, you could see the individual rivulets of blood pooling in the ear of the former president as the Secret Service agents rushed him off the stage.
In the first frames of the video, a crowd of fans in MAGA attire is scattered around bleachers draped in red, white and blue bunting. It takes a second or two to realize that something is very wrong. A man is face down in the bleachers, motionless. Another is lying on top of him. Someone walks past in a “Keep America Great” hat and a U.S.A. T-shirt stained with blood. Now a man is helping a woman in a sequined Trump cap, her arm streaked in blood as if someone had grabbed onto her in a panic. Everyone is moving with a kind of dazed urgency.
These were people like those I had met in that horse barn two years earlier — maybe some of the same people who had nodded gravely along with the preacher’s exhortations to take up arms. But now we were someplace new. This was footage of the political violence of the American imagination abruptly dissolved by the sudden, horrific arrival of the real thing.
Charles Homans is a reporter for The Times and The Times Magazine, covering national politics. More about Charles Homans
See more on: U.S. Politics, Donald Trump, Republican Party, Democratic Party, 2024 Elections
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Charles Homans
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 22, 2024
In August 2022, I attended a gathering of right-wing grassroots organizations at a horse-show complex in Bloomsburg, Pa., a few hours’ drive east of where Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt last weekend. Everyone who went up to speak believed the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump, and now they were discussing what to do about it.
An evangelical pastor opened the meeting with the story of a pastor who fought alongside members of his congregation in | the first days of the American Revolution. “Here’s a preacher training his people how to fight this ungodliness and wickedness, a real dictatorship,” he told the crowd. “Well, I talk to a lot of preachers today,” he went on, who were willing to “take up arms if they have to. And you know as well as I do, with what is coming, we may have to. Right? We don’t want to. But we may have to. And I believe the Second Amendment says we can.” Out in the crowd, a man had a sign depicting a rifle between a flag and a cross above the words “God, Guns, Guts! Keep AMERICA Free.”
Among the world’s historically stable democracies, America has a particularly complicated relationship with the idea of political violence. This is, after all, a country born out of violent struggle, as the T-shirts and bumper stickers and speeches at any Republican event endlessly attest. This is also a country where the major expansions of civil rights, from Emancipation to desegregation, happened under the fact or threat of state violence, and where few on the left are willing to categorically condemn violent protest in the name of social justice. It is a country where many still nod at Thomas Jefferson’s aphorism that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” or to Malcolm X vowing “by any means necessary.”
The language changed, briefly, after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Immediately after Trump survived the shooting at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pa., both he and President Biden, two men who detest each other, spoke of unity. Biden, in a statement, said, “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.” Trump told The Washington Examiner that he was rewriting his convention speech to focus on national unity, not Biden. “It is a chance to bring the country together,” he said. “I was given that chance.” But the truce didn’t even last the duration of the speech.
ImageFormer President Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents after being shot during his campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
If condemnations of violent political speech ring hollow in the United States, it’s because they are. This is a country where the language of violence has become too deeply entangled with politics to disentangle with a few pro forma statements, and where a growing share of Americans are comfortable not just with rhetoric but with potential action. “They shot first!” a rallygoer in Butler told a BBC reporter immediately after the shooting. “This is [expletive] war!” A field director for Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democratic representative and former chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, was fired after posting on Facebook, “I don’t condone violence but please get you some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time ooops that wasn’t me talking.” Liberal social media was awash in speculation that the whole thing had been staged.
In a June survey, the political scientists Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason, who have conducted a yearslong study exploring American attitudes toward political violence, found that about 20 percent of respondents believed that political violence, defined very broadly, was at least sometimes justified. (Other researchers, using different methodologies and narrower definitions of violence, have found lower numbers.) A full 60 percent — up from 40 percent four years ago — believed it was at least sometimes justified if people from the other political party committed an act of violence first, figures that varied little between Republicans and Democrats. In their discomfiting 2022 book “Radical American Partisanship,” they argue that “rather than asking whether Americans support political violence, the better question is when.”
We can argue endlessly about how much Americans mean these things when they say them in part because such words are acted on so rarely here. The end of Trump’s presidency, when thousands of his supporters at the U.S. Capitol finally made good on the language of political violence that had been deeply marrowed into his political messaging since the first days of his 2016 campaign, was an emphatic exception to the rule. But even just a year and a half later, listening to the preacher’s exhortations in that horse barn, from the back of a largely retirement-age crowd sunk deep in sagging camping chairs, the distance between talk and action seemed significant.
America is a country where college students occupy campus lawns in kaffiyehs but only until summer internships start, where suburban militia members outfit themselves with body armor and military-style AR-15s borrowed from wars they never served in. We are a comfortable and sheltered people who talk a big game that is usually just talk. Until someone throws a Molotov cocktail through a storefront, or storms the Capitol, or tries to kill a former president.
‘It Is Right to Kill Them’
Assassination attempts against major political figures happen rarely enough in the United States that they are shocking, but not so rarely that we don’t know the drill.
After Trump’s shooting, Republicans were quick to point to Biden’s statement, on a call with donors, that “It’s time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye,” and to blame years of claims that Trump posed a threat to American democracy. “Don’t tell me they didn’t know exactly what they were doing with this crap,” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, wrote on X after the shooting.
Trump’s opponents were quick to point out that all of this paled in comparison to what Trump himself had said for years. On the campaign trail, he regularly describes Biden as a “fascist” and has accused the president of perpetrating a “conspiracy to overthrow democracy.” Not long ago, he shared on social media a video of a pickup truck decorated to look like its owner had hogtied Biden in the flatbed.
But assassination attempts fit our expectations of ideological cause and effect less neatly than the other forms of political violence — white supremacist terror campaigns, urban riots, militia plots — that have marked the country’s modern history. President John F. Kennedy’s death in Dallas was preceded by an escalating climate of right-wing extremism and conspiracism in the city, but his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a Marxist. When Gabby Giffords was shot in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011, the rhetoric of the Tea Party class of Republican politicians was quickly blamed. But her shooter seemed animated by a mix of mental illness and inchoate, basically nonpartisan hatred for the government.
In the case of Trump’s shooter, Thomas Crooks, what little evidence investigators have so far turned up regarding his politics has been contradictory and inconclusive. He was a registered Republican who made a small donation to a liberal organization at the age of 17. In the days before the shooting, he searched on his phone for images of both presidential candidates, and for the dates of both the Butler rally and the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
Shooting victims are helped in the aftermath of John Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt on President Reagan.
Even when presidential assassins have espoused clear ideologies, there has always been the nagging sense that the ideological explanation is insufficient. As stated motives go, it doesn’t get much clearer than those of Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assassinated President William McKinley in 1901. “I don’t believe in the republican form of government, and I don’t believe we should have any rulers,” he told doctors in his first interview after his arrest. “It is right to kill them. I had that idea when I shot the president, and that is why I was there.” Walter Channing, a famous psychiatrist of the era, reviewed these statements and simply refused to believe them. In an assessment for a scientific journal, he wrote that Czolgosz’s political views were not an “adequate explanation” and argued that “insanity appears to me the most reasonable and logical explanation of the crime.”
Maybe — but there’s something a little convenient about this. There have been mostly apolitical assassins and would-be assassins, such as John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in an attempt to impress the actor Jodie Foster. The reluctance to believe the killers who do see themselves in political terms, and the impulse to chalk their actions up to insanity or, in the case of Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 assassin, to occlude them with conspiracy theories, suggests a subconscious awareness of the essential hypocrisy that many Americans hold when it comes to political violence.
People reading newspapers about the assassination of President Kennedy.
In February 2021, Kalmoe and Mason, the political scientists, asked a sample of Americans whether it was justified for members of their party to kill opposing political leaders to advance their political goals. Twelve percent of Republicans and 11 percent of Democrats replied that it was. “Generalizing to the population of American partisans,” they write, “means roughly 20 million who endorse assassinating U.S. leaders.”
The Rise of ‘Moral Disengagement’
If the acceptance of political violence in America has been with us since the beginning, its contours have changed, in important and alarming ways. Since the 1990s, as Americans have sorted themselves into sharply diverging ideological and cultural camps along partisan lines, citizens on opposite sides of this divide have come to think of each other in decreasingly human terms. In 2017, Kalmoe and Mason found that 60 percent of Republicans and Democrats believed that the other party was a “threat”; 40 percent believed it was “evil”; 20 percent believed its members were “not human.” All three figures rose over Trump’s presidency — more for Republicans than Democrats, but not by much.
The result is a climate of what Kalmoe and Mason call “moral disengagement.” It is not violence, but an essential precursor, and it has reshaped the language of political violence in this country — and its targets. Rhetoric that two or three decades ago might have been directed at the federal government is now directed at other partisans, too.
You would imagine that a morally disengaged country would be less shocked by actual political violence when it occurs — and that surely explains the speed at which the country has moved on from shock over the assassination attempt at Trump’s rally to assimilating it into the prevailing narratives. On Monday night, I stood on an upper-deck balcony at the Republican National Convention when Trump made his first public appearance since the shooting. As he looked out upon the crowd from his box seat, an entire arena of Republicans, many of them with raised fists, chanted back at him the words he mouthed as he was hustled off the stage, blood streaking down his face, barely two days before: “Fight! Fight!”
Several hours after that instantly indelible image spread to every corner of the internet, I received a 20-second video sent by Zach Scherer, a young activist I met at the meeting in Pennsylvania two years ago. Scherer was still in high school during the 2020 election, and, believing it was stolen from Trump, threw himself into organizing a local activist group inspired by the “Stop the Steal” crusade. He lived in Butler, Pa., and moments after news of the shooting flashed across my phone, I called him, guessing he might be there.
Audience members in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pa.
“Watched the whole thing unfold,” he texted several hours later. He had been sitting just to Trump’s right — close enough that in the photos he took on his phone in the next chaotic minutes, you could see the individual rivulets of blood pooling in the ear of the former president as the Secret Service agents rushed him off the stage.
In the first frames of the video, a crowd of fans in MAGA attire is scattered around bleachers draped in red, white and blue bunting. It takes a second or two to realize that something is very wrong. A man is face down in the bleachers, motionless. Another is lying on top of him. Someone walks past in a “Keep America Great” hat and a U.S.A. T-shirt stained with blood. Now a man is helping a woman in a sequined Trump cap, her arm streaked in blood as if someone had grabbed onto her in a panic. Everyone is moving with a kind of dazed urgency.
These were people like those I had met in that horse barn two years earlier — maybe some of the same people who had nodded gravely along with the preacher’s exhortations to take up arms. But now we were someplace new. This was footage of the political violence of the American imagination abruptly dissolved by the sudden, horrific arrival of the real thing.
Charles Homans is a reporter for The Times and The Times Magazine, covering national politics. More about Charles Homans
See more on: U.S. Politics, Donald Trump, Republican Party, Democratic Party, 2024 Elections
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Congress Calls for Tech Outage Hearing to Grill CrowdStrike C.E.O..txt | By David McCabe
Reporting from Washington
Published July 22, 2024Updated July 23, 2024, 4:30 a.m. ET
A Congressional committee called on the chief executive of CrowdStrike to testify at a hearing about its role in a tech outage that roiled the global economy, in one of the first attempts to hold the cybersecurity company responsible.
CrowdStrike sent a faulty security update to its customers Thursday night, resulting in millions of Microsoft Windows devices shutting down and disruptions to airlines, hospitals, logistics companies and others.
Americans “deserve to know in detail how this incident happened and the mitigation steps CrowdStrike is taking,” wrote Representative Mark Green of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Andrew Garbarino, Republican of New York.
The letter was sent to George Kurtz, CrowdStrike’s chief executive. Mr. Green and Mr. Garbarino asked the company for a response to scheduling the hearing this week, but did not specify when it would take place.
“CrowdStrike is actively in contact with relevant congressional committees,” said a company spokeswoman. “Briefings and other engagement timelines may be disclosed at members’ discretion.”
The request came as the world continued to deal with the fallout from the widespread outages. Delta Air Lines canceled more than 800 flights on Monday, leaving more passengers stranded. And other industries were still recovering after being knocked offline for hours.
The outage underscores how the world has become reliant on a small group of companies to maintain its digital infrastructure. CrowdStrike, while little-known to most consumers, is the second largest American cybersecurity company. More than half of Fortune 500 companies use its products.
“This incident demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem — global cloud providers, software platforms, security vendors and other software vendors, and customers,” said a Microsoft executive, David Weston, in a blog post on Saturday. “It’s also a reminder of how important it is for all of us across the tech ecosystem to prioritize operating with safe deployment and disaster recovery using the mechanisms that exist.”
CrowdStrike’s products are used primarily by large businesses, not consumers. Its flawed update sent computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system into a spiral where they continually rebooted. Although CrowdStrike sent a fix, many computers didn’t get it because of the loop. In many cases, businesses had to delete the damaging file from each machine manually.
Mr. Kurtz on Friday told NBC’s “Today” show that the incident was not a cyberattack and was the result of the faulty update. But the congressional committee said in its letter to Mr. Kurtz on Monday said that the incident still presented vexing security questions.
“Malicious cyber actors backed by nation-states, such as China and Russia, are watching our response to this incident closely,” the lawmakers said. “Protecting our critical infrastructure requires us to learn from this incident and ensure that it does not happen again.”
Representative Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, on Friday also asked the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the outages.
David McCabe is a Times reporter who covers the complex legal and policy issues created by the digital economy and new technologies. More about David McCabe
See more on: U.S. Politics, U.S. House of Representatives, Microsoft Corporation
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By David McCabe
Reporting from Washington
Published July 22, 2024Updated July 23, 2024, 4:30 a.m. ET
A Congressional committee called on the chief executive of CrowdStrike to testify at a hearing about its role in a tech outage that roiled the global economy, in one of the first attempts to hold the cybersecurity company responsible.
CrowdStrike sent a faulty security update to its customers Thursday night, resulting in millions of Microsoft Windows devices shutting down and disruptions to airlines, hospitals, logistics companies and others.
| Americans “deserve to know in detail how this incident happened and the mitigation steps CrowdStrike is taking,” wrote Representative Mark Green of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Andrew Garbarino, Republican of New York.
The letter was sent to George Kurtz, CrowdStrike’s chief executive. Mr. Green and Mr. Garbarino asked the company for a response to scheduling the hearing this week, but did not specify when it would take place.
“CrowdStrike is actively in contact with relevant congressional committees,” said a company spokeswoman. “Briefings and other engagement timelines may be disclosed at members’ discretion.”
The request came as the world continued to deal with the fallout from the widespread outages. Delta Air Lines canceled more than 800 flights on Monday, leaving more passengers stranded. And other industries were still recovering after being knocked offline for hours.
The outage underscores how the world has become reliant on a small group of companies to maintain its digital infrastructure. CrowdStrike, while little-known to most consumers, is the second largest American cybersecurity company. More than half of Fortune 500 companies use its products.
“This incident demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem — global cloud providers, software platforms, security vendors and other software vendors, and customers,” said a Microsoft executive, David Weston, in a blog post on Saturday. “It’s also a reminder of how important it is for all of us across the tech ecosystem to prioritize operating with safe deployment and disaster recovery using the mechanisms that exist.”
CrowdStrike’s products are used primarily by large businesses, not consumers. Its flawed update sent computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system into a spiral where they continually rebooted. Although CrowdStrike sent a fix, many computers didn’t get it because of the loop. In many cases, businesses had to delete the damaging file from each machine manually.
Mr. Kurtz on Friday told NBC’s “Today” show that the incident was not a cyberattack and was the result of the faulty update. But the congressional committee said in its letter to Mr. Kurtz on Monday said that the incident still presented vexing security questions.
“Malicious cyber actors backed by nation-states, such as China and Russia, are watching our response to this incident closely,” the lawmakers said. “Protecting our critical infrastructure requires us to learn from this incident and ensure that it does not happen again.”
Representative Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, on Friday also asked the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the outages.
David McCabe is a Times reporter who covers the complex legal and policy issues created by the digital economy and new technologies. More about David McCabe
See more on: U.S. Politics, U.S. House of Representatives, Microsoft Corporation
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Nursing Home Owner Gets 3 Years’ Probation in Deadly Hurricane Evacuation.txt | By Alexandra E. Petri
July 22, 2024
Sign up for Your Places: Extreme Weather. Get notified about extreme weather before it happens with custom alerts for places in the U.S. you choose. Get it sent to your inbox.
A Louisiana nursing home owner who sent more than 800 residents to a squalid warehouse with what the authorities called poor sanitation and inadequate food supplies while they braced for Hurricane Ida in 2021 was sentenced on Monday to three years’ probation, despite prosecutors’ calls for prison time.
The man, Bob Glynn Dean Jr., 70, pleaded no contest to the 15 criminal charges he faced, including cruelty to persons with infirmity, Medicaid fraud and obstruction of justice on Monday at the Tangipahoa Parish Courthouse in Amite, La.
Judge Brian Abels of the 21st Judicial District Court sentenced Mr. Dean to 20 years in prison, but deferred the sentence and placed him on probation for three years. Mr. Dean will not have to serve any time behind bars if he successfully completes his probation.
Mr. Dean was also ordered to pay more than $355,000 in restitution to the state’s Department of Health and more than one million dollars as a monetary penalty to the state’s Department of Justice.
Liz Murrill, the Louisiana attorney general, said in a statement on Monday that prosecutors had “urged that Mr. Dean be held accountable for his conduct" and asked that he be sentenced to a minimum of five years in prison.
“I respect our judicial system, and that the judge has the ultimate discretion over the appropriate sentence,” Mr. Murrill said. “But I remain of the opinion that Dean should be serving prison time.”
Garrison Jordan, Mr. Dean’s lawyer, called the sentence “appropriate.”
Mr. Dean was not available for comment, Mr. Jordan said.
Mr. Dean, who owned seven nursing homes in Louisiana, was out of state when he ordered nursing home residents in Baton Rouge, La., to evacuate on Aug. 26, 2021, as Hurricane Ida approached.
He told staff members to move everyone to a warehouse in Independence referred to as the Waterbury Facility, where they braced for severe weather, according to a 2022 arrest affidavit prepared by the state attorney general’s office. Independence, which has a population under 2,600, ended up being one of the areas most damaged by the storm.
There, nursing home residents were subjected to overcrowding, the smell of urine and feces, piles of trash beside puddles of water and inadequate food, the affidavit states. Seven people from the nursing homes died, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, which revoked the licenses of Mr. Dean’s seven facilities to operate as nursing homes.
As the authorities investigated, Mr. Dean refused to cooperate and ordered that his employees do the same, the authorities alleged.
In May 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was prohibiting Mr. Dean from participating in federal health care programs.
Mr. Dean was arrested on June 22, 2022, and faced eight counts of cruelty to persons with infirmities, two counts of obstruction of justice and five counts of Medicaid fraud, according to the attorney’s general office.
Hurricane Ida made landfall as an intense Category 4 storm on Aug. 29, 2021, pummeling the state and leaving the power grid in shambles and millions of customers without power for days.
| By Alexandra E. Petri
July 22, 2024
Sign up for Your Places: Extreme Weather. Get notified about extreme weather before it happens with custom alerts for places in the U.S. you choose. Get it sent to your inbox.
A Louisiana nursing home owner who sent more than 800 residents to a squalid warehouse with what the authorities called poor sanitation and inadequate food supplies while they braced for Hurricane Ida in 2021 was sentenced on Monday to three years’ probation, despite prosecutors’ calls for prison time.
The man, Bob Glynn Dean Jr., | 70, pleaded no contest to the 15 criminal charges he faced, including cruelty to persons with infirmity, Medicaid fraud and obstruction of justice on Monday at the Tangipahoa Parish Courthouse in Amite, La.
Judge Brian Abels of the 21st Judicial District Court sentenced Mr. Dean to 20 years in prison, but deferred the sentence and placed him on probation for three years. Mr. Dean will not have to serve any time behind bars if he successfully completes his probation.
Mr. Dean was also ordered to pay more than $355,000 in restitution to the state’s Department of Health and more than one million dollars as a monetary penalty to the state’s Department of Justice.
Liz Murrill, the Louisiana attorney general, said in a statement on Monday that prosecutors had “urged that Mr. Dean be held accountable for his conduct" and asked that he be sentenced to a minimum of five years in prison.
“I respect our judicial system, and that the judge has the ultimate discretion over the appropriate sentence,” Mr. Murrill said. “But I remain of the opinion that Dean should be serving prison time.”
Garrison Jordan, Mr. Dean’s lawyer, called the sentence “appropriate.”
Mr. Dean was not available for comment, Mr. Jordan said.
Mr. Dean, who owned seven nursing homes in Louisiana, was out of state when he ordered nursing home residents in Baton Rouge, La., to evacuate on Aug. 26, 2021, as Hurricane Ida approached.
He told staff members to move everyone to a warehouse in Independence referred to as the Waterbury Facility, where they braced for severe weather, according to a 2022 arrest affidavit prepared by the state attorney general’s office. Independence, which has a population under 2,600, ended up being one of the areas most damaged by the storm.
There, nursing home residents were subjected to overcrowding, the smell of urine and feces, piles of trash beside puddles of water and inadequate food, the affidavit states. Seven people from the nursing homes died, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, which revoked the licenses of Mr. Dean’s seven facilities to operate as nursing homes.
As the authorities investigated, Mr. Dean refused to cooperate and ordered that his employees do the same, the authorities alleged.
In May 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was prohibiting Mr. Dean from participating in federal health care programs.
Mr. Dean was arrested on June 22, 2022, and faced eight counts of cruelty to persons with infirmities, two counts of obstruction of justice and five counts of Medicaid fraud, according to the attorney’s general office.
Hurricane Ida made landfall as an intense Category 4 storm on Aug. 29, 2021, pummeling the state and leaving the power grid in shambles and millions of customers without power for days.
|
Is This the Summer of the Kamala Harris Coconut Meme?.txt | By Guy Trebay
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 23, 2024, 7:40 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
President Biden said he would no longer seek re-election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Follow live updates.
When things go kerflooey in American political life, the time is always right to reach for a dumb internet trope. Mostly harmless, these are needful distractions from difficult truths. So while the annals will remember this as a summer of reckonings with the nature of democracy, history’s footnotes may also record the Kamala Harris coconut tree meme.
Some background: Since early July, the internet (well, X; Instagram has given it a pass) has been abuzz with stories examining and professing to explain a meme involving the vice president and remarks she made a year ago quoting a comment her mother often made during her childhood.
“She would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us: ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree,’” Ms. Harris said during a 2023 speech at a White House initiative on advancing educational equity for Hispanic people.
Dated without a doubt, the expression was not as incomprehensible as Gen Z commentators had it, its language vaguely Depression-era, when the generationally clueless were often said to have been found “under a cabbage leaf.”
When the online chattering classes from the opposition got hold of the clip, it quickly became part of an archive of mostly derogatory Harris kooky-isms — her uproarious and sometimes situationally inappropriate laugh, her dance moves and anecdotes that can seem inapt. Detractors pilloried her. Stans of the KHive hearted her for an individuality seldom on public display in public life.
Kamala Harris seated on a stage and wearing a gray suit.
As signs increasingly pointed toward a possible shift in the Democratic ticket — when it suddenly became possible that Ms. Harris would become the presidential nominee — all things related to her were suddenly resurfaced. And so it was inevitable that the Kamala Harris coconut tree piña colada would turn up on X as the “specialty cocktail of the summer” at Washington bars.
Of proof, there is none — though that may be irrelevant. Politics-themed tippling is a time-honored tradition in Washington. “As the quote goes, ‘It’s not the Democratic or the Republican Party,’” the beverage historian and longtime bartender at the Willard Hotel’s Round Robin bar once told Washingtonian magazine. “The most important party in Washington is the cocktail party.”
Given that Donald J. Trump is a teetotaler (as is President Biden), his administration was an oddly ripe one for Washington bartenders, who during his administration poured concoctions like Moscow Muellers and Dark ’n’ Stormy Daniels, and who even, for a time, promoted the cause of “making Absinthe great again.”
That Vice President Harris should now find herself associated with cheer is seen by some as a welcome point of inflection in a season that hasn’t featured much of it.
“I don’t think of it as a ‘Kamala Harris coconut piña colada summer,’” said Michael Franklin, the founder of the communications consultancy Words Normalize Behavior in Washington and who was named by Washington Life magazine one of the “movers and shakers” of 2024. “The opposition used that speech to cast the vice president as kooky. Now it’s being recast and endearingly meme-ified with coconut-inspired drinks of all kinds.”
Friends along Mr. Franklin’s extensive brunch circuit have already begun calling for pineapple coconut mimosas, coconut coolers and coconut margaritas. “Brunch is a big thing in D.C., especially when it comes to Black culture,” he said. For some in his friend cohort, a Kamala Harris coconut piña colada is more than a novelty drink.
“It’s a weird but fun entry point to politics for young folk, especially those that are chronically online,” Mr. Franklin said.
What the vice president herself thinks of this being a Kamala Harris coconut piña colada cocktail summer is unknown, though it is a safe bet the sweet blend of pineapple, rum and coconut juice would not be her bar order of choice. Maya Rudolph’s “Saturday Night Live” impersonations of Ms. Harris may feature martini glasses and frozen cocktails, but as The San Francisco Chronicle once reported, the Bay Area native likes California wine.
| By Guy Trebay
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 23, 2024, 7:40 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
President Biden said he would no longer seek re-election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Follow live updates.
When things go kerflooey in American political life, the time is always right to reach for a dumb internet trope. Mostly harmless, these are needful distractions from difficult truths | . So while the annals will remember this as a summer of reckonings with the nature of democracy, history’s footnotes may also record the Kamala Harris coconut tree meme.
Some background: Since early July, the internet (well, X; Instagram has given it a pass) has been abuzz with stories examining and professing to explain a meme involving the vice president and remarks she made a year ago quoting a comment her mother often made during her childhood.
“She would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us: ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree,’” Ms. Harris said during a 2023 speech at a White House initiative on advancing educational equity for Hispanic people.
Dated without a doubt, the expression was not as incomprehensible as Gen Z commentators had it, its language vaguely Depression-era, when the generationally clueless were often said to have been found “under a cabbage leaf.”
When the online chattering classes from the opposition got hold of the clip, it quickly became part of an archive of mostly derogatory Harris kooky-isms — her uproarious and sometimes situationally inappropriate laugh, her dance moves and anecdotes that can seem inapt. Detractors pilloried her. Stans of the KHive hearted her for an individuality seldom on public display in public life.
Kamala Harris seated on a stage and wearing a gray suit.
As signs increasingly pointed toward a possible shift in the Democratic ticket — when it suddenly became possible that Ms. Harris would become the presidential nominee — all things related to her were suddenly resurfaced. And so it was inevitable that the Kamala Harris coconut tree piña colada would turn up on X as the “specialty cocktail of the summer” at Washington bars.
Of proof, there is none — though that may be irrelevant. Politics-themed tippling is a time-honored tradition in Washington. “As the quote goes, ‘It’s not the Democratic or the Republican Party,’” the beverage historian and longtime bartender at the Willard Hotel’s Round Robin bar once told Washingtonian magazine. “The most important party in Washington is the cocktail party.”
Given that Donald J. Trump is a teetotaler (as is President Biden), his administration was an oddly ripe one for Washington bartenders, who during his administration poured concoctions like Moscow Muellers and Dark ’n’ Stormy Daniels, and who even, for a time, promoted the cause of “making Absinthe great again.”
That Vice President Harris should now find herself associated with cheer is seen by some as a welcome point of inflection in a season that hasn’t featured much of it.
“I don’t think of it as a ‘Kamala Harris coconut piña colada summer,’” said Michael Franklin, the founder of the communications consultancy Words Normalize Behavior in Washington and who was named by Washington Life magazine one of the “movers and shakers” of 2024. “The opposition used that speech to cast the vice president as kooky. Now it’s being recast and endearingly meme-ified with coconut-inspired drinks of all kinds.”
Friends along Mr. Franklin’s extensive brunch circuit have already begun calling for pineapple coconut mimosas, coconut coolers and coconut margaritas. “Brunch is a big thing in D.C., especially when it comes to Black culture,” he said. For some in his friend cohort, a Kamala Harris coconut piña colada is more than a novelty drink.
“It’s a weird but fun entry point to politics for young folk, especially those that are chronically online,” Mr. Franklin said.
What the vice president herself thinks of this being a Kamala Harris coconut piña colada cocktail summer is unknown, though it is a safe bet the sweet blend of pineapple, rum and coconut juice would not be her bar order of choice. Maya Rudolph’s “Saturday Night Live” impersonations of Ms. Harris may feature martini glasses and frozen cocktails, but as The San Francisco Chronicle once reported, the Bay Area native likes California wine.
|
Judge Who Threatened to Shoot Black Teens Should Be Removed, Panel Says.txt | By Ed Shanahan
July 22, 2024
Sign up for the Race/Related Newsletter Join a deep and provocative exploration of race, identity and society with New York Times journalists. Get it sent to your inbox.
A New York disciplinary panel said on Monday that a state judge should be removed from office for engaging in a “racially offensive, profane” diatribe during which she invoked her judicial position, threatened to shoot Black teenagers and expressed a bias in favor of the police.
The judge, Justice Erin P. Gall of State Supreme Court in Oneida County, made the remarks to law enforcement officers after a high school graduation party she was at in July 2022 descended into verbal arguments and physical fights amid the arrival of a large number of uninvited guests, the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct said.
The officers’ body-worn and dashboard cameras recorded Justice Gall’s comments, and she acknowledged having made them. The commission found that impropriety had “permeated” her behavior on the night in question and that her “wide array of misconduct severely undermined public confidence” in “her ability to serve as a fair and impartial judge.”
“The judge’s behavior in this case is as shocking as anything I have seen in my 40 years of judicial ethics enforcement,” Robert H. Tembeckjian, the commission’s administrator and counsel, said in a statement.
Justice Gall, a Republican, was elected to the Supreme Court in 2011. Her 14-year-term is set to expire next year. She earns $232,600 a year and, the commission said, will be suspended with pay while the state’s Court of Appeals decides her fate. She has 30 days to appeal the commission’s determination to the court. Her lawyer, Robert Julian, said she planned to do so.
“We respectfully disagree with the determination,” Mr. Julian said. While he did not dispute the comments at issue, he wrote in a filing with the commission that his client had been in a “state of fear, dismay, frustration and exhaustion” when she made them.
The events that prompted the commission’s action began late on July 1, 2022, and spilled into the early hours of the next day, the commission said. Justice Gall, 53, her husband and their three teenage children were at the graduation party, at a friend’s home in New Hartford, N.Y.
The hosts had hired a bartender for the evening and had bought a keg of beer that remained after the bartender left, the commission said. Justice Gall told commission investigators she had not consumed alcohol at the party.
Party crashers began arriving at around 11:30 p.m., and before long, arguments and fights were breaking out, the commission said. Justice Gall’s husband and 18-year-old son were among those involved in the altercations.
Shortly after midnight, four Black teenagers who had learned of the party from a friend showed up, and the fighting escalated, although it was unclear what role the four played, the commission said. The teenager who drove them there lost his car key in the fracas, the commission said.
New Hartford police officers, responding to calls about a large party with numerous fights, arrived at about 12:30 and were soon joined by officers from several other law enforcement agencies.
As the officers tried to clear the chaotic scene and the Black teenagers lingered while looking for the lost key, the commission said, Justice Gall, who is white, told them to “get off the property — and that’s from Judge Gall.” She added, with a vulgarity included for emphasis: “I’m a judge.”
Minutes later, she cited her judicial status again.
“You’re going to get in an Uber, buddy, or you’re going to get a cop escort home,” she said, adding: “That’s how I roll. That how Mrs. G rolls. That’s how Judge Gall rolls.” Over roughly an hour and a half, she invoked her office more than a dozen times, the commission said.
An officer suggested to her that if someone found the missing key, it should be returned to the police. Otherwise, the officer said, someone from the group that lost it would need to return to look for it further.
“If they come back looking for it, I’ll call you while they’re on the property,” Justice Gall said, adding: “If they did, they’ll be arrested, or they’ll be shot on the property. Because when they trespass, you can shoot them on the property. I’ll shoot them on the property.”
In another exchange, she said to the officers that the Black teenagers “don’t look like they’re that smart” and “were not going to business school, that’s for sure.”
Over the course of the diatribe, the commission found, the judge alternated between criticizing the officers for not acting as she wanted and expressing her strong affinity for them. She said at one point, “I would take anyone down for you guys.”
“You know that,” she said. “I am on your side.”
Ed Shanahan is a rewrite reporter and editor covering breaking news and general assignments on the Metro desk. More about Ed Shanahan
See more on: New York
| By Ed Shanahan
July 22, 2024
Sign up for the Race/Related Newsletter Join a deep and provocative exploration of race, identity and society with New York Times journalists. Get it sent to your inbox.
A New York disciplinary panel said on Monday that a state judge should be removed from office for engaging in a “racially offensive, profane” diatribe during which she invoked her judicial position, threatened to shoot Black teenagers and expressed a bias in favor of the police.
The judge, Justice Erin P. Gall of State Supreme Court in Oneida County, made the remarks | to law enforcement officers after a high school graduation party she was at in July 2022 descended into verbal arguments and physical fights amid the arrival of a large number of uninvited guests, the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct said.
The officers’ body-worn and dashboard cameras recorded Justice Gall’s comments, and she acknowledged having made them. The commission found that impropriety had “permeated” her behavior on the night in question and that her “wide array of misconduct severely undermined public confidence” in “her ability to serve as a fair and impartial judge.”
“The judge’s behavior in this case is as shocking as anything I have seen in my 40 years of judicial ethics enforcement,” Robert H. Tembeckjian, the commission’s administrator and counsel, said in a statement.
Justice Gall, a Republican, was elected to the Supreme Court in 2011. Her 14-year-term is set to expire next year. She earns $232,600 a year and, the commission said, will be suspended with pay while the state’s Court of Appeals decides her fate. She has 30 days to appeal the commission’s determination to the court. Her lawyer, Robert Julian, said she planned to do so.
“We respectfully disagree with the determination,” Mr. Julian said. While he did not dispute the comments at issue, he wrote in a filing with the commission that his client had been in a “state of fear, dismay, frustration and exhaustion” when she made them.
The events that prompted the commission’s action began late on July 1, 2022, and spilled into the early hours of the next day, the commission said. Justice Gall, 53, her husband and their three teenage children were at the graduation party, at a friend’s home in New Hartford, N.Y.
The hosts had hired a bartender for the evening and had bought a keg of beer that remained after the bartender left, the commission said. Justice Gall told commission investigators she had not consumed alcohol at the party.
Party crashers began arriving at around 11:30 p.m., and before long, arguments and fights were breaking out, the commission said. Justice Gall’s husband and 18-year-old son were among those involved in the altercations.
Shortly after midnight, four Black teenagers who had learned of the party from a friend showed up, and the fighting escalated, although it was unclear what role the four played, the commission said. The teenager who drove them there lost his car key in the fracas, the commission said.
New Hartford police officers, responding to calls about a large party with numerous fights, arrived at about 12:30 and were soon joined by officers from several other law enforcement agencies.
As the officers tried to clear the chaotic scene and the Black teenagers lingered while looking for the lost key, the commission said, Justice Gall, who is white, told them to “get off the property — and that’s from Judge Gall.” She added, with a vulgarity included for emphasis: “I’m a judge.”
Minutes later, she cited her judicial status again.
“You’re going to get in an Uber, buddy, or you’re going to get a cop escort home,” she said, adding: “That’s how I roll. That how Mrs. G rolls. That’s how Judge Gall rolls.” Over roughly an hour and a half, she invoked her office more than a dozen times, the commission said.
An officer suggested to her that if someone found the missing key, it should be returned to the police. Otherwise, the officer said, someone from the group that lost it would need to return to look for it further.
“If they come back looking for it, I’ll call you while they’re on the property,” Justice Gall said, adding: “If they did, they’ll be arrested, or they’ll be shot on the property. Because when they trespass, you can shoot them on the property. I’ll shoot them on the property.”
In another exchange, she said to the officers that the Black teenagers “don’t look like they’re that smart” and “were not going to business school, that’s for sure.”
Over the course of the diatribe, the commission found, the judge alternated between criticizing the officers for not acting as she wanted and expressing her strong affinity for them. She said at one point, “I would take anyone down for you guys.”
“You know that,” she said. “I am on your side.”
Ed Shanahan is a rewrite reporter and editor covering breaking news and general assignments on the Metro desk. More about Ed Shanahan
See more on: New York
|
After another Sergio Pérez F1 qualifying crash, scrutiny over his Red Bull future grows.txt | By Luke Smith
Jul 20, 2024
68
Save Article
Stay informed on all the biggest stories in Formula One. Sign up here to receive the Prime Tire newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday.
MOGYORÓD, Hungary — The pressure on Sergio Pérez grew on Saturday after he crashed out of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, further fueling doubts over his Red Bull future.
Two weeks after spinning out of qualifying at Silverstone and beaching his car in the gravel, eliminating him in Q1, Pérez lost control of his car at Turn 8 at the Hungaroring and spun into the barrier again in Q1. The impact required Pérez to visit the medical center for a precautionary check before being cleared. He is due to start tomorrow’s race from 16th on the grid.
However, the mistake of clipping the slippery curb as the rain grew heavier towards the end of qualifying increased the scrutiny over Pérez’s future as his rotten recent form continued.
“It’s a huge shame,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said of the crash.
Pérez’s deepening plight
Red Bull announced at the start of June that Pérez had signed a new contract that could extend to the end of 2026, but his recent form left the team considering a switch as early as the current season, thanks to performance-related clauses within his agreement.
Pérez has scored only 15 points in the six races since the Miami Grand Prix at the start of May, allowing Red Bull’s rivals to close the gap at the top of the constructors’ championship despite Max Verstappen’s results. Horner said it was “unsustainable to not be scoring points” after Pérez finished 17th at Silverstone.
Perez is ok, but his Red Bull certainly isn't…
He'll start tomorrow's race from P15 at best 😖#F1 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/tPGEEw3Lqg
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 20, 2024
Speaking on Sky Sports this Friday, Horner said Pérez had “been in a bit of a headspin the last few races” and that they had discussed his form in the gap since the last race.
“I sat down with him in the kitchen at my house and said, ‘Come on, what’s going on? Is there something else?’” Horner said. “And he said, ‘No, I think I’m just overthinking things a bit too much.’”
Between the two races, Pérez returned to the Red Bull factory to work with the team in the simulator, aiming to get the car setup into a window he was more comfortable with. This seemed to yield results in second practice, when Pérez finished fourth, only two-tenths off Verstappen. But 24 hours later, his weekend unraveled in qualifying.
“I think these conditions can catch out anyone out there, but unfortunately, it has been me two (races) in a row,” Pérez said. “I’m determined to turn things around.”
He admitted it was “quite hard to face all the media after all these difficult moments” and noted how mentally challenging this period has been for him.
“The easiest way would be just to give up after the career I’ve had, to say it’s been enough,” Pérez said. “But it’s not what I want to teach my kids, not what I want to show, this sort of character.”
Pérez’s message was clear. “I just want to get back, and I will get back,” he said. “I will not give up.”
The race for the Red Bull seat
Red Bull has been clear in the need for Pérez to lift his performance and rediscover the early-season form that accelerated contract talks, the hope being that added security over his future would lead to an on-track boost.
Instead, his form has continued to dip.
On Thursday, Pérez was adamant that he’d remain at Red Bull this year and next. Even after qualifying, he maintained that he was not concerned about his future. “Like I said before, nothing changes, I’m not worried,” Pérez said, then repeating that he was “fully determined to turn my season around and to focus on my performance.”
The damaged car of Red Bull Racing's Mexican driver Sergio Perez is pictured during the qualifying session at the Hungaroring race track in Mogyorod near Budapest on July 20, 2024, ahead of the Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix. (Photo by Ferenc ISZA / AFP)
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner called the Hungary crash a “huge shame” that’s done “quite a lot of damage” to the car. (Ferenc ISZA / AFP)
The question facing Red Bull is which of its drivers would get the nod should it choose to replace Pérez this season.
Traditionally, Red Bull has turned to its sister team, now known as RB, for replacement drivers. Both Verstappen in 2016 and Alex Albon in 2019 were promoted to Red Bull mid-season, with Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly going in the opposite direction.
Yet the question marks hanging over RB’s existing driver pairing of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda mean it is Liam Lawson, Red Bull’s reserve driver, who looks most likely to get the seat.
Last year, Lawson impressed through his five-race stint for RB, then known as AlphaTauri, when Ricciardo was ruled out due to injury, but he was ultimately overlooked for a full-time race seat in 2024.
Lawson took part in a filming day test at Silverstone last week in the Red Bull RB20, limited to 200 km (124 miles) but enough to give Red Bull a chance to evaluate Lawson’s pace. His lap times are understood to have met the benchmarks set by the team, and Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s adviser, is known to be a fan of the New Zealander.
Ricciardo’s return last year with AlphaTauri was always intended to give Red Bull an option if it were to consider replacing Pérez. Yet his form has also been patchy at best, leading to doubts about his future on the F1 grid at all, let alone a potential return to Red Bull.
Ricciardo said after qualifying ninth in Hungary that he came into the weekend “telling myself that these two races could be two of the most important of not only my season but potentially my career.”
Although Red Bull took up the option on Tsunoda back in June to keep him at RB for 2025 based on his good results in the early part of the year, it has shown little sign of considering him for the senior team. The Honda-affiliated driver’s sizable Q3 crash on Saturday will have done little to help the cause.
But with McLaren locking out the front row in Hungary and Verstappen again left to fight solo at the front, Red Bull’s constructors’ championship advantage looks to shrink again on Sunday.
It means that, as we approach the summer break, Pérez’s latest error will have hastened considerations of a switch.
(Lead photo of Sergio Pérez: SIPA USA)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
Luke Smith
| By Luke Smith
Jul 20, 2024
68
Save Article
Stay informed on all the biggest stories in Formula One. Sign up here to receive the Prime Tire newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday.
MOGYORÓD, Hungary — The pressure on Sergio Pérez grew on Saturday after he crashed out of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, further fueling doubts over his Red Bull future.
Two weeks after spinning out of qualifying at Silverstone and beaching his car in the gravel, eliminating him in Q1, Pérez lost control of his car at Turn 8 at the Hung | aroring and spun into the barrier again in Q1. The impact required Pérez to visit the medical center for a precautionary check before being cleared. He is due to start tomorrow’s race from 16th on the grid.
However, the mistake of clipping the slippery curb as the rain grew heavier towards the end of qualifying increased the scrutiny over Pérez’s future as his rotten recent form continued.
“It’s a huge shame,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said of the crash.
Pérez’s deepening plight
Red Bull announced at the start of June that Pérez had signed a new contract that could extend to the end of 2026, but his recent form left the team considering a switch as early as the current season, thanks to performance-related clauses within his agreement.
Pérez has scored only 15 points in the six races since the Miami Grand Prix at the start of May, allowing Red Bull’s rivals to close the gap at the top of the constructors’ championship despite Max Verstappen’s results. Horner said it was “unsustainable to not be scoring points” after Pérez finished 17th at Silverstone.
Perez is ok, but his Red Bull certainly isn't…
He'll start tomorrow's race from P15 at best 😖#F1 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/tPGEEw3Lqg
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 20, 2024
Speaking on Sky Sports this Friday, Horner said Pérez had “been in a bit of a headspin the last few races” and that they had discussed his form in the gap since the last race.
“I sat down with him in the kitchen at my house and said, ‘Come on, what’s going on? Is there something else?’” Horner said. “And he said, ‘No, I think I’m just overthinking things a bit too much.’”
Between the two races, Pérez returned to the Red Bull factory to work with the team in the simulator, aiming to get the car setup into a window he was more comfortable with. This seemed to yield results in second practice, when Pérez finished fourth, only two-tenths off Verstappen. But 24 hours later, his weekend unraveled in qualifying.
“I think these conditions can catch out anyone out there, but unfortunately, it has been me two (races) in a row,” Pérez said. “I’m determined to turn things around.”
He admitted it was “quite hard to face all the media after all these difficult moments” and noted how mentally challenging this period has been for him.
“The easiest way would be just to give up after the career I’ve had, to say it’s been enough,” Pérez said. “But it’s not what I want to teach my kids, not what I want to show, this sort of character.”
Pérez’s message was clear. “I just want to get back, and I will get back,” he said. “I will not give up.”
The race for the Red Bull seat
Red Bull has been clear in the need for Pérez to lift his performance and rediscover the early-season form that accelerated contract talks, the hope being that added security over his future would lead to an on-track boost.
Instead, his form has continued to dip.
On Thursday, Pérez was adamant that he’d remain at Red Bull this year and next. Even after qualifying, he maintained that he was not concerned about his future. “Like I said before, nothing changes, I’m not worried,” Pérez said, then repeating that he was “fully determined to turn my season around and to focus on my performance.”
The damaged car of Red Bull Racing's Mexican driver Sergio Perez is pictured during the qualifying session at the Hungaroring race track in Mogyorod near Budapest on July 20, 2024, ahead of the Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix. (Photo by Ferenc ISZA / AFP)
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner called the Hungary crash a “huge shame” that’s done “quite a lot of damage” to the car. (Ferenc ISZA / AFP)
The question facing Red Bull is which of its drivers would get the nod should it choose to replace Pérez this season.
Traditionally, Red Bull has turned to its sister team, now known as RB, for replacement drivers. Both Verstappen in 2016 and Alex Albon in 2019 were promoted to Red Bull mid-season, with Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly going in the opposite direction.
Yet the question marks hanging over RB’s existing driver pairing of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda mean it is Liam Lawson, Red Bull’s reserve driver, who looks most likely to get the seat.
Last year, Lawson impressed through his five-race stint for RB, then known as AlphaTauri, when Ricciardo was ruled out due to injury, but he was ultimately overlooked for a full-time race seat in 2024.
Lawson took part in a filming day test at Silverstone last week in the Red Bull RB20, limited to 200 km (124 miles) but enough to give Red Bull a chance to evaluate Lawson’s pace. His lap times are understood to have met the benchmarks set by the team, and Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s adviser, is known to be a fan of the New Zealander.
Ricciardo’s return last year with AlphaTauri was always intended to give Red Bull an option if it were to consider replacing Pérez. Yet his form has also been patchy at best, leading to doubts about his future on the F1 grid at all, let alone a potential return to Red Bull.
Ricciardo said after qualifying ninth in Hungary that he came into the weekend “telling myself that these two races could be two of the most important of not only my season but potentially my career.”
Although Red Bull took up the option on Tsunoda back in June to keep him at RB for 2025 based on his good results in the early part of the year, it has shown little sign of considering him for the senior team. The Honda-affiliated driver’s sizable Q3 crash on Saturday will have done little to help the cause.
But with McLaren locking out the front row in Hungary and Verstappen again left to fight solo at the front, Red Bull’s constructors’ championship advantage looks to shrink again on Sunday.
It means that, as we approach the summer break, Pérez’s latest error will have hastened considerations of a switch.
(Lead photo of Sergio Pérez: SIPA USA)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
Luke Smith
|
Dr. Ruth’s Tips for a Happy Life.txt | By Steven Kurutz
Published July 15, 2024Updated July 17, 2024
Ruth Westheimer spent a lot of time talking about sex. She did so with her own brand of frankness and good cheer on her pioneering radio show, “Sexually Speaking,” and on her daytime TV program, “The Dr. Ruth Show,” as well as in her column for Playgirl magazine, in her many books and in countless interviews and public appearances across more than four decades. It’s possible that Dr. Ruth, who died last week at 96, talked publicly about sex more than anyone else. Ever.
But since her specialty touched on so many other aspects of the human experience, she also gave plenty of general life advice. Some of those lessons were pulled from her own difficult experience as a German Jewish refugee who lost her parents during the Holocaust. Or from her unhappy early relationships, though she found lasting love with her third husband, Manfred Westheimer, an engineer, after two brief marriages.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, she spoke of the importance of turning a terrible experience into something positive: “I was left with a feeling that because I was not killed by the Nazis — because I survived — I had an obligation to make a dent in the world. What I didn’t know was that that dent would end up being me talking about sex from morning to night.”
To describe her sense of purpose, she often used the phrase tikkun olam — Hebrew for “repairing the world” or, as she put it in a speech, “making the world a better place.” “I knew I had to do something for tikkun olam,” she said in a 2014 interview with Hadassah Magazine. “You can take horrible experiences you will never forget, but you can use the experiences to live a productive life.”
In a 1984 interview with The New York Times, she noted the importance of humor in teaching. “If a professor leaves his students laughing,” she said, “they will walk away remembering what they have learned.”
Dr. Ruth made her first appearance on “The Tonight Show” in 1982, when “Sexually Speaking” was catching on. When the host, Johnny Carson, said that many people are bashful talking about sex, Dr. Ruth offered a lesson in how to approach delicate subjects: “If you do it in good taste — and if you do it properly, then it can be — everything can be talked about. Everything.”
Early in her career, she drew criticism from social conservatives who opposed her approval of homosexuality and abortion. During a lecture she gave at Oklahoma State University in 1985, Billy Joe Clegg, a local minister, tried (and failed) to make a citizen’s arrest of her.
But Dr. Ruth was a strong believer in long-term relationships and family life. When the comedian Richard Lewis appeared on her TV show in the 1980s, she told him that his anxieties about sexual performance would go away if he found “the right girl.” On another episode, she said that she had expected Jerry Seinfeld to be married. (“Stop hocking me!” Mr. Seinfeld said, using a Yiddish term for bother.)
Dr. Ruth made her stance perfectly clear in a 2015 interview with Philadelphia Magazine: “I believe that the best sexual relations have to be in a loving relationship — not like in Hollywood, or your first love or the first night of sex, but in an enduring relationship, and realize how grateful we are that we have someone who cares for us.”
While she was in favor of openness, more than once she allowed that romantic partners should keep certain things to themselves. “There are problems with this trend to sharing everything,” she told The Times in 1985. “I had a group seminar at a hospital where a doctor confessed that he was sometimes aroused by cows. When he went to his office, his secretary greeted him with a ‘mooooooo!’”
In a talk to Google employees in 2012, she spoke of a caller from Brazil who said that she had difficulties concentrating during sex. “I said, ‘Keep your mouth shut — but in your fantasy make believe that the entire Brazilian soccer people are in bed with you,’” Dr. Ruth said.
Active people tended to be good in bed, she said, singling out skiing in particular. “Skiers make the best lovers because they don’t sit in front of a television like couch potatoes,” Dr. Ruth, herself an accomplished skier, told Esquire in 2010. “They take a risk and they wiggle their behinds. They also meet new people on the ski lift.”
She often stressed that people should not live in fear, and she used her favorite animal — the turtle — as a metaphor.
“In order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out,” Dr. Ruth said in her commencement speech at Trinity College in 2004. “There are going to be times in your life when you’re going to have to stick your neck out. There will be challenges. And instead of hiding in a shell, you have to go out and meet them.”
| By Steven Kurutz
Published July 15, 2024Updated July 17, 2024
Ruth Westheimer spent a lot of time talking about sex. She did so with her own brand of frankness and good cheer on her pioneering radio show, “Sexually Speaking,” and on her daytime TV program, “The Dr. Ruth Show,” as well as in her column for Playgirl magazine, in her many books and in countless interviews and public appearances across more than four decades. It’s possible that Dr. Ruth, who died last week at 96, talked publicly about sex | more than anyone else. Ever.
But since her specialty touched on so many other aspects of the human experience, she also gave plenty of general life advice. Some of those lessons were pulled from her own difficult experience as a German Jewish refugee who lost her parents during the Holocaust. Or from her unhappy early relationships, though she found lasting love with her third husband, Manfred Westheimer, an engineer, after two brief marriages.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, she spoke of the importance of turning a terrible experience into something positive: “I was left with a feeling that because I was not killed by the Nazis — because I survived — I had an obligation to make a dent in the world. What I didn’t know was that that dent would end up being me talking about sex from morning to night.”
To describe her sense of purpose, she often used the phrase tikkun olam — Hebrew for “repairing the world” or, as she put it in a speech, “making the world a better place.” “I knew I had to do something for tikkun olam,” she said in a 2014 interview with Hadassah Magazine. “You can take horrible experiences you will never forget, but you can use the experiences to live a productive life.”
In a 1984 interview with The New York Times, she noted the importance of humor in teaching. “If a professor leaves his students laughing,” she said, “they will walk away remembering what they have learned.”
Dr. Ruth made her first appearance on “The Tonight Show” in 1982, when “Sexually Speaking” was catching on. When the host, Johnny Carson, said that many people are bashful talking about sex, Dr. Ruth offered a lesson in how to approach delicate subjects: “If you do it in good taste — and if you do it properly, then it can be — everything can be talked about. Everything.”
Early in her career, she drew criticism from social conservatives who opposed her approval of homosexuality and abortion. During a lecture she gave at Oklahoma State University in 1985, Billy Joe Clegg, a local minister, tried (and failed) to make a citizen’s arrest of her.
But Dr. Ruth was a strong believer in long-term relationships and family life. When the comedian Richard Lewis appeared on her TV show in the 1980s, she told him that his anxieties about sexual performance would go away if he found “the right girl.” On another episode, she said that she had expected Jerry Seinfeld to be married. (“Stop hocking me!” Mr. Seinfeld said, using a Yiddish term for bother.)
Dr. Ruth made her stance perfectly clear in a 2015 interview with Philadelphia Magazine: “I believe that the best sexual relations have to be in a loving relationship — not like in Hollywood, or your first love or the first night of sex, but in an enduring relationship, and realize how grateful we are that we have someone who cares for us.”
While she was in favor of openness, more than once she allowed that romantic partners should keep certain things to themselves. “There are problems with this trend to sharing everything,” she told The Times in 1985. “I had a group seminar at a hospital where a doctor confessed that he was sometimes aroused by cows. When he went to his office, his secretary greeted him with a ‘mooooooo!’”
In a talk to Google employees in 2012, she spoke of a caller from Brazil who said that she had difficulties concentrating during sex. “I said, ‘Keep your mouth shut — but in your fantasy make believe that the entire Brazilian soccer people are in bed with you,’” Dr. Ruth said.
Active people tended to be good in bed, she said, singling out skiing in particular. “Skiers make the best lovers because they don’t sit in front of a television like couch potatoes,” Dr. Ruth, herself an accomplished skier, told Esquire in 2010. “They take a risk and they wiggle their behinds. They also meet new people on the ski lift.”
She often stressed that people should not live in fear, and she used her favorite animal — the turtle — as a metaphor.
“In order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out,” Dr. Ruth said in her commencement speech at Trinity College in 2004. “There are going to be times in your life when you’re going to have to stick your neck out. There will be challenges. And instead of hiding in a shell, you have to go out and meet them.”
|
‘Veep’ Is Re-elected.txt | By Alexis Soloski
July 23, 2024, 9:00 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
“Veep,” HBO’s merciless satire of Washington politics, went out with a gleeful whimper in 2019, a casualty of the Trump presidency.
“We felt we couldn’t keep up with that,” Frank Rich, an executive producer of the series, said on Monday.
Maybe they could — the final months of the Biden presidency seem to have revived interest in “Veep.” When news broke on Sunday that President Biden would not seek re-election and would instead endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, the politics-obsessed who were searching for a pop-culture allegory found an obvious one in the show. The internet was suddenly rife with “Veep” clips, GIFs and fancams. Max played along, featuring the show prominently on its homepage. On social media platforms, it dominated the discourse, with comments in Russian, Portuguese, French, Italian and Dutch.
“Was the HBO show ‘Veep’ just a documentary filmed in the past about the future?” one post read. “Now we know what HBO’s ‘Veep’ writers were doing during the strike,” read another.
This barbed spike in cultural relevance is owed mostly to the Season 2 finale, in which the show’s venal vice president, Selina Meyer (an exuberant, oblivious Julia Louis-Dreyfus), learned that the president would not seek re-election. “I’m not leaving — POTUS is leaving,” she tells her staff in one widely circulated clip. “I’m going to run. I’m going to run for president.”
“Veep” ran on HBO from 2012 to 2019. Nominated for 68 Emmys, it won 17, including three awards for outstanding comedy series and six consecutive best-actress awards for Louis-Dreyfus. When Ms. Louis-Dreyfus accepted her award in 2016, she used her speech to apologize for the current political climate.
“Our show started out as a political satire but now feels more like a sobering documentary,” she said.
“Veep” never intended that. The dialogue and humiliations were specific, the particular political moment was not. Political parties were never mentioned. There were no jokes about a president after Ronald Reagan. “The durability of the show is because we tried to make it timeless even while set in a fun-house-mirror version of the world we live in,” Mr. Rich said.
But in the years since the show ended, that mirror has come to seem less distorted. David Mandel, the showrunner for its last three seasons, said that “Veep” was now more relevant than when it aired.
“By not trying to aim for our better selves, by getting in the gutter, the fact that so much of American politics has become the gutter, it does unfortunately continue to feel timely,” he said on Monday. “We had a team of writers sitting around basically going: ‘What is the dumbest thing a politician could say or do? What’s the worst thing they can say here?’ This stuff is now happening day in, day out.”
In the past, clips from the show have often been used to bludgeon real politicians, usually but not always female ones. The tenor of these latest repurposed scenes is somewhat gentler, less a direct criticism of Ms. Harris than a response to the suddenness of Mr. Biden’s announcement and the feeling of shock that it engendered.
Would Ms. Harris appreciate this? Years ago she told Stephen Colbert that she loved the show, but the association with “Veep,” a comedy that reveled in people at their absolute, snake-bellied worst, is never exactly flattering. Mr. Mandel said that former president Donald J. Trump was far closer to the character of Selina Meyer, though he noted that in one way — and one way only — a Meyer-Harris comparison was apt.
“There is something to celebrate as somebody who rises up through the political system and eventually their dream does come true,” he said.
If the particular circumstances of the real endorsement feel very “Veep,” Mr. Rich, the executive producer, said he doubted that the writers would have used them. They might have joked about it in the writers’ room, he said, but they would have avoided any story line that had a basis in reality.
And if reality coming to resemble “Veep” draws more eyeballs to the show, it also has its downsides. “It makes it so hard to ever bring the show back,” Mr. Mandel said. “We need a time of peace, quiet and tranquillity. Then we can bring back our horrible characters. Right now they just seem like also-rans.”
Alexis Soloski has written for The Times since 2006. As a culture reporter, she covers television, theater, movies, podcasts and new media. More about Alexis Soloski
| By Alexis Soloski
July 23, 2024, 9:00 a.m. ET
Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.
“Veep,” HBO’s merciless satire of Washington politics, went out with a gleeful whimper in 2019, a casualty of the Trump presidency.
“We felt we couldn’t keep up with that,” Frank Rich, an executive producer of the series, said on Monday.
Maybe they could — the final months of the Biden presidency | seem to have revived interest in “Veep.” When news broke on Sunday that President Biden would not seek re-election and would instead endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, the politics-obsessed who were searching for a pop-culture allegory found an obvious one in the show. The internet was suddenly rife with “Veep” clips, GIFs and fancams. Max played along, featuring the show prominently on its homepage. On social media platforms, it dominated the discourse, with comments in Russian, Portuguese, French, Italian and Dutch.
“Was the HBO show ‘Veep’ just a documentary filmed in the past about the future?” one post read. “Now we know what HBO’s ‘Veep’ writers were doing during the strike,” read another.
This barbed spike in cultural relevance is owed mostly to the Season 2 finale, in which the show’s venal vice president, Selina Meyer (an exuberant, oblivious Julia Louis-Dreyfus), learned that the president would not seek re-election. “I’m not leaving — POTUS is leaving,” she tells her staff in one widely circulated clip. “I’m going to run. I’m going to run for president.”
“Veep” ran on HBO from 2012 to 2019. Nominated for 68 Emmys, it won 17, including three awards for outstanding comedy series and six consecutive best-actress awards for Louis-Dreyfus. When Ms. Louis-Dreyfus accepted her award in 2016, she used her speech to apologize for the current political climate.
“Our show started out as a political satire but now feels more like a sobering documentary,” she said.
“Veep” never intended that. The dialogue and humiliations were specific, the particular political moment was not. Political parties were never mentioned. There were no jokes about a president after Ronald Reagan. “The durability of the show is because we tried to make it timeless even while set in a fun-house-mirror version of the world we live in,” Mr. Rich said.
But in the years since the show ended, that mirror has come to seem less distorted. David Mandel, the showrunner for its last three seasons, said that “Veep” was now more relevant than when it aired.
“By not trying to aim for our better selves, by getting in the gutter, the fact that so much of American politics has become the gutter, it does unfortunately continue to feel timely,” he said on Monday. “We had a team of writers sitting around basically going: ‘What is the dumbest thing a politician could say or do? What’s the worst thing they can say here?’ This stuff is now happening day in, day out.”
In the past, clips from the show have often been used to bludgeon real politicians, usually but not always female ones. The tenor of these latest repurposed scenes is somewhat gentler, less a direct criticism of Ms. Harris than a response to the suddenness of Mr. Biden’s announcement and the feeling of shock that it engendered.
Would Ms. Harris appreciate this? Years ago she told Stephen Colbert that she loved the show, but the association with “Veep,” a comedy that reveled in people at their absolute, snake-bellied worst, is never exactly flattering. Mr. Mandel said that former president Donald J. Trump was far closer to the character of Selina Meyer, though he noted that in one way — and one way only — a Meyer-Harris comparison was apt.
“There is something to celebrate as somebody who rises up through the political system and eventually their dream does come true,” he said.
If the particular circumstances of the real endorsement feel very “Veep,” Mr. Rich, the executive producer, said he doubted that the writers would have used them. They might have joked about it in the writers’ room, he said, but they would have avoided any story line that had a basis in reality.
And if reality coming to resemble “Veep” draws more eyeballs to the show, it also has its downsides. “It makes it so hard to ever bring the show back,” Mr. Mandel said. “We need a time of peace, quiet and tranquillity. Then we can bring back our horrible characters. Right now they just seem like also-rans.”
Alexis Soloski has written for The Times since 2006. As a culture reporter, she covers television, theater, movies, podcasts and new media. More about Alexis Soloski
|
Her Films Defined a Gritty, Magical New York Moment.txt | By W. M. Akers
W.M. Akers is the author of the “Westside” novels and the creator of the tabletop game “Deadball: Baseball With Dice.”
July 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls, by Susan Seidelman
ImageThe cover of “Desperately Seeking Something,” by Susan Seidelman, portrays a silk-screen-style portrait of a dark-haired woman dressed in a black-and-white striped top with red-and-white check sunglasses atop her head. The background is yellow. The text is red and white; the subtitle is printed on what looks like a strip of black film.
Susan Seidelman gave birth with the help of doulas named Siskel and Ebert. The director, best known for loving portrayals of gritty 1980s Manhattan, was in the final stages of a 28-hour labor when the film critics appeared on the hospital TV. They were discussing Seidelman’s newest film, the revenge comedy “She-Devil,” allowing her the unique discomfort of getting panned while an obstetrician prodded her cervix.
Ebert was kind to the movie; Siskel hated it. So when her doctor told her to push, she did so with a scream:
“Screw you, Siskel! Roger, this one’s for you!”
Seidelman recounts this scene in her memoir, “Desperately Seeking Something,” a breezy look at a career in which her mission, she says, has been to tell women’s stories through a female lens. Relentlessly cheerful and packed with the anecdotes and observations of four decades in and around Hollywood, her story is a testament to the good humor and adaptability demanded of women who dare to make a place for themselves in the movies.
Raised in the Philadelphia suburbs, Seidelman went to film school in New York in the mid-1970s, when directing movies seemed to require a beard, a baseball cap and a bad attitude. Seidelman did her part to change that with “Smithereens,” a 1982 Lower East Side coming-of-age story that has the D.I.Y. aesthetic of a punk zine. She financed it with $12,000 inherited from her grandmother, part of which went to giving the leading man Richard Hell a “badly needed” teeth cleaning, and spent years shooting the movie in the grimmest alleys, lofts and clubs that Manhattan had to offer.
“We were filming in no man’s land,” she writes, “late at night, without protection or security. We were young and reckless and naïve. Creativity was the invisibility cloak that protected us.”
The film became the first low-budget American indie asked to compete for the Cannes Palme d’Or prize and earned Seidelman an invitation to Hollywood, where she cast a singer named Madonna in the madcap New York comedy “Desperately Seeking Susan.” On the first day of shooting, Madonna was able to film on the streets of Manhattan without attracting attention. By the time they wrapped, she was one of the most famous performers on earth: rolling across the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards, smoldering on the cover of Rolling Stone and unable to appear in public without a bodyguard.
Her sudden stardom helped make “Susan” a hit, setting Seidelman up for what seemed like a long and happy career directing Hollywood comedies. But bad luck and bad marketing doomed her next three pictures, including the truly delightful “Making Mr. Right,” which makes better use of John Malkovich’s uncanny charm than almost anything else he’s ever done. “She-Devil” was the last big-budget feature she’d ever make.
Seidelman tells this story without bitterness. She never stopped doing interesting work, from the pilot of “Sex & the City,” for which she created the “gritty and magical” aesthetic that defined the show’s first seasons, to “Musical Chairs,” a TV movie about wheelchair ballroom dancing that gave Laverne Cox her first film role. For the most part, her book skips over anything painful, preferring to focus on the magical side of a life in films. For a director who’s never been afraid of a Hollywood ending, this feels like truth.
DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls | By Susan Seidelman | St. Martin’s | 350 pp. | $30
See more on: Madonna
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By W. M. Akers
W.M. Akers is the author of the “Westside” novels and the creator of the tabletop game “Deadball: Baseball With Dice.”
July 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls, by Susan Seidelman
ImageThe cover of “Desperately Seeking Something,” by Susan Seidelman, port | rays a silk-screen-style portrait of a dark-haired woman dressed in a black-and-white striped top with red-and-white check sunglasses atop her head. The background is yellow. The text is red and white; the subtitle is printed on what looks like a strip of black film.
Susan Seidelman gave birth with the help of doulas named Siskel and Ebert. The director, best known for loving portrayals of gritty 1980s Manhattan, was in the final stages of a 28-hour labor when the film critics appeared on the hospital TV. They were discussing Seidelman’s newest film, the revenge comedy “She-Devil,” allowing her the unique discomfort of getting panned while an obstetrician prodded her cervix.
Ebert was kind to the movie; Siskel hated it. So when her doctor told her to push, she did so with a scream:
“Screw you, Siskel! Roger, this one’s for you!”
Seidelman recounts this scene in her memoir, “Desperately Seeking Something,” a breezy look at a career in which her mission, she says, has been to tell women’s stories through a female lens. Relentlessly cheerful and packed with the anecdotes and observations of four decades in and around Hollywood, her story is a testament to the good humor and adaptability demanded of women who dare to make a place for themselves in the movies.
Raised in the Philadelphia suburbs, Seidelman went to film school in New York in the mid-1970s, when directing movies seemed to require a beard, a baseball cap and a bad attitude. Seidelman did her part to change that with “Smithereens,” a 1982 Lower East Side coming-of-age story that has the D.I.Y. aesthetic of a punk zine. She financed it with $12,000 inherited from her grandmother, part of which went to giving the leading man Richard Hell a “badly needed” teeth cleaning, and spent years shooting the movie in the grimmest alleys, lofts and clubs that Manhattan had to offer.
“We were filming in no man’s land,” she writes, “late at night, without protection or security. We were young and reckless and naïve. Creativity was the invisibility cloak that protected us.”
The film became the first low-budget American indie asked to compete for the Cannes Palme d’Or prize and earned Seidelman an invitation to Hollywood, where she cast a singer named Madonna in the madcap New York comedy “Desperately Seeking Susan.” On the first day of shooting, Madonna was able to film on the streets of Manhattan without attracting attention. By the time they wrapped, she was one of the most famous performers on earth: rolling across the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards, smoldering on the cover of Rolling Stone and unable to appear in public without a bodyguard.
Her sudden stardom helped make “Susan” a hit, setting Seidelman up for what seemed like a long and happy career directing Hollywood comedies. But bad luck and bad marketing doomed her next three pictures, including the truly delightful “Making Mr. Right,” which makes better use of John Malkovich’s uncanny charm than almost anything else he’s ever done. “She-Devil” was the last big-budget feature she’d ever make.
Seidelman tells this story without bitterness. She never stopped doing interesting work, from the pilot of “Sex & the City,” for which she created the “gritty and magical” aesthetic that defined the show’s first seasons, to “Musical Chairs,” a TV movie about wheelchair ballroom dancing that gave Laverne Cox her first film role. For the most part, her book skips over anything painful, preferring to focus on the magical side of a life in films. For a director who’s never been afraid of a Hollywood ending, this feels like truth.
DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls | By Susan Seidelman | St. Martin’s | 350 pp. | $30
See more on: Madonna
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Liam Rosenior in advanced talks for BlueCo-owned Strasbourg head coach position.txt | By Simon Johnson
Jul 20, 2024
25
Save Article
Liam Rosenior is in advanced talks to become the new head coach of Strasbourg and is the club’s leading candidate for the position.
The Ligue 1 club are owned by BlueCo, the multi-club ownership group best known for its ownership of Chelsea, and parted company with former head coach Patrick Vieira earlier this week.
Rosenior, 39, was sacked as Hull City head coach in May despite being nominated for Championship manager of the 2023-24 season along with Kieran McKenna and Daniel Farke.
He is admired by BlueCo because his emphasis is on controlled possession football rather than a more counter-attacking style, which marries up with their preferred style at Chelsea from new head coach Enzo Maresca and Under-21 team coach Filipe Coelho.
Rosenior emerged as the leading candidate from a three-man shortlist, and the club are prepared to back him in the transfer market to allow the club to strengthen ahead of the 2024-25 campaign.
A former full-back, Rosenior started his managerial career at Derby County, having been appointed as interim head coach following the resignation of Wayne Rooney in June 2022 and joining Hull later that year on a two-and-a-half year contract.
Strasbourg ended the 2023-24 campaign in 13th place in the 18-team Ligue 1, ten points clear of the relegation zone but eleven points short of European qualification places.
BlueCo, a consortium led by Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, paid €76.3million (£65.2m; $81.7m) for a 99.97 per cent stake in the French club in June 2023.
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Chelsea, Strasbourg, BlueCo and a multi-club model yet to convince a sceptical fanbase
(Ed Sykes/Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
Simon Johnson
Simon Johnson has spent the majority of his career as a sports reporter since 2000 covering Chelsea, firstly for Hayters and then the London Evening Standard. This included going to every game home and away as the west London club secured the Champions League in 2012. He has also reported on the England national team between 2008-19 and been a regular contributor to talkSPORT radio station for over a decade. Follow Simon on Twitter @SJohnsonSport
National
Boxing
Bundesliga
Champions League
Championship
College Football
College Sports
Copa America
Copa del Rey
Culture
Europa League
European Championship
FA Cup
Fantasy Baseball
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Hockey
Fantasy Premier League
Formula 1
Gaming
Golf
International Football
La Liga
League Cup
League One
League Two
LNH
Memorabilia & Collectibles
Men's College Basketball
Men's World Cup
Mixed Martial Arts
MLB
MLS
Motorsports
NASCAR
NBA
NFL
NHL
NWSL
Olympics
Opinion
Premier League
Scottish Premiership
Serie A
Football
Sports Betting
Sports Business
Tennis
UK Women's Football
WNBA
Women's College Basketball
Women's Euros
Women's Hockey
Women's World Cup
The Athletic Ink
Podcasts
Headlines
US
Arizona
Atlanta
Baltimore
Bay Area
Boston
Buffalo
Carolina
Chicago
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Columbus
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Houston
Indiana
Jacksonville
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Memphis
Miami
Minnesota
Nashville
New Orleans
New York
Oklahoma
Oregon
Orlando
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Sacramento
San Antonio
San Diego
Seattle
St. Louis
Tampa Bay
Utah
Washington DC
Wisconsin
Canada
Calgary
Edmonton
Montreal
Montréal (français)
Ottawa
Toronto
Vancouver
Winnipeg
Partners
Odds by BetMGM
Tickets by StubHub
Subscribe
Start Subscription
Buy a Gift
Student Discount
Group Subscriptions
HQ
About Us
Careers
Code of Conduct
Editorial Guidelines
Business Inquiries
Press Inquiries
Support
FAQ
Forgot Password?
Redeem Gift
Contact Us
Terms of Service
Newsletters
The Pulse
The Bounce
The Windup
Prime Tire
Full Time
Until Saturday
Scoop City
The Athletic FC
©2024 The Athletic Media Company, A New York Times Company
Your Privacy Choices
Privacy Policy
Your Ad Choices
Support
Sitemap
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play
| By Simon Johnson
Jul 20, 2024
25
Save Article
Liam Rosenior is in advanced talks to become the new head coach of Strasbourg and is the club’s leading candidate for the position.
The Ligue 1 club are owned by BlueCo, the multi-club ownership group best known for its ownership of Chelsea, and parted company with former head coach Patrick Vieira earlier this week.
Rosenior, 39, was sacked as Hull City head coach in May despite being nominated for Championship manager of the 2023-24 season along with Kieran McKenna and | Daniel Farke.
He is admired by BlueCo because his emphasis is on controlled possession football rather than a more counter-attacking style, which marries up with their preferred style at Chelsea from new head coach Enzo Maresca and Under-21 team coach Filipe Coelho.
Rosenior emerged as the leading candidate from a three-man shortlist, and the club are prepared to back him in the transfer market to allow the club to strengthen ahead of the 2024-25 campaign.
A former full-back, Rosenior started his managerial career at Derby County, having been appointed as interim head coach following the resignation of Wayne Rooney in June 2022 and joining Hull later that year on a two-and-a-half year contract.
Strasbourg ended the 2023-24 campaign in 13th place in the 18-team Ligue 1, ten points clear of the relegation zone but eleven points short of European qualification places.
BlueCo, a consortium led by Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, paid €76.3million (£65.2m; $81.7m) for a 99.97 per cent stake in the French club in June 2023.
go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Chelsea, Strasbourg, BlueCo and a multi-club model yet to convince a sceptical fanbase
(Ed Sykes/Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
Simon Johnson
Simon Johnson has spent the majority of his career as a sports reporter since 2000 covering Chelsea, firstly for Hayters and then the London Evening Standard. This included going to every game home and away as the west London club secured the Champions League in 2012. He has also reported on the England national team between 2008-19 and been a regular contributor to talkSPORT radio station for over a decade. Follow Simon on Twitter @SJohnsonSport
National
Boxing
Bundesliga
Champions League
Championship
College Football
College Sports
Copa America
Copa del Rey
Culture
Europa League
European Championship
FA Cup
Fantasy Baseball
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Hockey
Fantasy Premier League
Formula 1
Gaming
Golf
International Football
La Liga
League Cup
League One
League Two
LNH
Memorabilia & Collectibles
Men's College Basketball
Men's World Cup
Mixed Martial Arts
MLB
MLS
Motorsports
NASCAR
NBA
NFL
NHL
NWSL
Olympics
Opinion
Premier League
Scottish Premiership
Serie A
Football
Sports Betting
Sports Business
Tennis
UK Women's Football
WNBA
Women's College Basketball
Women's Euros
Women's Hockey
Women's World Cup
The Athletic Ink
Podcasts
Headlines
US
Arizona
Atlanta
Baltimore
Bay Area
Boston
Buffalo
Carolina
Chicago
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Columbus
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Houston
Indiana
Jacksonville
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Memphis
Miami
Minnesota
Nashville
New Orleans
New York
Oklahoma
Oregon
Orlando
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Sacramento
San Antonio
San Diego
Seattle
St. Louis
Tampa Bay
Utah
Washington DC
Wisconsin
Canada
Calgary
Edmonton
Montreal
Montréal (français)
Ottawa
Toronto
Vancouver
Winnipeg
Partners
Odds by BetMGM
Tickets by StubHub
Subscribe
Start Subscription
Buy a Gift
Student Discount
Group Subscriptions
HQ
About Us
Careers
Code of Conduct
Editorial Guidelines
Business Inquiries
Press Inquiries
Support
FAQ
Forgot Password?
Redeem Gift
Contact Us
Terms of Service
Newsletters
The Pulse
The Bounce
The Windup
Prime Tire
Full Time
Until Saturday
Scoop City
The Athletic FC
©2024 The Athletic Media Company, A New York Times Company
Your Privacy Choices
Privacy Policy
Your Ad Choices
Support
Sitemap
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play
|
The Olympics Is Transforming Their Neighborhood. And Kicking Them Out..txt | By Sarah Hurtes
Sarah Hurtes visited several of the last remaining squats in Seine-Saint-Denis, France.
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 21, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in France? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
The building, once a warehouse, apartments and offices, is a temporary home — with one shower — for 60 adults and children. On the ground floor, rats sprint under plastic chairs and parked baby strollers. The stench of damp clothes and clogged toilets overpowers the strong scents of tomato and spices from the makeshift kitchenettes on upper floors. In the inner courtyard, laughter echoes as children scoop up giggling babies and gently swing them skyward.
This is a so-called squat in Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburban area east of Paris that at one time was an industrial district. Now, it is a place with trendy cafes and high-fashion houses, as well as abandoned factories and spaces like the warehouse, which have become unauthorized housing for homeless people and immigrants.
Mariam Komara, 40, an undocumented immigrant from Ivory Coast, has lived there since last year. The other day she was getting ready to go to court to argue that she has the right to stay.
“It may not be ideal, but it’s the best I have, and it’s a safe place to sleep,” she said one recent evening.
Soon, though, Seine-Saint-Denis will become the thumping heart of the Paris Olympics — with housing for thousands of athletes in the nearby Olympic Village — and ground zero for one of France’s central dilemmas.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have arrived in France in recent years, and nowhere is this more true than in the gritty suburb nestled in the shadow of the City of Light. Roughly a third of the more than 1.6 million people living in Seine-Saint-Denis are immigrants — the highest percentage in the country. The influx has strained the housing stock, and the government.
Four people playing foosball in the common area of a squat, as others look on.
A woman pours water from a pitcher into a large pot on a dirty stove in a kitchen area.
In Seine-Saint-Denis, thousands live in street encampments, shelters or abandoned buildings like the former warehouse, more than in any other administrative district in France, according to a 2021 report by France’s housing authority. To many in the area, the squats are eyesores, standing in the way of a long overdue revitalization.
The map highlights Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburban area east of Paris. It also locates the Olympic Village, and Bathyscaphe squat in western Seine-Saint-Denis, The district of Montreuil, which includes Gambetta squat in southwestern Seine-Saint-Denis is also indicated.
Building owners often go to court seeking eviction orders, and a new law from last year has made life easier for them by shortening the eviction procedure and imposing substantial fines and prison sentences on squatters.
But solutions for the housing crunch are hard to find. There are not enough homeless shelters. The pressure to tighten border controls and increase the deportation of illegal immigrants is high.
“You have people who continue to arrive in France and Europe every day,” said Serge Grouard, the mayor of Orléans, south of Paris, who raised concerns in February about migrants being relocated to his city for the Olympics without notification. “The government sweeps it all under the rug,” he said. “And when we do talk about it, we’re dangerous extremists. Except that three-quarters of the French population are fed up.”
France has invested billions in Seine-Saint-Denis for the Games, hoping that the event and its aftermath will lift the area.
Many in the district have welcomed the changes. “We should have new sports facilities that will enable us to do health-oriented sports activities,” said Malo Le Boubennec, the events manager of the Seine-Saint-Denis sports clubs organization. “It can positively impact housing, residents and the department.”
But sprucing up has led to the closing of dozens of squats, evicting over 3,000 people. And the French government has bused many evicted individuals out of Paris ahead of the Olympics, promising housing but often leaving them stranded in unfamiliar locations like Orléans — or facing deportation.
A panoramic view of new buildings on narrow streets with cars and trees.
A partly demolished, graffiti-covered building, with wood and bricks strewed about
In spring 2023, some 500 squatters were kicked out of what used to be a cement factory within earshot of the Olympic Village. Another building was recently shut down next to the Seine River walkway to the Stade de France.
Days before the Games are scheduled to start, a few squats remain. Squat Gambetta, named by activists after its street name, is where Ms. Komara lives with her husband.
Ms. Komara traveled to France last year to join her husband, who had come in 2022. Despite his occasional car mechanic work, Ms. Komara said, they could not afford permanent housing. They also found no space in emergency shelters. For months, she said, they slept on chairs in subway stations. One night, she fell victim to a theft that left her without her phone and passport and a with knife wound on her right hand.
A stranger told her of the vacant building where she now lives. The other occupants are also mostly West African women, along with their children.
Only the children seem to notice the darting rats. Anju, 14, tall with braided hair and a large gap between her front teeth, called the rodents lucky.
“At least they don’t have to pay rent,” she said.
A woman wearing a head scarf and patterned dress stands outside an office door, with her hand on the knob.
A crowded classroom with big windows, filled with students hunched over long communal tables.
Ms. Komara spends every day, she said, dialing 115, the emergency housing center, praying that an operator will answer and offer space in a shelter. Occasionally, after hours of waiting, a response comes, only to report full shelters.
But time is against her. This year, she and the other occupants received a court order to leave the building by April, and the police could evict them at any moment.
Fighting to stay longer, she and other residents went to court twice.
“We are 60 people, sir,” Ms. Komara told the judge this month. “There are 15 children, some women are pregnant and there are small babies. We cannot survive on the streets.”
Carcasses of former squats can be seen all across Seine-Saint-Denis, some razed or guarded by security guards, others armed with alarm systems or fortified with cement walls. Every squat eviction sends dozens to hundreds of people back to the streets, packing the last surviving squats in return.
Thomas Astrup, an activist who has been opening squats in Seine-Saint-Denis for the past five years, defended them as part of the cityscape.
“Squats are places rich in diversity and community life,” he said. “Many people would find themselves on the streets without them.”
A makeshift bed on the ground under a tree, partially shaded by a tarp, with a stuffed monkey in the background.
A mostly barren room with tubing coming in through an open window, passing over a chair
Some also are places for informal social activities, like one, called the Bathyscaphe, where a nonprofit runs French classes for youths who live in shelters or street encampments. It also holds concerts and art workshops.
Some city officials and landlords sympathize with squatters and have asked France’s Interior Ministry to help find shelters for people who are evicted.
Inside the courtroom where Ms. Komara spoke, the judge eventually postponed the hearing to Aug. 5, midway through the Olympics. No decisions would be made that day.
Back under her temporary roof, Ms. Komara continued dialing 115.
After nine months of calling, she received a text on Monday.
A shelter near Charles de Gaulle Airport, about a half-hour north, had space available. For exactly how long, she was not sure. But it meant she would leave Seine-Saint-Denis.
| By Sarah Hurtes
Sarah Hurtes visited several of the last remaining squats in Seine-Saint-Denis, France.
Published July 20, 2024Updated July 21, 2024
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in France? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
The building, once a warehouse, apartments and offices, is a temporary home — with one shower — for 60 adults and children. On the ground floor, rats sprint under plastic chairs and parked baby strollers. The stench of damp clothes | and clogged toilets overpowers the strong scents of tomato and spices from the makeshift kitchenettes on upper floors. In the inner courtyard, laughter echoes as children scoop up giggling babies and gently swing them skyward.
This is a so-called squat in Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburban area east of Paris that at one time was an industrial district. Now, it is a place with trendy cafes and high-fashion houses, as well as abandoned factories and spaces like the warehouse, which have become unauthorized housing for homeless people and immigrants.
Mariam Komara, 40, an undocumented immigrant from Ivory Coast, has lived there since last year. The other day she was getting ready to go to court to argue that she has the right to stay.
“It may not be ideal, but it’s the best I have, and it’s a safe place to sleep,” she said one recent evening.
Soon, though, Seine-Saint-Denis will become the thumping heart of the Paris Olympics — with housing for thousands of athletes in the nearby Olympic Village — and ground zero for one of France’s central dilemmas.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have arrived in France in recent years, and nowhere is this more true than in the gritty suburb nestled in the shadow of the City of Light. Roughly a third of the more than 1.6 million people living in Seine-Saint-Denis are immigrants — the highest percentage in the country. The influx has strained the housing stock, and the government.
Four people playing foosball in the common area of a squat, as others look on.
A woman pours water from a pitcher into a large pot on a dirty stove in a kitchen area.
In Seine-Saint-Denis, thousands live in street encampments, shelters or abandoned buildings like the former warehouse, more than in any other administrative district in France, according to a 2021 report by France’s housing authority. To many in the area, the squats are eyesores, standing in the way of a long overdue revitalization.
The map highlights Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburban area east of Paris. It also locates the Olympic Village, and Bathyscaphe squat in western Seine-Saint-Denis, The district of Montreuil, which includes Gambetta squat in southwestern Seine-Saint-Denis is also indicated.
Building owners often go to court seeking eviction orders, and a new law from last year has made life easier for them by shortening the eviction procedure and imposing substantial fines and prison sentences on squatters.
But solutions for the housing crunch are hard to find. There are not enough homeless shelters. The pressure to tighten border controls and increase the deportation of illegal immigrants is high.
“You have people who continue to arrive in France and Europe every day,” said Serge Grouard, the mayor of Orléans, south of Paris, who raised concerns in February about migrants being relocated to his city for the Olympics without notification. “The government sweeps it all under the rug,” he said. “And when we do talk about it, we’re dangerous extremists. Except that three-quarters of the French population are fed up.”
France has invested billions in Seine-Saint-Denis for the Games, hoping that the event and its aftermath will lift the area.
Many in the district have welcomed the changes. “We should have new sports facilities that will enable us to do health-oriented sports activities,” said Malo Le Boubennec, the events manager of the Seine-Saint-Denis sports clubs organization. “It can positively impact housing, residents and the department.”
But sprucing up has led to the closing of dozens of squats, evicting over 3,000 people. And the French government has bused many evicted individuals out of Paris ahead of the Olympics, promising housing but often leaving them stranded in unfamiliar locations like Orléans — or facing deportation.
A panoramic view of new buildings on narrow streets with cars and trees.
A partly demolished, graffiti-covered building, with wood and bricks strewed about
In spring 2023, some 500 squatters were kicked out of what used to be a cement factory within earshot of the Olympic Village. Another building was recently shut down next to the Seine River walkway to the Stade de France.
Days before the Games are scheduled to start, a few squats remain. Squat Gambetta, named by activists after its street name, is where Ms. Komara lives with her husband.
Ms. Komara traveled to France last year to join her husband, who had come in 2022. Despite his occasional car mechanic work, Ms. Komara said, they could not afford permanent housing. They also found no space in emergency shelters. For months, she said, they slept on chairs in subway stations. One night, she fell victim to a theft that left her without her phone and passport and a with knife wound on her right hand.
A stranger told her of the vacant building where she now lives. The other occupants are also mostly West African women, along with their children.
Only the children seem to notice the darting rats. Anju, 14, tall with braided hair and a large gap between her front teeth, called the rodents lucky.
“At least they don’t have to pay rent,” she said.
A woman wearing a head scarf and patterned dress stands outside an office door, with her hand on the knob.
A crowded classroom with big windows, filled with students hunched over long communal tables.
Ms. Komara spends every day, she said, dialing 115, the emergency housing center, praying that an operator will answer and offer space in a shelter. Occasionally, after hours of waiting, a response comes, only to report full shelters.
But time is against her. This year, she and the other occupants received a court order to leave the building by April, and the police could evict them at any moment.
Fighting to stay longer, she and other residents went to court twice.
“We are 60 people, sir,” Ms. Komara told the judge this month. “There are 15 children, some women are pregnant and there are small babies. We cannot survive on the streets.”
Carcasses of former squats can be seen all across Seine-Saint-Denis, some razed or guarded by security guards, others armed with alarm systems or fortified with cement walls. Every squat eviction sends dozens to hundreds of people back to the streets, packing the last surviving squats in return.
Thomas Astrup, an activist who has been opening squats in Seine-Saint-Denis for the past five years, defended them as part of the cityscape.
“Squats are places rich in diversity and community life,” he said. “Many people would find themselves on the streets without them.”
A makeshift bed on the ground under a tree, partially shaded by a tarp, with a stuffed monkey in the background.
A mostly barren room with tubing coming in through an open window, passing over a chair
Some also are places for informal social activities, like one, called the Bathyscaphe, where a nonprofit runs French classes for youths who live in shelters or street encampments. It also holds concerts and art workshops.
Some city officials and landlords sympathize with squatters and have asked France’s Interior Ministry to help find shelters for people who are evicted.
Inside the courtroom where Ms. Komara spoke, the judge eventually postponed the hearing to Aug. 5, midway through the Olympics. No decisions would be made that day.
Back under her temporary roof, Ms. Komara continued dialing 115.
After nine months of calling, she received a text on Monday.
A shelter near Charles de Gaulle Airport, about a half-hour north, had space available. For exactly how long, she was not sure. But it meant she would leave Seine-Saint-Denis.
|
Dolphins’ Shaquil Barrett announces abrupt retirement after 10-year career.txt | By Mark Puleo
Jul 20, 2024
Linebacker Shaquil Barrett announced his retirement on social media Saturday, four months after joining the Miami Dolphins in free agency but just days before the team’s training camp.
“It’s time for me to hang it up,” Barrett said in an Instagram post. “It’s been a great ride and I appreciate everything that came with it over the years. I’m ready to shift my full focus to my wife and kids and helping with realize their dreams and catch em.”
He acknowledged in the post the retirement may seem like a surprise to some, but said he’s “been thinking about this for a while and the decision has never been more clear then it is now.”
Barrett’s abrupt announcement concludes a 10-year career that spanned stints with the Denver Broncos and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He won Super Bowl titles with each franchise.
The 31-year-old entered the league as an undrafted free agent out of Colorado State, signing with the Broncos in 2014 but not appearing in any games his rookie season. He made the Broncos roster in 2015 after tallying the most preseason sacks in the league, and played a key rotational role in the team’s Super Bowl run, starting six games.
Barrett remained a rotational linebacker in Denver until he left for Tampa Bay in 2019. There, he blossomed in a historic breakout season, tallying a league-high 19.5 sacks to make second-team All-Pro and finishing fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting. The 19.5 sacks were more than he tallied his entire five-year run in Denver and still stand as the Bucs’ franchise record.
He proved in 2020 that the breakout was no fluke, posting 8 sacks and providing crucial pass rush pressure in the Bucs’ playoff run en route to the Super Bowl. In the NFC Championship Game, Barrett sacked Green Bay Packers’ QB Aaron Rodgers three times. In the Super Bowl, he added another sack on Patrick Mahomes.
His strong play on the franchise tag earned Barrett a four-year extension worth $72 million in 2021, a contract he lived up to with a 10-sack season to earn his second Pro Bowl nod.
However, a torn Achilles tendon in Week 8 of the 2022 season cut his season short, and while he returned to play 16 games in 2023, he proved less effective. He was released in February in a cost-saving move.
“Shaq’s contributions to the Buccaneers both on and off the field these past five seasons have been extraordinary and he will be missed by many in and around the organization,” Tampa Bay general manager Jason Licht said at the time of the release. “His leadership, work ethic, and dedication to the game have been unmatched and the courage he displayed last season was truly inspirational. We are grateful for Shaq’s time here in Tampa and will always have a special place in our hearts for the Barrett family.”
Barrett was the No. 135-ranked free agent on The Athletic’s big board this offseason and he signed a one-year deal worth $9 million with Miami in March. He was expected to play an important role as a situational pass rusher for the Dolphins as they make another postseason push.
Miami will also begin training camp without pass rushers Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb as both are returning from injuries and are on the physically unable to perform list. The team selected defensive end Chop Robinson in the first round of April’s draft.
Required reading
‘He wants to give his kids the life he never had’: How Shaquil Barrett became the NFL’s sack leader
(Photo: Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
| By Mark Puleo
Jul 20, 2024
Linebacker Shaquil Barrett announced his retirement on social media Saturday, four months after joining the Miami Dolphins in free agency but just days before the team’s training camp.
“It’s time for me to hang it up,” Barrett said in an Instagram post. “It’s been a great ride and I appreciate everything that came with it over the years. I’m ready to shift my full focus to my wife and kids and helping with realize their dreams and catch em.”
He acknowledged in the post the retirement may seem like a surprise to some, but said | he’s “been thinking about this for a while and the decision has never been more clear then it is now.”
Barrett’s abrupt announcement concludes a 10-year career that spanned stints with the Denver Broncos and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He won Super Bowl titles with each franchise.
The 31-year-old entered the league as an undrafted free agent out of Colorado State, signing with the Broncos in 2014 but not appearing in any games his rookie season. He made the Broncos roster in 2015 after tallying the most preseason sacks in the league, and played a key rotational role in the team’s Super Bowl run, starting six games.
Barrett remained a rotational linebacker in Denver until he left for Tampa Bay in 2019. There, he blossomed in a historic breakout season, tallying a league-high 19.5 sacks to make second-team All-Pro and finishing fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting. The 19.5 sacks were more than he tallied his entire five-year run in Denver and still stand as the Bucs’ franchise record.
He proved in 2020 that the breakout was no fluke, posting 8 sacks and providing crucial pass rush pressure in the Bucs’ playoff run en route to the Super Bowl. In the NFC Championship Game, Barrett sacked Green Bay Packers’ QB Aaron Rodgers three times. In the Super Bowl, he added another sack on Patrick Mahomes.
His strong play on the franchise tag earned Barrett a four-year extension worth $72 million in 2021, a contract he lived up to with a 10-sack season to earn his second Pro Bowl nod.
However, a torn Achilles tendon in Week 8 of the 2022 season cut his season short, and while he returned to play 16 games in 2023, he proved less effective. He was released in February in a cost-saving move.
“Shaq’s contributions to the Buccaneers both on and off the field these past five seasons have been extraordinary and he will be missed by many in and around the organization,” Tampa Bay general manager Jason Licht said at the time of the release. “His leadership, work ethic, and dedication to the game have been unmatched and the courage he displayed last season was truly inspirational. We are grateful for Shaq’s time here in Tampa and will always have a special place in our hearts for the Barrett family.”
Barrett was the No. 135-ranked free agent on The Athletic’s big board this offseason and he signed a one-year deal worth $9 million with Miami in March. He was expected to play an important role as a situational pass rusher for the Dolphins as they make another postseason push.
Miami will also begin training camp without pass rushers Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb as both are returning from injuries and are on the physically unable to perform list. The team selected defensive end Chop Robinson in the first round of April’s draft.
Required reading
‘He wants to give his kids the life he never had’: How Shaquil Barrett became the NFL’s sack leader
(Photo: Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)
Get all-access to exclusive stories.
|
Democrats Will Select Nominee by Aug. 7 in an Online Vote.txt | By Reid J. Epstein
July 22, 2024
The Democratic Party will choose its presidential nominee in an online vote by Aug. 7, Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Monday on a call with reporters. A date for that vote has not yet been set.
His proclamation follows the party’s rapid consolidation behind Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Biden. Minyon Moore, the chair of the party’s convention, said the nominating process would be “swift, transparent and fair.” She added that a contested nominating fight with voting at the convention was not possible given the constraints of state ballot deadlines.
“An in-person contested convention simply cannot accommodate the potential of a multi-round nomination process for the presidential nominee who then must select a vice-presidential nominee and still meet the ballot access certification requirements in each of the states necessary for the Democratic path to victory,” Ms. Moore said.
Party officials on the call said the nominee for vice president could be in place by Aug. 7 as well, though they said the presidential nominee — which at this point is all but certain to be Ms. Harris — would have input on when the running mate is selected and voted upon by delegates.
Nominating a presidential candidate during a virtual vote weeks before the party’s delegates convene in Chicago on Aug. 19 will relegate the convention to a purely ceremonial function.
Veronica Martinez Roman, the D.N.C.’s party affairs director, said the 4,600 delegates will be asked if they wish to opt in to receive messages from candidates who apply with the party to run for president, though the list of delegates will not be provided to candidates. Candidates can qualify for the ballot if they acquire nominating signatures from at least 300 delegates, with no more than 50 from a single state.
If only one candidate — Ms. Harris, in all likelihood — reaches the 300-signature threshold, the virtual roll call vote could take place as soon as Aug. 1, party officials said. If there are multiple candidates, the voting would take place days later but be completed by Aug. 7.
The rules committee of the convention is scheduled to meet Wednesday to set a date for the party’s roll call vote.
| By Reid J. Epstein
July 22, 2024
The Democratic Party will choose its presidential nominee in an online vote by Aug. 7, Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Monday on a call with reporters. A date for that vote has not yet been set.
His proclamation follows the party’s rapid consolidation behind Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Biden. Minyon Moore, the chair of the party’s convention, said the nominating process would be “swift, transparent and fair.” She added that a contested nominating fight with voting at the convention was not possible | given the constraints of state ballot deadlines.
“An in-person contested convention simply cannot accommodate the potential of a multi-round nomination process for the presidential nominee who then must select a vice-presidential nominee and still meet the ballot access certification requirements in each of the states necessary for the Democratic path to victory,” Ms. Moore said.
Party officials on the call said the nominee for vice president could be in place by Aug. 7 as well, though they said the presidential nominee — which at this point is all but certain to be Ms. Harris — would have input on when the running mate is selected and voted upon by delegates.
Nominating a presidential candidate during a virtual vote weeks before the party’s delegates convene in Chicago on Aug. 19 will relegate the convention to a purely ceremonial function.
Veronica Martinez Roman, the D.N.C.’s party affairs director, said the 4,600 delegates will be asked if they wish to opt in to receive messages from candidates who apply with the party to run for president, though the list of delegates will not be provided to candidates. Candidates can qualify for the ballot if they acquire nominating signatures from at least 300 delegates, with no more than 50 from a single state.
If only one candidate — Ms. Harris, in all likelihood — reaches the 300-signature threshold, the virtual roll call vote could take place as soon as Aug. 1, party officials said. If there are multiple candidates, the voting would take place days later but be completed by Aug. 7.
The rules committee of the convention is scheduled to meet Wednesday to set a date for the party’s roll call vote.
|
Congress Leaders Agree to Form Task Force on Trump Assassination Attempt.txt | By Luke Broadwater
Reporting from Washington
July 23, 2024, 7:50 a.m. ET
Speaker Mike Johnson and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, have struck a deal to form a bipartisan task force to lead the congressional investigations into the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump.
The two leaders planned to announce their deal for the task force, which would be led by Republicans who control the House but would be nearly evenly divided between them and Democrats, later Tuesday morning.
“The security failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life are shocking,” Mr. Johnson, of Louisiana, and Mr. Jeffries, of New York, said in a joint statement. “The task force will be empowered with subpoena authority and will move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and make certain such failures never happen again.”
The task force, which they said was being stood up “in response to bipartisan demands for answers,” is to be made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats. That is an uncommonly narrow split in the House, where the majority usually gives itself a substantial partisan edge on committees to ensure that its side maintains a firm grip on power.
When the Democratic-led House formed a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, for instance, Democrats initially gave themselves eight seats and Republicans five — though the G.O.P. largely boycotted that panel, and only two Republicans ended up serving on it.
Legislation to form the task force to investigate the Trump assassination attempt is expected to be approved by the full House on Wednesday. The goal would be to detail exactly what went wrong during the attempted assassination, ensure accountability and prevent such a failure from happening again.
At the completion of its investigation, the task force would recommend reforms to government agencies and potentially legislation.
The investigation of the assassination attempt has become a rare issue of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill. On Monday, the top Republican and Democrat on the Oversight Committee sent a joint letter calling on the Secret Service director to resign after a hearing in which members of both parties were harshly critical of her leadership.
Luke Broadwater covers Congress with a focus on congressional investigations. More about Luke Broadwater
See more on: Mike Johnson, U.S. House of Representatives, Donald Trump, U.S. Politics
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Luke Broadwater
Reporting from Washington
July 23, 2024, 7:50 a.m. ET
Speaker Mike Johnson and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, have struck a deal to form a bipartisan task force to lead the congressional investigations into the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump.
The two leaders planned to announce their deal for the task force, which would be led by Republicans who control the House but would be nearly evenly divided between them and Democrats, later Tuesday morning.
“The security failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life are | shocking,” Mr. Johnson, of Louisiana, and Mr. Jeffries, of New York, said in a joint statement. “The task force will be empowered with subpoena authority and will move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and make certain such failures never happen again.”
The task force, which they said was being stood up “in response to bipartisan demands for answers,” is to be made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats. That is an uncommonly narrow split in the House, where the majority usually gives itself a substantial partisan edge on committees to ensure that its side maintains a firm grip on power.
When the Democratic-led House formed a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, for instance, Democrats initially gave themselves eight seats and Republicans five — though the G.O.P. largely boycotted that panel, and only two Republicans ended up serving on it.
Legislation to form the task force to investigate the Trump assassination attempt is expected to be approved by the full House on Wednesday. The goal would be to detail exactly what went wrong during the attempted assassination, ensure accountability and prevent such a failure from happening again.
At the completion of its investigation, the task force would recommend reforms to government agencies and potentially legislation.
The investigation of the assassination attempt has become a rare issue of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill. On Monday, the top Republican and Democrat on the Oversight Committee sent a joint letter calling on the Secret Service director to resign after a hearing in which members of both parties were harshly critical of her leadership.
Luke Broadwater covers Congress with a focus on congressional investigations. More about Luke Broadwater
See more on: Mike Johnson, U.S. House of Representatives, Donald Trump, U.S. Politics
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
In My Defense ….txt | By Caitlin Lovinger
July 20, 2024
Jump to: Tricky Clues | Today’s Theme
SUNDAY PUZZLE — In his print introduction to this grid, Joel Fagliano writes: “John Ewbank is a scientific writer based in Macclesfield, England. This is the rare example of a puzzle where writing the theme clues took a similar amount of time to making the grid. John would like to put it on record that ‘people who don’t like this puzzle smell bad and want to dumb down the crossword to the point where a 5-year-old could solve it.’”
I’m going to call this puzzle a doozy and confess that there was a moment when I nearly gave up, but I hope the rest of you will give it a chance before declaring the theme too obscure. If you become interested, it’s an entryway into a fascinating topic.
Today’s Theme
There are six entries in this theme set, at 22-, 30-, 47-, 65-, 85- and 101-Across. They culminate in a revealer entry at 114-Across that was integral to my figuring out this theme, rather than just being a cherry on top. The clues here are witty to the max: Each is a humorous depiction of a specific term that makes its solution.
The theme will immediately delight a subset of solvers — philosophers and debaters, rejoice — but I was clueless and had never heard most of the terms. So I floundered until I filled in the bottom right corner of the grid, and with it, the revealer. [Part of a flawed argument, examples of which are seen throughout this puzzle], 114-Across, solves to LOGICAL FALLACY. I knew this concept, at least, so some of the clues started to make sense.
Take 30-Across, [Why was this chosen as today’s puzzle? Because it’s great! What makes it great? I mean, it was chosen for publication!]. This is a simple case of CIRCULAR REASONING, which popped into my head with a few letters in place from crossing entries. Something clicked, which gave me confidence in my guess for 85-Across, [If you criticize this puzzle, where will it end? Before long, you’ll be criticizing your mother’s cooking!]. This is a SLIPPERY SLOPE argument (although there’s also a bit of a red herring, because what does anyone’s cooking have to do with anything?).
On the other hand, this theme’s span entry at 65-Across is spectacularly brutal; I’ll add “West Wing” fanatics and knowers of Latin to the pool of people who could fill this, but I was stumped. [What’s more, one of those friends won the lottery right after solving it — coincidence? I think not!] is an instance of POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC, or “after this, therefore because of this.”
Tricky Clues
19A. “Hey, puzzle,” I said, “a tough theme like this one usually comes with some soft clues to even things out.” The puzzle’s reply: [ “Oh, really?,” informally]. This solves to IZZAT SO, which is emphatically difficult fill.
28A. [Mars, a star] has to do with fame, not astronomy. It’s a reference to the singer BRUNO Mars.
74A. I needed crossing letters to answer this one, and then I couldn’t read this clue and its answer without saying them aloud. [“Capeesh?”] sounds Italian to me, and its entry — YHEAR — absolutely does not.
17D. D’oh, this entry makes sense when you get it. [What Homer Simpson gives to Marge as jewelry] is for nothing less than a marriage proposal, which is sealed with a kiss and an ONION RING. Marge is a saint!
77D. It’s lovely that this clue — [Story with many dimensions?] — sounds like a complex novel like “Cloud Atlas,” for example, but solves to something that literally adds a third dimension to its presentation: a POP-UP BOOK.
84D. I racked my brain over this: [Number in a recap], in this puzzle, is STAT. This entry always first strikes me as meaning urgently, from the Latin “statim,” instead of being short for statistic, which might be mentioned in a recap of a sporting event.
Constructor Notes
I had a list of logical fallacies on my phone for a long time, but it took me ages to figure out a way to make something that wasn’t just a boring list. Eventually I had the idea of defining the fallacies using examples (which is usually the best way of explaining them anyway) and then adding a meta-twist of defending the puzzle from criticism. It would have been nice to squeeze in a couple of other classics like ad hominem (attacking the person making the argument instead of the argument itself) and straw man (misrepresenting the argument so you can attack it more easily), but alas, there wasn’t space.
NO TRUE SCOTSMAN was new to me — it’s a way of defending a sweeping generalization (“No Scotsmen put sugar on their porridge”) from a counter (“But my uncle Hamish does”) by subtly shifting the goal posts (“But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge”). And, like all fans of “The West Wing,” I know that POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC means that President Bartlet didn’t lose Texas because of the hat joke.
Don’t Take Offense …
Subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.
Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.
What did you think?
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
| By Caitlin Lovinger
July 20, 2024
Jump to: Tricky Clues | Today’s Theme
SUNDAY PUZZLE — In his print introduction to this grid, Joel Fagliano writes: “John Ewbank is a scientific writer based in Macclesfield, England. This is the rare example of a puzzle where writing the theme clues took a similar amount of time to making the grid. John would like to put it on record that ‘people who don’t like this puzzle smell bad and want to dumb down the crossword to the point where a 5-year-old could | solve it.’”
I’m going to call this puzzle a doozy and confess that there was a moment when I nearly gave up, but I hope the rest of you will give it a chance before declaring the theme too obscure. If you become interested, it’s an entryway into a fascinating topic.
Today’s Theme
There are six entries in this theme set, at 22-, 30-, 47-, 65-, 85- and 101-Across. They culminate in a revealer entry at 114-Across that was integral to my figuring out this theme, rather than just being a cherry on top. The clues here are witty to the max: Each is a humorous depiction of a specific term that makes its solution.
The theme will immediately delight a subset of solvers — philosophers and debaters, rejoice — but I was clueless and had never heard most of the terms. So I floundered until I filled in the bottom right corner of the grid, and with it, the revealer. [Part of a flawed argument, examples of which are seen throughout this puzzle], 114-Across, solves to LOGICAL FALLACY. I knew this concept, at least, so some of the clues started to make sense.
Take 30-Across, [Why was this chosen as today’s puzzle? Because it’s great! What makes it great? I mean, it was chosen for publication!]. This is a simple case of CIRCULAR REASONING, which popped into my head with a few letters in place from crossing entries. Something clicked, which gave me confidence in my guess for 85-Across, [If you criticize this puzzle, where will it end? Before long, you’ll be criticizing your mother’s cooking!]. This is a SLIPPERY SLOPE argument (although there’s also a bit of a red herring, because what does anyone’s cooking have to do with anything?).
On the other hand, this theme’s span entry at 65-Across is spectacularly brutal; I’ll add “West Wing” fanatics and knowers of Latin to the pool of people who could fill this, but I was stumped. [What’s more, one of those friends won the lottery right after solving it — coincidence? I think not!] is an instance of POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC, or “after this, therefore because of this.”
Tricky Clues
19A. “Hey, puzzle,” I said, “a tough theme like this one usually comes with some soft clues to even things out.” The puzzle’s reply: [ “Oh, really?,” informally]. This solves to IZZAT SO, which is emphatically difficult fill.
28A. [Mars, a star] has to do with fame, not astronomy. It’s a reference to the singer BRUNO Mars.
74A. I needed crossing letters to answer this one, and then I couldn’t read this clue and its answer without saying them aloud. [“Capeesh?”] sounds Italian to me, and its entry — YHEAR — absolutely does not.
17D. D’oh, this entry makes sense when you get it. [What Homer Simpson gives to Marge as jewelry] is for nothing less than a marriage proposal, which is sealed with a kiss and an ONION RING. Marge is a saint!
77D. It’s lovely that this clue — [Story with many dimensions?] — sounds like a complex novel like “Cloud Atlas,” for example, but solves to something that literally adds a third dimension to its presentation: a POP-UP BOOK.
84D. I racked my brain over this: [Number in a recap], in this puzzle, is STAT. This entry always first strikes me as meaning urgently, from the Latin “statim,” instead of being short for statistic, which might be mentioned in a recap of a sporting event.
Constructor Notes
I had a list of logical fallacies on my phone for a long time, but it took me ages to figure out a way to make something that wasn’t just a boring list. Eventually I had the idea of defining the fallacies using examples (which is usually the best way of explaining them anyway) and then adding a meta-twist of defending the puzzle from criticism. It would have been nice to squeeze in a couple of other classics like ad hominem (attacking the person making the argument instead of the argument itself) and straw man (misrepresenting the argument so you can attack it more easily), but alas, there wasn’t space.
NO TRUE SCOTSMAN was new to me — it’s a way of defending a sweeping generalization (“No Scotsmen put sugar on their porridge”) from a counter (“But my uncle Hamish does”) by subtly shifting the goal posts (“But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge”). And, like all fans of “The West Wing,” I know that POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC means that President Bartlet didn’t lose Texas because of the hat joke.
Don’t Take Offense …
Subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.
Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.
What did you think?
Site Index
Site Information Navigation
© 2024 The New York Times Company
NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioYour Ad ChoicesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.