Members phkrause Posted July 17 Author Members Share Posted July 17 July 17, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the Democratic Party’s unresolved Biden dilemma — as well as the Republican convention, a Senate conviction and California’s new gender law. President Biden last week. Doug Mills/The New York Times Self over party What happens when a politician’s interest diverges from his party’s interests? That’s the question facing the Democratic Party, and it is the subject of today’s newsletter. President Biden has survived the initial fallout from his shocking debate performance last month, and the momentum against him within the Democratic Party appears to have slowed. But the party’s basic problem is unchanged: His presence on the ballot seems likely to hurt the Democrats’ chances of beating Donald Trump this fall — and hurt the party’s chances of controlling Congress. Among the evidence: In public appearances, Biden continues to confuse facts, and he struggles to make clear arguments for his candidacy. About 75 percent of voters say he is too old to be president, polls show. Most Democratic voters don’t want him to be the nominee, polls also show. His approval rating is below 40 percent, worse than any modern president who has gone on to win re-election. Notably, in every battleground state that has a Senate race this year, the Democratic Senate candidate is winning, and Biden is losing: Source: RealClearPolling | By The New York Times In an earlier era, when the country’s political parties were stronger, Democratic officials might have forced Biden from the race. In 1974, senior Republicans famously persuaded Richard Nixon to resign. In 1944, when Franklin Roosevelt was ailing, Democratic power brokers ousted his Soviet-friendly vice president, Henry Wallace, from the ticket and replaced him with Harry Truman. Today, the parties are weaker, and Democratic officials seem loath to confront Biden. (Daniel Schlozman, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, argued in a recent Times Opinion essay that Democratic delegates do have the power to replace Biden.) For now, Democrats find themselves with a nominee whom most of them don’t want, and they don’t know what to do about it. Polls, misrepresented Near the end of Biden’s press conference last week, he gave an answer that highlighted the difference between his own interests and his party’s. It came after a reporter asked him about the possibility that Vice President Kamala Harris would replace him on the ticket. “If your team came back and showed you data that she would fare better against former President Donald Trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race?” the reporter, Haley Bull of Scripps News, asked. Biden replied: “No, unless they came back and said, ‘There’s no way you can win.’ Me. No one is saying that. No poll says that.” Vice President Kamala Harris at a town hall in Philadelphia on Saturday. Erin Schaff/The New York Times It’s worth unpacking that response. Biden did not reply that he was the Democrat most likely to win. Indeed, he suggested he might remain in the race even if it helped Trump. He named an impossibly high bar — certainty of defeat — for quitting. Four years ago, Biden probably was the Democrat with the best chance to beat Trump. Polls showed that Biden was a stronger candidate than his main primary rivals. But his standing has significantly weakened since then, as my colleague Nate Cohn has documented. The 2024 Biden no longer represents the promise of change. He is an unpopular and visibly aged incumbent. Another telling sign is that Biden tends to misrepresent polls when he talks about them. He claimed in last week’s press conference that he beats Trump “all the time” in polls of likely voters. That is false; Trump tends to win polls of likely voters. Biden has also described the race as “a tossup”; most analysts disagree and consider Trump the favorite. At other times, Biden alleges that the polls are simply wrong, without explanation. (Related: My colleagues report that Biden’s circle of confidants has shrunk in the past few weeks to a tiny group of loyalists.) With all this said, there is at least one very good argument for why Biden should remain the nominee. He won the primaries, in a rout. “Look, 14 million people voted for me to be the nominee,” he told NBC News this week. His critics can make counterarguments, though: that Biden minimized his public appearances before the primaries to hide his aging — and that Americans can’t unsee his debate performance. These changed circumstances explain why 20 congressional Democrats have called on him to quit and many more privately hope he does. “If he is our nominee, I think we lose,” Adam Schiff, a House Democrat running for Senate in California, said at a fund-raiser last weekend. R.B.G. syndrome Many Democrats are haunted by a recent experience with another member of their party who refused to retire. Early in Barack Obama’s second term, Ruth Bader Ginsburg could have resigned from the Supreme Court and allowed Obama (and the Democratic-controlled Senate) to replace her. But she rejected pleas to do so, sometimes using dubious justifications. She claimed, for instance, that a similarly liberal justice couldn’t have been confirmed, even though the first justice Obama named to the court — Sonia Sotomayor — was arguably more liberal than Ginsburg. The real explanation seemed to be that she enjoyed her powerful job, much as Biden does. She prioritized her personal interests over her political values. She risked policy changes she abhorred — like the demise of Roe v. Wade, causing the loss of abortion access for millions of women — to keep her job well into her 80s. For Ginsburg’s fellow progressives, the result was tragic. Biden is evidently hoping that his similar decision leads to a different outcome. More on Biden Democratic officials are divided about whether to nominate Biden before their convention or allow potential challenges. Biden is considering endorsing changes to the Supreme Court, including term limits and a binding ethics code. The proposals would need congressional approval, making them a long shot. Illegal border crossings dropped sharply in June after Biden restricted asylum, falling to the lowest monthly total since he took office. THE LATEST NEWS Republican Convention Nikki Haley Kenny Holston/The New York Times Crime and immigration were common themes on Night 2 of the Republican convention. “We are facing an invasion on our southern border — not figuratively, a literal invasion,” Senator Ted Cruz said. (Here is a fact check.) The party has tried to project a theme of national unity since the shooting, but the pivot has been uneven. Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia said the country would “become totally unhinged” if Trump didn’t win. While Justice, who is running for Senate, delivered his speech, his 60-pound bulldog Babydog sat onstage in an armchair. Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis both spoke, showcasing Republican Party unity. Haley made a pitch to Trump-skeptical voters, saying, “You don’t have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him.” Some attendees wore white bandages on their right ears, mimicking Trump’s. More on the Campaign Many Hispanic voters support Trump’s immigration plan, though some don’t believe he would carry out his furthest-reaching pledges, such as placing undocumented people in camps. In a leaked phone call with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump voiced anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and described his phone call with Biden after the shooting as “very nice, actually.” The Trump Shooting The Butler Farm Show grounds in Pennsylvania. Kristian Thacker for The New York Times Local police officers were stationed inside and around the warehouse complex from which a gunman shot Trump, the head of the Secret Service said. Before last weekend’s shooting, U.S. intelligence agencies warned the Trump campaign of an unrelated Iranian plot to assassinate him. In Trump’s survival, some Republicans see God’s handiwork. Menendez Trial A federal jury convicted Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, of participating in an international bribery scheme. Top Democrats called for him to resign. Menendez used the power of his office to help Egypt’s government and two businessmen in exchange for lavish gifts like gold bars and a Mercedes for his wife. The jury also convicted the businessmen. Menendez is the first sitting senator to be convicted of acting as a foreign agent. He’ll be sentenced in October. He could face years in prison. Israel-Hamas War Hamas military commanders are pressuring the group’s leader in Gaza to accept a cease-fire and release hostages, the C.I.A. director said. Israeli strikes killed more than 20 people in separate parts of Gaza. Israel said militants had been operating inside a former U.N. school that it struck. A high-risk Israeli hostage rescue last month led to one of the war’s deadliest days. See how it unfolded, moment by moment. More International News Clashes in the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters Bangladesh deployed its border guard to quell violent student protests over a job quota system that young people say limits opportunities. The Justice Department charged a former C.I.A. analyst with aiding South Korean spies in exchange for luxury handbags and clothing. Six people, including two Americans, were found dead in a hotel room in Thailand. The police initially said they appeared to have been poisoned, but later walked that back. Other Big Stories California banned schools from forcing educators to notify parents when students use different names or pronouns. Elon Musk said he would move the headquarters of X and SpaceX from California to Texas in protest. Home and auto insurers are losing money to wildfires. They want new construction standards — and they’re burning buildings to prove their point. A fireball, then a boom: A meteor about the size of a toaster passed over Manhattan and exploded high in the sky. Opinions Biden’s poll numbers look bad, but Democrats’ doomsday thinking goes too far: This election is not a foregone conclusion, writes Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster. Let’s appreciate anchovies, which have transformed simple dishes and gourmet food since the Roman Empire, Christopher Beckman writes. Here are columns by Bret Stephens on Trump’s success and Michelle Goldberg on Trump’s shooter. MORNING READS Ko Maung Saungkha holds a book of poetry. Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times Artists at war: A rebel commander in Myanmar has raised an army of 1,000 soldiers. But his background is not military — it’s poetry. Flying ant day: Every summer, winged insects swarm Britain. Their moment is coming. Here be dragons: A journey across Switzerland following strangers’ hand-drawn maps. Lives Lived: The actor James B. Sikking specialized in comically and threateningly stern men, most notably on “Hill Street Blues” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” He died at 90. SPORTS M.L.B.: The American League won the All-Star Game, thanks to relentless pitching. But the highlight of the night was Shohei Ohtani’s home run. See it here. M.L.B. draft: Boston added a familiar face: D’Angelo Ortiz, son of the Red Sox legend David Ortiz. N.F.L.: The San Francisco 49ers’ star wide receiver, Brandon Aiyuk, requested a trade just a week before training camp begins. Read a recap. Soccer: The U.S. women’s national team scuffled to a 0-0 draw against Costa Rica in its last match before the Olympics. Why aren’t the Americans scoring? ARTS AND IDEAS Jonathon Heyward Braylen Dion for The New York Times Jonathon Heyward, the 31-year-old maestro known for his Converse sneakers, is trying to make classical music more approachable. Heyward has led the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to expand its repertoire and appeal. A recent performance paid tribute to the victims of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, with a program that combined somber classical works and pieces by local artists including the hip-hop performer Wordsmith. “We want everyone to feel welcome here,” Heyward told The Times. Next up for him: taking over Lincoln Center’s summer ensemble. More on culture The country singer Ingrid Andress, whose rendition of the national anthem before the Home Run Derby this week was widely panned, said she was drunk at the time and would be going to rehab. Jack Black announced that his band, Tenacious D, was canceling the rest of its tour after a bandmate joked about the Trump shooting onstage in Australia. Marvel changed an Israeli superhero’s back story, describing her as a “high-ranking U.S. government official” for its upcoming film. On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart razzed his guest (and longtime foil) Bill O’Reilly. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Grill shrimp with this simple recipe. Watch these hidden gems on streaming services. Find the jeans that fit you best. See the most popular Prime Day deals according to Wirecutter readers. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was wizardry. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David P.S. After 12 years, Pete Wells is moving on from his role as The Times’s restaurant critic. He reflected on the job — and showed his face — in a farewell column. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted July 19 Author Members Share Posted July 19 July 18, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering Republicans’ false claim about immigration and crime — as well as growing momentum against Biden, a mayor’s swim in the Seine and Emmy nominations. Migrants waiting to be taken to a shelter in Chicago. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times Immigrants and crime Throughout the first three days of the Republican National Convention, officials have highlighted a surge in what they call “migrant crime.” President Biden “has welcomed into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists, and the price that we have paid has been deadly,” Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas claimed last night. The day before, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said, “Every day, Americans are dying” in crimes committed by migrants. Donald Trump has made similar remarks on the campaign trail. But there is no migrant crime surge. In fact, U.S. rates of crime and immigration have moved in opposite directions in recent years. After illegal immigration plummeted in 2020, the murder rate rose. And after illegal immigration spiked in 2021 and 2022, murders plateaued and then fell. Over a longer period, there is no relationship between immigration and crime trends. The number of foreign-born Americans has increased for decades, while the murder rate has gone up and down at different times, as these charts by my colleague Ashley Wu show: Source: U.S. Census Bureau; American Community Survey; Jeff Asher, F.B.I. | By The New York Times Yes, some migrants have committed violent crimes. There are more than 45 million immigrants in the U.S., and invariably some of them — just like people of any other group — will do bad things. Similarly, thousands of native-born Americans commit violent crimes in any given week. Trump and other Republicans have suggested that immigrants are especially likely to be criminals. They point to a few anecdotes. But the data shows the opposite: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes. There are genuine issues with the border and illegal immigration, but more crime is not one of them. More migrants, less crime If more immigration led to more crime, you would expect that crime rates would spike along with immigration flows, locally and nationally. The statistics would show that migrants were disproportionately likely to commit criminal or violent acts. Instead, the opposite is true. New York, Chicago and Denver have had an influx of immigrants in the past couple years. Over that same period, murder rates in those cities have fallen. Similarly, border counties in Texas have lower violent crime rates than the state and country overall, the crime analyst Jeff Asher has found. The individual crimes committed by migrants that Trump and his allies highlight simply do not add up to a bigger trend. In reality, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the U.S. Immigrants have had lower incarceration rates — a measure for crime — than native-born Americans for at least 150 years, a recent study concluded. Undocumented immigrants have lower felony arrest rates than legal immigrants or native-born Americans, another study found. Why? Consider migrants’ motives. Many risk their lives by crossing dangerous jungles, rivers and deserts through Latin America to reach the U.S. so they can find better jobs that offer higher pay. In many cases, they are fleeing crime and violence back home. If they came here illegally, they have an incentive to avoid trouble with the law so they do not get caught by the authorities and deported. The bottom line People have legitimate reasons to be frustrated with illegal immigration and to worry about what happens at the border. Liberal mayors have learned as much in the past few years; the surge of illegal immigrants to their cities has drained public resources, particularly housing. A porous border also contributes to security concerns, such as the flow of fentanyl and the risk of terrorism. When an undocumented immigrant does commit a crime, it can lead to a sense of lawlessness and chaos. But more immigration has not caused more crime. The myth that crime is up can perpetuate stereotypes and racism. Immigrants who arrived in New York recently told The Times that local residents were often hostile. They make rude comments under their breath or move away in subway cars. One Venezuelan lamented that people now saw all migrants in the same way: “violent.” Related: The brother of a woman killed on a scenic trail — a crime in which an undocumented immigrant has been arrested — spoke at the Republican convention. More from the Republican convention Senator J.D. Vance Todd Heisler/The New York Times Accepting the vice-presidential nomination, Senator J.D. Vance recounted growing up poor in a working-class Ohio town that he said had been “cast aside” by Biden and other politicians. “I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from,” he said. Vance also sounded economically populist notes, criticizing big corporations and praising “the working man, union and nonunion alike.” Here are more takeaways from Night 3. The speech didn’t mention abortion. Vance has supported a national ban and opposed exceptions for rape and incest. Usha Vance, his wife, spoke about meeting him in law school, poked fun at his beard and described him as a “meat and potatoes kind of guy” who nevertheless learned to cook Indian food for her mother. Donald Trump Jr., who spoke before Vance, aggressively criticized Biden. He has become a major figure in the party, building what he calls a “MAGA bench for the future.” Antisemitism was another theme of the night. A Harvard graduate endorsed Trump’s call to deport foreign students who harass Jewish students. The parents of a Hamas-held American-Israeli hostage chanted “bring them home.” How well do you know Milwaukee, the city hosting the convention? Take our quiz. The late night hosts joked about Vance and Nikki Haley backing away from their opposition to Trump. THE LATEST NEWS President Biden President Biden Eric Lee/The New York Times Biden tested positive for Covid while campaigning in Nevada and has mild symptoms. “Doing well,” he said after flying back to Delaware. Biden has become more open to hearing arguments about why he should leave the race, after Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic congressional leaders, privately expressed lawmakers’ concerns. In an interview, Biden said he’d consider stepping aside if his doctors told him he had a medical condition. The Democratic National Committee delayed an expedited plan to nominate Biden. Representative Adam Schiff said Biden should drop out. Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say Biden should step aside, according to a new poll. Jeffrey Katzenberg, a co-chairman of Biden’s campaign, told the president that donors had stopped giving. Some are calling lawmakers to persuade Biden to drop out. The Trump campaign declined to agree to a date for a vice-presidential debate, saying that doing so before the Democratic convention would be unfair to “whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate.” The Trump Shooting The gunman who tried to assassinate Trump searched for the dates of Trump events and the Democratic National Convention, the F.B.I. told Congress. The F.B.I. has found no evidence that the shooter held strong partisan views. A former classmate said he disdained politicians in both parties. Local police at Trump’s rally saw the gunman acting suspiciously and circulated a photo of him, though they did not know he had a weapon. The Secret Service let Trump go onstage despite the threat. A Times investigation, constructed from videos and photos taken at the rally, shows how law enforcement failed to stop the shooting. International Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris. James Hill for The New York Times The mayor of Paris swam in the Seine, to prove that the river was clean enough to host Olympic events. Milan’s main airport is now named after Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-prone former prime minister. Left-leaning lawmakers are protesting. Officials in Spain hoped an algorithm could predict how much danger victims of domestic violence were in. Some women they sent home on its recommendation were killed. Other Big Stories Damage from storms in Rome, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The New York Times Four tornadoes swept through upstate New York, destroying buildings and killing at least one person. Vaccines significantly reduce the risk of long Covid, researchers reported. Here’s what you need to know. Two Canadians died, and 10 others fell sick, from listeria in plant-based milk substitutes. The authorities recalled products from two brands, Silk and Great Value. The police arrested a Brooklyn councilwoman who they said had bitten a police chief during a protest. The Navy posthumously exonerated hundreds of Black sailors who were punished in the 1940s because they objected to unsafe conditions after a port explosion. A spade-toothed whale washed ashore dead in New Zealand. It’s the world’s rarest whale species: Scientists have never seen one alive. Opinions The New York Times As Americans consider electing Trump to a second term, Times Opinion created a timeline of his first four years — an era of lies, violence and chaos. The Olympics should reverse its decision to welcome Afghanistan, whose female athletes live in exile, Friba Rezayee writes. In the 1990s, tabloids tore apart Shannen Doherty. In hindsight, she wasn’t volatile or difficult; she was just a young women enjoying fame, Jennifer Weiner writes. Here are columns by Carlos Lozada on Trump’s call to “Fight!” and Nicholas Kristof on Biden loyalists. MORNING READS Michelle Groskopf for The New York Times Matter of taste: In an era of viral hybrid pastries, the plain croissant is still the best croissant. Swirls of color: Scientists scanned the brains of people on psychedelic drugs. The results were trippy. City with a female face: A community in Vienna was designed specifically to benefit women. Lives Lived: Renauld White walked the runways for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan and was the first Black American model to appear on a GQ cover. He died at 80. SPORTS W.N.B.A.: Caitlin Clark set a league record with 19 assists against the Dallas Wings. Soccer: Philadelphia Union’s Cavan Sullivan, 14, became the youngest player to appear in an M.L.S. game. Golf: The Open Championship teed off this morning at Royal Troon, Scotland. All eyes are on Rory McIlroy, whose recent collapse at the U.S. Open was crushing for fans — especially those in his hometown. ARTS AND IDEAS Hiroyuki Sanada in a scene from “Shogun.” Katie Yu/FX, via Associated Press Two FX series topped this year’s Emmy nominations. “Shogun,” a period drama set in Japan, received 25 nods, while the tense restaurant workplace comedy “The Bear” had 23. Some other highlights: The 23 nominations for “The Bear” are the most ever for a comedy, beating a record that “30 Rock” set in 2009. HBO trailed Netflix and FX in total nominations. It hasn’t been third since 1996, before “The Sopranos” or “Sex and the City” had premiered. See the full list of nominees, and the shows that our critic felt got snubbed. More on culture Sotheby’s sold an unusually complete stegosaurus fossil for $44.6 million — 10 times the estimated price. A new album from Childish Gambino, Donald Glover’s rap project, comes out tomorrow. It will be his last under that name. The armorer on the film “Rust,” sentenced to 18 months over a fatal shooting on the set, is requesting a new trial after the collapse of the case against Alec Baldwin. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Combine a few pantry staples for a satisfying angel hair pasta. Celebrate “summerween,” an excuse to get spooky in July. Pack for a three-day trip with one small bag. Grow a lush garden using these steel tubs. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was uninvited. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —German Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted July 21 Author Members Share Posted July 21 July 19, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Today, we’re covering Trump’s speech and Biden’s candidacy — as well as a global tech outage, Bob Newhart and a young chess prodigy. Donald Trump onstage at the Republican National Convention. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times A tumultuous day American politics was more stable for the past half-century than it had been for most of the country’s history. Incumbent presidents often won re-election. No major political figure was assassinated. The two parties’ basic ideologies and coalitions remained similar. But yesterday’s remarkable events — in both Washington and Milwaukee, among both Democrats and Republicans — showed how unstable our politics have become. During the day, attention focused on the turmoil in the Democratic Party, as senior Democrats intensified their efforts to push President Biden out of the presidential race, believing that he is too visibly aged to win re-election. Biden himself has begun to accept the idea that he may have to drop out of the race, people close to him told The Times. At night, Donald Trump took the stage to accept the Republican presidential nomination — only five days after he was nearly killed by a gunman, two months after he was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York and three and a half years after he attempted to overturn the last presidential election. Trump gave a speech that was both personal and rambling and that highlighted how different he is from any other recent president. He also demonstrated how he transformed the party over the past decade into a populist-sounding, antiwar, immigration-skeptical movement that Ronald Reagan would hardly recognize. (Watch my colleague Maggie Haberman break down the speech in this short video.) It remains unclear how much Trump would govern as a populist, of course. His proposed policies are a mix of actually populist (like trade restrictions) and laissez-faire (like a large tax cut for the affluent). But these questions underscore the new political uncertainty. On the Democratic side, the short-term turmoil is greater yet. The chances that Biden will drop out have clearly surged in the past couple of days. But the outcome remains uncertain. If he does quit the race, will the party quickly support Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee? Or will the situation be more typical of historical conventions when the nominee was unclear, with a messy, competitive process in which multiple candidates make their cases to delegates? President Biden in Nevada this week. Eric Lee/The New York Times Regardless, it now seems likely Biden will not be the person who takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2025. That would mean that two consecutive presidents — Trump in 2020, Biden in 2024 — left office before they wanted to, when they were eligible to serve another four years. The last time the country experienced such back-to-back presidencies was more than 40 years ago, with Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, during the chaotic years of Watergate and oil crises. In the rest of today’s newsletter, we’ll highlight the key moments from Trump’s speech and update you on the latest Biden developments. Trump’s speech: Trump began his speech by recounting the attempt on his life in detail. He also called for unity and pledged to be “president for all of America, not half of America.” But he soon reverted to stoking divisions and attacking rivals. Trump accused Democrats of “destroying our country,” compared migrants to Hannibal Lecter, praised autocratic leaders and called Nancy Pelosi crazy. He also falsely claimed that Democrats “used Covid to cheat” in the 2020 election. Here’s a fact-check of the speech, and a full transcript. Onstage were a firefighter’s jacket and helmet that belonged to Corey Comperatore, the rally-goer killed in the shooting. During the speech, Trump walked over to the helmet and kissed it. More on the convention: Kenny Holston/The New York Times The wrestler Hulk Hogan, who spoke before Trump, ripped open his shirt to reveal a “Trump-Vance” tank top. Tucker Carlson, who amplified 2020 election conspiracy theories before Fox News fired him, said in an unscripted speech that Trump aimed to “return democracy to the United States.” Much of the convention sought to project a softer image of Trump. Multiple speakers — including his eldest granddaughter — described him as compassionate and focused on others. Times Opinion writers picked the best and worst moments from Trump’s speech. The move against Biden Some senior Biden officials say that other Democrats’ growing doubts have made his exit inevitable, even as his campaign still insists he will be the nominee. Biden has argued privately that he has a better chance of beating Trump than Harris does, though he has recently seemed interested in how she could win. More Democrats are defecting. Jon Tester, a vulnerable senator, urged Biden to drop out. Representative Jamie Raskin sent him a letter this month comparing him to a tiring baseball pitcher. Joe Scarborough, a Biden ally who hosts “Morning Joe,” suggested Biden’s aides should push him out. The Biden campaign has reached out to Democratic convention delegates to ensure their support. Some remain privately concerned. Biden remained in Delaware with Covid yesterday. He was taking the drug Paxlovid and had respiratory symptoms, his doctor said. THE LATEST NEWS More on The Trump Shooting The F.B.I. is sorting through digital remnants of the man who tried to assassinate Trump, including phone data that shows he may have scoped out the scene of the rally days earlier. Speaker Mike Johnson said Biden should fire Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director, over security failures before the shooting. Read a profile of her. Hundreds of people attended a public visitation for Comperatore, the Trump supporter killed at the rally. Tech Outage A crowd at Berlin Brandenburg Airport this morning. Christoph Soeder/DPA, via Associated Press A tech outage has disrupted computer systems around the world. Several major airlines, including American, United and Delta, grounded all flights. The outage interrupted 9-1-1 services around the U.S., and disabled computers at some hospital systems, including Britain’s National Health Service. News broadcasts in France, Australia and Britain were knocked off the air. Follow live updates. Middle East A drone struck a building in central Tel Aviv overnight, killing at least one person. The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia in Yemen, claimed responsibility for the attack. Before the attack, the U.S. imposed sanctions on people and businesses that it said had enabled Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The Rafah crossing, which links Gaza and Egypt, has been closed since May. Doctors say the closure endangers Gazans who need outside medical care. More International News A journalist in Italy was found guilty of defaming the country’s prime minister, whose height the journalist had mocked on social media. Germany’s chancellor has vowed to overhaul the military, but his government has proposed only modest increases in military spending. In a deadly start to Japan’s climbing season, five people have died on Mount Fuji this month. Other Big Stories A federal appeals court blocked the Biden administration’s student loan repayment plan, known as SAVE. Eight million people had enrolled. Ben Sasse is stepping down as president of the University of Florida. Sasse, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, said he needed to devote more attention to his wife, who was diagnosed with epilepsy. Lou Dobbs, the cable news host whose conservative, business-focused programming embraced conspiracy theories and lies over the years, died at 78. Ford will produce gasoline trucks at a Canadian plant, reversing a plan to make electric vehicles there. A fugitive from Oregon was arrested in Georgia, where he had lived for more than a decade under a dead child’s identity. Sixty Siamese crocodiles hatched in the wild last month, a milestone for a species that was nearly extinct in the 1990s. Opinions Treat Trump with compassion. There is a difference between critiquing his policies and dehumanizing him, David French writes. By watering down its stance on abortion, the Republican Party has abandoned the pro-life movement in the name of electoral success, Patrick T. Brown writes. The Republican Party looked youthful at its convention, Tressie McMillan Cottom writes. Here are columns by David Brooks on how Democrats can win, Michelle Goldberg on Biden’s loss of support and Paul Krugman on J.D. Vance. MORNING READS Bodhana Sivanandan Sam Bush for The New York Times Prodigy: A 9-year-old girl who learned chess during the pandemic has become one of England’s best players. Great reads: Times readers chose their own 100 best books of the 21st century. Forgery: A woodblock maker convinced thousands that his art was the work of old masters. But there was one man he couldn’t fool. An ocean office: A Hawaiian surfboard maker’s native knowledge and passion have made his hand-carved creations into works of art. Lives Lived: Cheng Pei Pei trained in ballet and traditional Chinese dance, but found her calling in martial arts films. She was a star of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Cheng died at 78. SPORTS W.N.B.A.: The All-Star Game tomorrow night has an intriguing format: Team W.N.B.A., featuring Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, versus the U.S. Olympic team. Who’s the favorite? N.B.A.: The Denver Nuggets are a front-runner to sign the former M.V.P. Russell Westbrook, who struggled last season with the Los Angeles Clippers. ARTS AND IDEAS An image circulated by Jawliner to promote its gum. Jawliner Young men are buying stiff chewing gum from brands that claim their products will build jaw muscles. The gum — in flavors like Muscle Mango and Jacked Watermelon — has caught on with teenage boys who hope to look more masculine by bulking up their jawlines. Dentists aren’t happy about the trend. More on culture 20th Century Fox Television Bob Newhart, the pioneering comedian whose soft-spoken Everyman routine made him a stand-up sensation and a sitcom mainstay, died at 94. The Kennedy Center announced this year’s honorees, including Bonnie Raitt, Francis Ford Coppola and the Grateful Dead. A French fashion house has released a miniature version of a renowned avant-garde sculpture in the form of a pendant necklace. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Julia Gartland for The New York Times Make a simple tuna pasta, showered with herbs and scallions. Try this 12-minute foot workout. It might make a big difference for how you walk. Keep your houseplants healthy when you’re away. Create shade with a sturdy beach umbrella. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was baptize. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted July 21 Author Members Share Posted July 21 July 20, 2024 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. When the sequel to a movie you adore comes out, it can be an occasion to reaffirm why you love the original. María Jesús Contreras Plot twist It recently came to my attention that several people I count as good friends have been engaged for decades in quietly impassioned romances with the same 1996 summer disaster movie. That movie is “Twister,” the story of a lovably eclectic band of tornado chasers who follow soon-to-be-divorced Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt right into the eye of many storms. It featured a 29-year-old Philip Seymour Hoffman, a storm-tracking device named “Dorothy” and a flying bovine, the sight of which inspires one character to get off the phone with the line: “I gotta go, Julia. We got cows.” One friend said she watched it every single time she happened upon it on cable. Another said he engaged in an annual viewing. A third said it’s her comfort movie when she’s sick or hung over. Each was eager to extol the merits of the film: its all-killer-no-filler action, its special effects, its talented secondary cast (which, in addition to Hoffman, includes Alan Ruck, Jami Gertz, Lois Smith and the Tár director Todd Field). I rewatched “Twister” and was surprised by how much I loved it, how content I was to witness a terrifying series of disasters and still walk away with the warm feeling I’d just watched a movie with a lot of heart. As Janet Maslin wrote in The Times when the movie came out, “Somehow ‘Twister’ stays as uptempo and exuberant as a roller-coaster ride, neatly avoiding the idea of real danger.” This week, “Twisters,” a sequel to “Twister,” directed by Lee Isaac Chung, arrived in theaters. I was nervous to see it. I didn’t have a deep-rooted relationship with the original film, but, fresh off my positive viewing experience, I didn’t feel like I needed another chapter. I wasn’t particularly curious about how today’s technology could make the tornadoes even more realistic — extreme weather and its attendant destruction isn’t a boogeyman, but a daily phenomenon. I was a little skeptical of the other phenomenon featured in the film, the actor Glen Powell, who, coming off buzzy performances in “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Anyone but You” and “Hit Man,” seems to be everywhere at once, like it or not. Why does everything good need to be rebooted? I asked myself on the way into the theater. Why can’t we just make one good thing and then make another new thing that’s also good? Why do we keep reanimating “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”? Why does everyone have to make their own recording of “Landslide”? Maybe it’s because I was feeling newly smitten with the original movie, or maybe it was Chung’s gorgeous depiction of the Oklahoma landscape near where he grew up, or the fact that the new movie shares the same big heart as the old one, but I fell for “Twisters.” As with the first film, I rooted for science over profit. And I rooted for Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones’s inevitable romance as I did Paxton and Hunt’s. As Alissa Wilkinson wrote in her review, “The old-school formula feels refreshing: This is an action-adventure-disaster film filled with ordinary people trying to accomplish extraordinary things.” I’m still not sold on the notion that a sequel or a reboot of a thing we love is always a good idea — I’m still bitter about “Arthur 2: On the Rocks,” and don’t get me started on the 2011 remake with Russell Brand. But I’ll admit to some cautious curiosity about “Freaky Friday 2,” and some real excitement about the upcoming “Spinal Tap II.” Even a sequel that’s sort of terrible can reinforce the love we have for the original thing. That protective feeling we have for works of art that we adore is lovely, a reminder of the joy we get from culture and our ability to engage wholeheartedly with the stuff that moves us. For more “He goes full-on Cracker Barrel as a former bull rider who dodges airborne farm equipment while recklessly driving straight into tornadoes. He then shoots fireworks into the funnel clouds for beer-drankin’ pals to record on video and post online.” Glen Powell is absolutely willing to play the Hollywood game. Judson Jones, The Times’s resident meteorologist, joined researchers chasing tornadoes across Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. From 2019, “The Rise of the Summer Sequel.” “The majority of remakes of classic films have been disasters, financially and artistically.” From 1977, “What Are We to Make of Remakes?” THE WEEK IN CULTURE Emmy Awards FX “The Bear” earned 23 Emmy nominations, a record for a show in the comedy category. But some fans are asking: Is “The Bear” really a comedy? The Times interviewed several nominated actors, including Jon Hamm, for both “Fargo” and “The Morning Show”; Jessica Gunning, for “Baby Reindeer”; and Elizabeth Debicki, who played Princess Diana on “The Crown.” Our TV critics discussed a few shows they were excited to see on the list (““Reservation Dogs”), and others they felt were snubbed (“The Curse”). Read their chat. More Culture Phyllis Kao, a Sotheby’s auctioneer. Sotheby's A stegosaurus fossil sold at a Sotheby’s auction for nearly $45 million. For the crowd watching online, the auctioneer, Phyllis Kao, was as captivating as the bids. Bob Newhart, who died this week at 94, was a founding father of stand-up comedy. But his material isn’t just influential; it’s still funny all these years later, our comedy critic writes. At the Lehmann Maupin gallery in Manhattan, two new exhibitions push the form of street art forward. Documentaries in which people climb very tall things have a strange appeal. Our critic recommends two new entries in the genre. Pete Wells is stepping down as The Times’s food critic. In this audio chat with Melissa Kirsch, he talks about his health, the highs and lows of his beat and leaving a dream job. THE LATEST NEWS President Biden Biden said he planned to return to the campaign trail next week. He is frustrated with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, who he believes are coordinating to push him aside. Behind the scenes, his advisers are discussing the timing of an announcement if he decides to leave the race. Several more House Democrats and two more Democratic senators, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio, called on Biden to drop out. Here’s what they said. Pelosi told colleagues that she favors a “competitive” process to pick a new nominee if Biden drops out, rather than automatically anointing Vice President Kamala Harris. In an hourlong Instagram livestream, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned Democrats against replacing Biden, saying they were discounting his electoral strengths and courting “enormous peril.” A Democratic group urging Biden to drop out will begin airing ads in Washington and Delaware, where he’s isolating with Covid. “You saved democracy in 2020,” the ad says. “Now you have a chance to do it again.” Donald Trump Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times The Republican convention showcased a party unified behind Trump, capping his unlikely political resurrection; 25 million people watched his speech. This one image exemplifies his sway over the party. The gunman who shot Trump tried out for his high school’s rifle team but didn’t shoot well enough to make the squad, a former classmate said. Elon Musk has transformed himself into a fierce Trump ally. Months ago, he told conservative donors that a Biden win would be the end of American democracy. Republicans running for Congress are weighing how to adjust their messaging if Biden drops out. Other Big Stories Malfunctioning kiosks at San Francisco International Airport. Jim Wilson/The New York Times Airlines, banks and other businesses were slowly recovering from a global technology outage. A flawed software update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused the disruption. A cease-fire deal to free Hamas-held hostages held in Gaza is close, Biden administration officials said, though it’s unlikely to happen before Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, addresses Congress next week. Israel’s military is investigating how a Houthi drone evaded its air-defense systems and struck a Tel Aviv apartment building. In a nonbinding opinion, the International Court of Justice said that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem violated international law. A Russian court sentenced Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, to 16 years in a penal colony on espionage charges widely considered fabricated. Sheila Jackson Lee, a House Democrat from Texas who announced last month that she had pancreatic cancer, died at 74. CULTURE CALENDAR By Andrew LaVallee 📚 “The Book of Elsewhere” (Tuesday): Keanu Reeves wrote a book? With the sci-fi novelist China Miéville? Excellent. 🎬 “Deadpool & Wolverine” (Friday): Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman talked to us about how playing Deadpool and Wolverine has changed their lives. While they’ve appeared in movies together, this one puts the two characters front and center. All signs indicate that they’ll be clawing, scratching, shooting and wisecracking to the top of the box office. Snikt! REAL ESTATE Sierra Nguyen in San Francisco. Marissa Leshnov for The New York Times The Hunt: A young woman aimed to buy her first apartment in San Francisco, with a budget of less than $1 million. Which home did she choose? Play our game. What you get for $400,000: A Tudor Revival in Oklahoma City; a condo in a converted warehouse in Mobile, Ala.; and a 1915 American Foursquare house in Omaha, Neb. LIVING Jun Michael Park for The New York Times Lost and found: A writer lost his wallet in London, and received it in the mail in South Korea. Why is it that kind strangers go to such lengths to return wallets? Heat wave: Summer can be a dangerous time. Here are the signs of heat exhaustion, and how to treat it. Cookout: A grill can bring out the best in vegetables. Ali Slagle has five recipes that build on charred veggies. Internet lingo: A once-obscene term has, almost overnight, become a common way to describe performing an activity without a buffer. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER Keep houseplants alive while you’re away You’re about to embark on a vacation. But what about your houseplants? Wirecutter’s experts have advice for keeping them alive when you’re away, and it’s easier than you might think. Water them before you leave, but no more than you usually would. To help them retain moisture, move them a few extra feet away from sources of heat and light, like windows. They may look a little parched upon your return, but as many green-thumb newbies have learned the hard way, many houseplants prefer neglect to being overly cared for. If you’re gone longer than 10 days, though, it’s a good idea to hire some help. — Rose Maura Lorre GAME OF THE WEEK Jack McDonald of Scotland hits out of a bunker at Royal Troon. Tom Shaw/R&A, via Getty Images The Open Championship: The Open (perhaps you know it as the British Open) unfolds this weekend across the narrow fairways — or the in shrubby rough and steep bunkers — of Royal Troon in Scotland. The weather at the Open is often gray, rainy and windy, presenting a challenge for even the best golfers. But this course’s greatest test may be the green on Hole 8, which is so tiny that it’s known as the Postage Stamp. Today and tomorrow at 7 a.m. Eastern on NBC NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were dwelling, welding and wielding. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. —Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted July 21 Author Members Share Posted July 21 July 21, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Today, for a change of pace, we’re answering readers’ questions about this newsletter, and the news in general. We’re also covering the latest from the presidential campaign. Haruka Sakaguchi for The New York Times You ask, we answer We recently asked you — the readers of The Morning — to submit questions to us about this newsletter, recent news or anything else on your minds. We’re devoting today’s edition to some of your questions and our answers. We have room for only a small selection in today’s email, but we’ve posted a longer selection online, including answers from Times journalists who cover a range of subjects, whether it’s Moscow or personal fitness. We enjoyed this project so much that I expect we’ll do it again soon. About The Morning I love The Morning. Every morning when I get up, I make a cup of coffee and open the newsletter. I have one wish: Please resist using the awful phrases “modern history” or “recent history.” They are too vague to mean anything. Be precise! — Mark Matassa David: Thank you. And noted! We try to avoid vague language, and we will think twice before using these phrases now. I grew up surrounded by discussion of language — my mom was a copy editor, my dad a high school French teacher — and I appreciate it when readers write to us with grammar and usage critiques. Keep ’em coming. I would like to see key business/finance news included each morning. — John W. Morris III David: My colleagues and I agree that the newsletter has probably been too light on business news recently. We will aim to change that. Thank you for the nudge, John. I enjoy the mix of information you provide in The Morning. Wondering as an addition if you could add a “Good News” section. — Genie MontBlanc David: I, too, worry that we journalists suffer from bad-news bias. I don’t think The Morning will add a section devoted to good news, but we make a concerted effort to cover both good news and bad news. A couple examples: My colleague German Lopez has written about both rising crime and falling crime. During the Covid pandemic, I argued that the vaccines were a marvel of science whose effectiveness was sometimes underestimated. I should note that good-news stories can lead to criticism. Some readers worry that reporting a positive trend reduces the urgency to address larger problems. But I promise you that we will continue to do our best to report all kinds of news. I would love to know why the sports section is primarily men’s sports. — Kathryn David: It’s almost as if you’ve been listening to our daily meeting, Kathryn. We have recently included more stories about women’s sports. Still, we are nowhere near parity. Some of that reflects the major U.S. sports leagues, which are mostly male. But this is a personal priority for me, partly because I spend many hours watching women’s basketball. We can do better. How do you deal with and guard against criticism that your coverage favors one party or ideology over another? — Thomas K. Moore David: Independence is a core value of The Times. We don’t always get the balance right, but we try hard. I recommend reading this essay on journalistic independence by our publisher, A.G. Sulzberger. President Biden’s age is a relevant case study. Earlier this year, some Democrats criticized The Times for covering his aging and voters’ deep concerns about it. In retrospect, it’s pretty hard to argue that coverage was a mistake. Politics and more The U.S. Capitol. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Will The Morning do a letter discussing national debt ahead of the election? — Lia Robinson David: My colleague German has written a newsletter on precisely this topic. I’d note that the two presidential candidates are quite different on this issue: Donald Trump’s proposed policies would significantly increase the deficit, while Biden’s proposals would reduce it somewhat. Power is never given away freely; it must be taken. Is the browning of America causing more fanatical behavior by Trump and his supporters? — Mark Shoenfield David: Thanks for the sharp question, Mark. The short answer is yes. Trump has used the language of white nationalists, and he has won a large share of the white vote. But I think Trump’s critics are wrong when they suggest his appeal is entirely racial. Since Trump entered politics, voters of color — Asian, Black and Latino — have also shifted toward the Republican Party. If the Democratic Party wants to win back some of those voters (and some white voters, too), it probably needs to be more introspective about why it has become an increasingly affluent party that turns off many working-class people. Too often, Democrats suggest that anyone who doesn’t vote for them is being irrational or ignorant. How do we make people care about the state of our environment? It seems like no one cares, and I often feel frustrated that no one does. — Julia Adams David: I do think many people care, Julia. But you’re right that the environment isn’t a major issue for some voters, including many lower-income voters. One reason, I think, is that the economic and social trends have been pretty disappointing for them over the past few decades. If you’re struggling to get by, it can be difficult to focus on a long-term threat. For more How does The Morning staff make this newsletter every day? How did the WordleBot create its word list? What coffee does Wirecutter recommend? Get the answers to those questions — and insights from Times writers on electric vehicles, Amazon’s labor union, Modi’s India, the changing English language and more — by clicking here. (Note: We edited some questions for brevity.) THE LATEST NEWS 2024 Election President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Eric Lee/The New York Times As Biden weighs whether to drop out of the race, another question follows: Should he endorse Kamala Harris, or open the door for a wider contest? Donald Trump’s campaign is preparing to run against Harris if Biden steps aside, conducting polls to find her weaknesses and creating ads about her record. At his first rally since he was shot, Trump seemed to abandon his pivot to a more unifying message. He insulted his opponents repeatedly, calling Biden stupid and Harris crazy. The Secret Service acknowledged that it had turned down requests for more resources from Trump’s security detail in the two years before his shooting. Trump and the Republican Party raised more money than Biden and the Democrats did last month for the first time in this election. Other Big Stories An oil facility in Yemen. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Israeli fighter jets bombed a port in Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia in retaliation for a drone attack in Tel Aviv. The airstrikes hit a power station, as well as gas and oil depots. A celebration of a Catholic ritual drew more than 50,000 people to Indianapolis. Leaders hope the gathering — the first of its kind since the 1940s — will revive excitement around the church. Texas’ governor has bused more than 119,000 migrants to Democrat-led cities over the past two years. These maps show where they went. A fire destroyed the sanctuary of First Baptist Dallas Church, a landmark in the city’s downtown. In basketball, Team WNBA defeated Team USA in the women’s All-Star Game, thanks to a record-setting 34 points from Arike Ogunbowale. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Donald Trump in Michigan on Saturday. Doug Mills/The New York Times Did Trump’s speech at the Republican convention convey unity? No. While Trump did show some humility, his speech was self-absorbed and frequently attacked Democrats. “His party’s advocacy around unity was built entirely — and cynically — on sand,” Timothy L. O’Brien of Bloomberg writes. Yes. The assassination attempt clearly tempered Trump’s boisterous tone and unified the Republican Party. “They said it would be a different Donald Trump, and it was,” Mark Davis writes for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. FROM OPINION Trump tells Americans they are in constant danger. Biden tells Americans everything is fine. Both are creating an environment where conspiracy theories thrive, M. Gessen writes. Republicans are split between those who want Trump to lead a revolution, and those who want a calmer Trump presidency, David French writes. Go on a journey this summer: Learn a new language, Mark Vanhoenacker writes. Here are columns by Lydia Polgreen on J.D. Vance as a D.E.I. candidate, and Ross Douthat on Trump’s speech. MORNING READS Asha’s Farm Sanctuary in western New York. Lauren Petracca for The New York Times On the loose: When two cows — Hornee and Blackee — strayed from their pasture, they set off a chaotic chain of events involving death threats, chicken rustlers and Joaquin Phoenix. Wartime writing: A manuscript buried under a cherry tree helped prompt a flourishing interest in Ukrainian literature. Vows: They met through a “Sex and the City” Instagram account. And just like that, they felt a spark. Lives Lived: Thomas Neff, an M.I.T. physicist, had an idea: What if the Soviets, in need of cash, sold their unused nuclear warheads to the U.S. to use for energy? His proposal went on to convert some 20,000 nuclear arms into electricity. Neff died at 80. THE INTERVIEW Joel Embiid Philip Montgomery for The New York Times By David Marchese This week’s subject for The Interview is the N.B.A. superstar Joel Embiid. A citizen of Cameroon, France, and the U.S., Embiid explained his decision to play for Team USA at the Paris Olympics. A lot of people thought you were going to play for the French team. You ultimately decided to play for the American team. Can you tell me how you wound up making that decision? It was tough. Obviously, I got my home country, Cameroon, which I love, and the U.S., where I’ve been for 14 years now, and then France, where I have a lot of family. I wanted to take as much time as possible, and it didn’t help that France had put an ultimatum on when the decision had to be made. What was the timeline? I didn’t know. I saw it on Twitter, and I was like, ‘Whoa, where did this come from?’ But one thing that was always known was that Cameroon is the first choice, and if they qualify I’m playing for my home country. I had the opportunity to talk to the French president [Emmanuel Macron] about what was going on, and I told him one thing that was kind of bothering me a lot was the relationship between France and Cameroon and the African continent in general. Historically, you mean? Yeah, and even right now. There’s a lot of pushback as far as basically kicking out the French because it’s been so many years of oppression. So that was my mind-set. I still got my family living in Cameroon, and I don’t want to put them through any of that stuff. Given the tension between you and French basketball officials, what reaction do you expect from French fans in Paris? I expect a lot of boos. But I actually love it. It’s not going to be anything I haven’t seen. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Jamie Chung for The New York Times. Source photograph: Kaye Maze. Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. BOOKS J.D. Vance at the Republican convention. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times “Hillbilly Elegy”: Trump’s running mate was a best-selling author before he was a senator. A.O. Scott, our critic, looks at how Vance’s views of America have changed. Relationship drama: Miss the Showtime series “Couples Therapy”? These 11 books let you peer into others’ love lives. By the Book: Suzanne Nossel, head of PEN America, says “Roctogenarians” by Mo Rocca and Jonathan Greenberg was the last book that made her laugh. Our editors’ picks: There are six new books recommended this week, including “Cue the Sun!,” a history of reality TV. Times best sellers: “True Gretch,” a memoir by Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s governor, is new this week on the hardcover nonfiction best-seller list. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Test your focus: Can you spend 10 minutes with this one painting? Dip into the stream of local life — grocery stores, swimming pools, barbershops — on your next vacation. Watch a stand-up comedy special that resembles a solo version of “The Wire.” Stream five horror movies from around the world. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For The Tour de France concludes today. The director of the Secret Service testifies tomorrow on Capitol Hill. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is scheduled to address Congress on Wednesday. The Olympic Games begin Wednesday with men’s soccer and rugby. Women’s soccer begins Thursday. The Olympics’ opening ceremony is Friday. Meal Plan David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Emily Weinstein loves the Yiddish word “schmaltzy,” whether it’s being used in the literal sense (slicked with poultry fat) or conveying an over-the-top, showbiz quality. That’s why a recipe for skillet chicken thighs with schmaltzy tomatoes tops her list this week. She also recommends a basil-butter pasta and grilled shrimp with spicy slaw. Get the recipes. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were chariot, haricot and thoracic. Can you put eight historical events — including Alexander the Great’s conquests, the construction of the Sydney Opera House and the naming of the color orange — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted July 22 Author Members Share Posted July 22 July 22, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering Biden’s exit and Harris’s entry — as well as JD Vance, heat in Egypt and “SpongeBob SquarePants.” President Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Doug Mills/The New York Times What next? With President Biden having dropped out of the race, I’m devoting today’s newsletter to four big questions about what happens next. My colleagues and I will also give you the latest news about the campaign. Four questions 1. Is the Democratic nomination race already over? It may be. Vice President Kamala Harris appears to be in a commanding position. Some top Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, favor a competition to choose a new nominee. And an open process would have some big advantages. It would test whether Harris was a stronger politician than she had been during her failed 2020 campaign. If she won the competition, she would emerge from it looking like a winner who was more than Biden’s No. 2. But a competition obviously requires more than one competitor, and Harris was the only top-tier Democrat to declare herself a presidential candidate yesterday. Many other Democrats endorsed her in the hours after Biden’s withdrawal. Her list of backers include both progressives and moderates in Congress, as well as Biden, members of the Congressional Black Caucus and two governors who had been considered potential presidential candidates themselves: Gavin Newsom of California and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. The party’s nominating delegates from three states — North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee — unanimously voted yesterday to endorse Harris. Overall, the hours after Biden’s exit went about as well as Harris could have hoped. 2. What will the Harris-Trump polls say now that they’re not hypothetical? Polling experts frequently caution against trusting hypothetical survey results. People don’t always know how they will respond to a scenario that hasn’t yet happened, such as a sitting president’s departure from a campaign. That said, the recent hypothetical polls about a race between Harris and Donald Trump have suggested he leads her, although more narrowly than he led Biden. A CBS News poll conducted this month, for example, showed that Trump had support from 51 percent of likely voters, compared with 48 percent for Harris. As new polls emerge in coming days, it will be worth watching whether a Harris-Trump race effectively starts as a tossup — or something else. 3. How will Trump campaign against her? For starters, Trump will emphasize the same unpopular parts of Biden’s performance that were already the central message of Trump’s campaign, including inflation and immigration. Given that Harris helped oversee Biden’s immigration policy, that subject will continue to play a central role. But there are some uncertainties about how Trump and his aides will campaign against a Harris-led ticket. Among the questions: Will Republicans emphasize the candidates’ obviously different racial and gender profiles, much as Trump used gender-based messages against Hillary Clinton in 2016? Or will Trump tread more carefully now that he hopes to win a meaningful share of Asian, Black and Latino voters? It does seem likely that Trump will emphasize some of Harris’s most liberal past positions, including her support in 2020 for Medicare for All, a policy that would effectively eliminate private health insurance. 4. How will Harris campaign differently from Biden? Harris has one huge advantage over Biden: She isn’t 81 years old. She is an energetic campaigner, with a strong history as a debater. She has some other advantages, too. Harris is more comfortable criticizing the Republican Party’s unpopular position on abortion than Biden has been. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, points out that recent polling data suggests she is also better positioned than Biden to hold onto support from some groups that have historically supported Democrats but soured on Biden, such as younger voters and voters of color. At the same time, Harris is starting with some disadvantages relative to Biden, Obama and other recent nominees. Nate notes that the same polling data suggests Harris is weaker than Biden among voters over 65 and white voters without a college degree. Above all, Harris has little track record of winning the type of swing voters who decide presidential elections. She comes from California, a liberal bastion. In her only Senate campaign, which she won, no Republican even qualified for the general election. Harris beat another Democrat. If she is the nominee, I think the biggest question is: How she will appeal to swing voters in states like Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin? Many of these voters are working-class Americans dissatisfied with the country’s direction. Many do not follow politics obsessively. Most are less liberal on social issues than prominent Democratic politicians, including Harris. Many have been attracted to feisty populist and patriotic messages, from both Trump and from Democratic Senate candidates. (Harris is likely to choose a running mate with a stronger history of winning swing voters.) Harris will no doubt devote much of her campaign to an anti-Trump message. But a message organized almost entirely around Trump seems less likely to succeed than one that also focuses on her vision of the future — including how it differs from Biden’s vision and why even voters who are often skeptical of the Democratic Party should support Harris this year. More on Biden’s decision Biden did not tell most of his staff about his decision until a minute before he announced it publicly. Some White House staff members were in shock, while others were relieved. Biden summoned top advisers to his Delaware beach house on Saturday afternoon to write the letter announcing his withdrawal and finalized it Sunday morning. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president.” Read Biden’s full letter. In the last 75 years, only two Democratic presidents — Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson — decided during an election year not to run again. “Overjoyed,” “too late”: Here’s how Democratic voters reacted to Biden’s withdrawal. Several top Republicans — including JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, and Speaker Mike Johnson — called on Biden to resign as president. Trump said that Biden had “quit the race in COMPLETE DISGRACE!” Kamala Harris Erin Schaff/The New York Times More on Harris “We have 107 days until Election Day,” Harris said in a statement yesterday. “Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.” Democratic donors quickly mobilized around Harris. One Silicon Valley bundler raised over $1 million in 30 minutes. Yesterday was the single biggest day for Democratic online fund-raising since the 2020 election, with more than $50 million donated. Many Democrats think Harris will pick a white man as her running mate. Possibilities include governors — like Roy Cooper of North Carolina or Andy Beshear of Kentucky — and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. As vice president, Harris defended Biden’s economic agenda. But in the past, she’s pushed for more progressive policies, like universal health care and generous tax benefits for working-class Americans. While many Democrats have coalesced behind Harris, she doesn’t start the campaign as the kind of broadly acceptable candidate Democrats have put forward during the Trump era, Nate Cohn writes. Commentary “Right now, most Democrats can see Biden only as a millstone, but history will remember him as one of the most effective presidents of his era,” Franklin Foer, who wrote a book about Biden’s presidency, argues in The Atlantic. “Do Americans share enough disgust over Trump this year to forget their traditional misogyny when it comes to the top job?” Robin Epley asks in The Sacramento Bee. “Really cannot overstate how problematic this is for Trump’s operation. Everything they built was customized for a contest with Biden,” The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta, who has written about Trump’s campaign, wrote on X. “If you think Biden’s only problem was age, then Harris is a good choice,” The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle wrote on X, adding: “If you think that voters disliked Biden for other reasons, then Harris is the worst choice, because she’s shackled to that baggage.” “Anyone who tells you they know how this is going to play out is lying or deluded,” Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Elections wrote on social media. THE LATEST NEWS More on the Election JD Vance Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Vance’s biography propelled his career, but his first campaign rally as Trump’s running mate made his position clear: When Trump is around, he is the warm-up act, Shawn McCreesh writes. The House oversight committee is scheduled to question the Secret Service director about security at the rally during which a would-be assassin wounded Trump. The homeland security secretary announced the members of a panel — which he described as bipartisan — that would review security failures at that rally. Trump’s criminal conviction and Biden’s debate performance sent a flood of donations into the presidential race. International In Cairo. Mohamed Hossam/EPA, via Shutterstock Egypt’s government has imposed daily power cuts during a hot summer, leaving millions without air conditioning for hours each day. In Bangladesh, deadly protests prompted by a quota system for government jobs revealed resentment about inequality. Other Big Stories A grocery store in Montgomery, Ala. Devin Lunsford for The New York Times “We’re all afraid”: In Montgomery, Ala., Latino-owned businesses have been the targets of violent robberies. Some health care providers hope to overcome issues with the distribution of methadone — a drug used to treat opioid addiction — with a fleet of mobile vans. Senator Bob Menendez’s lawyers plan to appeal his bribery conviction. They have reason to be optimistic: For years, the Supreme Court has narrowed the legal definition of corruption. Opinions “Mr. Biden has now done what Mr. Trump never will: He has placed the national interest above his own pride and ambition,” The Times’s editorial board writes, endorsing a competitive process to pick a new nominee. Now that Biden is out, Harris is the only choice to replace him, Tressie McMillan Cottom writes. Democrats should give their support to Harris. As the highest elected Black woman in American history, she will face attacks unlike anything we’ve ever seen, Al Sharpton writes. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss whether Harris can win. Here is a column by Nicholas Kristof on how Biden just reshaped America. MORNING READS Andreas Meichsner for The New York Times Night train: A reporter rode a new overnight rail route to Paris from Berlin. It wasn’t always comfortable, but the retro-romantic train journey was an experience. Too much fun: She danced naked at Woodstock and dated Serpico. At 93, she’s not done. Olympics: Hosting the games costs billions. What does a city get in return? Metropolitan Diary: Double sausage, extra bacon. Lives Lived: Bernice Johnson Reagon was an original member of the Freedom Singers, a vocal group that provided anthems of defiance for civil rights protesters in the 1960s. She went on to become a cultural historian and a Smithsonian curator. Reagon died at 81. SPORTS Golf: Xander Schauffele won the Open Championship, his second major victory of the season. Is he the world’s best golfer? Cycling: Tadej Pogacar won his third Tour de France, beating his rival Jonas Vingegaard by 6:17. ARTS AND IDEAS via Nickelodeon “SpongeBob SquarePants” premiered on Nickelodeon 25 year ago — meaning some who watched the show as kids are now the parents of ”SpongeBob” fans. To mark the milestone, The Times’s culture desk has created a quiz. Test your knowledge here. More on culture “Twisters” — a loose follow-up to the 1996 action movie “Twister” — was on track to earn far more in its opening weekend than box office analysts had predicted. Popular sports video game franchises like NBA 2K and FC encourage players to spend on in-game purchases. Critics say it’s ruining the games. Sean Kingston, best known for his 2007 hit “Beautiful Girls,” was indicted alongside his mother in a $1 million fraud scheme. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Rachel Vanni for The New York Times Layer warm chickpeas and tomatoes atop crunchy cucumber yogurt. Fit twice as much in your luggage with packing cubes. Make cooking easier with a good pair of oven mitts. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was megabit. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter described incorrectly the Trump campaign’s recent fund-raising efforts. The Trump campaign out-raised the Biden campaign for the first time in this election cycle in April, not June. The information we cited, and the linked article, were from May. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted July 23 Author Members Share Posted July 23 July 23, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the start of the Harris campaign — as well as the Trump shooting, Soviet nostalgia and the Tesla Cybertruck. Kamala Harris Erin Schaff/The New York Times Harris’s opportunity Kamala Harris has an opportunity that would not have been available to President Biden if he’d been the Democratic nominee. She can reintroduce herself to voters in ways that address their biggest complaints about Biden’s record and the Democratic Party. It won’t be easy. She is Biden’s vice president, after all. Yesterday, a Republican political group urged candidates to criticize Harris as a radical, while JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, told a rally, “The Biden record is the Kamala Harris record.” Still, Harris is not Biden, and she can subtly distance herself from his record and emphasize what she would do differently. There is a long history of vice presidents who did so when running for president. George H.W. Bush suggested in 1988 that he was “kinder and gentler” than Ronald Reagan. Al Gore portrayed himself in 2000 as more ethical than Bill Clinton (and came within a few hundred butterfly ballots of victory). Hubert Humphrey surged in the 1968 race after he belatedly separated himself from Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policies. In today’s newsletter, I’ll examine some of the Democratic Party’s biggest weaknesses now. They offer Harris an opportunity to argue that she isn’t an ordinary politician. Why moderation works Democrats often describe Donald Trump and other Republicans as radical. And today’s Republican Party is indeed radical in important ways. Many Republicans still claim that Trump won the 2020 election. Their party favors unpopular abortion restrictions and deep tax cuts for the rich. But many voters also see the Democratic Party as radical. In fact, the average American consider the Democratic Party to be further from the political mainstream than the Republican Party. A Gallup poll last month, for example, asked Americans whether they agreed with Biden or Trump “on the issues that matter most to you.” Only 37 percent said Biden, compared with 49 percent who said Trump. Similarly, a 2021 poll by the Winston Group asked people to rate themselves — as well as Democratic and Republican politicians — on an ideological scale from 1 to 9, with 1 being very liberal and 9 being very conservative. Most people placed themselves closer to Republicans than to Democrats: Source: Winston Group | By The New York Times This chart helps explain why successful presidential candidates reassure voters that they are more moderate than their party. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Biden all did in their own ways. Even Trump did in 2016, by supporting Social Security, opposing trade deals and endorsing same-sex marriage. The strategy works because most voters see themselves as less conservative than the Republican Party and less liberal than the Democratic Party. Five Democratic vulnerabilities A rally in San Francisco in support of Ms. Harris. Jim Wilson/The New York Times An early question about candidate Harris is whether she will signal that she’s more mainstream than other Democrats. How could she do so? Polls suggests that each of the following is a Democratic vulnerability: Crime may be the most natural way for Harris to show moderation. She is a former prosecutor who won elections partly by promising to crack down on crime. Today, many Americans are worried about crime. Immigration is an even bigger concern. Most Americans are deeply dissatisfied that Biden initially loosened immigration rules, which contributed to a surge at the southern border. He has since tightened the rules, and migration has fallen. I’ll be fascinated to see whether Harris — Biden’s point person on some immigration policies — tries to persuade voters that she’ll be tougher than he was. Inflation isn’t a classic left-right issue, but it is a problem for Harris. Democratic Senate candidates have had some success addressing the problem by promising to fight for lower prices and good jobs — and to fight against greedy corporations and China. Harris, delivering a speech to her campaign staff yesterday, mostly made typical Democratic arguments, but she did add a dose of populism that echoed those Senate campaign messages. She talked about having taken on big banks and for-profit colleges as a prosecutor. “Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” Harris said. U.S. liberals have adopted some positions on gender issues that are out of the mainstream. Doctors in Europe, for example, believe the scientific evidence doesn’t support gender transition hormone treatment for many children. Most Americans agree — while also opposing discrimination against trans people. Many prominent Democrats are well to the public’s left on this subject. If Harris took a moderate position, she could undermine Republican claims that she is an elite cultural liberal. During Vance’s speech at the Republican convention last week, he celebrated free speech and described Republicans as “a party unafraid to debate.” There is a reason for that: Many Americans view liberals as intolerant — quick to judge people with opposing ideas as ignorant or hateful. Obama combated this problem by talking about his respect for conservative ideas, while Biden described Republicans as his friends. Obama and Biden were sending a larger message. It was the same one Clinton sent when he called himself “a new Democrat” and George W. Bush did with his talk of “compassionate conservatism.” It was also the one Trump recently tried to send by saying he opposed a national abortion ban. All these politicians were asserting their independence from their own parties. It’s hard to get elected president without doing so. THE LATEST NEWS More on Harris Harris has secured the support of enough Democratic convention delegates to become the party’s nominee, with her home state of California helping put her over the top. See which delegations have backed her so far. Nancy Pelosi, who previously favored a competitive process to pick a new nominee, was among the top Democrats who endorsed Harris yesterday. Harris, standing in for Biden at a White House event for college athletes, praised him in emotional terms and spoke of “his big heart.” See a video of her speech. During a visit to her campaign’s headquarters — formerly Biden’s — in Wilmington, Del., Harris spoke in person, while Biden called into the event. “The name has changed at the top of the ticket, but the mission hasn’t changed at all,” he said. Harris’s campaign said that it had raised $81 million — a one-day record for presidential fund-raising — after Biden withdrew from the race. More than 28,000 people signed up to volunteer. Not every Democratic donor was immediately on board. Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, urged Democrats to “take the pulse of voters” and “determine who is best positioned to win.” Some Silicon Valley donors also favored an open process. Harris picked Eric Holder, who served as Obama’s attorney general, to oversee her search for a running mate. See some of the contenders. The Trump Campaign Donald Trump in Michigan. Doug Mills/The New York Times Over the years, Trump’s rhetoric on gender and race has alienated many college-educated voters and suburban women. The Harris candidacy could bring out his harshest instincts, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write. Trump has called Harris nasty, mocked her laugh and promoted a false claim that she’s ineligible to be vice president, echoing his false “birther” claims about Obama. Trump donated to Harris’s campaigns to become California’s attorney general in 2011 and 2013, campaign finance records show. The Trump Shooting Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director. Kenny Holston/The New York Times The Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, told Congress that the attempted assassination of Trump was the agency’s “single greatest operational failure” in decades and said that she had called Trump to apologize. Cheatle declined to talk about some specifics, including how many agents were protecting Trump when the shooting took place. Lawmakers seemed frustrated, and members of both parties called on her to resign. A Republican questioning Cheatle misstated the Secret Service’s diversity goals, while a Democrat improperly characterized what happened after an attempt on Reagan’s life. The Times recreated, in 3-D, the lines of sight for the three countersniper teams that failed to see the would-be assassin in time to stop the shooting. International Chiatura, Georgia. Natela Grigalashvili for The New York Times While most Georgians support closer ties with Western Europe, many in industrial areas are nostalgic for the stable incomes of their Soviet past. Russia sentenced a Russian American editor to six and a half years in a penal colony for her work on an antiwar book that the government said spread false information about the Russian Army. Ukraine struck a deal with private creditors to restructure more than $20 billion of debt, freeing the country to spend more on its military. Two more hostages have died in Hamas captivity, the Israeli military said. Britain’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda cost $900 million and moved only four people. Business Wiz, a four-year-old cybersecurity start-up, walked away from Google’s $23 billion offer to buy the company. It would have been the largest acquisition in Google’s history. Silicon Valley’s plans for a start-up city on farmland 60 miles from San Francisco is being delayed by at least two years to assess the environmental impact of the project. Other Big Stories Californians are frustrated with the rates of shoplifting and public drug use. In November, they will decide whether to impose stricter laws. The U.S. Olympic Committee sued the YouTube personality Logan Paul for using the trademarks “Olympic” and “Team USA” to promote his sports drink. Opinions When Kamala Harris ran for president four years ago, her background as a prosecutor hurt her with liberals. Trump’s legal woes have changed that, Nicole Allan writes. Republican populists are responding to real problems. But they lack a base of technocrats able to solve them, Julius Krein writes. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on Democratic euphoria and Paul Krugman on Trump’s claim about “Black jobs.” Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS A Cybertruck. Rachel Bujalski for The New York Times Big truck energy: More than any other Tesla, the Cybertruck, with its love-it-or-hate-it aesthetic, represents Elon Musk himself. Ask Vanessa: “What should I wear to the Olympics?” Frugal traveler: Spend a week in Chicago. Social-media diet: Conservative content is flourishing on TikTok, where younger people find strong opinions outside the mainstream. 8-bit ball: Times readers shared memories of their favorite sports video games. Lives Lived: Abdul Fakir, who was known as Duke, was the last remaining original member of the Four Tops. He sang tenor on hits like “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).” Fakir died at 88. SPORTS N.F.L.: The Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is refusing to practice until he signs a new contract. The team does not seem worried. Olympics: LeBron James led the U.S. men’s basketball team to a win over Germany in its final tuneup before the Paris Games. Read a recap. ARTS AND IDEAS Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in “Barbie.” Warner Bros. Pictures “Barbie” — directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie — was a phenomenon. It seemed to some that the film might herald a new era of movies made and led by women, but little has changed in the 12 months since its release. “Ask around Hollywood and the consensus seems to be that ‘Barbie’ is a singular success,” Nicole Sperling writes. “Translation: Don’t expect a lot of movies like that in theaters anytime soon.” More on culture Eminem’s “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce),” ended Taylor Swift’s 12-week run at the top of the Billboard album chart. It’s his 11th No. 1 album. “On Sundays, everyone thinks about quitting their job, but Biden is the first person to actually go through with it,” joked Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show.” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Dot juicy blueberries in cinnamon-scented batter for this pecan crunch cake. Take a quiz about movies based on Shakespeare’s plays. Consider a purse for your water bottle. Slow down your morning by hand-grinding your coffee. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was honeymooned. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David P.S. The Times politics reporter Reid Epstein was at his son’s birthday party when Biden announced his withdrawal from the race. Read about how he reacted to and covered the news. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted July 25 Author Members Share Posted July 25 July 24, 2024 By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick Good morning. We’re covering Kamala Harris’s V.P. options — as well as the Secret Service director, Sicily’s drought and horror movies. At the Harris campaign headquarters in Delaware. Erin Schaff/The New York Times The Harris-______ campaign Kamala Harris’s choice of a running mate probably won’t decide this year’s presidential campaign. It’s hard to argue that a vice-presidential nominee has swung even a single state over the past 60 years. Why not? The country’s polarization means that people increasingly base their vote on salient national issues. The media landscape has nationalized, reducing the influence of local news organizations and political parties. And vice presidents receive a fraction of the attention that presidents do. These factors help explain why Paul Ryan, then a Wisconsin congressman, didn’t help Mitt Romney win that state in 2012 and why John Edwards didn’t help John Kerry win North Carolina in 2004. Not since Lyndon Johnson helped John F. Kennedy narrowly win Texas in 1960 has a running mate arguably made a difference. But Harris’s choice could still matter very much for other reasons. She will be picking a partner who would help her govern. Most important, she will be elevating a potential future president. Think back to four years ago. For his running mate, Joe Biden was choosing among Harris, Tammy Duckworth, Susan Rice, Elizabeth Warren, Gretchen Whitmer and a few others. By selecting Harris, Biden effectively chose the 2024 Democratic nominee. We’ve chatted with our colleagues covering the Harris campaign, and today we offer a breakdown of the leading possibilities. Most analysts expect Harris to pick a white man, as a form of demographic balance, much as Biden picked a woman of color four years ago. The swing-state candidates Despite the poor track record of swing-state running mates, they remain tempting possibilities. Given the expected closeness of the election, even a tiny boost could make a difference. Harris has two such options: Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Kristian Thacker for The New York Times Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s popular governor, has wowed many Democrats with a forceful speaking style and center-left record that helped him beat a Donald Trump ally in a landslide two years ago. Shapiro emphasizes abortion rights — but also supports fracking and school vouchers. He could help Harris combat Republican claims that she’s too liberal. “Shapiro makes a lot of sense on paper,” our colleague Adam Nagourney said. Perhaps Shapiro’s biggest downside is that he could inflame divisions between moderate and liberal Democrats over the war in Gaza. Shapiro, who speaks proudly of his Jewish faith, has criticized both Israel’s right-wing government as an obstacle to peace and some anti-Israel protests in the U.S. as antisemitic. Mark Kelly, a senator from Arizona, has a résumé from swing-state central casting, even if he’s not the orator that Shapiro is. Kelly is a Navy veteran and a former NASA astronaut. He represents a border state and has criticized Biden’s immigration policies. Kelly is married to Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman who became a gun-control activist after being shot in 2011. A downside: If Harris chose him and won, it would trigger a special election in Arizona in 2026, potentially costing Democrats a Senate seat. Whitmer, Michigan’s governor who would otherwise fall into this category, has said she doesn’t want the job. (Interviews with Democratic delegates found more support for Shapiro and Kelly than any other candidates.) The red-state governors Some people may consider North Carolina a purple state, but no Democratic presidential or Senate candidate has won it in more than 15 years. Roy Cooper, however, has won back-to-back governor’s races. He would help Harris project a pragmatic image nationally. He and Harris have known each other for years, having worked together when each was a state attorney general. Cooper, 67, has never lost an election. His signature achievement as governor has been expanding health insurance through Obamacare. But he is not considered exciting. “Cooper’s not given to soaring oratory or impassioned stemwinders,” Jeffrey Billman, a reporter for The Assembly, a North Carolina publication, has written. Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky. Natosha Via for The New York Times Andy Beshear, Kentucky’s governor, has an even more impressive electoral record than Cooper does. In a state that Trump won by 26 points four years ago, Beshear has been elected governor twice. “Beshear’s talent for projecting compassion, including to Republicans, helps explain how the Democrat pulled off 2023’s most impressive political feat,” Molly Ball of The Wall Street Journal wrote. A deacon at his church, Beshear won praise for his handling of Covid and natural disasters. He says that American politics have become too angry. And he has criticized other Democrats for suggesting that working-class people are dumb for voting Republican. The second tier Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s transportation secretary, would be a Democratic version of Trump’s running mate, JD Vance — a youthful military veteran with a talent for making his party’s case on television. Buttigieg would be the first openly gay vice president. Tim Walz, Minnesota’s populist governor, might help Harris appeal to working-class voters. Wes Moore, Maryland’s first Black governor, is considered a potential future presidential candidate. JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, is a billionaire who could help finance Harris’s campaign. Gina Raimondo has accomplished more than most secretaries of commerce and is a favorite of moderate Democrats. “Chemistry matters,” said Jennifer Medina, a colleague of ours who’s covering the campaign. “Harris obviously knows the job of vice president and is likely to look for someone who she can work well with in this fast sprint and beyond — someone who is unlikely to cause a lot of drama or be too focused on their own prospects for 2028 or 2032.” More on the campaign Trump accused Harris of enabling the “willful demolition of American borders.” He said he was willing to debate her multiple times. “I know Donald Trump’s type,” Harris said at a rally in suburban Wisconsin, contrasting her background as a prosecutor with his criminal convictions. More people attended the speech than were at any of Biden’s campaign events this year. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic congressional leaders, endorsed Harris in a joint press conference. Policy issues have played little role in the 2024 campaign so far. Harris’s entry could change that, Nate Cohn writes. Biden, who returned to the White House after testing negative for Covid, will speak from the Oval Office tonight about his withdrawal. For much of Harris’s vice presidency, internet memes mocked her. Now liberals are sharing them triumphantly, the critic Amanda Hess writes. (Read an explanation of Harris’s “brat summer” rebrand and the coconut tree emojis.) THE LATEST NEWS The Trump Shooting Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director, resigned over security failures related to the shooting. Biden said he would appoint a new director soon. The Pennsylvania police asked the Secret Service about a warehouse roof two days before a gunman used it to shoot at Trump, a state police colonel told Congress. Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, and Jeffries announced a bipartisan task force to investigate the assassination attempt. Trump accused Biden and Harris of failing to “properly protect me,” writing on social media that he “was forced to take a bullet for Democracy.” Israel-Hamas War The two main rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, jointly endorsed a temporary government for Gaza and the West Bank, in a show of unity that China brokered. Benjamin Netanyahu will address Congress today. Some Democrats, including Senator Dick Durbin and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, plan to boycott the speech. Biden will meet with Netanyahu at the White House tomorrow. Trump and Harris will also meet with Netanyahu during his visit. International In Sicily. Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times Parts of southern Italy are experiencing one of their worst droughts in decades. The authorities in Sicily are working to at least save tourism. Landslides in Ethiopia devastated a village and killed at least 229 people, including volunteers who had raced to help. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, rejected a coalition of left-wing parties’ pick for prime minister, saying he would not appoint anyone until after the Olympics. A plane crashed while taking off from an airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, killing 18 people. Business Tesla’s profits fell in the last three months as electric car sales weaken. Alphabet’s profits jumped, but its stock price fell after an earnings report showed its ad sales slowing, The Wall Street Journal reports. The Transportation Department opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines over its treatment of passengers, including unaccompanied minors, after a global tech outage. Other Big Stories Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat recently convicted of corruption, will resign next month. The state’s Democratic governor will appoint a temporary replacement. An Army reservist who fatally shot 18 people in Maine last year had homicidal thoughts beforehand. His commanders missed the signs, an investigation found. At Yellowstone National Park, tourists raced for safety after a hydrothermal explosion shot boiling water and rock into the air. Opinions Like many women in politics, Kamala Harris is underestimated. But she is well prepared for this moment, Hillary Clinton writes. Harris is unpopular, a bad campaigner and anchored to Biden’s record. Nominating her is a mistake, Bret Stephens argues. Trump lies about his presidential record, as Steven Rattner shows in these charts. Nancy Pelosi was unapologetically ruthless in ending Biden’s presidential campaign. She showed that powerful women don’t have to be likable, Jessica Bennett writes. Here’s a column by Thomas Friedman on Netanyahu. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS At the Olympic Village. James Hill for The New York Times Bon appétit: Food is the centerpiece of Paris’s Olympic Village, where six restaurants will serve 15,000 Olympians. Wellness: How healthy is sweet corn? D.C.: The home of a former Washington Post publisher was once a hub for the powerful. A battle has left it empty for 22 years. Lives Lived: The ethnic studies professor Robert Allen wrote a book about Black U.S. sailors unfairly convicted of conspiracy to commit mutiny during World War II. Allen, who campaigned for the sailors’ exoneration, died at 82 — a week before the Navy cleared them of wrongdoing. SPORTS Spying? The Canadian Olympic Committee apologized after a member of its support team was said to have flown a drone over the New Zealand women’s soccer practice. Suspension: A top British equestrian won’t compete in Paris because a video showed an undisclosed “error of judgment.” Read more about her exit. An exit: A Japanese gymnast withdrew from the Olympic Games after violating her team’s rules against smoking and drinking. ARTS AND IDEAS “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” a movie from 2022. A24 In the era before mass cellphone use — before the late 1990s — isolation in horror movies was easier to parse. Now, filmmakers struggle to work around smartphones with GPS and internet access. Some solutions appear clichéd or perfunctory, but others use the unreliable cellphone as a key element of the terror. See examples of the ways horror cinema navigates the problem. More on culture John Mayall, a pioneering British bandleader whose mid-1960s blues ensembles incubated some of the biggest stars of rock’s golden era, died at 90. Chappell Roan, a rising pop star, has scored two big hits recently. The venues her team picked out months ago for her tour are struggling to fit her audience. Stephen Colbert discussed Charli XCX’s claim that Harris is “brat.” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Rachel Vanni for The New York Times Make spaghetti with tuna with items already in your pantry. Test your fitness. Protect your ears at concerts. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was talkative. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David and Ian P.S. Jeremiah Bogert, a Times photo editor who has worked on this newsletter, co-directed a documentary about Chinese surfers challenging their country’s rigid sports culture. Watch it here. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted July 26 Author Members Share Posted July 26 July 25, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering a significant economic change and its effect on American politics — plus Biden’s speech, Kamala Harris and lab-grown meat. A Trump rally in Michigan. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Falling behind A common theory about Donald Trump’s appeal is that working-class white people feel they fell behind as other groups pulled ahead. He recognized the sentiment and spoke to those voters’ concerns. It turns out that those concerns are grounded in real economic changes, a new study from Harvard researchers shows. The researchers analyzed census and tax records covering 57 million children to look at people’s ability to rise to the middle and upper classes — their mobility — over two recent generations. They found that it had improved among Black people and deteriorated among poor white people, as this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu shows: Source: Opportunity Insights | By The New York Times The study’s full findings are nuanced, as Ashley and I explain in a story that The Times published today. Black people still, on average, make less money than white people, and the overall income gap remains large. But Black Americans who were born poor have gained ground while their white counterparts have lost some, narrowing the longstanding gap. That shift can help explain why some voters’ attitudes have changed over the past couple of decades. Cutting in line After Trump won in 2016, many journalists — myself included — turned to the sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s book on the American right, “Strangers in Their Own Land,” to try to understand what had happened. Hochschild provided a helpful analogy, one that resonates with the Harvard study’s findings. It goes something like this: White working-class people in red states saw the American dream as a queue moving people to prosperity. Over the past several decades, thanks to globalization and other changes, the queue stopped moving. And other groups have moved to the front of the queue. As a result, working-class white Americans often believe that their shrinking mobility is the result not just of outside forces like globalization but also of other groups that supposedly cut ahead. The Harvard study suggests that white working-class conservatives were right when they felt their own mobility had slowed, or even reversed, compared with that of Black Americans. (The researchers did not find significant changes for other racial groups.) The study also found that white people born into high-income families have seen their mobility improve — meaning the drop in mobility is restricted to the white working class. Trump has benefited from that reality. He has tapped into the resentment many white voters feel toward people of other races with his inflammatory and at times racist rhetoric, such as when he suggested Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. He has also criticized rich elites — which includes people who gained mobility as the working class lost out. As a result, some working-class white voters flipped from the Democratic Party to Trump between 2012 and 2016. Trump continues to have strong support from those voters, polls show. Of course, the evidence does not justify racial resentment. Economists say the queue analogy doesn’t reflect how the economy actually works. A growing, healthy economy creates more queues to prosperity; it’s not zero-sum, as the analogy suggests. In fact, the Harvard study found that white mobility had diminished least in the places where Black mobility had improved most. And while Black mobility has improved, it has not improved anywhere near enough to eliminate wide racial gaps between Black and white people. Gaps have narrowed, not closed. Still, Trump has tapped into many white voters’ fears that they have been left behind while other lawmakers, particularly Democrats, have focused on policies that help minority groups. The Harvard study helps show why Trump has been able to do that. Insights for both sides The new research can also help explain changes among Black voters. They have slightly shifted toward Trump since 2020, polls show. One possible explanation is that some Black voters’ economic gains have allowed them to focus more on noneconomic issues — such as abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. rights — on which they are more conservative than typical Democrats. Experts not involved with the study said that it would reverberate across the political spectrum. “The left and the right have very different views on race and class,” Ralph Richard Banks, a law professor at Stanford, told me. “The value of the study is that it brings some unimpeachable evidence to bear on these questions.” For more Type in your county to see how economic mobility has changed near you. Read our full story to learn more about how mobility has become more about class than race. THE LATEST NEWS Biden’s Speech President Biden Pete Marovich for The New York Times In an Oval Office address, President Biden said he withdrew from the 2024 election to unite his party and protect American democracy. “I revere this office, but I love my country more,” he said. See his speech. Biden added that he had chosen to “pass the torch to a new generation” and praised Kamala Harris: “She’s experienced, she’s tough, she’s capable.” He cited accomplishments — including on climate change, infrastructure, health care, the economy, NATO and gun safety — and said he would call for reforms to the Supreme Court. Trump watched Biden’s speech from his plane after a campaign rally in North Carolina. On social media, he called it “sooo bad!” The speech, The Times’s Peter Baker writes, “was all Joe, love him or hate him — the paeans to American exceptionalism, the evocations of family, the selective boasting.” Read a transcript. Kamala Harris Harris called Trump’s agenda “an outright attack on our children, our families and our future” at an event for a Black sorority in Indianapolis. Read how she took command of the Democratic Party in 24 hours. At a rally, Trump repurposed his criticisms of Biden against Harris, falsely accusing her of leading the prosecutions against him. Trump also stumbled over the word “abortion.” Veepstakes: In a frenzy of attention, contenders are going on cable news. Black voters greeted Harris’s candidacy with enthusiasm — but they worried about how a polarized country would respond. Harris loves to cook, and she has leaned into it in a way no other candidate has. More on the 2024 Election While in the White House, Trump suggested that disabled people “should just die,” and in the 1970s, he used the N-word, his nephew Fred C. Trump III claims in a coming memoir. A Trump spokesman called the account “completely fabricated.” Trump’s convention speech this year was twice as long as his 2016 speech. The number of falsehoods he told also doubled, a Times analysis found. Netanyahu’s Speech On Capitol Hill. Kenny Holston/The New York Times Benjamin Netanyahu called the war in Gaza “a clash between barbarism and civilization” in a speech to Congress. Netanyahu outlined his postwar vision for a “demilitarized and de-radicalized” Gaza with Palestinian civilian leaders “who do not seek to destroy Israel.” He said Israel did not want to “resettle” the enclave but should have indefinite “security control” over it. The Israeli prime minister praised both Biden and Trump but did not mention Harris. He called pro-Palestinian protesters “Iran’s useful idiots,” Politico reports. Netanyahu received long standing ovations led by Republicans and often including Democrats. But some remained seated, and Senator Chuck Schumer did not shake Netanyahu’s hand. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, held a sign that said, “Guilty of genocide.” Roughly half of congressional Democrats skipped Netanyahu’s speech, according to Axios. The Trump Shooting The gunman visited the rally site and searched online for details of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, apparently typing, “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?,” Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director, told Congress. Answering a question from Representative Matt Gaetz, Wray said that he hadn’t noticed any “cognitive decline” in Biden. On social media, Trump called for Wray’s resignation, Axios reported. International In Manila. Lisa Marie David/Reuters Typhoon Gaemi is churning toward China. Rescue workers are searching for nine sailors who went missing when a cargo ship sank in bad weather near Taiwan. Government and religious leaders in New Zealand physically and sexually abused more than 200,000 people under their care, according to a six-year investigation. Germany’s Interior Ministry banned a prominent Shiite Muslim organization, calling it extremist. Other Big Stories Rupert Murdoch is in a secret legal battle against three of his children over the future of the family’s media empire. Nashville reopened cases on three unsolved bombings during the Civil Rights era after a local author named possible suspects. Sunday was the hottest day recorded on Earth — until Monday beat its record. Opinions The U.S. should call China’s bluff and increase its military presence in the South China Sea, Oriana Skylar Mastro argues. “One of the great joys of a long marriage is how the personal and pragmatic moosh together,” Gail Collins writes about the death of her husband, Dan. Here are columns by Thomas Edsall on Trump and Vance, and Pamela Paul on Ivy League Republicans. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS Fulton Fish Market in New York. Daniel Terna Fish-eating town: Here’s an inside look at America’s biggest fish market, where 3 a.m. is prime time. Sharks on drugs: Researchers found that 13 sharks off the coast of Rio de Janeiro had high levels of cocaine in their systems. Before Bum Bum Cream: Here’s a look at 80 years of teen beauty trends. Social Q’s: A woman is frustrated she isn’t getting her mother-in-law’s help with child care. Should she say something? Finance: Paper checks
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