Tag: Presidential Election of 2024

Struggle Over Americans’ Personal Data Plays Out Across the Government

Last week, Michelle King, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, sought to reassure Democrats on Capitol Hill about the presence of two of Elon Musk’s allies at her agency. The Social Security Administration keeps medical information, bank account numbers and other sensitive personal data about the roughly 70 million Americans it provides with […]

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A Lonely Holdout Where Republicans Still Resist Trump: Utah

A new political-action committee formed by a Republican is endorsing candidates who emphasize problem solving over partisanship. A former Republican governor is trying to root out political trash talk. And a push to redraw a congressional map that could bring back a Democratic House district has been buoyed by a Republican-dominated state Supreme Court. As […]

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Elon Musk Is Leading a ‘Hostile Takeover of the Federal Government’

President Trump has empowered Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, to fire government employees, eliminate federal agencies and run roughshod over both federal law and the Constitution. In an unparalleled delegation of executive branch authority, Trump has chosen Musk — who is at once an entrepreneur whose companies have won billions […]

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A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently

This is an edited transcript of an episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the conversation by following or subscribing to the show on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. After the election, I started asking congressional Democrats I had talked to […]

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California’s Push for Electric Trucks Sputters Under Trump

President Trump’s policies could threaten many big green energy projects in the coming years, but his election has already dealt a big blow to an ambitious California effort to replace thousands of diesel-fueled trucks with battery-powered semis. The California plan, which has been closely watched by other states and countries, was meant to take a […]

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Trump’s First Four Weeks Felt Like Four Years

Bret Stephens: Hi Gail. You may or may not be happy to hear this, but once again I feel completely nauseated by Donald Trump. That took all of four weeks. Gail Collins: Bret, what’s left for us to talk about? Except taxes and government spending and diversity programs and … OK, tell me your Trump […]

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Democrats Fear They Are Missing the Moment to Remake the Party

Several dozen Democratic political operatives had just gathered to discuss the party’s future at an upscale resort nestled along the Potomac River when the very first speaker unleashed a blistering address about the “hard truths” they needed to confront. “Now is not the time for taking refuge in comforting platitudes,” said Jonathan Cowan, the president […]

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The Republican Party’s NPC Problem — and Ours

A few years back, the online right became enamored of a new epithet for liberals NPC short for non-player character. Non-playable non-player character. But you don’t know about this. Do I get to tell you the NPC meme. Yes, this is the most important meme of our lifetime. The term was lifted from video games, […]

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Putin Has Long Wanted More Power in Europe. Trump Could Grant It.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia shocked the audience at the annual security conference in Munich in 2007 by demanding the rollback of domineering American influence and a new balance of power in Europe more suitable to Moscow. He didn’t get what he wanted — then. Nearly two decades later, during the very same conference, […]

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In Seeking Adams Dismissal, Trump’s Appointees Use Legal System to Their Advantage

Since being sworn into office again, President Trump has granted clemency to the rioters who attacked the Capitol four years ago in his name and sought to purge the F.B.I. and the Justice Department of those who prosecuted them, and him. Trump appointees at the department dropped campaign finance charges against a Republican member of […]

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In Seeking Adams Dismissal, Trump’s Appointees Use Legal System to Their Advantage

Since being sworn into office again, President Trump has granted clemency to the rioters who attacked the Capitol four years ago in his name and sought to purge the F.B.I. and the Justice Department of those who prosecuted them, and him. Trump appointees at the department dropped campaign finance charges against a Republican member of […]

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6 Americans on What They Think of Trump, Elon Musk and Gaza

In his first three weeks back in office, President Trump has set a dizzying pace of political and social change, issuing dozens of executive directives meant to dramatically remake the federal government and drive the country in a new direction. Mr. Trump has continued his pursuit of an America First agenda through selective trade tariffs. […]

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‘The Interview’: Senator Ruben Gallego on the Democrats’ Problem

There has been an onslaught of political news over the past few weeks as President Trump and his billionaire backer Elon Musk try to remake America’s government. From dismantling federal agencies to firing federal workers, they have been testing the legal system and the Constitution. They have also been testing Democrats, who are struggling to […]

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JD Vance Is in Charge of Getting a TikTok Deal. Can He Find a Buyer?

Last week, an aide for Vice President JD Vance reached out to the billionaire Frank McCourt. The topic at hand was Mr. McCourt’s $20 billion long-shot offer to buy TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app. Mr. Vance’s aide wanted details about the bid, which was one of several public overtures for the app, according to two […]

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Issa Rae Cancels Kennedy Center Appearance After Trump’s Takeover

President Trump’s takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has prompted an outcry in the cultural community, with several artists resigning their posts or canceling engagements at the center. Mr. Trump made himself chairman of the center on Wednesday, a few days after he purged the board of Biden […]

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Senate Confirms RFK Jr., a Prominent Vaccine Skeptic, as Health Secretary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic and former presidential candidate who fled his family’s party and threw his “medical freedom” movement behind President Trump, has been confirmed by the Senate as the nation’s next health secretary. The vote, 52 to 48, capped a remarkable rise for Mr. Kennedy and a curious twist in American […]

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Kash Patel Passes Senate Panel Vote Amid FBI Turmoil

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to advance Kash Patel’s nomination to lead the F.B.I., paving the way for a floor vote on his confirmation as the bureau is racked by a bitter conflict between its temporary leaders and the Trump administration. The vote, 12 to 10, fell along party lines. In forwarding Mr. […]

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Legal Roadblocks Slow Trump’s Removal of Federal Employees

The one-sentence email from the White House arrived in Cathy Harris’s inbox at 10:49 p.m. Monday, startling her when she woke up and read it early the next morning. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Merit Systems Protection Board is terminated, effective immediately,” […]

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Since Trump’s ‘Emergency,’ What Is Actually Happening on the Border?

It was another day of President Trump’s declared national emergency at the southwestern border, and there was not a migrant in sight outside Nogales, Ariz. Teresa Fast, a Border Patrol agent, bumped her truck over dirt roads, past other agents posted up in the desert. Their radios were silent. “Right now in the field, we […]

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Linda McMahon Faces Confirmation Hearing for Education Secretary

Linda McMahon, a sports entertainment mogul and longtime booster of President Trump, will face lawmakers on Thursday for the beginning of confirmation hearings as she seeks to lead the Department of Education. A former executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, Ms. McMahon has been tapped to run an agency in the middle of intense upheaval, whose […]

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Now It’s the Republicans Who Are Being Held Hostage by Fringe Groups

We’re not even a month into Donald Trump’s new term and already, a cadre of Republican activists appears poised to fritter away his popularity and derail his administration’s agenda with a maximalist demand for a budget-busting tax cut. The Club for Growth, a free-enterprise advocacy group, says sustaining the big tax cut that President Trump […]

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Trump and Musk Pull Focus. But Vance Is the One to Watch.

JD Vance may not command headlines like Donald Trump or even Elon Musk, but he is the man to watch if you care about the long game in politics. His vice-presidential assignments seem carefully chosen to position him with an eye toward where America is heading — a strategy that was on full display with […]

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Trump Softens Tone on Inflation After Pledging to Lower Prices

President Trump promised voters that, if elected, he would enact policies that would bring prices down on “Day 1” in office. But three weeks into his term, Mr. Trump and White House officials have become more measured in how they discuss their efforts to tame inflation. They have begun downplaying the likelihood that consumer costs […]

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Look Past Elon Musk’s Chaos. There’s Something More Sinister at Work.

Whatever you choose to call it, Elon Musk has captured the inner workings of the U.S. government on President Trump’s behalf. His operatives reportedly infiltrated the General Services Administration, gained access to the nation’s system for issuing payments like tax refunds, locked workers out of computer systems at the Office of Personnel Management and strong-armed […]

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Enjoying the Pinnacle of Power, Musk Holds Court on Trump’s Stage

Three weeks into this administration, hardly a day seems to go by that does not produce a norm-busting moment at the White House. But the scene that played out in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon was among the wildest yet. President Trump sat behind the Resolute Desk while Elon Musk stood at his side […]

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An Emboldened Trump Seeks to Bend New York City to His Will

He has already upended the federal government and roiled global affairs. But in the opening weeks of his second term, President Trump is moving no less decisively to assert his vision over a far more familiar venue: New York City. In just the last few days, Mr. Trump has threatened to “kill” his hometown’s ambitious […]

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Pope Criticizes Trump’s Deportation of Migrants, Calling It a Violation of Dignity

Pope Francis on Tuesday harshly criticized President Trump’s policy of mass deportations and urged Catholics to reject anti-immigrant narratives in an unusually direct attack on the American administration. In an open letter to American bishops, Francis said that deporting people who often come from difficult situations violates the “dignity of many men and women, and […]

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How Trump’s Canadian Oil Tariff Would Hit U.S. Refineries

The largest refinery in the Midwest will have an unpalatable choice if President Trump imposes tariffs on Canadian oil: Pay more for the crude that it transforms into gasoline and diesel, or slash production. Both options threaten to increase prices at the pump, albeit modestly if Mr. Trump sticks with the 10 percent rate he […]

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Hispanics Bolted to the Right in 2024. Can Democrats Win Them Back?

On a recent weekday afternoon, a group of Latino university students near the Southwestern border draped themselves in flags festooned with President Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan, carried pro-Trump signs and set out to recruit new voters — like Victor Ibarra. “This area is no longer just for Democrats,” Mr. Ibarra, an exuberant 20-year-old […]

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