The promises of a politician are fickle in nature. Every politician makes campaign promises that turn out to be bogus, and for US President Joe Biden his 2019 vow to declare Saudi Arabia a "paraiah" due to its human rights record is now one among that long list. He had made this promise after a report by US intelligence services said that the desert country's crown prince and de-facto leader Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was behind the 2018 killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. However, the recent picture of Biden fist-bumping MBS has undermined the leader's strong words.

With the fist bump, the US President has tarnished his long-cultivated reputation as a champion of human rights.

Watch |&nbsp;Biden attends Arab leaders summit: 'Will not allow walk away from West Asia'

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As the Post's CEO Fred Ryan said the fist bump in Jeddah "was worse than a handshake -- it was shameful".

"It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking."&nbsp;

This photo was taken outside a palace in Jeddah. It was promptly circulated by official Saudi news agencies before becoming viral on social media, reports AFP.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/joe-biden-formally-invites-uae-president-to-the-united-states-498003" hreflang="en">Joe Biden formally invites UAE President to the United States</a>

The White House hastily prepared for Biden to make a brief speech. As per AFP, Biden says he brought up the Khashoggi case "at the top" of his conversation with Prince Mohammed, and he was explicit about "what I thought of it at the time and what I think of it now."

"My views on Khashoggi have been absolutely, positively clear, and I have never been quiet about talking about human rights," he said at a press conference.&nbsp;

The fist bump, though, had already become the tour's signature moment.&nbsp;

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/watch-saudi-crown-prince-smirks-when-asked-a-question-about-jamal-khashoggi-497911" hreflang="en">Watch: Saudi Crown Prince smirks when asked a question about Jamal Khashoggi</a>

Biden had earlier said that the trip was made "to promote US interests", which is seen as a likely reference to the need to persuade the top petroleum exporter in the world to increase oil output. After all, rising gas prices could hurt his party's chances in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

Human rights advocates in the US do not sympathise with Biden.

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote on Twitter, "The autocrats of the world are smiling." He also compared Biden to his predecessor Donal Trump.

"Biden's support for human rights can be sold for a smidgen of oil."

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
One sold out core human rights principles for an empty and unfulfilled promise of more jobs. 
The other sold out core human rights principles for the possible promise of a smidgen of more oil. 
Both sold out core human rights principles for very little. <a href="https://t.co/I18H4FAOWE">pic.twitter.com/I18H4FAOWE</a>
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) <a href="https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1548305118033879042?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 16, 2022</a></blockquote>
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(With inputs from agencies)

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The promises of a politician are fickle in nature. Every politician makes campaign promises that turn out to be bogus, and for US President Joe Biden his 2019 vow to declare Saudi Arabia a "paraiah" due to its human rights record is now one among that long list.

The promises of a politician are fickle in nature. Every politician makes campaign promises that turn out to be bogus, and for US President Joe Biden his 2019 vow to declare Saudi Arabia a "paraiah" due to its human rights record is now one among that long list. He had made this promise after a report by US intelligence services said that the desert country's crown prince and de-facto leader Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was behind the 2018 killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. However, the recent picture of Biden fist-bumping MBS has undermined the leader's strong words. With the fist bump, the US President has tarnished his long-cultivated reputation as a champion of human rights. Watch | Biden attends Arab leaders summit: 'Will not allow walk away from West Asia' As the Post's CEO Fred Ryan said the fist bump in Jeddah "was worse than a handshake -- it was shameful". "It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking." This photo was taken outside a palace in Jeddah. It was promptly circulated by official Saudi news agencies before becoming viral on social media, reports AFP. Also read | Joe Biden formally invites UAE President to the United States The White House hastily prepared for Biden to make a brief speech. As per AFP, Biden says he brought up the Khashoggi case "at the top" of his conversation with Prince Mohammed, and he was explicit about "what I thought of it at the time and what I think of it now." "My views on Khashoggi have been absolutely, positively clear, and I have never been quiet about talking about human rights," he said at a press conference. The fist bump, though, had already become the tour's signature moment. Also read | Watch: Saudi Crown Prince smirks when asked a question about Jamal Khashoggi Biden had earlier said that the trip was made "to promote US interests", which is seen as a likely reference to the need to persuade the top petroleum exporter in the world to increase oil output. After all, rising gas prices could hurt his party's chances in the upcoming midterm elections in November. Human rights advocates in the US do not sympathise with Biden. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote on Twitter, "The autocrats of the world are smiling." He also compared Biden to his predecessor Donal Trump. "Biden's support for human rights can be sold for a smidgen of oil." One sold out core human rights principles for an empty and unfulfilled promise of more jobs. The other sold out core human rights principles for the possible promise of a smidgen of more oil. Both sold out core human rights principles for very little. pic.twitter.com/I18H4FAOWE — Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 16, 2022 × (With inputs from agencies) Watch WION LIVE HERE: You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Human rights vs elections: Who wins? Biden's 'support for human rights can be sold for a smidgen of oil'

Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan on Saturday said that Mumbai Indians are looking at Ishan Kishan as a long-term prospect and this is the reason why they spent so much on the left-handed batter in the Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction.

Mumbai Indians spent Rs 15.25 crore to get Ishan Kishan back in the squad.

"He has the potential to be the future captain as well, not right now. They still have Keiron Pollard who can lead, Bumrah who is a leader himself, they have Suryakumar Yadav who could be the prospect for leadership as well. So, they want to invest for the next 5-7 years, that's why they went after Ishan Kishan so clearly and they knew that no matter what we needed to go back to Ishan Kishan," Pathan said on Star Sports'&nbsp;show 'Cricket Live -- IPL Auction Special'.

ALSO READ:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/live-ipl-2022-mega-auction-check-all-the-latest-updates-here-CSK-KKR-DC-RR-MI-RCB-SRH-LSG-GT-PBKS-452608">As it happened IPL 2022 Auction Day 1: Avesh Khan's historic bid, Ishan Kishan bags Rs 15.25 crore</a>

"I haven't seen in the Auction table, Mumbai Indian talking so much and taking a longer break than this in my history of this Auction list," he added.

Earlier, Sri Lanka spinner Wanindu Hasaranga was picked up by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for Rs 10.75 crore while India all-rounder Washington Sundar was picked up by SunRisers Hyderabad for Rs 8.75 crore.

Australia all-rounder Mitchell Marsh garnered interest from quite a few franchises and in the end, he was picked by Delhi Capitals for Rs 6.5 crore.

Earlier in the auction, India opening batter Shikhar Dhawan was acquired by Punjab Kings for Rs 8.25 crore. Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was bought by Rajasthan Royals for Rs 5 crore.

ALSO READ:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/auctioneer-hugh-edmeades-collapses-on-stage-as-ipl-2022-mega-auction-comes-to-sudden-halt-452616">Auctioneer Hugh Edmeades collapses on stage as IPL 2022 mega auction comes to sudden halt</a>

Australia Test captain Pat Cummins was taken by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for Rs 7.25 crore.Proteas pacer Kagiso Rabada was acquired by Punjab Kings for Rs 9.25 crore.

Kiwi pacer Trent Boult was sold to Rajasthan Royals for Rs 8 crore. Shreyas Iyer was picked up by KKR for Rs 12.25 crore. India pacer Mohammed Shami was picked up by Gujarat Titans for Rs 6.25 crore.

South Africa batter Faf du Plessis was picked up by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for Rs 7 crore. Lucknow Super Giants picked up Quinton de Kock for Rs 6.75 crore. Australia opening batter David Warner was picked up by Delhi Capitals for Rs 6.25 crore.

Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan on Saturday said that Mumbai Indians are looking at Ishan Kishan as a long-term prospect and this is the reason why they spent so much on the left-handed batter in the Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction.

Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan on Saturday said that Mumbai Indians are looking at Ishan Kishan as a long-term prospect and this is the reason why they spent so much on the left-handed batter in the Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction. Mumbai Indians spent Rs 15.25 crore to get Ishan Kishan back in the squad. "He has the potential to be the future captain as well, not right now. They still have Keiron Pollard who can lead, Bumrah who is a leader himself, they have Suryakumar Yadav who could be the prospect for leadership as well. So, they want to invest for the next 5-7 years, that's why they went after Ishan Kishan so clearly and they knew that no matter what we needed to go back to Ishan Kishan," Pathan said on Star Sports' show 'Cricket Live -- IPL Auction Special'. ALSO READ: As it happened IPL 2022 Auction Day 1: Avesh Khan's historic bid, Ishan Kishan bags Rs 15.25 crore "I haven't seen in the Auction table, Mumbai Indian talking so much and taking a longer break than this in my history of this Auction list," he added. Earlier, Sri Lanka spinner Wanindu Hasaranga was picked up by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for Rs 10.75 crore while India all-rounder Washington Sundar was picked up by SunRisers Hyderabad for Rs 8.75 crore. Australia all-rounder Mitchell Marsh garnered interest from quite a few franchises and in the end, he was picked by Delhi Capitals for Rs 6.5 crore. Earlier in the auction, India opening batter Shikhar Dhawan was acquired by Punjab Kings for Rs 8.25 crore. Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was bought by Rajasthan Royals for Rs 5 crore. ALSO READ: Auctioneer Hugh Edmeades collapses on stage as IPL 2022 mega auction comes to sudden halt Australia Test captain Pat Cummins was taken by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for Rs 7.25 crore.Proteas pacer Kagiso Rabada was acquired by Punjab Kings for Rs 9.25 crore. Kiwi pacer Trent Boult was sold to Rajasthan Royals for Rs 8 crore. Shreyas Iyer was picked up by KKR for Rs 12.25 crore. India pacer Mohammed Shami was picked up by Gujarat Titans for Rs 6.25 crore. South Africa batter Faf du Plessis was picked up by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for Rs 7 crore. Lucknow Super Giants picked up Quinton de Kock for Rs 6.75 crore. Australia opening batter David Warner was picked up by Delhi Capitals for Rs 6.25 crore.

Selling Trump: A profitable post-presidency like no other

The shift toward Donald Trump by Latino voters was one of the more surprising takeaways of the 2020 presidential election. The findings of recent polls and reports — that Latinos may still be sliding toward Republicans — are even more disconcerting for Democrats. Given the political stakes as well as the stakes for Latino families, Democratic leaders must do better.

As 2022 begins, the party so far has no visible, convincingly powerful plan to win over the voters many rank and file Democrats believe are key to November’s midterm elections, the 2024 presidential race and perhaps the future of the Democratic Party. But what happens next, when Democratic candidates fan out across the country trying to shore up support from Latinos who may be slipping away?

Some believe that doing better means spending more money on messaging, advertising and outreach. But this isn’t the only lesson to be gleaned from what the data is telling us, and it might not even be the right one. Democrats should more aggressively combat Republican messaging with their own, but the real fight should be over which party has the best ideas on education, immigration, jobs and the economy. This is where Democrats take the Latino vote for granted, but they shouldn’t.

Daniel Garza, the president of the conservative group The Libre Initiative, for example, believes that the Republican agenda gives his party the upper hand with Latinos. He scoffed at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announcement last November that it planned to win back Latino and other voters of color by spending at least $30 million to hire organizers, pay for targeted advertising campaigns, combat disinformation and support voter protection and education programs.

Thirty million is a lot of money, he told me, but it would be “wasted if the message were about nuanced topics like voter suppression, disinformation and diversity.” The problem for Democrats, he added, is that “GOP ideas are better” because they’re “pro-growth, pro-energy, pro-parent (school choice) and pro-advancement.”

Mr. Garza makes several assumptions: that voter suppression and disinformation are nuanced topics that don’t resonate with Latinos; that Democrats aren’t fighting for policies that will make our lives better; and that Republicans are the only party that supports growth and families.

Some Democrats have downplayed the importance of policy compared with style and approach. Chuck Rocha, a political strategist, who is in a way Mr. Garza’s liberal counterpoint, called the re-election campaign announcement by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas at a Hispanic Leadership Summit a “brilliant political move,” but said that the Republican Party’s policies prove that they don’t care about Latinos. Mr. Rocha added that Democrats need to “quit taking a policy book” to a “fistfight.” He might be right that Democrats should be ready to fight, but they should absolutely bring their policy book with them.

Indeed, one of the main findings of the post-mortem report on the 2020 election published by Equis Research was that Donald Trump made inroads with Latino voters because he and Republican governors kept the economy open during the pandemic, cut taxes, distributed stimulus checks, secured the border and expedited vaccine development. I would add Mr. Trump’s focus on religious liberty and support for charter schools.

The report dispelled theories that Latinos supported Mr. Trump because they opposed the term Latinx and defunding the police, or because they aspire to whiteness. The problem with these assumptions is that they caricatured Latinos as motivated primarily by culture wars instead of sincerely held policy beliefs.

Or, rather, the term Latinx, policing and whiteness were issues with underlying policy implications that too often got framed as divisive culture wars, and in ways that minimized the real policy disagreements they highlighted for Latinos: generational divides between Latino Democrats over progressive versus moderate policies; whether the border patrol or police help or harm communities; and whether capitalism, however exploitative, or socialism, however invasive, is the best path toward upward mobility and economic security.

The notion that Latinos were swayed by disinformation implies that they could be duped into voting for Mr. Trump, or that they could have voted for him only if they were duped. Sure, calling President Biden a socialist is disinformation because he is not a socialist. But it’s also the same line of attack that Republicans have used to brand their opponents for a long time. We should be outraged with the lies, and we should combat them. But by merely dismissing the attack as disinformation we ignore why it has been so successful.

It’s not just that socialism conjures ghosts of Latin America’s leftist leaders. It’s also an argument about religion — since conservatives consider socialism a godless philosophy — the ills of government intervention and dependency on government, and education. In a society that cherishes freedom, parents should have a hand in deciding what their children learn.

As much as Democrats would like to dismiss Republican talking points — or misinformation, in some cases — they would be better off understanding how they relate to values that in turn connect with policy preferences. Then they can work to persuade Latinos that their policies are better, even on issues such as religion, the economy and education, on which Republicans claim to occupy more solid ground.

Latino voters aren’t empty vessels just waiting to be filled with liberal beliefs. The problem with focusing only, or even primarily, on messaging and outreach is that it once again doesn’t take Latinos seriously as political actors, and instead assumes that they’re out there ready to be mobilized for the Democratic cause. That’s just not true.

In the end, even if Democrats focus exclusively on policy, they still won’t sway all Latinos to vote for them. But doing so would help them better understand these voters. They should be asking them whether they are paid enough to provide for their families, if they’re satisfied with the schools their children go to, whether they have access to health care, and what government can do to help them reach their goals.

The concrete plans they develop in response, especially for families living paycheck to paycheck and worrying about schools and health care, should respect their work ethic and ambitions. Latinos aren’t looking for “handouts,” but rather, leveling the playing field by, for example, making it easier to get loans to start a business, and increasing access to higher education.

I dream of vigorous town hall-style debates where both parties engage in arguments over whose policies are best, instead of hurling talking points in our general direction from a distance. What Democrats learn may be uncomfortable if they have to abandon their assumptions. But dissecting our understanding of these voters, long presumed to represent a bloc, will be necessary if we have any hope of reconstituting “the Latino vote” in a way that’s more reflective of Latinos’ hopes, dreams and political aims.

The shift toward Donald Trump by Latino voters was one of the more surprising takeaways of the 2020 presidential election. The findings of recent polls and reports — that Latinos may still be sliding toward Republicans — are even more disconcerting for Democrats.

The shift toward Donald Trump by Latino voters was one of the more surprising takeaways of the 2020 presidential election. The findings of recent polls and reports — that Latinos may still be sliding toward Republicans — are even more disconcerting for Democrats. Given the political stakes as well as the stakes for Latino families, Democratic leaders must do better. As 2022 begins, the party so far has no visible, convincingly powerful plan to win over the voters many rank and file Democrats believe are key to November’s midterm elections, the 2024 presidential race and perhaps the future of the Democratic Party. But what happens next, when Democratic candidates fan out across the country trying to shore up support from Latinos who may be slipping away? Some believe that doing better means spending more money on messaging, advertising and outreach. But this isn’t the only lesson to be gleaned from what the data is telling us, and it might not even be the right one. Democrats should more aggressively combat Republican messaging with their own, but the real fight should be over which party has the best ideas on education, immigration, jobs and the economy. This is where Democrats take the Latino vote for granted, but they shouldn’t. Daniel Garza, the president of the conservative group The Libre Initiative, for example, believes that the Republican agenda gives his party the upper hand with Latinos. He scoffed at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announcement last November that it planned to win back Latino and other voters of color by spending at least $30 million to hire organizers, pay for targeted advertising campaigns, combat disinformation and support voter protection and education programs. Thirty million is a lot of money, he told me, but it would be “wasted if the message were about nuanced topics like voter suppression, disinformation and diversity.” The problem for Democrats, he added, is that “GOP ideas are better” because they’re “pro-growth, pro-energy, pro-parent (school choice) and pro-advancement.” Mr. Garza makes several assumptions: that voter suppression and disinformation are nuanced topics that don’t resonate with Latinos; that Democrats aren’t fighting for policies that will make our lives better; and that Republicans are the only party that supports growth and families. Some Democrats have downplayed the importance of policy compared with style and approach. Chuck Rocha, a political strategist, who is in a way Mr. Garza’s liberal counterpoint, called the re-election campaign announcement by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas at a Hispanic Leadership Summit a “brilliant political move,” but said that the Republican Party’s policies prove that they don’t care about Latinos. Mr. Rocha added that Democrats need to “quit taking a policy book” to a “fistfight.” He might be right that Democrats should be ready to fight, but they should absolutely bring their policy book with them. Indeed, one of the main findings of the post-mortem report on the 2020 election published by Equis Research was that Donald Trump made inroads with Latino voters because he and Republican governors kept the economy open during the pandemic, cut taxes, distributed stimulus checks, secured the border and expedited vaccine development. I would add Mr. Trump’s focus on religious liberty and support for charter schools. The report dispelled theories that Latinos supported Mr. Trump because they opposed the term Latinx and defunding the police, or because they aspire to whiteness. The problem with these assumptions is that they caricatured Latinos as motivated primarily by culture wars instead of sincerely held policy beliefs. Or, rather, the term Latinx, policing and whiteness were issues with underlying policy implications that too often got framed as divisive culture wars, and in ways that minimized the real policy disagreements they highlighted for Latinos: generational divides between Latino Democrats over progressive versus moderate policies; whether the border patrol or police help or harm communities; and whether capitalism, however exploitative, or socialism, however invasive, is the best path toward upward mobility and economic security. The notion that Latinos were swayed by disinformation implies that they could be duped into voting for Mr. Trump, or that they could have voted for him only if they were duped. Sure, calling President Biden a socialist is disinformation because he is not a socialist. But it’s also the same line of attack that Republicans have used to brand their opponents for a long time. We should be outraged with the lies, and we should combat them. But by merely dismissing the attack as disinformation we ignore why it has been so successful. It’s not just that socialism conjures ghosts of Latin America’s leftist leaders. It’s also an argument about religion — since conservatives consider socialism a godless philosophy — the ills of government intervention and dependency on government, and education. In a society that cherishes freedom, parents should have a hand in deciding what their children learn. As much as Democrats would like to dismiss Republican talking points — or misinformation, in some cases — they would be better off understanding how they relate to values that in turn connect with policy preferences. Then they can work to persuade Latinos that their policies are better, even on issues such as religion, the economy and education, on which Republicans claim to occupy more solid ground. Latino voters aren’t empty vessels just waiting to be filled with liberal beliefs. The problem with focusing only, or even primarily, on messaging and outreach is that it once again doesn’t take Latinos seriously as political actors, and instead assumes that they’re out there ready to be mobilized for the Democratic cause. That’s just not true. In the end, even if Democrats focus exclusively on policy, they still won’t sway all Latinos to vote for them. But doing so would help them better understand these voters. They should be asking them whether they are paid enough to provide for their families, if they’re satisfied with the schools their children go to, whether they have access to health care, and what government can do to help them reach their goals. The concrete plans they develop in response, especially for families living paycheck to paycheck and worrying about schools and health care, should respect their work ethic and ambitions. Latinos aren’t looking for “handouts,” but rather, leveling the playing field by, for example, making it easier to get loans to start a business, and increasing access to higher education. I dream of vigorous town hall-style debates where both parties engage in arguments over whose policies are best, instead of hurling talking points in our general direction from a distance. What Democrats learn may be uncomfortable if they have to abandon their assumptions. But dissecting our understanding of these voters, long presumed to represent a bloc, will be necessary if we have any hope of reconstituting “the Latino vote” in a way that’s more reflective of Latinos’ hopes, dreams and political aims.

Latino voters are key to 2024, and they’re not always buying what Democrats are selling

Donald Trump and his allies are scheduling events and raising money for initiatives intended to make the former president a central player in the midterm elections, and possibly to set the stage for another run for the White House.

He and groups allied with him are planning policy summits, more rallies and an elaborate forum next month at his Mar-a-Lago resort for candidates he has endorsed and donors who give as much as $125,000 per person to a pro-Trump super PAC.

The efforts seem intended to reinforce the former president’s grip on the Republican Party and its donors amid questions about whether Trump will seek the party’s nomination again or settle into a role as a kingmaker.

Taken together, the pro-Trump groups form a sort of shadow political party that could help start another presidential campaign and, if that were successful, shape his administration. They include Trump’s own PACs, which amassed more than $100 million by last summer, employ an overlapping roster of former top officials from his administration and have signalled that they intend to embrace policies and candidates supported by Trump.

The groups have also helped reinforce his properties as a center of Republican power, holding events at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Trump has welcomed to the clubs a stream of Republicans seeking his political blessing, issuing nearly 100 endorsements to aligned candidates, including challengers to GOP incumbents who voted for Trump’s impeachment or supported the certification of his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

The candidate forum at Mar-a-Lago is being planned for Feb. 23 by a super PAC run by some of Trump’s closest allies called Make America Great Again, Again! Inc., according to an email to donors from Roy W. Bailey, a Texas businessman and Republican fundraiser.

“There will be an all-day candidate forum with back-to-back speeches from the endorsed candidates and familiar faces in the Trump orbit,” wrote Bailey, who was a leading fundraiser for Trump’s campaigns and inaugural committee, then registered to lobby his administration. “We want those who attend to leave thinking that it was the best political event they have ever attended."

Donors who raise $375,000 will be invited to a private dinner with Trump.

Bailey noted that the PAC’s national finance director was Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is dating Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., and that its board included Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general who advised Trump during his first impeachment; Richard Grenell, who was Trump’s ambassador to Germany and acting head of national intelligence; and Matthew G. Whitaker, who was acting attorney general.

The forum is for federal candidates endorsed by Trump. It is not clear how many of them intend to attend. But some, including Harriet Hageman, who is mounting a primary challenge against Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of Trump’s harshest Republican critics, and Kelly Tshibaka, who is running in the primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have been asked to hold the date, according to a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to discuss it.

Still, Trump’s political activities have generated some grumbling within his circle of supporters.

One donor who had supported Trump’s campaigns said he was leery about donating to Make America Great Again, Again! because of concerns that the money would be wasted. Citing events at the former president’s properties as an example, the donor, who insisted on anonymity to avoid antagonizing Trump and his allies, said he declined invitations to the February candidate forum and to a $125,000-a-plate fundraising dinner with Trump held by the super PAC last month at Mar-a-Lago.

Other donors and party leaders worry about the damage that could be done by Trump’s backing of primary challenges to Republicans who pushed back against his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump was impeached twice, including after his supporters stormed the Capitol seeking to disrupt the certification of Biden’s victory. Since then, he has been banned from the social media accounts he had wielded so effectively to generate attention and punish enemies without spending any money.

While Trump has announced the formation of his own media company, including a new social network to reinsert himself into the conversation, it has yet to launch and its financing has come under scrutiny from securities regulators.

Trump’s team also has continued fundraising voraciously online for various PACs that he directly controls, compiling a war chest of more than $100 million last summer, and his team has continued financing campaign-style rallies. He has plans for one in Arizona this month and more to follow, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Many of Trump’s rallies in 2021 were paired with private donor round tables to raise money for his super PAC. He is planning more rallies in 2022 at locations chosen to help the candidates he has endorsed, according to people familiar with the plans.

Groups allied with him have stepped up their fundraising in recent months, indicating they intend to spend funds to promote his causes and endorsements.

A nonprofit group called America First Policy Institute, which was started last year to serve as a think tank for Trump world, has the look of a Trump administration in waiting. It raised more than $20 million last year and has 110 employees, including Bondi, Whitaker and a number of former Trump Cabinet members, such as David Bernhardt (who ran the Interior Department), Rick Perry (Energy Department) and Andrew Wheeler (Environmental Protection Agency).

The group held two events with Trump at his properties — a fundraising gala at Mar-a-Lago in November, and an event at Bedminster in July with Bondi to promote a lawsuit filed by Trump against tech companies that barred or limited his use of their platforms — and it is planning twice-a-year policy summits around the country.

The next summit, planned for April in Atlanta, could feature Trump, according to the group’s president, Brooke Rollins, who served as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Trump and says she remains in contact with Trump about her group’s efforts.

She said her group’s goal was to persuade Americans to support policies like those that Trump pursued as president, and “not about getting anyone reelected,” although she said she hoped the group’s efforts would shape the debates around the midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

“The metric of a successful policy organization is how much those policies are part of the debate,” she said.

A linked nonprofit group called America First Works is promoting policies that comport with Trump’s agenda. They include voting rules that make it “hard to cheat,” according to a fact sheet that seems to echo Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which his allies have been relying on to reshape election laws in a manner that could favour Republicans.

But the raft of new groups has brought with it some of the drama and infighting that marked Trump’s campaigns and presidency.

A previous iteration of the super PAC behind the Mar-a-Lago forum was replaced after one of its founders, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, was accused of sexual misconduct by a donor.

That super PAC, which reported $5.6 million in the bank in mid-August, was supplanted by the new PAC, according to a statement announcing the shift in October that said the assets of the old PAC would be transferred to the new one.

The statement called the new group “the ONLY Trump-approved super PAC.”

Donald Trump and his allies are scheduling events and raising money for initiatives intended to make the former president a central player in the midterm elections, and possibly to set the stage for another run for the White House.

Donald Trump and his allies are scheduling events and raising money for initiatives intended to make the former president a central player in the midterm elections, and possibly to set the stage for another run for the White House. He and groups allied with him are planning policy summits, more rallies and an elaborate forum next month at his Mar-a-Lago resort for candidates he has endorsed and donors who give as much as $125,000 per person to a pro-Trump super PAC. The efforts seem intended to reinforce the former president’s grip on the Republican Party and its donors amid questions about whether Trump will seek the party’s nomination again or settle into a role as a kingmaker. Taken together, the pro-Trump groups form a sort of shadow political party that could help start another presidential campaign and, if that were successful, shape his administration. They include Trump’s own PACs, which amassed more than $100 million by last summer, employ an overlapping roster of former top officials from his administration and have signalled that they intend to embrace policies and candidates supported by Trump. The groups have also helped reinforce his properties as a center of Republican power, holding events at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Trump has welcomed to the clubs a stream of Republicans seeking his political blessing, issuing nearly 100 endorsements to aligned candidates, including challengers to GOP incumbents who voted for Trump’s impeachment or supported the certification of his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The candidate forum at Mar-a-Lago is being planned for Feb. 23 by a super PAC run by some of Trump’s closest allies called Make America Great Again, Again! Inc., according to an email to donors from Roy W. Bailey, a Texas businessman and Republican fundraiser. “There will be an all-day candidate forum with back-to-back speeches from the endorsed candidates and familiar faces in the Trump orbit,” wrote Bailey, who was a leading fundraiser for Trump’s campaigns and inaugural committee, then registered to lobby his administration. “We want those who attend to leave thinking that it was the best political event they have ever attended." Donors who raise $375,000 will be invited to a private dinner with Trump. Bailey noted that the PAC’s national finance director was Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is dating Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., and that its board included Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general who advised Trump during his first impeachment; Richard Grenell, who was Trump’s ambassador to Germany and acting head of national intelligence; and Matthew G. Whitaker, who was acting attorney general. The forum is for federal candidates endorsed by Trump. It is not clear how many of them intend to attend. But some, including Harriet Hageman, who is mounting a primary challenge against Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of Trump’s harshest Republican critics, and Kelly Tshibaka, who is running in the primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have been asked to hold the date, according to a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to discuss it. Still, Trump’s political activities have generated some grumbling within his circle of supporters. One donor who had supported Trump’s campaigns said he was leery about donating to Make America Great Again, Again! because of concerns that the money would be wasted. Citing events at the former president’s properties as an example, the donor, who insisted on anonymity to avoid antagonizing Trump and his allies, said he declined invitations to the February candidate forum and to a $125,000-a-plate fundraising dinner with Trump held by the super PAC last month at Mar-a-Lago. Other donors and party leaders worry about the damage that could be done by Trump’s backing of primary challenges to Republicans who pushed back against his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump was impeached twice, including after his supporters stormed the Capitol seeking to disrupt the certification of Biden’s victory. Since then, he has been banned from the social media accounts he had wielded so effectively to generate attention and punish enemies without spending any money. While Trump has announced the formation of his own media company, including a new social network to reinsert himself into the conversation, it has yet to launch and its financing has come under scrutiny from securities regulators. Trump’s team also has continued fundraising voraciously online for various PACs that he directly controls, compiling a war chest of more than $100 million last summer, and his team has continued financing campaign-style rallies. He has plans for one in Arizona this month and more to follow, according to a person familiar with the matter. Many of Trump’s rallies in 2021 were paired with private donor round tables to raise money for his super PAC. He is planning more rallies in 2022 at locations chosen to help the candidates he has endorsed, according to people familiar with the plans. Groups allied with him have stepped up their fundraising in recent months, indicating they intend to spend funds to promote his causes and endorsements. A nonprofit group called America First Policy Institute, which was started last year to serve as a think tank for Trump world, has the look of a Trump administration in waiting. It raised more than $20 million last year and has 110 employees, including Bondi, Whitaker and a number of former Trump Cabinet members, such as David Bernhardt (who ran the Interior Department), Rick Perry (Energy Department) and Andrew Wheeler (Environmental Protection Agency). The group held two events with Trump at his properties — a fundraising gala at Mar-a-Lago in November, and an event at Bedminster in July with Bondi to promote a lawsuit filed by Trump against tech companies that barred or limited his use of their platforms — and it is planning twice-a-year policy summits around the country. The next summit, planned for April in Atlanta, could feature Trump, according to the group’s president, Brooke Rollins, who served as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Trump and says she remains in contact with Trump about her group’s efforts. She said her group’s goal was to persuade Americans to support policies like those that Trump pursued as president, and “not about getting anyone reelected,” although she said she hoped the group’s efforts would shape the debates around the midterms and the 2024 presidential election. “The metric of a successful policy organization is how much those policies are part of the debate,” she said. A linked nonprofit group called America First Works is promoting policies that comport with Trump’s agenda. They include voting rules that make it “hard to cheat,” according to a fact sheet that seems to echo Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which his allies have been relying on to reshape election laws in a manner that could favour Republicans. But the raft of new groups has brought with it some of the drama and infighting that marked Trump’s campaigns and presidency. A previous iteration of the super PAC behind the Mar-a-Lago forum was replaced after one of its founders, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, was accused of sexual misconduct by a donor. That super PAC, which reported $5.6 million in the bank in mid-August, was supplanted by the new PAC, according to a statement announcing the shift in October that said the assets of the old PAC would be transferred to the new one. The statement called the new group “the ONLY Trump-approved super PAC.”

As midterms and 2024 loom, Trump's political operation revs up

Smarting from an off-year electoral rebuke, congressional Democrats pushed forward Wednesday toward House votes as soon as Thursday on nearly $3 trillion worth of social policy, infrastructure and climate change programs — but with a deep new worry: Would a legislative victory help or hurt their bruised political standing?

The day after a defeat in the Virginia governor’s race and an unexpectedly close race in the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey, Democrats in Congress toiled to keep recriminations to a minimum. But centrists grumbled that the party’s left flank had held back final passage of what they considered the most popular part of the agenda, a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill, while liberals blamed poor campaigns and ineffectual candidates.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who campaigned hard for Terry McAuliffe only to see him lose, said, “What I heard when I was out campaigning for the ticket was, ‘Hey, you guys got the White House, the Senate, the House. When are you going to get more things done?’ I mean, only in Washington could people think that it is a smart strategy to take a once-in-a-generation investment in infrastructure and prevent your president from signing that bill into law.”

Liberal lawmakers pointed the finger back at holdout moderates who have been the main impediments to passage of a separate $1.85 trillion social safety net and climate change bill, which progressives argue must be approved before they supply their votes for the public works measure.

“Candidates matter,” added Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the Democrats who blockaded the infrastructure measure. But virtually all Democrats came away from the sweeping defeats in Virginia and a narrow escape for New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, agreeing that the imperative now is to pass both bills as quickly as possible to prove their party can govern.

Hanging over the endeavor was a deep sense of dread among Democrats — reinforced by the results Tuesday — that their prospects for keeping control of Congress in the midterm elections next year were dwindling by the day, amid President Joe Biden’s sagging approval rating and widespread discontent with the direction of the country. Puffed up by his party’s successes, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, predicted that Democrats would lose more than 60 seats next year.

That figure may be exaggerated, but with control of the chamber resting on fewer than a half-dozen seats, many Democrats understood the threat.

“The No. 1 concern voters have raised with me over the last several weeks has been inability of Congress and government in general to get things done at a time of great need for the country,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski, a Democrat in a swing district in New Jersey. “So the best thing we can do in Congress is to pass these damned bills, immediately.”

To that end, Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the House Rules Committee on Wednesday to take up and approve a final draft of the social policy and climate bill with an eye toward a Friday vote. Her vote-counting operation asked Democrats to report whether they would support the bill by 11 a.m. Thursday.

And Pelosi added a few twists that indicated that Democrats were in no mood to pull back on their ambitious agenda in response to the disappointing election results.

She asked the committee to add back in four weeks of paid family and medical leave that had been removed at the insistence of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., although it was all but guaranteed to be stripped out in the Senate, where Manchin’s vote is necessary to pass the bill.

House Democrats were also adding a compromise measure, demanded by Northeastern lawmakers, to raise the cap on the amount of state and local tax that can be deducted from federal taxes, from $10,000 to $72,500, through 2031.

That provision, too, was likely to be changed by the Senate, where two key players, Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., announced an agreement in principle to eliminate the cap — which affects taxpayers in higher-income states — for families making under $400,000 and to impose it permanently for higher-earning homeowners.

And the House was adding a provision — also likely to be dropped by the Senate — that would grant temporary protected status and work permits to immigrants who have lived in the United States without legal permission for a decade.

Some moderates who had implored Pelosi not to ask them to vote for politically tricky measures that were destined to die in the Senate were worried about that language.

“Are we going to give benefits to illegals?” asked Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, warning that Republicans would cite the vote in attack ads in midterm campaigns. “Because, automatically, that’s a 30-second spot against Democrats.”

In the wake of the elections, Republicans hunted for fissures in the Democratic caucus that could sink the social policy bill.

“Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi did not get the message from what happened last night,” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the No. 2 Republican, said. “Now maybe more of their members will look in the mirror and say, ‘I don’t want to be the next Terry McAuliffe.’”

They also honed their lines of attack off the successful campaign of Glenn Youngkin, the private equity executive and political neophyte who captured the governorship of Virginia by focusing heavily on education and the grievances of parents unhappy with how school districts have responded to the pandemic.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who is in charge of House Republican messaging, convened a roundtable discussion on education Wednesday to try to take Youngkin’s message national. Republicans made clear they would go after two of the biggest and most popular provisions in the social policy bill — universal prekindergarten and generous child care support — by saying they were schemes to nationalize early childhood education and force-feed left-wing pedagogy to youngsters.

Stefanik said children had been “forced to remain masked and distanced from their peers” and exposed to “inappropriate material” on race and gender.

“Virginians spoke loud and clear last night that parental rights is an issue we can run on and win on,” she said. “Glenn Youngkin ran on education, and he won on education.”

Democrats, though, appeared confident they could weather that line of attack by emphasizing the benefits of the programs created by their legislation, against which Republicans are united in opposition.

“Oh, I welcome that fight,” said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. “They’re saying that we shouldn’t help families pay for child care and have more 3- and 4-year-olds go to pre-K? Please say that, Republicans. Please say that.”

Warner was more circumspect. Democrats, he said, had been right to shower school districts with coronavirus pandemic relief over the past 18 months, but they now need to consider how that has fed into Republican accusations of the federal government centralizing control over how schools handled the pandemic and what they teach children.

“I have not met a Virginia educator or parent anywhere that doesn’t think that kind of relief was appropriate as we come out of COVID,” he said. But, he added that Youngkin had " touched a nerve, and I think those of us on the Democratic side need to sit back and think about how we address that.”

Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., called the election results a “wake-up call” for members of his party pushing overly ideological positions that failed on Tuesday, like a ballot initiative in his state to abolish police departments. But, he said, his prescription was to listen to voters more, not to delay or scale back the ambitious social policy bill.

“Truth be told,” he said, “it’s such transformative policy for the country that most of us should be willing to lose our jobs over it.”

Still, the failure to capture the imagination of voters was impossible for Democrats to deny. Some lawmakers said Americans would notice once they delivered on Biden’s agenda, but Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said Democrats needed to get better at touting their accomplishments.

“I think we should do a much better job of talking about the things that we did that really help our families,” she said. “What are the Republicans doing? Nothing. Zero, zilch.”

Before they can promote their achievements, however, Democrats need to pass some bills. Some moderates on Wednesday were demanding more time to read the 2,135-page bill and wanted an official cost analysis by Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeepers.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., the House majority leader, was having none of it.

“Members have had well over 72 hours to read it,” he said.

Smarting from an off-year electoral rebuke, congressional Democrats pushed forward Wednesday toward House votes as soon as Thursday on nearly $3 trillion worth of social policy, infrastructure and climate change programs — but with a deep new worry: Would a legislative victory help or hurt their bruised political standing?

Smarting from an off-year electoral rebuke, congressional Democrats pushed forward Wednesday toward House votes as soon as Thursday on nearly $3 trillion worth of social policy, infrastructure and climate change programs — but with a deep new worry: Would a legislative victory help or hurt their bruised political standing? The day after a defeat in the Virginia governor’s race and an unexpectedly close race in the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey, Democrats in Congress toiled to keep recriminations to a minimum. But centrists grumbled that the party’s left flank had held back final passage of what they considered the most popular part of the agenda, a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill, while liberals blamed poor campaigns and ineffectual candidates. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who campaigned hard for Terry McAuliffe only to see him lose, said, “What I heard when I was out campaigning for the ticket was, ‘Hey, you guys got the White House, the Senate, the House. When are you going to get more things done?’ I mean, only in Washington could people think that it is a smart strategy to take a once-in-a-generation investment in infrastructure and prevent your president from signing that bill into law.” Liberal lawmakers pointed the finger back at holdout moderates who have been the main impediments to passage of a separate $1.85 trillion social safety net and climate change bill, which progressives argue must be approved before they supply their votes for the public works measure. “Candidates matter,” added Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the Democrats who blockaded the infrastructure measure. But virtually all Democrats came away from the sweeping defeats in Virginia and a narrow escape for New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, agreeing that the imperative now is to pass both bills as quickly as possible to prove their party can govern. Hanging over the endeavor was a deep sense of dread among Democrats — reinforced by the results Tuesday — that their prospects for keeping control of Congress in the midterm elections next year were dwindling by the day, amid President Joe Biden’s sagging approval rating and widespread discontent with the direction of the country. Puffed up by his party’s successes, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, predicted that Democrats would lose more than 60 seats next year. That figure may be exaggerated, but with control of the chamber resting on fewer than a half-dozen seats, many Democrats understood the threat. “The No. 1 concern voters have raised with me over the last several weeks has been inability of Congress and government in general to get things done at a time of great need for the country,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski, a Democrat in a swing district in New Jersey. “So the best thing we can do in Congress is to pass these damned bills, immediately.” To that end, Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the House Rules Committee on Wednesday to take up and approve a final draft of the social policy and climate bill with an eye toward a Friday vote. Her vote-counting operation asked Democrats to report whether they would support the bill by 11 a.m. Thursday. And Pelosi added a few twists that indicated that Democrats were in no mood to pull back on their ambitious agenda in response to the disappointing election results. She asked the committee to add back in four weeks of paid family and medical leave that had been removed at the insistence of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., although it was all but guaranteed to be stripped out in the Senate, where Manchin’s vote is necessary to pass the bill. House Democrats were also adding a compromise measure, demanded by Northeastern lawmakers, to raise the cap on the amount of state and local tax that can be deducted from federal taxes, from $10,000 to $72,500, through 2031. That provision, too, was likely to be changed by the Senate, where two key players, Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., announced an agreement in principle to eliminate the cap — which affects taxpayers in higher-income states — for families making under $400,000 and to impose it permanently for higher-earning homeowners. And the House was adding a provision — also likely to be dropped by the Senate — that would grant temporary protected status and work permits to immigrants who have lived in the United States without legal permission for a decade. Some moderates who had implored Pelosi not to ask them to vote for politically tricky measures that were destined to die in the Senate were worried about that language. “Are we going to give benefits to illegals?” asked Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, warning that Republicans would cite the vote in attack ads in midterm campaigns. “Because, automatically, that’s a 30-second spot against Democrats.” In the wake of the elections, Republicans hunted for fissures in the Democratic caucus that could sink the social policy bill. “Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi did not get the message from what happened last night,” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the No. 2 Republican, said. “Now maybe more of their members will look in the mirror and say, ‘I don’t want to be the next Terry McAuliffe.’” They also honed their lines of attack off the successful campaign of Glenn Youngkin, the private equity executive and political neophyte who captured the governorship of Virginia by focusing heavily on education and the grievances of parents unhappy with how school districts have responded to the pandemic. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who is in charge of House Republican messaging, convened a roundtable discussion on education Wednesday to try to take Youngkin’s message national. Republicans made clear they would go after two of the biggest and most popular provisions in the social policy bill — universal prekindergarten and generous child care support — by saying they were schemes to nationalize early childhood education and force-feed left-wing pedagogy to youngsters. Stefanik said children had been “forced to remain masked and distanced from their peers” and exposed to “inappropriate material” on race and gender. “Virginians spoke loud and clear last night that parental rights is an issue we can run on and win on,” she said. “Glenn Youngkin ran on education, and he won on education.” Democrats, though, appeared confident they could weather that line of attack by emphasizing the benefits of the programs created by their legislation, against which Republicans are united in opposition. “Oh, I welcome that fight,” said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. “They’re saying that we shouldn’t help families pay for child care and have more 3- and 4-year-olds go to pre-K? Please say that, Republicans. Please say that.” Warner was more circumspect. Democrats, he said, had been right to shower school districts with coronavirus pandemic relief over the past 18 months, but they now need to consider how that has fed into Republican accusations of the federal government centralizing control over how schools handled the pandemic and what they teach children. “I have not met a Virginia educator or parent anywhere that doesn’t think that kind of relief was appropriate as we come out of COVID,” he said. But, he added that Youngkin had " touched a nerve, and I think those of us on the Democratic side need to sit back and think about how we address that.” Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., called the election results a “wake-up call” for members of his party pushing overly ideological positions that failed on Tuesday, like a ballot initiative in his state to abolish police departments. But, he said, his prescription was to listen to voters more, not to delay or scale back the ambitious social policy bill. “Truth be told,” he said, “it’s such transformative policy for the country that most of us should be willing to lose our jobs over it.” Still, the failure to capture the imagination of voters was impossible for Democrats to deny. Some lawmakers said Americans would notice once they delivered on Biden’s agenda, but Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said Democrats needed to get better at touting their accomplishments. “I think we should do a much better job of talking about the things that we did that really help our families,” she said. “What are the Republicans doing? Nothing. Zero, zilch.” Before they can promote their achievements, however, Democrats need to pass some bills. Some moderates on Wednesday were demanding more time to read the 2,135-page bill and wanted an official cost analysis by Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeepers. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., the House majority leader, was having none of it. “Members have had well over 72 hours to read it,” he said.

Democrats, stung by losses, press forward on Biden agenda

A dizzying amount of money is already pouring into the battles for the House and the Senate more than a year before the 2022 elections, as Republicans are bullish on their chances to take over both chambers in the first midterm election under President Joe Biden, given the narrow margins keeping Democrats in power.

The two parties’ main war chests for the House total a combined $128 million — more than double the sum at this point in the 2020 cycle and far surpassing every other previous one. Top House members are now raising $1 million or more per quarter. And more than two dozen senators and Senate candidates topped that threshold.

Candidate after candidate, and the parties themselves, are posting record-breaking sums, even as the shapes of most House districts nationwide remain in flux because of delays in the once-a-decade redrawing of boundaries.

In Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, raised more than $100,000 per day in the past three months for a $9.5 million haul. But his leading Republican rival, Herschel Walker, the former football player who was urged to run by former President Donald Trump, raised $3.7 million in a little more than a month, setting up a potentially bruising and expensive contest in that key state.

Politicians in both parties are furiously racing to expand their online donor bases while simultaneously courting big checks from wealthy benefactors. At a Senate Republican retreat for big donors in Palm Beach, Florida, this past week, Trump’s presence was a reminder of his continued perch at the center of the Republican Party — both in helping lure donations and in derailing whatever messaging that party operatives have designed.

“The donor community is waking up to the fact that the Republican Party has a historic opportunity in 2022, in spite of Trump continuing to talk about 2020,” said Scott Reed, a longtime Republican strategist.

Money alone is rarely decisive in political races, especially when both parties are flush with cash. But the glut of political funding, detailed in Federal Election Commission reports filed Friday by House and Senate candidates and announced by the parties, shows the growing stakes of US&nbsp;elections, where a single flipped Senate seat can shift trillions of dollars in federal spending.

The country’s increasingly polarized electorate has been hyper-engaged in politics since the Trump era began, and the ease of channeling that energy into donations online is remaking how campaigns are funded. The online donation clearinghouses for the two parties, ActBlue and WinRed, processed a combined total of more than $450 million in the third quarter.

The avalanche of cash could expand the 2022 political battlefield and result in an unrelenting wave of advertising aimed at Americans who live in swing districts and states.

The ad wars have, in fact, already begun. Democratic- and Republican-linked groups are spending millions of dollars to shape public opinion on the spending package currently being debated in Congress.

Among them is one Biden-aligned nonprofit group, Building Back Together, which said it had spent nearly $15 million on television ads in more than two dozen House districts and key states since July. This past week, a Republican-aligned nonprofit group, One Nation, announced that it was beginning a $10 million ad campaign, urging three Democratic senators up for reelection in 2022 — in Nevada, Arizona and New Hampshire — to oppose the spending package.

All told, more than $70 million has been spent since Sept. 1 on television ads related to the Biden legislative agenda, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.

Historically, the party out of power has done well in a new president’s first midterm election, and Republicans see rising inflation, missteps in Afghanistan and a softening in Biden’s approval rating as reasons for a sunny 2022 outlook.

“We’ll have to really screw up to lose the House,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, referring to the Democrats’ narrow majority in that chamber.

He said that recapturing the Senate, which is split evenly between 50 Republicans and 50 members of the Democratic caucus, would depend on recruiting more top-tier Republicans, such as Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire.

At the donor retreat in Florida, Graham said, “there was a sense of optimism that was as high as I’ve seen it.”

In the House, the path to the majority is widely expected to be determined by suburban voters, who swung sharply toward the Democratic Party during the Trump administration.

Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who has worked on House campaigns, noted that the central role of suburban terrain — the battlegrounds were more rural 15 years ago — had driven up the cost of campaigning. Buying ads to reach suburban voters requires advertising in pricier urban television markets.

“The upside is the Democratic coalition is built around suburbs,” Ferguson said. “The downside is the resources to run in Philadelphia and Chicago and LA and Miami.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee began this year with roughly $8 million less on hand than its Democratic counterpart but entered October with roughly $2 million more, as small digital contributions have accelerated for Republicans. Each group has raised well over $100 million this year.

Rep. Tom Emmer, the chairman of the Republican congressional committee, noted in a call with reporters that in the 2020 cycle, his party committee had not reached the $100 million threshold until February — five months later.

Both the Senate and the House Republican campaign committees have leaned on hardball and sometimes deceptive tactics to boost their bottom lines, such as pre-checking boxes that automatically enroll donors in recurring monthly contributions and aggressively fostering guilt trips in supporters and questioning their allegiances.

“You’re a traitor …” began one such House GOP text this past week. “You abandoned Trump.”

The text gave a false deadline of 17 minutes to donate.

“This is your final chance to prove your loyalty or be branded a deserter,” it read.

The House GOP committee, which declined to comment on its tactics, said it had raised nearly 44% of its funds last quarter online.

“Democrats have owned online fundraising, and that is no longer true,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, who previously led the House Republican campaign arm. “Republicans now are the ones who are obsessed and aroused. People voted for Biden to get Trump out of their living rooms. But they didn’t vote for all his policies.”

Most Republican strategists hope to keep the focus on Democrats, knowing voters typically want to put a check on those in power. But Trump’s continued insistence on making his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen a central rallying cry for the GOP — “If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020,” Trump warned in a statement this past week, “Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24” — is a complicating factor.

“If it’s a referendum on Biden’s policies, we will do very well,” Graham said of the 2022 midterms. “If it’s looking back, if it’s a grievance campaign, then we could be in trouble.”

Emmer tried to distance himself from Trump’s remarks, saying, “He’s a private citizen, and he, of course, is entitled to his own opinion.” Still, Emmer added that he was “honored” that the former president would headline the committee’s fall fundraising dinner.

“He remains the biggest draw in our party,” he said.

Congressional leaders are the other leading party fundraisers. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican minority leader, and his top deputy, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, have transferred a combined total of nearly $30 million to their party committees this year, party officials said.

Scalise’s top donations since July included $105,000 from the PAC of Koch Industries; $125,000 from H. Fisk Johnson, the chief executive of S.C. Johnson &amp; Son; and $66,300 from John W. Childs, the private equity magnate.

Whether this is the final term of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is 81, is widely discussed in Washington. But the San Francisco Democrat remains a prolific fundraiser.

Donors to her political accounts in recent months include Haim Saban, the media investor ($263,400); Hamilton James, a top Blackstone executive ($263,000); Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, the Cargill heiress ($263,400); and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood producer ($163,400).

Sen. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, raised heavily both for his own 2022 reelection bid in New York and to maintain the Democratic majority.

Schumer has aggressively pressed top party fundraisers in recent months, telling one that he wanted to fill his war chest (now at $31.9 million) as a deterrent to any primary challenge from the left. He specifically named Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as the kind of candidate he would like to keep from running, mostly to avoid weakening his hand while navigating the evenly divided Senate.

Schumer’s office declined to comment.

Notably, some of the top fundraisers in both parties are Black.

They include Warnock, the top Democratic fundraiser aside from congressional leaders, and Walker, a leading Republican in the Georgia Senate race. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, was the top fundraiser in the party aside from the congressional leaders.

Scott raised $8.3 million in the third quarter. He now has $18.8 million in the bank, funds that can be used for his 2022 reelection or to seed a potential 2024 presidential run.

Rep. Val Demings, a Black Democrat in Florida and a former Orlando police chief, is challenging Sen. Marco Rubio, the Republican incumbent, and was another top fundraiser, pulling in $8.4 million. But she spent heavily to do so: $5.6 million.

Florida has proved elusive for Democratic candidates, especially in recent years, and some party strategists are already quietly grumbling about the tens of millions — if not more — that is likely to be poured in to a tough race, especially after hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on losing 2020 efforts to topple Republican incumbents in Maine, Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina.

A dizzying amount of money is already pouring into the battles for the House and the Senate more than a year before the 2022 elections, as Republicans are bullish on their chances to take over both chambers in the first midterm election under President Joe Biden, given the narrow margins keeping Democrats in power.

A dizzying amount of money is already pouring into the battles for the House and the Senate more than a year before the 2022 elections, as Republicans are bullish on their chances to take over both chambers in the first midterm election under President Joe Biden, given the narrow margins keeping Democrats in power. The two parties’ main war chests for the House total a combined $128 million — more than double the sum at this point in the 2020 cycle and far surpassing every other previous one. Top House members are now raising $1 million or more per quarter. And more than two dozen senators and Senate candidates topped that threshold. Candidate after candidate, and the parties themselves, are posting record-breaking sums, even as the shapes of most House districts nationwide remain in flux because of delays in the once-a-decade redrawing of boundaries. In Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, raised more than $100,000 per day in the past three months for a $9.5 million haul. But his leading Republican rival, Herschel Walker, the former football player who was urged to run by former President Donald Trump, raised $3.7 million in a little more than a month, setting up a potentially bruising and expensive contest in that key state. Politicians in both parties are furiously racing to expand their online donor bases while simultaneously courting big checks from wealthy benefactors. At a Senate Republican retreat for big donors in Palm Beach, Florida, this past week, Trump’s presence was a reminder of his continued perch at the center of the Republican Party — both in helping lure donations and in derailing whatever messaging that party operatives have designed. “The donor community is waking up to the fact that the Republican Party has a historic opportunity in 2022, in spite of Trump continuing to talk about 2020,” said Scott Reed, a longtime Republican strategist. Money alone is rarely decisive in political races, especially when both parties are flush with cash. But the glut of political funding, detailed in Federal Election Commission reports filed Friday by House and Senate candidates and announced by the parties, shows the growing stakes of US elections, where a single flipped Senate seat can shift trillions of dollars in federal spending. The country’s increasingly polarized electorate has been hyper-engaged in politics since the Trump era began, and the ease of channeling that energy into donations online is remaking how campaigns are funded. The online donation clearinghouses for the two parties, ActBlue and WinRed, processed a combined total of more than $450 million in the third quarter. The avalanche of cash could expand the 2022 political battlefield and result in an unrelenting wave of advertising aimed at Americans who live in swing districts and states. The ad wars have, in fact, already begun. Democratic- and Republican-linked groups are spending millions of dollars to shape public opinion on the spending package currently being debated in Congress. Among them is one Biden-aligned nonprofit group, Building Back Together, which said it had spent nearly $15 million on television ads in more than two dozen House districts and key states since July. This past week, a Republican-aligned nonprofit group, One Nation, announced that it was beginning a $10 million ad campaign, urging three Democratic senators up for reelection in 2022 — in Nevada, Arizona and New Hampshire — to oppose the spending package. All told, more than $70 million has been spent since Sept. 1 on television ads related to the Biden legislative agenda, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. Historically, the party out of power has done well in a new president’s first midterm election, and Republicans see rising inflation, missteps in Afghanistan and a softening in Biden’s approval rating as reasons for a sunny 2022 outlook. “We’ll have to really screw up to lose the House,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, referring to the Democrats’ narrow majority in that chamber. He said that recapturing the Senate, which is split evenly between 50 Republicans and 50 members of the Democratic caucus, would depend on recruiting more top-tier Republicans, such as Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. At the donor retreat in Florida, Graham said, “there was a sense of optimism that was as high as I’ve seen it.” In the House, the path to the majority is widely expected to be determined by suburban voters, who swung sharply toward the Democratic Party during the Trump administration. Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who has worked on House campaigns, noted that the central role of suburban terrain — the battlegrounds were more rural 15 years ago — had driven up the cost of campaigning. Buying ads to reach suburban voters requires advertising in pricier urban television markets. “The upside is the Democratic coalition is built around suburbs,” Ferguson said. “The downside is the resources to run in Philadelphia and Chicago and LA and Miami.” The National Republican Congressional Committee began this year with roughly $8 million less on hand than its Democratic counterpart but entered October with roughly $2 million more, as small digital contributions have accelerated for Republicans. Each group has raised well over $100 million this year. Rep. Tom Emmer, the chairman of the Republican congressional committee, noted in a call with reporters that in the 2020 cycle, his party committee had not reached the $100 million threshold until February — five months later. Both the Senate and the House Republican campaign committees have leaned on hardball and sometimes deceptive tactics to boost their bottom lines, such as pre-checking boxes that automatically enroll donors in recurring monthly contributions and aggressively fostering guilt trips in supporters and questioning their allegiances. “You’re a traitor …” began one such House GOP text this past week. “You abandoned Trump.” The text gave a false deadline of 17 minutes to donate. “This is your final chance to prove your loyalty or be branded a deserter,” it read. The House GOP committee, which declined to comment on its tactics, said it had raised nearly 44% of its funds last quarter online. “Democrats have owned online fundraising, and that is no longer true,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, who previously led the House Republican campaign arm. “Republicans now are the ones who are obsessed and aroused. People voted for Biden to get Trump out of their living rooms. But they didn’t vote for all his policies.” Most Republican strategists hope to keep the focus on Democrats, knowing voters typically want to put a check on those in power. But Trump’s continued insistence on making his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen a central rallying cry for the GOP — “If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020,” Trump warned in a statement this past week, “Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24” — is a complicating factor. “If it’s a referendum on Biden’s policies, we will do very well,” Graham said of the 2022 midterms. “If it’s looking back, if it’s a grievance campaign, then we could be in trouble.” Emmer tried to distance himself from Trump’s remarks, saying, “He’s a private citizen, and he, of course, is entitled to his own opinion.” Still, Emmer added that he was “honored” that the former president would headline the committee’s fall fundraising dinner. “He remains the biggest draw in our party,” he said. Congressional leaders are the other leading party fundraisers. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican minority leader, and his top deputy, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, have transferred a combined total of nearly $30 million to their party committees this year, party officials said. Scalise’s top donations since July included $105,000 from the PAC of Koch Industries; $125,000 from H. Fisk Johnson, the chief executive of S.C. Johnson & Son; and $66,300 from John W. Childs, the private equity magnate. Whether this is the final term of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is 81, is widely discussed in Washington. But the San Francisco Democrat remains a prolific fundraiser. Donors to her political accounts in recent months include Haim Saban, the media investor ($263,400); Hamilton James, a top Blackstone executive ($263,000); Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, the Cargill heiress ($263,400); and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood producer ($163,400). Sen. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, raised heavily both for his own 2022 reelection bid in New York and to maintain the Democratic majority. Schumer has aggressively pressed top party fundraisers in recent months, telling one that he wanted to fill his war chest (now at $31.9 million) as a deterrent to any primary challenge from the left. He specifically named Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as the kind of candidate he would like to keep from running, mostly to avoid weakening his hand while navigating the evenly divided Senate. Schumer’s office declined to comment. Notably, some of the top fundraisers in both parties are Black. They include Warnock, the top Democratic fundraiser aside from congressional leaders, and Walker, a leading Republican in the Georgia Senate race. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, was the top fundraiser in the party aside from the congressional leaders. Scott raised $8.3 million in the third quarter. He now has $18.8 million in the bank, funds that can be used for his 2022 reelection or to seed a potential 2024 presidential run. Rep. Val Demings, a Black Democrat in Florida and a former Orlando police chief, is challenging Sen. Marco Rubio, the Republican incumbent, and was another top fundraiser, pulling in $8.4 million. But she spent heavily to do so: $5.6 million. Florida has proved elusive for Democratic candidates, especially in recent years, and some party strategists are already quietly grumbling about the tens of millions — if not more — that is likely to be poured in to a tough race, especially after hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on losing 2020 efforts to topple Republican incumbents in Maine, Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Money floods the race for control of Congress, more than a year early

Amid former US President Donald Trump's preparation for a potential second term at the White House, he may have lost support of a key ally, his wife Melania Trump. Melania is not so keen on returning to the White House, according to reports.

Quoting unnamed sources close to Melania Trump, CNN said that she treats her time as the US First Lady as a chapter that is over.

Melania&nbsp;does not want to support Trump's inflated political ambitions.

In US, a person can serve as president for two terms. Since Trump has served one, he can seek election for second term challenging the incumbent Joe Biden in 2024.

Though not in power, Trump retains great influence in the Republican Party. This has been evident through conventions and public events of the party.

However, Melania does not appear keen to return to the White House, if reports are to be believed. She has kept a low profile after Trump was voted out of the office in US Presidential Election 2020.

While Trump was president, there were also reports of a marital discord between the couple. It was even said that Melania was waiting for Trump's tenure to be over in order to separate from him. Nothing major has happened on that front so far.

Amid former US President Donald Trump's preparation for a potential second term at the White House, he may have lost support of a key ally, his wife Melania Trump.

Amid former US President Donald Trump's preparation for a potential second term at the White House, he may have lost support of a key ally, his wife Melania Trump. Melania is not so keen on returning to the White House, according to reports. Quoting unnamed sources close to Melania Trump, CNN said that she treats her time as the US First Lady as a chapter that is over. Melania does not want to support Trump's inflated political ambitions. In US, a person can serve as president for two terms. Since Trump has served one, he can seek election for second term challenging the incumbent Joe Biden in 2024. Though not in power, Trump retains great influence in the Republican Party. This has been evident through conventions and public events of the party. However, Melania does not appear keen to return to the White House, if reports are to be believed. She has kept a low profile after Trump was voted out of the office in US Presidential Election 2020. While Trump was president, there were also reports of a marital discord between the couple. It was even said that Melania was waiting for Trump's tenure to be over in order to separate from him. Nothing major has happened on that front so far.

Melania won't support Donald Trump if he runs for president again: Report

Rob Goins is 57, a former Marine and a lifelong Republican in a right-leaning jigsaw of golf courses, strip malls and gated retirement communities pieced together in the Arizona desert. But ask about the Republican-backed review of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory here in Maricopa County, and Goins rejects the party line.

“There’s a lot of folks out there trying to make something out of nothing,” he said recently as he loaded purchases into his vehicle outside a Home Depot. “I don’t think there was any fraud. My opinion of this is that it’s a big lie.”

Goins is flesh-and-blood evidence of what political analysts here are all but shouting: The Republican-led state Senate’s autopsy of the 2020 vote, broadly seen as a shambolic, partisan effort to nurse grievances about Donald Trump’s loss here in November, risks driving away some of the very people the party needs to win statewide elections in 2022.

That Arizona Republicans are ignoring that message — and that Republicans in other states are now trying to mount their own Arizona-style audits — raises worrisome questions not just about their strategy, but about its impact on an American democracy facing fundamental threats.

Now in its seventh week, the review of 2.1 million votes in Arizona’s most populous county has ballooned not just into a national political spectacle, but also a political windsock for the Republican Party — an early test of how its renewed subservience to Trump would play with voters.

The returns to date are not encouraging for the party. A late-May poll of 400 Arizonans by the respected consulting firm HighGround Inc. found that more than 55% of respondents opposed the vote review, most of them strongly. Fewer than 41% approved of it. By about 45% to 33%, respondents said they were less likely — much less, most said — to vote for a Republican candidate who supported the review.

The review itself, troubled by procedural blunders and defections, has largely sacrificed any claim to impartiality. The Pennsylvania computer forensics firm that was conducting the hand recount of ballots quit without a clear explanation this month, adding further chaos to a count that election authorities and other critics say has been making up its rules as it went along.

“If they were voting on it again today, they would have withheld doing this, because it’s been nothing but a headache,” Jim Kolbe, a Republican congressman from southeast Arizona from 1985 to 2003, said of the Republican state senators who are backing the review. “It’s a black mark on Arizona’s reputation.”

Instead, the Republicans in the Arizona Senate have doubled down. And as the review’s notoriety has grown, pro-Trump Republicans in other states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have begun to promote their own plans to investigate the November vote, even though — as in Arizona — elections in those states have been certified as accurate and free from any fraud that could have affected the outcome.

The sudden interest in exhuming the November election is explained by another number from the poll in Arizona: While only about 41% of all 400 respondents said they supported the Maricopa audit, almost 77% of Republican respondents did.

Among the Trump supporters who dominate the Republican Party, skepticism about the election results, fueled almost entirely by Trump’s lies, remains unshaken, and catering to it is politically profitable.

Leslie Minkus, 77, is a business consultant in Chandler, another Republican stronghold just southeast of Phoenix. His wife, Phyllis, serves on the local Republican legislative district committee. “The majority of voters here in Arizona know that this election was stolen,” he said in an interview. “It’s pretty obvious that our alleged president is not more popular than previous presidents, and still wound up getting a majority of the vote.”

Opposition to the review by Democrats and some Republicans — including the Republican-run county board of supervisors and the Republican who is the chief county election officer — only shows that they have something to hide, Minkus added. And as for previous checks of ballots and voting equipment that showed no sign of fraud, he said, “I don’t think anybody would agree that the audits done in the past were independent.”

In conversations with a range of Phoenix-area residents, many who supported the review were more equivocal than Minkus.

“I think there was fraud going on. I mean, every election, there’s fraud,” said Eric Fauls, a 56-year-old California expatriate who moved to a golfing community in Surprise three years ago. “California — it was really bad — but I mean, California is never going to go Republican. With a swing state, it’s really important, so I think it’s worth doing an audit.”

Still, he said, “I don’t know if there’s enough evidence either way to make it legitimate.”

Most of the review's critics, on the other hand, left little doubt of their feelings.

“It’s a threat to our democracy. I think there’s no doubt about that,” said Dan Harlan, a defense-industry employee who changed his lifelong Republican registration to Democrat last year so he could help pick Trump’s opponent. “This audit is being conducted because the Republican Party refuses to look at long-term demographics and realize they can no longer be the party of the white male. And they’re doing everything they can to maintain power.

“It’s not about democracy; it’s about winning,” he said. “And when any organization becomes more concerned with maintaining itself, losing its core values is no longer important.”

Jane Davis, an 89-year-old retired nurse, was a Republican for 40 years before she re-registered as an independent and voted last year for Biden. The state Senate Republicans have backed an audit, she said, “to cause problems.”

“I think it’s ridiculous, and I object to their spending any taxpayer money” on the review, she said.

Chuck Coughlin, the Phoenix pollster who conducted the Arizona survey, said people like the Minkuses were in firm control of the state Republican Party in no small part because they are the ones who vote. Four in five Republican primary-election voters, he said, are 50 or older.

By itself, that white-hot core is not large enough to wield power in statewide elections, Coughlin said. But it is plenty large enough to advance Trump’s narrative of a corrupt elite that is stealing power from the nation’s true patriots, particularly when it is stoked by politicians.

“Historically on these big issues, you have a lively public discussion and then it goes away; the issue moves on to something else,” he said. “But this is an issue that we’re dwelling on because it’s to Trump’s advantage that the party continues to dwell on it — on his loss, and his victimhood and his identity.

“I feel legitimately bad for these people that they’re so wounded that they are willing to take their party and a heretofore vibrant democracy down with it.”

Indeed, some elections experts say that’s why the politics of the "audit," as extravagantly flawed as it is, may be more complex than meets the eye. If it is about winning elections and building a majority, it looks like a political loser. If it’s about permanent grievance and undermining faith in the democratic system for political gain, maybe not.

Karen Fann, the Arizona Senate president, and other Republicans have insisted that their election review is not intended to contest Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, but to address voters’ concerns that the election had been stolen. In practice, those experts say, the review keeps the stolen-election narrative front and center in the state’s politics, slowly eroding faith in representative government.

“The problem is that Americans have a real lack of trust in institutions these days,” said William Mishler, a longtime expert on democratic institutions at the University of Arizona. And even many who regard the Arizona election review as a discredited, amateur exercise “fear the mischief that’s likely to come out of this in the form of some further undermining of confidence in the election outcome.”

(STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.)

Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a longtime student of the U.S. political system, said the Arizona election review highlighted a seismic shift in the rules of American democracy. In years past, political parties were forces for moderation, trying to appeal to as many voters as possible. Now, he said, one of the two major parties was taking precisely the opposite tack.

“We’ve had crazies in public life before,” he said. “We’ve had demagogues speaking out and sometimes winning high office. The difference this time is that they’re being encouraged rather than constrained by party and election officials.” Without some check on radicalism, he said, “our whole system breaks down.”

Mishler concurred. “What worries me is not that there’s a minority of crazies in the party,” he said of the Republicans. “It’s that there’s a majority of the crazies.”

That said, election inquiries only count votes. Mishler, Mann and Kolbe, the former representative, all said that a more imminent threat to democracy was what they called an effort by some Republicans to disregard votes entirely. They cited changes in state laws that could make challenging or nullifying election results easier, and a burst of candidacies by stolen-election advocates for crucial election posts such as secretary of state offices.

Arizona is among the latter. The race to replace Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state who announced last week that she was running for governor, already has attracted one Republican legislator who is an election conspiracy theorist and another who is perhaps the legislature’s leading supporter of restrictions on the right to vote.

“These are perilous times,” Mann said. “Arizona is just demonstrating it.”

Rob Goins is 57, a former Marine and a lifelong Republican in a right-leaning jigsaw of golf courses, strip malls and gated retirement communities pieced together in the Arizona desert.

Rob Goins is 57, a former Marine and a lifelong Republican in a right-leaning jigsaw of golf courses, strip malls and gated retirement communities pieced together in the Arizona desert. But ask about the Republican-backed review of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory here in Maricopa County, and Goins rejects the party line. “There’s a lot of folks out there trying to make something out of nothing,” he said recently as he loaded purchases into his vehicle outside a Home Depot. “I don’t think there was any fraud. My opinion of this is that it’s a big lie.” Goins is flesh-and-blood evidence of what political analysts here are all but shouting: The Republican-led state Senate’s autopsy of the 2020 vote, broadly seen as a shambolic, partisan effort to nurse grievances about Donald Trump’s loss here in November, risks driving away some of the very people the party needs to win statewide elections in 2022. That Arizona Republicans are ignoring that message — and that Republicans in other states are now trying to mount their own Arizona-style audits — raises worrisome questions not just about their strategy, but about its impact on an American democracy facing fundamental threats. Now in its seventh week, the review of 2.1 million votes in Arizona’s most populous county has ballooned not just into a national political spectacle, but also a political windsock for the Republican Party — an early test of how its renewed subservience to Trump would play with voters. The returns to date are not encouraging for the party. A late-May poll of 400 Arizonans by the respected consulting firm HighGround Inc. found that more than 55% of respondents opposed the vote review, most of them strongly. Fewer than 41% approved of it. By about 45% to 33%, respondents said they were less likely — much less, most said — to vote for a Republican candidate who supported the review. The review itself, troubled by procedural blunders and defections, has largely sacrificed any claim to impartiality. The Pennsylvania computer forensics firm that was conducting the hand recount of ballots quit without a clear explanation this month, adding further chaos to a count that election authorities and other critics say has been making up its rules as it went along. “If they were voting on it again today, they would have withheld doing this, because it’s been nothing but a headache,” Jim Kolbe, a Republican congressman from southeast Arizona from 1985 to 2003, said of the Republican state senators who are backing the review. “It’s a black mark on Arizona’s reputation.” Instead, the Republicans in the Arizona Senate have doubled down. And as the review’s notoriety has grown, pro-Trump Republicans in other states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have begun to promote their own plans to investigate the November vote, even though — as in Arizona — elections in those states have been certified as accurate and free from any fraud that could have affected the outcome. The sudden interest in exhuming the November election is explained by another number from the poll in Arizona: While only about 41% of all 400 respondents said they supported the Maricopa audit, almost 77% of Republican respondents did. Among the Trump supporters who dominate the Republican Party, skepticism about the election results, fueled almost entirely by Trump’s lies, remains unshaken, and catering to it is politically profitable. Leslie Minkus, 77, is a business consultant in Chandler, another Republican stronghold just southeast of Phoenix. His wife, Phyllis, serves on the local Republican legislative district committee. “The majority of voters here in Arizona know that this election was stolen,” he said in an interview. “It’s pretty obvious that our alleged president is not more popular than previous presidents, and still wound up getting a majority of the vote.” Opposition to the review by Democrats and some Republicans — including the Republican-run county board of supervisors and the Republican who is the chief county election officer — only shows that they have something to hide, Minkus added. And as for previous checks of ballots and voting equipment that showed no sign of fraud, he said, “I don’t think anybody would agree that the audits done in the past were independent.” In conversations with a range of Phoenix-area residents, many who supported the review were more equivocal than Minkus. “I think there was fraud going on. I mean, every election, there’s fraud,” said Eric Fauls, a 56-year-old California expatriate who moved to a golfing community in Surprise three years ago. “California — it was really bad — but I mean, California is never going to go Republican. With a swing state, it’s really important, so I think it’s worth doing an audit.” Still, he said, “I don’t know if there’s enough evidence either way to make it legitimate.” Most of the review's critics, on the other hand, left little doubt of their feelings. “It’s a threat to our democracy. I think there’s no doubt about that,” said Dan Harlan, a defense-industry employee who changed his lifelong Republican registration to Democrat last year so he could help pick Trump’s opponent. “This audit is being conducted because the Republican Party refuses to look at long-term demographics and realize they can no longer be the party of the white male. And they’re doing everything they can to maintain power. “It’s not about democracy; it’s about winning,” he said. “And when any organization becomes more concerned with maintaining itself, losing its core values is no longer important.” Jane Davis, an 89-year-old retired nurse, was a Republican for 40 years before she re-registered as an independent and voted last year for Biden. The state Senate Republicans have backed an audit, she said, “to cause problems.” “I think it’s ridiculous, and I object to their spending any taxpayer money” on the review, she said. Chuck Coughlin, the Phoenix pollster who conducted the Arizona survey, said people like the Minkuses were in firm control of the state Republican Party in no small part because they are the ones who vote. Four in five Republican primary-election voters, he said, are 50 or older. By itself, that white-hot core is not large enough to wield power in statewide elections, Coughlin said. But it is plenty large enough to advance Trump’s narrative of a corrupt elite that is stealing power from the nation’s true patriots, particularly when it is stoked by politicians. “Historically on these big issues, you have a lively public discussion and then it goes away; the issue moves on to something else,” he said. “But this is an issue that we’re dwelling on because it’s to Trump’s advantage that the party continues to dwell on it — on his loss, and his victimhood and his identity. “I feel legitimately bad for these people that they’re so wounded that they are willing to take their party and a heretofore vibrant democracy down with it.” Indeed, some elections experts say that’s why the politics of the "audit," as extravagantly flawed as it is, may be more complex than meets the eye. If it is about winning elections and building a majority, it looks like a political loser. If it’s about permanent grievance and undermining faith in the democratic system for political gain, maybe not. Karen Fann, the Arizona Senate president, and other Republicans have insisted that their election review is not intended to contest Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, but to address voters’ concerns that the election had been stolen. In practice, those experts say, the review keeps the stolen-election narrative front and center in the state’s politics, slowly eroding faith in representative government. “The problem is that Americans have a real lack of trust in institutions these days,” said William Mishler, a longtime expert on democratic institutions at the University of Arizona. And even many who regard the Arizona election review as a discredited, amateur exercise “fear the mischief that’s likely to come out of this in the form of some further undermining of confidence in the election outcome.” (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.) Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a longtime student of the U.S. political system, said the Arizona election review highlighted a seismic shift in the rules of American democracy. In years past, political parties were forces for moderation, trying to appeal to as many voters as possible. Now, he said, one of the two major parties was taking precisely the opposite tack. “We’ve had crazies in public life before,” he said. “We’ve had demagogues speaking out and sometimes winning high office. The difference this time is that they’re being encouraged rather than constrained by party and election officials.” Without some check on radicalism, he said, “our whole system breaks down.” Mishler concurred. “What worries me is not that there’s a minority of crazies in the party,” he said of the Republicans. “It’s that there’s a majority of the crazies.” That said, election inquiries only count votes. Mishler, Mann and Kolbe, the former representative, all said that a more imminent threat to democracy was what they called an effort by some Republicans to disregard votes entirely. They cited changes in state laws that could make challenging or nullifying election results easier, and a burst of candidacies by stolen-election advocates for crucial election posts such as secretary of state offices. Arizona is among the latter. The race to replace Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state who announced last week that she was running for governor, already has attracted one Republican legislator who is an election conspiracy theorist and another who is perhaps the legislature’s leading supporter of restrictions on the right to vote. “These are perilous times,” Mann said. “Arizona is just demonstrating it.”

In Arizona 2020 election review, risks for Republicans, and Democracy

Democrats have spent the last several years clamoring to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, seeing that as a necessary antidote to widening economic inequality and a rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s signature tax cuts.

Now, under President Joe Biden, they have a shot at ushering in the largest federal tax increase since 1942. It could help pay for a host of spending programs that liberal economists predict would bolster the economy’s performance and repair a tax code that Democrats say encourages wealthy people to hoard assets and big companies to ship jobs and book profits overseas.

The question is whether congressional Democrats and the White House can agree on how sharply taxes should rise and who, exactly, should pay the bill. They widely share the goal of reversing many of Trump’s tax cuts from 2017 and of making the wealthy and big businesses pay more. But they do not yet agree on the details — and because Republicans are unlikely to support their efforts, they have no room for error in a closely divided Senate.

For Biden, the need to find consensus is urgent. The president is set to travel to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to unveil the next phase of his economic agenda: a sprawling collection of programs that would invest in infrastructure, education, carbon-reduction and working mothers and cost $3 trillion to $4 trillion.

The package, which follows on the heels of Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic aid bill, is central to the president’s long-term plan to revitalize American workers and industry by funding bridges and roads, universal prekindergarten, emerging industries like advanced batteries, and efforts to invigorate the fight against climate change.

Biden plans to finance that spending, at least in part, with tax increases that could raise upward of $2.5 trillion in revenue if his plan hews closely to what he proposed in the 2020 presidential campaign. Aides suggest his proposals might not be entirely paid for, with some one-time spending increases offset by increased federal borrowing.

“I think what you’re going to see is the administration is going to put a pay-for on the table for at least some and maybe all of the infrastructure plan,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. “If Team Biden makes a proposal, I’m sure we’ll make adjustments, but that’s a good way to start.”

Others in his party, including his own transportation secretary, have pushed Biden to explore tax plans he did not campaign on, like taxing consumption, wealth or vehicle miles traveled. (A Transportation Department spokesperson said Saturday that there would be no vehicle-miles-traveled tax in the infrastructure proposal.) Biden has stressed his broad-brush desire to increase the tax burden on wealthy Americans who largely earn their money through inheritance or investment, to fund spending programs meant to help people who earn their money primarily through wages.

“I want to change the paradigm,” Biden said Thursday during a news conference. “We start to reward work, not just wealth.”

Democratic lawmakers have promised for decades to raise taxes on companies and the wealthy, a desire that kicked into overdrive after Trump signed a tax-cut package that delivered an outsize share of its benefits to corporations and high earners. But they have struggled to muster the votes for large tax increases since President Bill Clinton signed a 1993 law that included a variety of hikes intended to help reduce the budget deficit. Business groups, conservative activists, lobbyists and donors across the ideological spectrum have largely blocked such attempts.

President Barack Obama campaigned on ending tax cuts for the rich signed into law by President George W. Bush, but after the 2008 financial crisis, he cut deals with Republicans to extend those cuts before allowing some of them to expire at the end of 2012.

Liberal economists say this year could be different, thanks to the unique political and economic circumstances surrounding the recovery from the pandemic recession. With Biden’s signing of a $1.9 trillion economic relief bill, financed entirely by federal borrowing, forecasters now expect the economy to grow this year at its fastest annual clip since the 1980s. Republicans and some economists have begun to warn of overheating growth spurring runaway inflation, which could reduce the salience of warnings that tax increases would cause growth to stall.

Public polling shows broad support, even among many Republican voters, for raising taxes on large corporations and high-income individuals. The most conservative Democrats in the Senate, who hold great sway over Biden’s legislative agenda, say they favor trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending, so long as there is a plan to pay for it.

That includes Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who told reporters this week that Biden’s infrastructure plan was “going to be enormous” and that its costs needed to be covered. He signaled openness to making changes to the 2017 tax overhaul, adding that the benefits in that legislation were “weighted in one direction to the upper end.”

“Where do they think it’s going to come from? How are they going to fix America?” he said, when asked about Republican resistance to tax increases. “I don’t think that’s reasonable.”

Democrats widely share a desire to raise the corporate income tax rate after it was cut to 21% in 2017. And they want to raise the top marginal rate for individuals back to 39.6% from 37%.

But there are disputes in the rank and file, with some favoring Biden’s plan to set the corporate rate at 28% and others preferring a lower one, like 25%. There are also questions over which high-earning individuals should see a tax increase.

Biden has pledged not to raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000. Some of his progressive allies, including Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have advocated raising taxes on a broader group. Democrats like Manchin have pushed him to consider additional tax plans that do not solely target the rich, like a European-style tax on consumption, though that type of tax could fall more heavily on low-income Americans than wealthy ones.

Republicans are unlikely to support any plan to raise taxes, leaving administration officials and leading congressional Democrats to hammer out a plan on their own. But absent Republican support in the Senate, where both parties hold 50 seats and Vice President Kamala Harris can break ties, Democrats would need to secure total consensus within their caucus to pass the legislation and use a fast-track budget process known as reconciliation to bypass the 60-vote threshold for ending a filibuster.

Business groups and Republican lawmakers, who supported the 2017 tax cuts, predict that any tax increase will slow economic growth and undermine the competitiveness of U.S. companies. They contend that the economic and wage growth in the run-up to the pandemic prove that Trump’s tax cuts worked, an argument Biden’s advisers reject, citing research from the International Monetary Fund and others.

“He wants a massive tax increase, and he wants to allocate the tax responsibility in this country on the basis of class,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “That’s a hell of a way to make tax policy. Sound tax policy is made on the basis of economics.”

Republicans who favor some form of an infrastructure bill have struggled to offer alternative ways to fund such an undertaking, which they argue should be significantly smaller than what Biden has floated. Some, however, are noodling on tax changes should a bipartisan plan emerge. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said this past week that her committee would examine changes to the gas tax or a related tax that also charges a fee to users of electric vehicles as discussions continue about a funding mechanism.

Many liberal economists say there are good reasons to raise taxes, starting with using those funds to invest in workers and help build economic opportunity. Spending on physical infrastructure, like roads and water pipes, or on programs like education and child care that are meant to help people earn more money could help curb persistent inequalities in income and wealth. The economists also say that tax increases that are properly set up would provide incentives for multinational companies to keep jobs in the United States and not shift profits to lower-tax foreign countries.

Key Democrats are trying to bring the party to consensus. The top tax writer in the Senate, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is drafting a series of bills to raise taxes, many of them overlapping with Biden’s campaign proposals.

“I’ll be ready to raise what the Democratic caucus decides is required to move forward,” Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview.

Democrats have spent the last several years clamoring to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, seeing that as a necessary antidote to widening economic inequality and a rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s signature tax cuts.

Democrats have spent the last several years clamoring to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, seeing that as a necessary antidote to widening economic inequality and a rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s signature tax cuts. Now, under President Joe Biden, they have a shot at ushering in the largest federal tax increase since 1942. It could help pay for a host of spending programs that liberal economists predict would bolster the economy’s performance and repair a tax code that Democrats say encourages wealthy people to hoard assets and big companies to ship jobs and book profits overseas. The question is whether congressional Democrats and the White House can agree on how sharply taxes should rise and who, exactly, should pay the bill. They widely share the goal of reversing many of Trump’s tax cuts from 2017 and of making the wealthy and big businesses pay more. But they do not yet agree on the details — and because Republicans are unlikely to support their efforts, they have no room for error in a closely divided Senate. For Biden, the need to find consensus is urgent. The president is set to travel to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to unveil the next phase of his economic agenda: a sprawling collection of programs that would invest in infrastructure, education, carbon-reduction and working mothers and cost $3 trillion to $4 trillion. The package, which follows on the heels of Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic aid bill, is central to the president’s long-term plan to revitalize American workers and industry by funding bridges and roads, universal prekindergarten, emerging industries like advanced batteries, and efforts to invigorate the fight against climate change. Biden plans to finance that spending, at least in part, with tax increases that could raise upward of $2.5 trillion in revenue if his plan hews closely to what he proposed in the 2020 presidential campaign. Aides suggest his proposals might not be entirely paid for, with some one-time spending increases offset by increased federal borrowing. “I think what you’re going to see is the administration is going to put a pay-for on the table for at least some and maybe all of the infrastructure plan,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. “If Team Biden makes a proposal, I’m sure we’ll make adjustments, but that’s a good way to start.” Others in his party, including his own transportation secretary, have pushed Biden to explore tax plans he did not campaign on, like taxing consumption, wealth or vehicle miles traveled. (A Transportation Department spokesperson said Saturday that there would be no vehicle-miles-traveled tax in the infrastructure proposal.) Biden has stressed his broad-brush desire to increase the tax burden on wealthy Americans who largely earn their money through inheritance or investment, to fund spending programs meant to help people who earn their money primarily through wages. “I want to change the paradigm,” Biden said Thursday during a news conference. “We start to reward work, not just wealth.” Democratic lawmakers have promised for decades to raise taxes on companies and the wealthy, a desire that kicked into overdrive after Trump signed a tax-cut package that delivered an outsize share of its benefits to corporations and high earners. But they have struggled to muster the votes for large tax increases since President Bill Clinton signed a 1993 law that included a variety of hikes intended to help reduce the budget deficit. Business groups, conservative activists, lobbyists and donors across the ideological spectrum have largely blocked such attempts. President Barack Obama campaigned on ending tax cuts for the rich signed into law by President George W. Bush, but after the 2008 financial crisis, he cut deals with Republicans to extend those cuts before allowing some of them to expire at the end of 2012. Liberal economists say this year could be different, thanks to the unique political and economic circumstances surrounding the recovery from the pandemic recession. With Biden’s signing of a $1.9 trillion economic relief bill, financed entirely by federal borrowing, forecasters now expect the economy to grow this year at its fastest annual clip since the 1980s. Republicans and some economists have begun to warn of overheating growth spurring runaway inflation, which could reduce the salience of warnings that tax increases would cause growth to stall. Public polling shows broad support, even among many Republican voters, for raising taxes on large corporations and high-income individuals. The most conservative Democrats in the Senate, who hold great sway over Biden’s legislative agenda, say they favor trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending, so long as there is a plan to pay for it. That includes Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who told reporters this week that Biden’s infrastructure plan was “going to be enormous” and that its costs needed to be covered. He signaled openness to making changes to the 2017 tax overhaul, adding that the benefits in that legislation were “weighted in one direction to the upper end.” “Where do they think it’s going to come from? How are they going to fix America?” he said, when asked about Republican resistance to tax increases. “I don’t think that’s reasonable.” Democrats widely share a desire to raise the corporate income tax rate after it was cut to 21% in 2017. And they want to raise the top marginal rate for individuals back to 39.6% from 37%. But there are disputes in the rank and file, with some favoring Biden’s plan to set the corporate rate at 28% and others preferring a lower one, like 25%. There are also questions over which high-earning individuals should see a tax increase. Biden has pledged not to raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000. Some of his progressive allies, including Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have advocated raising taxes on a broader group. Democrats like Manchin have pushed him to consider additional tax plans that do not solely target the rich, like a European-style tax on consumption, though that type of tax could fall more heavily on low-income Americans than wealthy ones. Republicans are unlikely to support any plan to raise taxes, leaving administration officials and leading congressional Democrats to hammer out a plan on their own. But absent Republican support in the Senate, where both parties hold 50 seats and Vice President Kamala Harris can break ties, Democrats would need to secure total consensus within their caucus to pass the legislation and use a fast-track budget process known as reconciliation to bypass the 60-vote threshold for ending a filibuster. Business groups and Republican lawmakers, who supported the 2017 tax cuts, predict that any tax increase will slow economic growth and undermine the competitiveness of U.S. companies. They contend that the economic and wage growth in the run-up to the pandemic prove that Trump’s tax cuts worked, an argument Biden’s advisers reject, citing research from the International Monetary Fund and others. “He wants a massive tax increase, and he wants to allocate the tax responsibility in this country on the basis of class,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “That’s a hell of a way to make tax policy. Sound tax policy is made on the basis of economics.” Republicans who favor some form of an infrastructure bill have struggled to offer alternative ways to fund such an undertaking, which they argue should be significantly smaller than what Biden has floated. Some, however, are noodling on tax changes should a bipartisan plan emerge. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said this past week that her committee would examine changes to the gas tax or a related tax that also charges a fee to users of electric vehicles as discussions continue about a funding mechanism. Many liberal economists say there are good reasons to raise taxes, starting with using those funds to invest in workers and help build economic opportunity. Spending on physical infrastructure, like roads and water pipes, or on programs like education and child care that are meant to help people earn more money could help curb persistent inequalities in income and wealth. The economists also say that tax increases that are properly set up would provide incentives for multinational companies to keep jobs in the United States and not shift profits to lower-tax foreign countries. Key Democrats are trying to bring the party to consensus. The top tax writer in the Senate, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is drafting a series of bills to raise taxes, many of them overlapping with Biden’s campaign proposals. “I’ll be ready to raise what the Democratic caucus decides is required to move forward,” Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview.

Under Biden, Democrats are poised to raise taxes on business and the rich

Sixty days into his administration, President Joe Biden got a taste of what the next four years may look like: a new era of bitter superpower competition, marked by perhaps the worst relationship Washington has had with Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall and with China since it opened diplomatic relations with the United States.

It has been brewing for years, as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China took sharp turns toward authoritarianism. But it blew up in open fashion this month after Biden agreed with the proposition that Putin is a “killer” and the Chinese, meeting with the United States for the first time since the new administration took office, lectured Americans about the error of their arrogant view that the world wants to replicate their freedoms.

A lot of it was for show on both sides, with cameras whirring. All of the participants were playing to their domestic audiences, the Biden team included. But it was not entirely an act.

While the Cold War has not resumed — there is little of the nuclear menace of that era, and the current competition is over technology, cyberconflict and influence operations — the scenes playing out now have echoes of the bad old days. As a moment in theatrical diplomacy, the meeting Thursday and Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, between the Americans and Chinese was reminiscent of when the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, made headlines around the world 60 years ago by banging his shoe on a desk of the United Nations and shouting about American imperialists.

But as veterans of the old Cold War will suggest, the superpower rivalries today bear little resemblance to the past. Putin himself has lamented that the Russia of the early 21st century is a shadow of the Soviet Union that trained him to be a KGB agent. Russia’s economy is roughly the size of Italy’s. Its greatest power now is to disrupt and instill fear, using nerve agents like Novichok to silence dissenters around the world or deploying its cyberability to bore deeply into the networks that keep the United States humming.

Yet for all his country’s economic weakness, Putin has proved highly resilient in the face of escalating international sanctions imposed since he took over Crimea in 2014, which accelerated after he turned to nerve agents and cyberattacks. It is hard to argue they have curbed his behavior.

Sanctions “are not going to do much good,” Robert Gates, a former CIA director and defense secretary, said recently in a public interview with David Ignatius of The Washington Post. “Russia is going to be a challenge for the United States, a national security challenge for the United States, and maybe, in some respects, the most dangerous one, as long as Putin is there.”

For the Chinese, who were still coping with the failures of the Great Leap Forward when Khrushchev was banging shoes and intimidating President John F. Kennedy in a first meeting in Vienna, the story is drastically different.

Its pathway to power is building new networks rather than disrupting old ones. Economists debate when the Chinese will have the world’s largest gross domestic product — perhaps toward the end of this decade — and whether they can meet their other two big national goals: building the world’s most powerful military and dominating the race for key technologies by 2049, the 100th anniversary of former Communist Chairman Mao Zedong's revolution.

Their power arises not from their relatively small nuclear arsenal or their expanding stockpile of conventional weapons. Instead, it arises from their expanding economic might and how they use their government-subsidized technology to wire nations — be it Latin America or the Middle East, Africa or Eastern Europe — with 5G wireless networks intended to tie them ever closer to Beijing. It comes from the undersea cables they are spooling around the world so that those networks run on Chinese-owned circuits.

Ultimately, it will come from how they use those networks to make other nations dependent on Chinese technology. Once that happens, the Chinese could export some of their authoritarianism by, for example, selling other nations facial recognition software that has enabled them to clamp down on dissent at home.

Which is why Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, who was with Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the meeting with their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage, warned in a series of writings in recent years that it could be a mistake to assume that China plans to prevail by directly taking on the U.S. military in the Pacific.

“The central premises of this alternative approach would be that economic and technological power is fundamentally more important than traditional military power in establishing global leadership,” he wrote, “and that a physical sphere of influence in East Asia is not a necessary precondition for sustaining such leadership.”

Part of the goal of the Alaska meeting was to convince the Chinese that the Biden administration is determined to compete with Beijing across the board to offer competitive technology, like semiconductor manufacturing and artificial intelligence, even if that means spending billions on government-led research and development projects and new industrial partnerships with Europe, India, Japan and Australia.

Biden alluded to this last month in his two-hour conversation with Xi, telling him, aides said, that the Chinese narrative of the U.S.'s decline was badly mistaken. But it will take months, at best, to publish a broad new strategy, and it is unclear whether corporate America or major allies will get behind it. “It’s not going play out in a day or a week or a month,” said Kurt Campbell, the president’s top Asia adviser, who is leading the strategic review. “This is probably a multiadministration effort.”

Campbell was at the table in Anchorage, sitting next to Sullivan and Blinken, when the Chinese began their effort to put the U.S. delegation on the defensive. They accused the United States of a “condescending” approach and argued that the country’s leaders had no right to lecture others on human rights abuses or the preservation of democracy. They talked about Black Lives Matter and the contradictions in a U.S. democratic system that leaves so many behind.

“I don’t think the overwhelming majority of countries in the world would recognize that the universal values advocated by the United States or that the opinion of the United States could represent international public opinion,” Yang Jiechi, China’s most senior diplomat, said in a lengthy statement at the opening of the session.

He added, “Those countries would not recognize that the rules made by a small number of people would serve as the basis for the international order.”

The subtext of his message was that China would speed up its effort to dominate the forums that set the rules, whether that is the World Trade Organization or lesser-known groups that set technological standards.

In some of those forums, the Chinese have a new ally: the Russians, who are equally eager to diminish U.S. influence and bolster authoritarianism. Increasingly, the two nations share an affinity for a short-of war weapon to which the United States is particularly vulnerable: cyberintrusions into the complex networks that are the lifeblood of U.S. government and private industry.

The two big breaches in recent months, one believed to be run by the Russians and the other by the Chinese, are examples of how the two countries have grown far more sophisticated over the past 10 years in making use of their digital skills for political ends.

Sometime in the next few days to weeks, Biden’s aides say, the United States will respond. Some of that response will involve more sanctions. But Gates said recently, “I think we need to be more aggressive with our own cybercapabilities” and find creative ways to raise the cost for U.S. adversaries. Biden expressed similar sentiments during the transition.

The risk, of course, is one familiar from the Cold War: escalation.

Sixty days into his administration, President Joe Biden got a taste of what the next four years may look like: a new era of bitter superpower competition, marked by perhaps the worst relationship Washington has had with Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall and with China since it opened diplomatic relations with the United States.

Sixty days into his administration, President Joe Biden got a taste of what the next four years may look like: a new era of bitter superpower competition, marked by perhaps the worst relationship Washington has had with Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall and with China since it opened diplomatic relations with the United States. It has been brewing for years, as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China took sharp turns toward authoritarianism. But it blew up in open fashion this month after Biden agreed with the proposition that Putin is a “killer” and the Chinese, meeting with the United States for the first time since the new administration took office, lectured Americans about the error of their arrogant view that the world wants to replicate their freedoms. A lot of it was for show on both sides, with cameras whirring. All of the participants were playing to their domestic audiences, the Biden team included. But it was not entirely an act. While the Cold War has not resumed — there is little of the nuclear menace of that era, and the current competition is over technology, cyberconflict and influence operations — the scenes playing out now have echoes of the bad old days. As a moment in theatrical diplomacy, the meeting Thursday and Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, between the Americans and Chinese was reminiscent of when the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, made headlines around the world 60 years ago by banging his shoe on a desk of the United Nations and shouting about American imperialists. But as veterans of the old Cold War will suggest, the superpower rivalries today bear little resemblance to the past. Putin himself has lamented that the Russia of the early 21st century is a shadow of the Soviet Union that trained him to be a KGB agent. Russia’s economy is roughly the size of Italy’s. Its greatest power now is to disrupt and instill fear, using nerve agents like Novichok to silence dissenters around the world or deploying its cyberability to bore deeply into the networks that keep the United States humming. Yet for all his country’s economic weakness, Putin has proved highly resilient in the face of escalating international sanctions imposed since he took over Crimea in 2014, which accelerated after he turned to nerve agents and cyberattacks. It is hard to argue they have curbed his behavior. Sanctions “are not going to do much good,” Robert Gates, a former CIA director and defense secretary, said recently in a public interview with David Ignatius of The Washington Post. “Russia is going to be a challenge for the United States, a national security challenge for the United States, and maybe, in some respects, the most dangerous one, as long as Putin is there.” For the Chinese, who were still coping with the failures of the Great Leap Forward when Khrushchev was banging shoes and intimidating President John F. Kennedy in a first meeting in Vienna, the story is drastically different. Its pathway to power is building new networks rather than disrupting old ones. Economists debate when the Chinese will have the world’s largest gross domestic product — perhaps toward the end of this decade — and whether they can meet their other two big national goals: building the world’s most powerful military and dominating the race for key technologies by 2049, the 100th anniversary of former Communist Chairman Mao Zedong's revolution. Their power arises not from their relatively small nuclear arsenal or their expanding stockpile of conventional weapons. Instead, it arises from their expanding economic might and how they use their government-subsidized technology to wire nations — be it Latin America or the Middle East, Africa or Eastern Europe — with 5G wireless networks intended to tie them ever closer to Beijing. It comes from the undersea cables they are spooling around the world so that those networks run on Chinese-owned circuits. Ultimately, it will come from how they use those networks to make other nations dependent on Chinese technology. Once that happens, the Chinese could export some of their authoritarianism by, for example, selling other nations facial recognition software that has enabled them to clamp down on dissent at home. Which is why Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, who was with Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the meeting with their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage, warned in a series of writings in recent years that it could be a mistake to assume that China plans to prevail by directly taking on the U.S. military in the Pacific. “The central premises of this alternative approach would be that economic and technological power is fundamentally more important than traditional military power in establishing global leadership,” he wrote, “and that a physical sphere of influence in East Asia is not a necessary precondition for sustaining such leadership.” Part of the goal of the Alaska meeting was to convince the Chinese that the Biden administration is determined to compete with Beijing across the board to offer competitive technology, like semiconductor manufacturing and artificial intelligence, even if that means spending billions on government-led research and development projects and new industrial partnerships with Europe, India, Japan and Australia. Biden alluded to this last month in his two-hour conversation with Xi, telling him, aides said, that the Chinese narrative of the U.S.'s decline was badly mistaken. But it will take months, at best, to publish a broad new strategy, and it is unclear whether corporate America or major allies will get behind it. “It’s not going play out in a day or a week or a month,” said Kurt Campbell, the president’s top Asia adviser, who is leading the strategic review. “This is probably a multiadministration effort.” Campbell was at the table in Anchorage, sitting next to Sullivan and Blinken, when the Chinese began their effort to put the U.S. delegation on the defensive. They accused the United States of a “condescending” approach and argued that the country’s leaders had no right to lecture others on human rights abuses or the preservation of democracy. They talked about Black Lives Matter and the contradictions in a U.S. democratic system that leaves so many behind. “I don’t think the overwhelming majority of countries in the world would recognize that the universal values advocated by the United States or that the opinion of the United States could represent international public opinion,” Yang Jiechi, China’s most senior diplomat, said in a lengthy statement at the opening of the session. He added, “Those countries would not recognize that the rules made by a small number of people would serve as the basis for the international order.” The subtext of his message was that China would speed up its effort to dominate the forums that set the rules, whether that is the World Trade Organization or lesser-known groups that set technological standards. In some of those forums, the Chinese have a new ally: the Russians, who are equally eager to diminish U.S. influence and bolster authoritarianism. Increasingly, the two nations share an affinity for a short-of war weapon to which the United States is particularly vulnerable: cyberintrusions into the complex networks that are the lifeblood of U.S. government and private industry. The two big breaches in recent months, one believed to be run by the Russians and the other by the Chinese, are examples of how the two countries have grown far more sophisticated over the past 10 years in making use of their digital skills for political ends. Sometime in the next few days to weeks, Biden’s aides say, the United States will respond. Some of that response will involve more sanctions. But Gates said recently, “I think we need to be more aggressive with our own cybercapabilities” and find creative ways to raise the cost for U.S. adversaries. Biden expressed similar sentiments during the transition. The risk, of course, is one familiar from the Cold War: escalation.

That was fast: Blowups with China and Russia in Biden’s first 60 days

The United States President Joe Biden believes that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is a "killer" and would "pay a price" for interfering in US elections.

US President Biden talks about Putin's "interference" in US elections | Vladimir Putin

United States President Joe Biden faces the ultimate challenge of foreign policy. Biden is a seasoned player at this game, but until now he operated behind the scenes - first as a US senator, and then as deputy to the US president.

Biden's first challenge is to tame a rogue ally - Turkey. American and Turkish interests don't converge anymore, and the relationship has been rocky for a while now The personal equation between Trump and Erdogan kept it intact. During trump's presidency, Turkey repeatedly provoked Washington. First - with the purchase of Russian S-400 missiles. And then, with an attack on Kurdish fighters.

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Both the times, Trump's response was reluctant. Then, Biden arrived on the scene - promising change.

"He is an autocrat. He's the president of Turkey and a lot more. I'm still of the view that we can support those elements of the Turkish leadership that still exist and embolden them to be able to take on and defeat Erdogan. Not by a coup, but by electoral process", Biden said about Erdogan recently.

Joe Biden has not spoken to Erdogan yet but his administration has rebuked Turkey multiple times. First, they demanded the release of activist Osman Kavala. Then - they condemned Erdogan's homophobic rhetoric against student protesters. But the Turkish president is unmoved. On Sunday, Turkey accused the Kurdistan Workers Party of executing 13 Turks. The US condemned the attack, but Erdogan called the statement a joke.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/biden-wants-us-congress-to-reform-american-gun-laws-363630" hreflang="en">Biden wants US Congress to reform American gun laws</a> 
 
''Now there is a statement made by the United States. It's a joke. Were you not supposed to stand against the terrorist, the PKK, the YPG and PYD? You clearly support them and stand behind them", Erdogan said. ''If we are together with you in NATO (US), if we are to continue our unity in the world and in NATO, then you will act sincerely towards us. Then, you will stand with us, not with the terrorists", Erdogan added.

For the record, the US has designated the Kurdistan Workers Party as a terrorist group. During the war against ISIS, they had allied with another Kurdish militia called the YPG. The question of Kurdish fighters will always be a thorn between Turkey and America. The Kurdish alliance was created by Barack Obama, Biden's former boss.

All indications are that Biden wants to be an activist president. He is talking about holding a democracy summit - later this year. Erdogan may not feature in Biden's plan. But the country he rules does. Turkey is a strategic ally of Washington, and both Erdogan and Biden want to reset ties.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/turkish-president-erdogan-accuses-us-of-backing-terrorists-in-iraq-363811" hreflang="en">Turkish President Erdogan accuses US of backing 'terrorists' in Iraq</a>

But a reset means different things for the two leaders. For Biden - it's a return to US-led, liberal world order. For Erdogan - it's a new geopolitical reality in Eurasia - one where Turkey is the big dog.

Beyond a rogue ally, Biden must also contend with an old foe - Iran. Biden wants to return to the Iran nuclear deal, but Tehran is not making it easy.

On Monday, a volley of rockets was fired at the American military base in Erbil, in Iraq. One civilian military contractor was killed and eight others were injured. It was the deadliest attack on coalition troops - in a year and the perpetrators were Awliya Al-dam, a little-known Shia group - one of the many proxies, paid and backed by Iran.

America's top diplomat condemned the attack and has promised action against those responsible. But Biden is reluctant to pursue military options against Iran and wants to repair the nuclear deal. But he also wants Iran to comply with the terms first. Many predicted a thaw in US-Iran ties with Biden in office. What we're getting instead is a stalemate.

United States President Joe Biden faces the ultimate challenge of foreign policy. Biden is a seasoned player at this game, but until now he operated behind the scenes - first as a US senator, and then as deputy to the US president.

United States President Joe Biden faces the ultimate challenge of foreign policy. Biden is a seasoned player at this game, but until now he operated behind the scenes - first as a US senator, and then as deputy to the US president. Biden's first challenge is to tame a rogue ally - Turkey. American and Turkish interests don't converge anymore, and the relationship has been rocky for a while now The personal equation between Trump and Erdogan kept it intact. During trump's presidency, Turkey repeatedly provoked Washington. First - with the purchase of Russian S-400 missiles. And then, with an attack on Kurdish fighters. Both the times, Trump's response was reluctant. Then, Biden arrived on the scene - promising change. "He is an autocrat. He's the president of Turkey and a lot more. I'm still of the view that we can support those elements of the Turkish leadership that still exist and embolden them to be able to take on and defeat Erdogan. Not by a coup, but by electoral process", Biden said about Erdogan recently. Joe Biden has not spoken to Erdogan yet but his administration has rebuked Turkey multiple times. First, they demanded the release of activist Osman Kavala. Then - they condemned Erdogan's homophobic rhetoric against student protesters. But the Turkish president is unmoved. On Sunday, Turkey accused the Kurdistan Workers Party of executing 13 Turks. The US condemned the attack, but Erdogan called the statement a joke. Also read: Biden wants US Congress to reform American gun laws ''Now there is a statement made by the United States. It's a joke. Were you not supposed to stand against the terrorist, the PKK, the YPG and PYD? You clearly support them and stand behind them", Erdogan said. ''If we are together with you in NATO (US), if we are to continue our unity in the world and in NATO, then you will act sincerely towards us. Then, you will stand with us, not with the terrorists", Erdogan added. For the record, the US has designated the Kurdistan Workers Party as a terrorist group. During the war against ISIS, they had allied with another Kurdish militia called the YPG. The question of Kurdish fighters will always be a thorn between Turkey and America. The Kurdish alliance was created by Barack Obama, Biden's former boss. All indications are that Biden wants to be an activist president. He is talking about holding a democracy summit - later this year. Erdogan may not feature in Biden's plan. But the country he rules does. Turkey is a strategic ally of Washington, and both Erdogan and Biden want to reset ties. Also read: Turkish President Erdogan accuses US of backing 'terrorists' in Iraq But a reset means different things for the two leaders. For Biden - it's a return to US-led, liberal world order. For Erdogan - it's a new geopolitical reality in Eurasia - one where Turkey is the big dog. Beyond a rogue ally, Biden must also contend with an old foe - Iran. Biden wants to return to the Iran nuclear deal, but Tehran is not making it easy. On Monday, a volley of rockets was fired at the American military base in Erbil, in Iraq. One civilian military contractor was killed and eight others were injured. It was the deadliest attack on coalition troops - in a year and the perpetrators were Awliya Al-dam, a little-known Shia group - one of the many proxies, paid and backed by Iran. America's top diplomat condemned the attack and has promised action against those responsible. But Biden is reluctant to pursue military options against Iran and wants to repair the nuclear deal. But he also wants Iran to comply with the terms first. Many predicted a thaw in US-Iran ties with Biden in office. What we're getting instead is a stalemate.

Biden's first foreign policy challenge - to tame Turkey, a rogue ally

US President Joe Biden in his first speech as head of the state appealed all Americans to come together and unite and 'end uncivil war'. Biden's tone and words were a continuation of the steadfast message he has been sending across ever since results of US Presidential Elections were out in December 2020. During his speech, he assured that he will work as hard for those who DID NOT support him as for those who supported him during the election campaign. Former US President Donald Trump was not present for Biden's inauguration ceremony. Former Vice-President Mike Pence was in attendance.

Stressing repeatedly that he will be a president for "all Americans", President Biden admitted that there was "much to repair and much to restore".&nbsp;

On January 6, the US Capitol building was put under siege by supporters of Donald Trump after he encouraged them. Biden said that the violence "sought to shake capital's very foundation". He said that it was an attempt to stop the process in which "will"of Americans people was being heard. US Congress was in a process to certify Joe Biden's victory when the attack took place.

"Here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work on our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground," Biden said. "It did not happen; it will never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever."

Biden thanked his predecessors "from both parties". Former US Presidents Barack Obama,&nbsp;the Bushes and Bill Clinton were present for the inauguration ceremony. He called his predecessors "patriots" who had taken oath to defend US Constitution. &nbsp;

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&nbsp;

"This is America's day, This is democracy's day [...] we celebrate a triumph of a cause of democracy," said Biden early in his speech.

"Hear me out," said Biden as he addressed the Americans who did not vote for him. He urged them to hear his words and said it was fine if they disagreed with him because that's how democracy functioned.

Racial justice, healthcare

In his inaugural speech, Biden said that he will deliver racial justice. He vowed to defeat political extremism and domestic terror. More significantly Biden mentioned white supremacy as a menace to confront

The United States faces "a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism, that we must confront, and we will defeat," he said.

"This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge and unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America." he added

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-president-joe-biden-inaugural-speech-full-text-358185">Check full text of Joe Biden's inaugural speech</a>

Biden urged Americans to "reject" culture of manipulating facts.

Joe Biden mentioned 'healthcare for all' as one of the goals of his administration.

'We will repair our alliances'

During Donald Trump's tenure, he took the US on an isolationist path and squabbled with America's traditional allies. He even unilaterally made the US exit many treaties with allies.

Joe Biden assured the world that under his watch, USA will repair the alliances.

On Coronavirus

Biden said that US was entering the 'deadliest' phase of COVID-19 pandemic. He led a silent prayer for all those who had lost their lives due to coronavirus.

"We need all our strength to... persevere through this dark winter. We're entering what may be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus," he said, calling on Americans to "finally face this pandemic as one nation."

US President Joe Biden in his first speech as head of the state appealed all Americans to come together and unite and 'end uncivil war'. Biden's tone and words were a continuation of the steadfast message he has been sending across ever since results of US Presidential Elections were out in December 2020.

US President Joe Biden in his first speech as head of the state appealed all Americans to come together and unite and 'end uncivil war'. Biden's tone and words were a continuation of the steadfast message he has been sending across ever since results of US Presidential Elections were out in December 2020. During his speech, he assured that he will work as hard for those who DID NOT support him as for those who supported him during the election campaign. Former US President Donald Trump was not present for Biden's inauguration ceremony. Former Vice-President Mike Pence was in attendance. Stressing repeatedly that he will be a president for "all Americans", President Biden admitted that there was "much to repair and much to restore". On January 6, the US Capitol building was put under siege by supporters of Donald Trump after he encouraged them. Biden said that the violence "sought to shake capital's very foundation". He said that it was an attempt to stop the process in which "will"of Americans people was being heard. US Congress was in a process to certify Joe Biden's victory when the attack took place. "Here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work on our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground," Biden said. "It did not happen; it will never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever." Biden thanked his predecessors "from both parties". Former US Presidents Barack Obama, the Bushes and Bill Clinton were present for the inauguration ceremony. He called his predecessors "patriots" who had taken oath to defend US Constitution. × "This is America's day, This is democracy's day [...] we celebrate a triumph of a cause of democracy," said Biden early in his speech. "Hear me out," said Biden as he addressed the Americans who did not vote for him. He urged them to hear his words and said it was fine if they disagreed with him because that's how democracy functioned. Racial justice, healthcare In his inaugural speech, Biden said that he will deliver racial justice. He vowed to defeat political extremism and domestic terror. More significantly Biden mentioned white supremacy as a menace to confront The United States faces "a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism, that we must confront, and we will defeat," he said. "This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge and unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America." he added Check full text of Joe Biden's inaugural speech Biden urged Americans to "reject" culture of manipulating facts. Joe Biden mentioned 'healthcare for all' as one of the goals of his administration. 'We will repair our alliances' During Donald Trump's tenure, he took the US on an isolationist path and squabbled with America's traditional allies. He even unilaterally made the US exit many treaties with allies. Joe Biden assured the world that under his watch, USA will repair the alliances. On Coronavirus Biden said that US was entering the 'deadliest' phase of COVID-19 pandemic. He led a silent prayer for all those who had lost their lives due to coronavirus. "We need all our strength to... persevere through this dark winter. We're entering what may be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus," he said, calling on Americans to "finally face this pandemic as one nation."

US President Joe Biden appeals Americans to 'end uncivil war' in his inaugural speech

For many Trump supporters, the inauguration of Joe Biden Jr. this week will be a signal that it is time to move on. The president had four years, but Biden won, and that is that.

But for a certain slice of the 74 million Americans who voted for President Donald Trump, the events of the past two weeks — the five deaths, including of a Capitol Police officer, the arrests that have followed, and the removal of Trump and right-wing extremists from tech platforms — have not had a chastening effect.

On the contrary, interviews in recent days show that their anger and paranoia have only deepened, suggesting that even after Trump leaves the White House, an embrace of conspiracy theories and rage about the 2020 election will live on, not just among extremist groups but among many Americans.

“I can’t just sit back and say, ‘OK, I’ll just go back to watching football,’ ” said Daniel Scheerer, 43, a fuel truck driver in Grand Junction, Colorado, who went to the rally in Washington last week, but said he did not go inside the Capitol and had nothing to do with those who did. He said he did not condone those who were violent, but believed that the news media has “totally skewed” the event, obscuring what he sees as the real story of the day — the people’s protest against election fraud.

“If we tolerate a fraudulent election, I believe we cease to have a republic,” he said. “We turn into a totalitarian state.”

Asked what would happen after Biden took office, Scheerer said: “That’s where every person has to soul search.”

He continued: “This just isn’t like a candidate that I didn’t want, but he won fair and square. There’s something different happening here. I believe it needs to be resisted and fought against.”

Scheerer said he was not advocating violence, nor was he part of any group that was. But he echoed the views of many who supported the events in Washington last week: A fervent belief that something bad was about to happen, and an instinct to fight against it.

Polls indicate that only a small fraction of Americans approved of the riot in Washington last week. A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 8% of adults and 15% of Republicans support “the actions of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week to protest Biden’s election as president.” That is far from most voters, but enough to show that the belief in a stolen election has entered the American bloodstream and will not be easy to stop.

“It’s a dangerous situation,” said Lucan Way, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who writes about authoritarian regimes. “The ‘election was stolen’ narrative has become part of the political landscape.”

The country’s political divide is no longer a disagreement over issues like guns and abortion but a fundamental difference in how people see reality. That, in turn, is driving more extremist beliefs. This shift has been years in the making, but it went into hyperspeed after the Nov. 3 election as Trump and many in his party encouraged Americans, despite all the evidence to the contrary, to believe the results were fraudulent.

The belief is still common among Republicans: A Quinnipiac poll published Monday found that 73% still believe there was widespread voter fraud.

Now, with Biden’s inauguration Wednesday and so many Americans enraged about the election, state capitals and Washington are on high alert, with soldiers and security perimeters, bracing for further acts of violence.

“Polarization is not the problem anymore,” said Lilliana Mason, a political psychologist at the University of Maryland. “Now it’s the threat to democracy.”

When Mason began surveying people in 2017 about their tolerance for political violence for a book on partisanship, she did not expect to find much. Partisanship was always seen as an inert, harmless thing, she said, a way to get people interested in the otherwise boring topic of politics.

She was wrong. She and her co-author, Nathan Kalmoe, found that the share of Americans who say it is “at least a little bit justified” to engage in violence for political reasons has doubled in three years, rising to 20% after the election, from 10% in 2017. The trend was the same for both Republicans and Democrats. But the election was a catalyzing event: The Republicans who said they condoned violence became more approving after it, Mason said. Democrats stayed about the same.

In interviews with Trump’s more fervent supporters, people expressed a pattern of falsehoods and fears about the coming Biden administration. As events like the riot have raced ahead, so have conspiracy theories explaining them. They have blossomed in the exhausting monotony of coronavirus lockdowns.

Theda Kasner, 83, a retired medical worker from Marshfield, Wisconsin, who was originally interviewed for a New York Times polling story before the election, has been in an RV park in Weslaco, Texas, near the border with Mexico, since December. She is spending the winter there with her husband, for the sun and the beaches nearby. But the coronavirus is roaring through, and this week, their RV park went on lockdown.

“I told my husband today, I said ‘I’m going stir crazy,’ ” she said. “We are practically quarantined in our units.”

She has been spending lots of time in her motor home reading books and watching videos. One featured rousing, emotional music and footage of Trump and crowds of his supporters, with a voice talking darkly about a looming confrontation. It ended with the Lord’s Prayer and the date Jan. 20, 2021, flashing on the screen. Another, 48 minutes long, was of Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, an inventor, testifying before the Georgia state Senate about election fraud. She and her husband watch Newsmax TV, a right-wing network, in the evenings.

She had heard on a video she was sent on Facebook that in the Biden administration, children could be taken away from their parents. “I am in a total state of, I don’t know what is happening,” Kasner said.

“I simply cannot fathom what my country is becoming,” she said, saying that she had been sitting in her home in tears.

For Scheerer, the fuel truck driver in Colorado, the multiple catastrophes of the past year — the coronavirus, the economic disruption that came with it, the political fear across the country — all fused into a kind of looming threat. The lockdowns infuriated him. He sees mask mandates not as public health but public control. Both, he believed, were signs of a coming tyranny. He left a truck-driving job he liked when, by his account, his boss told him he had to wear a mask or leave.

Then came the election.

On Jan. 6, he arrived in Washington for the rally to protest the results. Afterward, when pressed on how he felt about the event given the number of white supremacists in the riot, he said that they were only a fraction of the people there. Anyway, he said, their presence was insignificant compared the broader issue of fraud.

“It’s way more than just being some kind of a Trump fanatic,” he said. He said he sees himself as “a guy up on the wall of a city seeing the enemy coming, and ringing the alarm bell.”

Force he said, is only a last resort.

“Are you OK with internment camps if you refuse to wear a mask or take a vaccination?” he asked. “I believe in a world where force has to be used to stop evil or the wrong act.”

In western North Carolina, Kevin Haag, a retired landscaper who was at the Capitol last week but did not go inside, said people in his conservative community have grown increasingly alarmed about what has happened in the days since. His electric power company, Duke Energy, has announced it would pause donations for Republicans who voted against certifying the election results. It all feels like a vast piling on against Trump supporters, he said.

To top it off, the Senate, the House and the White House now belong to Democrats.

“Now it’s pretty scary, people are alarmed, they own it all now,” said Haag, who was first quoted in a Times story about the December rally in Washington for Trump. Haag, who is 67, is also a member of his local town council.

In a telephone conversation this week, he said he is part of a group called the Armed Patriots, people from his area whose purpose, he said, is to protect the community. On Tuesday night, the group met, he said, and invited the public for a gun instruction session with two experts who talked about how to use an assault rifle. Sixty people attended, he said, including women.

They also held a raffle of a gun to raise money for a website, he said, “because they are taking down our communications.”

The meeting, he said, “was to educate and to relieve fear.”

Haag insisted that the group was not a militia.

“We are not here to take over the country,” he said. “If that’s what you are here for, we are not your group. We are here to protect our citizens and to stand up for our country.”

For many Trump supporters, the inauguration of Joe Biden Jr. this week will be a signal that it is time to move on. The president had four years, but Biden won, and that is that.

For many Trump supporters, the inauguration of Joe Biden Jr. this week will be a signal that it is time to move on. The president had four years, but Biden won, and that is that. But for a certain slice of the 74 million Americans who voted for President Donald Trump, the events of the past two weeks — the five deaths, including of a Capitol Police officer, the arrests that have followed, and the removal of Trump and right-wing extremists from tech platforms — have not had a chastening effect. On the contrary, interviews in recent days show that their anger and paranoia have only deepened, suggesting that even after Trump leaves the White House, an embrace of conspiracy theories and rage about the 2020 election will live on, not just among extremist groups but among many Americans. “I can’t just sit back and say, ‘OK, I’ll just go back to watching football,’ ” said Daniel Scheerer, 43, a fuel truck driver in Grand Junction, Colorado, who went to the rally in Washington last week, but said he did not go inside the Capitol and had nothing to do with those who did. He said he did not condone those who were violent, but believed that the news media has “totally skewed” the event, obscuring what he sees as the real story of the day — the people’s protest against election fraud. “If we tolerate a fraudulent election, I believe we cease to have a republic,” he said. “We turn into a totalitarian state.” Asked what would happen after Biden took office, Scheerer said: “That’s where every person has to soul search.” He continued: “This just isn’t like a candidate that I didn’t want, but he won fair and square. There’s something different happening here. I believe it needs to be resisted and fought against.” Scheerer said he was not advocating violence, nor was he part of any group that was. But he echoed the views of many who supported the events in Washington last week: A fervent belief that something bad was about to happen, and an instinct to fight against it. Polls indicate that only a small fraction of Americans approved of the riot in Washington last week. A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 8% of adults and 15% of Republicans support “the actions of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week to protest Biden’s election as president.” That is far from most voters, but enough to show that the belief in a stolen election has entered the American bloodstream and will not be easy to stop. “It’s a dangerous situation,” said Lucan Way, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who writes about authoritarian regimes. “The ‘election was stolen’ narrative has become part of the political landscape.” The country’s political divide is no longer a disagreement over issues like guns and abortion but a fundamental difference in how people see reality. That, in turn, is driving more extremist beliefs. This shift has been years in the making, but it went into hyperspeed after the Nov. 3 election as Trump and many in his party encouraged Americans, despite all the evidence to the contrary, to believe the results were fraudulent. The belief is still common among Republicans: A Quinnipiac poll published Monday found that 73% still believe there was widespread voter fraud. Now, with Biden’s inauguration Wednesday and so many Americans enraged about the election, state capitals and Washington are on high alert, with soldiers and security perimeters, bracing for further acts of violence. “Polarization is not the problem anymore,” said Lilliana Mason, a political psychologist at the University of Maryland. “Now it’s the threat to democracy.” When Mason began surveying people in 2017 about their tolerance for political violence for a book on partisanship, she did not expect to find much. Partisanship was always seen as an inert, harmless thing, she said, a way to get people interested in the otherwise boring topic of politics. She was wrong. She and her co-author, Nathan Kalmoe, found that the share of Americans who say it is “at least a little bit justified” to engage in violence for political reasons has doubled in three years, rising to 20% after the election, from 10% in 2017. The trend was the same for both Republicans and Democrats. But the election was a catalyzing event: The Republicans who said they condoned violence became more approving after it, Mason said. Democrats stayed about the same. In interviews with Trump’s more fervent supporters, people expressed a pattern of falsehoods and fears about the coming Biden administration. As events like the riot have raced ahead, so have conspiracy theories explaining them. They have blossomed in the exhausting monotony of coronavirus lockdowns. Theda Kasner, 83, a retired medical worker from Marshfield, Wisconsin, who was originally interviewed for a New York Times polling story before the election, has been in an RV park in Weslaco, Texas, near the border with Mexico, since December. She is spending the winter there with her husband, for the sun and the beaches nearby. But the coronavirus is roaring through, and this week, their RV park went on lockdown. “I told my husband today, I said ‘I’m going stir crazy,’ ” she said. “We are practically quarantined in our units.” She has been spending lots of time in her motor home reading books and watching videos. One featured rousing, emotional music and footage of Trump and crowds of his supporters, with a voice talking darkly about a looming confrontation. It ended with the Lord’s Prayer and the date Jan. 20, 2021, flashing on the screen. Another, 48 minutes long, was of Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, an inventor, testifying before the Georgia state Senate about election fraud. She and her husband watch Newsmax TV, a right-wing network, in the evenings. She had heard on a video she was sent on Facebook that in the Biden administration, children could be taken away from their parents. “I am in a total state of, I don’t know what is happening,” Kasner said. “I simply cannot fathom what my country is becoming,” she said, saying that she had been sitting in her home in tears. For Scheerer, the fuel truck driver in Colorado, the multiple catastrophes of the past year — the coronavirus, the economic disruption that came with it, the political fear across the country — all fused into a kind of looming threat. The lockdowns infuriated him. He sees mask mandates not as public health but public control. Both, he believed, were signs of a coming tyranny. He left a truck-driving job he liked when, by his account, his boss told him he had to wear a mask or leave. Then came the election. On Jan. 6, he arrived in Washington for the rally to protest the results. Afterward, when pressed on how he felt about the event given the number of white supremacists in the riot, he said that they were only a fraction of the people there. Anyway, he said, their presence was insignificant compared the broader issue of fraud. “It’s way more than just being some kind of a Trump fanatic,” he said. He said he sees himself as “a guy up on the wall of a city seeing the enemy coming, and ringing the alarm bell.” Force he said, is only a last resort. “Are you OK with internment camps if you refuse to wear a mask or take a vaccination?” he asked. “I believe in a world where force has to be used to stop evil or the wrong act.” In western North Carolina, Kevin Haag, a retired landscaper who was at the Capitol last week but did not go inside, said people in his conservative community have grown increasingly alarmed about what has happened in the days since. His electric power company, Duke Energy, has announced it would pause donations for Republicans who voted against certifying the election results. It all feels like a vast piling on against Trump supporters, he said. To top it off, the Senate, the House and the White House now belong to Democrats. “Now it’s pretty scary, people are alarmed, they own it all now,” said Haag, who was first quoted in a Times story about the December rally in Washington for Trump. Haag, who is 67, is also a member of his local town council. In a telephone conversation this week, he said he is part of a group called the Armed Patriots, people from his area whose purpose, he said, is to protect the community. On Tuesday night, the group met, he said, and invited the public for a gun instruction session with two experts who talked about how to use an assault rifle. Sixty people attended, he said, including women. They also held a raffle of a gun to raise money for a website, he said, “because they are taking down our communications.” The meeting, he said, “was to educate and to relieve fear.” Haag insisted that the group was not a militia. “We are not here to take over the country,” he said. “If that’s what you are here for, we are not your group. We are here to protect our citizens and to stand up for our country.”

Why rage over the 2020 election could last well past Trump

Youtube on Tuesday suspended current US President Donald Trump's channel for violation of policies designed against incitement to violence. This is latest in series of actions social media platforms are taking against Trump whose supporters attacked Capitol Building just after his address to them. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram have already suspended Trump's accounts.

Now as per Youtube's action, new videos cannot be uploaded on Trump's channel. Upload of videos and livestreaming will be blocked for seven days. Youtube has said in a statement that the ban may be extended.

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&nbsp;

Supporters of Trump stormed the US&nbsp;Capitol on Wednesday, trying to halt the certification by Congress of President-elect Joe Biden's election win. Trump, who has challenged the validity of Biden's victory without producing evidence, initially praised his supporters but later condemned the violence.

Lawmakers were forced to flee as the building was mobbed by protesters who overwhelmed security forces. Five people died in the violence, including one Capitol Police officer.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/mike-pence-rejects-invoking-25th-amendment-as-democrats-move-to-impeach-trump-356339">Mike Pence rejects invoking 25th Amendment as Democrats move to impeach Trump</a>

After the incident, Twitter and Facebook removed Trump's accounts and have been eliminating content supporting last week's assault, while Amazon.com Inc suspended Parler, a social media platform favored by many supporters of Trump, from its web hosting service.

(With Reuters inputs)

Youtube on Tuesday suspended current US President Donald Trump's channel for violation of policies designed against incitement to violence. This is latest in series of actions social media platforms are taking against Trump whose supporters attacked Capitol Building just after his address to them.

Youtube on Tuesday suspended current US President Donald Trump's channel for violation of policies designed against incitement to violence. This is latest in series of actions social media platforms are taking against Trump whose supporters attacked Capitol Building just after his address to them. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram have already suspended Trump's accounts. Now as per Youtube's action, new videos cannot be uploaded on Trump's channel. Upload of videos and livestreaming will be blocked for seven days. Youtube has said in a statement that the ban may be extended. × Supporters of Trump stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, trying to halt the certification by Congress of President-elect Joe Biden's election win. Trump, who has challenged the validity of Biden's victory without producing evidence, initially praised his supporters but later condemned the violence. Lawmakers were forced to flee as the building was mobbed by protesters who overwhelmed security forces. Five people died in the violence, including one Capitol Police officer. Also Read | Mike Pence rejects invoking 25th Amendment as Democrats move to impeach Trump After the incident, Twitter and Facebook removed Trump's accounts and have been eliminating content supporting last week's assault, while Amazon.com Inc suspended Parler, a social media platform favored by many supporters of Trump, from its web hosting service. (With Reuters inputs)

YouTube suspends Trump's channel for violation of policy on violence incitement

Bolt was the world's first social networking website, and remained active between 1996 and 2007. 25 years since its inception, the world is facing a peculiar challenge of filtering content and engagement on social media in a bid to contain hate speech, which was blamed for the recent attack on US Capitol which left five people dead.

But can we trust social media giants? How can we assume that those claiming to solve the problem aren’t helping themselves?

For weeks, Trump lied about the election being stolen from him. And for his excesses, he was simply flagged. For four years, Trump was allowed to spread hatred. Every time tech CEOs were pulled up, they said Trump's posts have political value and blocking them would mean blocking free speech.

Years of pent-up hate led to what we saw at Washington on&nbsp;January 6, and social media helped connect those responsible for the carnage, which was live streamed on social media.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/big-techs-ban-on-donald-trump-sparks-debate-about-power-wielded-by-companies-356322" hreflang="en">Big Tech's ban on Donald Trump sparks debate about power wielded by companies</a>

Trump was responsible for what happened, but so was Facebook and Twitter. When chaos struck the Capitol, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said - “The risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great”.

Trump is an outgoing president, and the Silicon Valley doesn't need him anymore.. Tech giants silenced his voice hoping to earn some cheer in their favour, and to distance themselves from the attempted coup.

European Union's Commissioner for the internal market - Thierry Breton said the following - “The fact that a CEO can pull the plug on POTU’S loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing. It not only confirms the power of these platforms, but it also displays weaknesses in the way our society is organised in the digital space."

The damage done at US Capitol showed the world that American democracy is stake.&nbsp;

Our systems have become puppets in the hands of social media. These platforms are used to swing elections, and to challenge results. Coups are also planned on these platforms. And CEOs of these platforms then play judge and jury. Trump should be held accountable for inciting hate, but that’s the job of the courts.

Who gave tech CEOs the power to snatch an elected leader's freedom of speech?

The thin line between free speech and hate speech, protest and incitement of violence is dictated by ideologies, and shouldn’t be up for tech firms to tell. Defining hate has to be a collective process; governments and private entities need to come up with mechanisms to jointly monitor and regulate what goes on social media..

This would also mean amending the rules of the land to regulate the digital world too. And to also ensure - that the regulations aren't misused, especially- by tech giants.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-calls-second-impeachment-attempt-greatest-witch-hunt-in-history-356318">Trump calls second impeachment attempt 'greatest witch-hunt in history'</a>

In India, the government has issued an order to regulate news on social media platforms, but its effectiveness remains questionable. Europe slaps tech giants with fines if extremist content isn't removed with an hour.

Australia has given its e-safety commissioner the power to issue “takedown notices” to social media companies, with a provision for criminal penalties. This includes possible jail sentences for tech executives, and penalties worth up to 10 per cent of the company's global turnover.

In South Korea, the government can order an information provider to restrict material. Either we legislate on the digital world, or we watch tech giants become a law unto themselves.

Bolt was the world's first social networking website, and remained active between 1996 and 2007. 25 years since its inception, the world is facing a peculiar challenge of filtering content and engagement on social media in a bid to contain hate speech, which was blamed for the recent attack on US Capitol which left five people dead.

Bolt was the world's first social networking website, and remained active between 1996 and 2007. 25 years since its inception, the world is facing a peculiar challenge of filtering content and engagement on social media in a bid to contain hate speech, which was blamed for the recent attack on US Capitol which left five people dead. But can we trust social media giants? How can we assume that those claiming to solve the problem aren’t helping themselves? For weeks, Trump lied about the election being stolen from him. And for his excesses, he was simply flagged. For four years, Trump was allowed to spread hatred. Every time tech CEOs were pulled up, they said Trump's posts have political value and blocking them would mean blocking free speech. Years of pent-up hate led to what we saw at Washington on January 6, and social media helped connect those responsible for the carnage, which was live streamed on social media. Also read: Big Tech's ban on Donald Trump sparks debate about power wielded by companies Trump was responsible for what happened, but so was Facebook and Twitter. When chaos struck the Capitol, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said - “The risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great”. Trump is an outgoing president, and the Silicon Valley doesn't need him anymore.. Tech giants silenced his voice hoping to earn some cheer in their favour, and to distance themselves from the attempted coup. European Union's Commissioner for the internal market - Thierry Breton said the following - “The fact that a CEO can pull the plug on POTU’S loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing. It not only confirms the power of these platforms, but it also displays weaknesses in the way our society is organised in the digital space." The damage done at US Capitol showed the world that American democracy is stake. Our systems have become puppets in the hands of social media. These platforms are used to swing elections, and to challenge results. Coups are also planned on these platforms. And CEOs of these platforms then play judge and jury. Trump should be held accountable for inciting hate, but that’s the job of the courts. Who gave tech CEOs the power to snatch an elected leader's freedom of speech? The thin line between free speech and hate speech, protest and incitement of violence is dictated by ideologies, and shouldn’t be up for tech firms to tell. Defining hate has to be a collective process; governments and private entities need to come up with mechanisms to jointly monitor and regulate what goes on social media.. This would also mean amending the rules of the land to regulate the digital world too. And to also ensure - that the regulations aren't misused, especially- by tech giants. Also read: Trump calls second impeachment attempt 'greatest witch-hunt in history' In India, the government has issued an order to regulate news on social media platforms, but its effectiveness remains questionable. Europe slaps tech giants with fines if extremist content isn't removed with an hour. Australia has given its e-safety commissioner the power to issue “takedown notices” to social media companies, with a provision for criminal penalties. This includes possible jail sentences for tech executives, and penalties worth up to 10 per cent of the company's global turnover. In South Korea, the government can order an information provider to restrict material. Either we legislate on the digital world, or we watch tech giants become a law unto themselves.

It's time to regulate social media giants before they regulate us

Democrats began the process of impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time on Monday if Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet do not remove him from office. 
 
Democrats introduced a resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment of the Constitution and remove Trump from the White House for being unfit to discharge his duties.

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Republicans blocked an immediate vote on the resolution and Democrats followed up by introducing an article of impeachment of Trump for "incitement of insurrection" over his role in Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol by his supporters.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/key-impeachment-witness-quits-army-is-trumps-bullying-the-reason-311795" hreflang="en">Key impeachment witness quits army. Is Trump's bullying the reason?</a> 
 
The dramatic moves come just nine days before Trump is to leave the White House and President-elect Joe Biden is to be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. 
 
Democratic Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland introduced the resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare Trump "incapable of executing the duties of his office."

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/technology/twitters-regular-audit-labelled-a-purge-by-trump-supporters-after-losing-followers-356033" hreflang="en">Twitter's regular audit labelled a 'purge' by Trump supporters after losing followers</a> 
 
Republican Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia objected to passing the resolution by what is known as "unanimous consent" and it will be put to a vote on Tuesday. 
 
After Republicans blocked the resolution, a single article of impeachment against Trump was introduced in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. 
 
Trump was impeached by the House in December 2019 and now risks being the first president ever to be impeached twice. 
 
He was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate following his last impeachment and it is unclear whether the body would hold a trial this time to consider the latest charges.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

Democrats began the process of impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time on Monday if Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet do not remove him from office.

Democrats began the process of impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time on Monday if Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet do not remove him from office. Democrats introduced a resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment of the Constitution and remove Trump from the White House for being unfit to discharge his duties. × Republicans blocked an immediate vote on the resolution and Democrats followed up by introducing an article of impeachment of Trump for "incitement of insurrection" over his role in Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol by his supporters. Also read: Key impeachment witness quits army. Is Trump's bullying the reason? The dramatic moves come just nine days before Trump is to leave the White House and President-elect Joe Biden is to be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. Democratic Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland introduced the resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare Trump "incapable of executing the duties of his office." Also read: Twitter's regular audit labelled a 'purge' by Trump supporters after losing followers Republican Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia objected to passing the resolution by what is known as "unanimous consent" and it will be put to a vote on Tuesday. After Republicans blocked the resolution, a single article of impeachment against Trump was introduced in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. Trump was impeached by the House in December 2019 and now risks being the first president ever to be impeached twice. He was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate following his last impeachment and it is unclear whether the body would hold a trial this time to consider the latest charges.

Democrats introduce Trump impeachment article in US House

The House and Senate will convene Wednesday afternoon for a remarkable joint session to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, with President Donald Trump and his allies plotting to transform the counting session into one final, futile attempt to overturn the results.

Bipartisan majorities in both chambers are prepared to meet late into the night to beat back the challenges and confirm Biden as the winner. But by using what is typically a ceremonial proceeding as a forum for trying to subvert a democratic election, Trump and his allies are going where no party has since the Reconstruction era of the 19th century, when Congress bargained over the presidency.

Its implications, for future elections and the Republican Party, could be significant.

At least four Republican senators — Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama — have agreed to join House members to challenge the results of three battleground states Biden won: Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Senators were still weighing whether to join House members to similarly challenge the outcome in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.

In each case, their objections will force the House and Senate to debate Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud for up to two hours and then vote whether to accept or reject the results certified by the state. A process that typically consists of less than an hour of glorified paperwork could take anywhere from 9 to 24 hours, starting at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Even before it began, the session was already driving sharp wedges into the Republican Party that threatened to do lasting damage to its cohesion, as lawmakers decided to cast their lot with Trump or the Constitution. Top party leaders in the House and Senate appeared to be headed for a high-profile split. And while only a dozen or so senators were expected to vote to reject the outcome in key states, as many as 70% of House Republicans could join the effort, stoking the dangerous belief of tens of millions of voters that Biden was elected illegitimately.

Presiding over the whole affair will be Vice President Mike Pence, whom statute and tradition dictate must ultimately declare Biden the winner. Trump is pressuring him to go rogue and reject electors in key battleground states he lost, handing them a second term.

The demand ensures Pence, too, must choose between the Constitution and his loyalty to Trump. The answer could shape his own political future.

The House and Senate will convene Wednesday afternoon for a remarkable joint session to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, with President Donald Trump and his allies plotting to transform the counting session into one final, futile attempt to overturn the results.

The House and Senate will convene Wednesday afternoon for a remarkable joint session to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, with President Donald Trump and his allies plotting to transform the counting session into one final, futile attempt to overturn the results. Bipartisan majorities in both chambers are prepared to meet late into the night to beat back the challenges and confirm Biden as the winner. But by using what is typically a ceremonial proceeding as a forum for trying to subvert a democratic election, Trump and his allies are going where no party has since the Reconstruction era of the 19th century, when Congress bargained over the presidency. Its implications, for future elections and the Republican Party, could be significant. At least four Republican senators — Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama — have agreed to join House members to challenge the results of three battleground states Biden won: Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Senators were still weighing whether to join House members to similarly challenge the outcome in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. In each case, their objections will force the House and Senate to debate Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud for up to two hours and then vote whether to accept or reject the results certified by the state. A process that typically consists of less than an hour of glorified paperwork could take anywhere from 9 to 24 hours, starting at 1 p.m. Eastern. Even before it began, the session was already driving sharp wedges into the Republican Party that threatened to do lasting damage to its cohesion, as lawmakers decided to cast their lot with Trump or the Constitution. Top party leaders in the House and Senate appeared to be headed for a high-profile split. And while only a dozen or so senators were expected to vote to reject the outcome in key states, as many as 70% of House Republicans could join the effort, stoking the dangerous belief of tens of millions of voters that Biden was elected illegitimately. Presiding over the whole affair will be Vice President Mike Pence, whom statute and tradition dictate must ultimately declare Biden the winner. Trump is pressuring him to go rogue and reject electors in key battleground states he lost, handing them a second term. The demand ensures Pence, too, must choose between the Constitution and his loyalty to Trump. The answer could shape his own political future.

Congress is expected to meet into the night as Republicans try to subvert the election

President-elect Joe Biden said on Monday many of America`s security agencies had been "hollowed out" under President Donald Trump and the lack of information being provided to his transition team by the outgoing administration was an "irresponsibility." 
 
"We`ve encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget," Biden said after a meeting with his foreign policy team. 
 
"Right now we just aren`t getting all of the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It`s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility," he added. 
 
After Biden beat Trump in the Nov. 3 election, the Democrat’s team only began meeting with administration officials in late November to coordinate the handover. 
 
Trump, a Republican, has refused to concede defeat and his administration only authorized cooperation with Biden on Nov. 23. Biden takes office on Jan. 20. 
 
Earlier this month, Biden`s team said they had met resistance to requests for information from some Pentagon officials. 
 
The Pentagon pushed back. 
 
In a statement, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said the Pentagon had conducted 164 interviews with over 400 officials and provided more than 5,000 pages of documents. 
 
"Our (Department of Defense) political and career officials have been working with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities in a compressed time schedule and they will continue to do so in a transparent and collegial manner that upholds the finest traditions of the department," Miller said. 
 
But Biden reiterated his team`s concerns on Monday. When he takes office, he will inherit a wide range of foreign policy and national security challenges, including China, Iran and North Korea, as well as the coronavirus pandemic raging across the globe. 
 
One of his toughest tasks will be rebuilding U.S. alliances that have frayed under four years of Trump`s "America First" agenda. 
 
"My team needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies," Biden said. "We need full visibility to the budget planning under way at the Defense Department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch up that our adversaries may try to exploit." 
 
But Biden said his team, while securing cooperation from some federal agencies, had "encountered obstruction from the political leadership" at the Pentagon. 
 
"And the truth is that many of the agencies that are crucial to our security have incurred enormous damage. Many of them have been hollowed out – in personnel, capacity and in morale," he said. "There’s policy processes that have atrophied or have been sidelined to the despair of our alliances."

President-elect Joe Biden said on Monday many of America`s security agencies had been "hollowed out" under President Donald Trump and the lack of information being provided to his transition team by the outgoing administration was an "irresponsibility.

President-elect Joe Biden said on Monday many of America`s security agencies had been "hollowed out" under President Donald Trump and the lack of information being provided to his transition team by the outgoing administration was an "irresponsibility." "We`ve encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget," Biden said after a meeting with his foreign policy team. "Right now we just aren`t getting all of the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It`s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility," he added. After Biden beat Trump in the Nov. 3 election, the Democrat’s team only began meeting with administration officials in late November to coordinate the handover. Trump, a Republican, has refused to concede defeat and his administration only authorized cooperation with Biden on Nov. 23. Biden takes office on Jan. 20. Earlier this month, Biden`s team said they had met resistance to requests for information from some Pentagon officials. The Pentagon pushed back. In a statement, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said the Pentagon had conducted 164 interviews with over 400 officials and provided more than 5,000 pages of documents. "Our (Department of Defense) political and career officials have been working with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities in a compressed time schedule and they will continue to do so in a transparent and collegial manner that upholds the finest traditions of the department," Miller said. But Biden reiterated his team`s concerns on Monday. When he takes office, he will inherit a wide range of foreign policy and national security challenges, including China, Iran and North Korea, as well as the coronavirus pandemic raging across the globe. One of his toughest tasks will be rebuilding U.S. alliances that have frayed under four years of Trump`s "America First" agenda. "My team needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies," Biden said. "We need full visibility to the budget planning under way at the Defense Department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch up that our adversaries may try to exploit." But Biden said his team, while securing cooperation from some federal agencies, had "encountered obstruction from the political leadership" at the Pentagon. "And the truth is that many of the agencies that are crucial to our security have incurred enormous damage. Many of them have been hollowed out – in personnel, capacity and in morale," he said. "There’s policy processes that have atrophied or have been sidelined to the despair of our alliances."

Biden says Trump aides setting 'roadblocks' for his transition team

Two years ago, Democrats celebrated a sweep of seven Republican-held congressional seats in California as evidence of the party’s growing ability to compete in swing districts here and across the nation.

But this year, Republicans snatched back four of those seats even as Joe Biden swamped President Donald Trump in California. The losses stunned Democrats and contributed to the razor-thin margin the party will hold in the House of Representatives this January.

The turnaround is testimony to how competitive the seats are, particularly in Orange County, once a bastion of conservative Republicanism that has been moving steadily Democratic over the past 20 years.

But by any measure, the results were a setback for Democrats in this state and nationally, signaling the steep obstacles they will face in 2022 competing in the predominantly suburban swing districts that fueled their takeover of the House in 2018.

The Democrats’ losses came for a number of reasons, including forces particular to California and the complications of campaigning during a pandemic. But as much as anything, they reflected the potency of Republican attacks, some false or exaggerated, that Democrats were the party of socialism, defunding the police and abolishing private health insurance.

The attacks — led in no small part by Trump as a central part of his reelection strategy — came at a time when parts of California were swept by street protests against police abuses, some of which turned into glass-shattering bouts of looting and confrontations with law enforcement that were heavily covered on local television.

“Republicans hung around Democrats’ necks that we are all socialist or communist and we all wanted to defund the police,” said Harley Rouda, a Democrat from Orange County who was defeated by Michelle Steel, a Republican member of the Orange County board of supervisors. “In my opinion, we as a party did a less than adequate job in refuting that narrative. We won in 2018 and took the House back because of people like me — moderates — flipping radical Republican seats.”

Republicans said that attempts by Democrats to portray themselves as moderates were undercut by a shift of the party to the left and by the demonstrations.

“It was incredibly easy for us to draw contrasts,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, leader of the California Republican Party. She said the protests “were happening all over. It looked like a war zone.”

For all that, election outcomes are the result of many factors — and that was particularly the case in a campaign that played out against a deadly pandemic and with such a polarizing figure as Trump dominating the political debate.

Democrats said they were also hurt by a national policy, set by the party, to avoid door-to-door canvassing during the pandemic. Presumably, that will not be a factor in 2022.

“The No. 1 issue in our campaign is we didn’t canvass,” said Rep. T.J. Cox, a Democrat who represents the San Joaquin Valley and lost to David Valadao, the Republican he unseated in 2018. “We didn’t do the door-to-door.”

He said it was like playing for a football team that had been told “they can’t pass.”

Christy Smith, a Democrat from northern Los Angeles County who failed to win a district her party captured in 2018, said she had adhered to public health guidelines to her disadvantage. (The Democrat who won in 2018, Katie Hill, stepped down after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.)

“We couldn’t attend a forum or a town hall,” Smith said. “That’s my favorite way to campaign.”

California’s often lurching effort to combat COVID-19 was damaging in Republican-leaning districts where there has been public defiance of mask-wearing mandates and contempt for the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.

“Everyone is concerned about COVID,” said Sam Oh, a Republican consultant to two of the Republican winners, Young Kim and Steel. “But we are trying to find a path to give small-business owners a way to keep making a life. This is incredibly important, and Democrats are tone-deaf to this.”

And Republicans, analysts said, recruited strong candidates, which is always the most critical task in an election. They included Steel and Kim, who will be among the first Korean-American members of Congress, and Mike Garcia, a former military pilot who won a special election in May to replace Hill and then beat Smith in November.

Democrats set their targets on seven Republican-held seats in 2018 and won all of them, cutting the size of California’s Republican congressional delegation in half. That sweep suggested that Democrats were encroaching on once-Republican areas of the state, presenting a road map for how the party could compete in swing districts across the country.

But Republicans succeeded this time by playing on themes that have long been resonant among moderate voters, particularly in places like Orange County: high taxes, intrusive government and law and order. Democrats said the debates on the national stage hurt them, particularly among Latino and Asian-American voters.

“I think we undervalued the strength of the attack,” said Dan Sena, who was the first Hispanic executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The national socialism messaging, combined with the crime messaging, was a death by a thousand cuts in a place like California.”

Smith said she was frustrated in trying to campaign in an environment “where Republicans are so persistent in false narratives,” and that Democrats had failed to figure out how to address that.

“We never got our hands around it,” she said.

Republicans argued that the results here — and across the country — were powerful evidence that many voters were rejecting policies that Democrats on the left were advocating.

“Democrats said they were going to pick up 10 to 15 seats in the House,” said Torunn Sinclair, a press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Obviously they are missing something. It has to go back to these far-left policies that people just didn’t want. ‘Medicare for All,’ defunding the police.”

The margins of victory in California’s pivot districts were narrow for the Democratic winners in 2018 — and for the Republican winners in 2020.

“These districts — including mine — were very difficult to flip,” said Rep. Katie Porter, one of the Orange County Democrats who won in 2018 and was reelected in 2020. “These are Republican districts. They were always going to be very competitive races.”

Two years ago, Democrats celebrated a sweep of seven Republican-held congressional seats in California as evidence of the party’s growing ability to compete in swing districts here and across the nation.

Two years ago, Democrats celebrated a sweep of seven Republican-held congressional seats in California as evidence of the party’s growing ability to compete in swing districts here and across the nation. But this year, Republicans snatched back four of those seats even as Joe Biden swamped President Donald Trump in California. The losses stunned Democrats and contributed to the razor-thin margin the party will hold in the House of Representatives this January. The turnaround is testimony to how competitive the seats are, particularly in Orange County, once a bastion of conservative Republicanism that has been moving steadily Democratic over the past 20 years. But by any measure, the results were a setback for Democrats in this state and nationally, signaling the steep obstacles they will face in 2022 competing in the predominantly suburban swing districts that fueled their takeover of the House in 2018. The Democrats’ losses came for a number of reasons, including forces particular to California and the complications of campaigning during a pandemic. But as much as anything, they reflected the potency of Republican attacks, some false or exaggerated, that Democrats were the party of socialism, defunding the police and abolishing private health insurance. The attacks — led in no small part by Trump as a central part of his reelection strategy — came at a time when parts of California were swept by street protests against police abuses, some of which turned into glass-shattering bouts of looting and confrontations with law enforcement that were heavily covered on local television. “Republicans hung around Democrats’ necks that we are all socialist or communist and we all wanted to defund the police,” said Harley Rouda, a Democrat from Orange County who was defeated by Michelle Steel, a Republican member of the Orange County board of supervisors. “In my opinion, we as a party did a less than adequate job in refuting that narrative. We won in 2018 and took the House back because of people like me — moderates — flipping radical Republican seats.” Republicans said that attempts by Democrats to portray themselves as moderates were undercut by a shift of the party to the left and by the demonstrations. “It was incredibly easy for us to draw contrasts,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, leader of the California Republican Party. She said the protests “were happening all over. It looked like a war zone.” For all that, election outcomes are the result of many factors — and that was particularly the case in a campaign that played out against a deadly pandemic and with such a polarizing figure as Trump dominating the political debate. Democrats said they were also hurt by a national policy, set by the party, to avoid door-to-door canvassing during the pandemic. Presumably, that will not be a factor in 2022. “The No. 1 issue in our campaign is we didn’t canvass,” said Rep. T.J. Cox, a Democrat who represents the San Joaquin Valley and lost to David Valadao, the Republican he unseated in 2018. “We didn’t do the door-to-door.” He said it was like playing for a football team that had been told “they can’t pass.” Christy Smith, a Democrat from northern Los Angeles County who failed to win a district her party captured in 2018, said she had adhered to public health guidelines to her disadvantage. (The Democrat who won in 2018, Katie Hill, stepped down after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.) “We couldn’t attend a forum or a town hall,” Smith said. “That’s my favorite way to campaign.” California’s often lurching effort to combat COVID-19 was damaging in Republican-leaning districts where there has been public defiance of mask-wearing mandates and contempt for the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom. “Everyone is concerned about COVID,” said Sam Oh, a Republican consultant to two of the Republican winners, Young Kim and Steel. “But we are trying to find a path to give small-business owners a way to keep making a life. This is incredibly important, and Democrats are tone-deaf to this.” And Republicans, analysts said, recruited strong candidates, which is always the most critical task in an election. They included Steel and Kim, who will be among the first Korean-American members of Congress, and Mike Garcia, a former military pilot who won a special election in May to replace Hill and then beat Smith in November. Democrats set their targets on seven Republican-held seats in 2018 and won all of them, cutting the size of California’s Republican congressional delegation in half. That sweep suggested that Democrats were encroaching on once-Republican areas of the state, presenting a road map for how the party could compete in swing districts across the country. But Republicans succeeded this time by playing on themes that have long been resonant among moderate voters, particularly in places like Orange County: high taxes, intrusive government and law and order. Democrats said the debates on the national stage hurt them, particularly among Latino and Asian-American voters. “I think we undervalued the strength of the attack,” said Dan Sena, who was the first Hispanic executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The national socialism messaging, combined with the crime messaging, was a death by a thousand cuts in a place like California.” Smith said she was frustrated in trying to campaign in an environment “where Republicans are so persistent in false narratives,” and that Democrats had failed to figure out how to address that. “We never got our hands around it,” she said. Republicans argued that the results here — and across the country — were powerful evidence that many voters were rejecting policies that Democrats on the left were advocating. “Democrats said they were going to pick up 10 to 15 seats in the House,” said Torunn Sinclair, a press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Obviously they are missing something. It has to go back to these far-left policies that people just didn’t want. ‘Medicare for All,’ defunding the police.” The margins of victory in California’s pivot districts were narrow for the Democratic winners in 2018 — and for the Republican winners in 2020. “These districts — including mine — were very difficult to flip,” said Rep. Katie Porter, one of the Orange County Democrats who won in 2018 and was reelected in 2020. “These are Republican districts. They were always going to be very competitive races.”

A stinging setback in California is a warning for Democrats in 2022

The incoming White House chief of staff said on Sunday that President-elect Joe Biden`s response to the massive hacking campaign uncovered last week would go beyond sanctions. 
 
Ron Klain said Biden was mapping out ways to push back against the suspected Russian hackers who have penetrated half a dozen U.S. government agencies and left thousands of American companies exposed. 
 
"It`s not just sanctions. It`s steps and things we could do to degrade the capacity of foreign actors to engage in this sort of attack," Klain said on CBS` "Face the Nation."

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/russia-dismisses-hacking-allegations-as-russophobia-336674" hreflang="en">Russia dismisses hacking allegations as 'Russophobia'</a> 
 
Options being mulled by the Biden administration to punish Moscow over its alleged role include financial penalties and retaliatory hacks on Russian infrastructure, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. 
 
The Kremlin denies any role in the hacking. Speaking at an event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Russia`s SVR foreign intelligence agency, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised its work, saying he was impressed by the "difficult professional operations that have been conducted." 
 
Biden, who becomes president on Jan. 20, would likely have bipartisan support for a muscular reaction to the espionage campaign, lawmakers indicated on Sunday. 
 
Republican Senator Mitt Romney said the data breach was "extraordinarily damaging" on NBC`s "Meet the Press." 
 
"This demands a response," he said. "This is something we have to address as soon as possible." 
 
U.S. Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on ABC that the hack could still be going on and that officials had yet to determine its full scope. But he stopped short of the aggressive language used by Romney, who called the hack "an invasion".

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/us-election-2020-white-house-official-expresses-concern-over-hacking-on-day-of-voting-333397" hreflang="en">US election 2020: White House official expresses concern over hacking on day of voting</a> 
 
"This is in that gray area between espionage and an attack," Warner said. Still, he backed Romney`s call for retaliation, saying Washington needed to make clear to adversaries "that if you take this kind of action we and others will strike back." 
 
Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, also said the United States would "have to deter and respond" - but also invest more in cyber defenses. 
 
He told MSNBC that, in some cases, the digital cleanup of U.S. networks "may mean burning down the whole system in order to make sure when we rebuild it they`re not present." 
 
Officials and cybersecurity professionals across the United States are still struggling to get their hands around the scale of the hacking campaign, which used U.S. tech company SolarWinds as a springboard to infect the Texas firm`s clients - including the Departments of Treasury, Commerce and Energy. 
 
Up to 18,000 customers were left open to the hackers, but CEO Kevin Mandia - whose company FireEye helped uncover the hacking - told CBS that he estimated "only around 50 organizations or companies, somewhere in that zone," were "genuinely impacted." 
 
Klain told CBS much was still unknown. 
 
"I think there`s still a lot of unanswered questions about the purpose, nature, and extent of these specific attacks," he said.

The incoming White House chief of staff said on Sunday that President-elect Joe Biden`s response to the massive hacking campaign uncovered last week would go beyond sanctions.

The incoming White House chief of staff said on Sunday that President-elect Joe Biden`s response to the massive hacking campaign uncovered last week would go beyond sanctions. Ron Klain said Biden was mapping out ways to push back against the suspected Russian hackers who have penetrated half a dozen U.S. government agencies and left thousands of American companies exposed. "It`s not just sanctions. It`s steps and things we could do to degrade the capacity of foreign actors to engage in this sort of attack," Klain said on CBS` "Face the Nation." Also read: Russia dismisses hacking allegations as 'Russophobia' Options being mulled by the Biden administration to punish Moscow over its alleged role include financial penalties and retaliatory hacks on Russian infrastructure, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The Kremlin denies any role in the hacking. Speaking at an event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Russia`s SVR foreign intelligence agency, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised its work, saying he was impressed by the "difficult professional operations that have been conducted." Biden, who becomes president on Jan. 20, would likely have bipartisan support for a muscular reaction to the espionage campaign, lawmakers indicated on Sunday. Republican Senator Mitt Romney said the data breach was "extraordinarily damaging" on NBC`s "Meet the Press." "This demands a response," he said. "This is something we have to address as soon as possible." U.S. Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on ABC that the hack could still be going on and that officials had yet to determine its full scope. But he stopped short of the aggressive language used by Romney, who called the hack "an invasion". Also read: US election 2020: White House official expresses concern over hacking on day of voting "This is in that gray area between espionage and an attack," Warner said. Still, he backed Romney`s call for retaliation, saying Washington needed to make clear to adversaries "that if you take this kind of action we and others will strike back." Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, also said the United States would "have to deter and respond" - but also invest more in cyber defenses. He told MSNBC that, in some cases, the digital cleanup of U.S. networks "may mean burning down the whole system in order to make sure when we rebuild it they`re not present." Officials and cybersecurity professionals across the United States are still struggling to get their hands around the scale of the hacking campaign, which used U.S. tech company SolarWinds as a springboard to infect the Texas firm`s clients - including the Departments of Treasury, Commerce and Energy. Up to 18,000 customers were left open to the hackers, but CEO Kevin Mandia - whose company FireEye helped uncover the hacking - told CBS that he estimated "only around 50 organizations or companies, somewhere in that zone," were "genuinely impacted." Klain told CBS much was still unknown. "I think there`s still a lot of unanswered questions about the purpose, nature, and extent of these specific attacks," he said.

President-elect Biden's chief of staff says hack response will go beyond 'just sanctions'

Support for President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election loss began to collapse in the Senate on Monday after the Electoral College certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, with many top Republicans saying the time had come to recognize results that have been evident for weeks.

While they insisted that Trump could still challenge the results in court, the senators said the certification should be considered the effective conclusion of an election that has fiercely divided the country. And after weeks of silence as Trump and others in their party sought to overturn the results in increasingly extreme ways, some urged their colleagues to move on.

“I understand there are people who feel strongly about the outcome of this election, but in the end, at some point, you have to face the music,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Republicans’ No. 2 in the Senate, told reporters in the Capitol. “And I think once the Electoral College settles the issue today, it’s time for everybody to move on.”

Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who initially fanned Trump’s claims of fraud in key battleground states, said he now saw only “a very, very narrow path for the president” and had spoken with Biden and some of his likely Cabinet nominees.

“I don’t see how it gets there from here, given what the Supreme Court did,” he added, referring to the justices’ decision Friday to reject a long-shot suit by Texas seeking to overturn the results in a handful of states Biden won.

The comments amounted to a notable and swift sea change in a body that for weeks has essentially refused to acknowledge the inevitable, although the shift was far from unanimous. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, stayed conspicuously silent Monday, declining to acknowledge Biden’s victory. He dedicated his only public remarks to stimulus negotiations and ignored a question about the Electoral College proceeding shouted by a reporter in the Capitol.

A small group of Republican senators congratulated Biden almost immediately in November. But a majority had gone to great rhetorical lengths to avoid enraging a president who could turn their own voters against them — even as they privately conceded he had lost.

It was unclear Monday if those who relented were a harbinger of a larger shift by elected Republicans to accept Trump’s defeat, or a sign of a growing rift within the party between those willing to accept reality and those — a loyal core in the Senate and the vast majority in the House — who appear ready to follow him wherever he leads.

McConnell’s allies said that he would honor the election outcome come January, but did not want to pick a fight with Trump now, for fear of damaging Republicans’ chances in a pair of January Senate runoff elections in Georgia that will decide control of the chamber. He is also concerned, they said, that doing so could jeopardize a string of year-end legislative priorities that will require the president’s signature, including a catchall spending measure and the stimulus package to address the continuing toll of the pandemic.

But the effect has been that the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill has, by intention or inaction, left unchecked insidious claims by Trump and those backing him undermining faith in the democratic process and Biden’s legitimacy as president.

One by one Monday, many of McConnell’s closest allies, including most of his leadership team, began to break ranks.

“I think he is president-elect, subject to whatever additional litigation is ongoing,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the former second-ranking Republican, referring to Biden as the winner of the election for the first time. “I’m not aware of any.”

Cornyn sought to discourage members of his own party from challenging the electoral results further when Congress meets in a joint session in early January to tally and finalize the outcome.

“That would be a bad mistake,” he said. “I think there comes a time when you have to realize that despite your best efforts, you’ve been unsuccessful. It’s sort of the nature of these elections. You’ve got to have a winner and you’ve got to have a loser.”

Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the longest-serving Republican, captured the grudging acceptance of many of his colleagues after the Electoral College action when asked by a reporter if he now considered Biden the president-elect.

“I don’t have to — the Constitution does,” he said as he hustled to a vote. “I follow the Constitution.”

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a Republican who rode Trump’s coattails to reelection last month, called Biden the “presumptive president,” pending the outcome of any lawsuits yet unresolved.

Others were more direct.

“We’ll deal with Vice President Biden as the president-elect,” said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, chair of the Republican Policy Committee and the congressional panel planning next year’s inauguration.

After initially dismissing a query about the Electoral College results as a “gotcha question,” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican leader, said he would “respect the result of the Electoral College vote today” even if he was disappointed.

“The presidential election is over,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a close ally of McConnell’s. “States have certified the votes. Courts have resolved disputes. The electors have voted. I hope that President Trump will put the country first.”

Still, many of Trump’s most ardent backers did not appear ready to change course.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., planned to convene a hearing Wednesday to give Trump’s claims an airing in the halls of Congress.

That posture has infuriated Democrats and even some Republicans, who warned again Monday that by pressing Trump’s false claims about the election, the party was willfully misleading voters and abetting a threat to the democratic process itself.

“It is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third-world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote,” Rep. Paul Mitchell of Michigan wrote in a letter to Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the party’s top House leader.

Mitchell, a member of his party’s leadership who is retiring, released the letter shortly after his state cast its 16 electoral votes for Biden. He wrote that he was leaving the Republican Party over its refusal to accept Trump’s defeat, and warned that his colleagues were risking “long-term harm to our democracy.”

“If Republican leaders collectively sit back and tolerate unfounded conspiracy theories and ‘stop the steal’ rallies without speaking out for our electoral process, which the Department of Homeland Security said was ‘the most secure in American history,’ our nation will be damaged,” Mitchell wrote.

Support for President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election loss began to collapse in the Senate on Monday after the Electoral College certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, with many top Republicans saying the time had come to recognize results that have been evident for weeks.

Support for President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election loss began to collapse in the Senate on Monday after the Electoral College certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, with many top Republicans saying the time had come to recognize results that have been evident for weeks. While they insisted that Trump could still challenge the results in court, the senators said the certification should be considered the effective conclusion of an election that has fiercely divided the country. And after weeks of silence as Trump and others in their party sought to overturn the results in increasingly extreme ways, some urged their colleagues to move on. “I understand there are people who feel strongly about the outcome of this election, but in the end, at some point, you have to face the music,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Republicans’ No. 2 in the Senate, told reporters in the Capitol. “And I think once the Electoral College settles the issue today, it’s time for everybody to move on.” Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who initially fanned Trump’s claims of fraud in key battleground states, said he now saw only “a very, very narrow path for the president” and had spoken with Biden and some of his likely Cabinet nominees. “I don’t see how it gets there from here, given what the Supreme Court did,” he added, referring to the justices’ decision Friday to reject a long-shot suit by Texas seeking to overturn the results in a handful of states Biden won. The comments amounted to a notable and swift sea change in a body that for weeks has essentially refused to acknowledge the inevitable, although the shift was far from unanimous. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, stayed conspicuously silent Monday, declining to acknowledge Biden’s victory. He dedicated his only public remarks to stimulus negotiations and ignored a question about the Electoral College proceeding shouted by a reporter in the Capitol. A small group of Republican senators congratulated Biden almost immediately in November. But a majority had gone to great rhetorical lengths to avoid enraging a president who could turn their own voters against them — even as they privately conceded he had lost. It was unclear Monday if those who relented were a harbinger of a larger shift by elected Republicans to accept Trump’s defeat, or a sign of a growing rift within the party between those willing to accept reality and those — a loyal core in the Senate and the vast majority in the House — who appear ready to follow him wherever he leads. McConnell’s allies said that he would honor the election outcome come January, but did not want to pick a fight with Trump now, for fear of damaging Republicans’ chances in a pair of January Senate runoff elections in Georgia that will decide control of the chamber. He is also concerned, they said, that doing so could jeopardize a string of year-end legislative priorities that will require the president’s signature, including a catchall spending measure and the stimulus package to address the continuing toll of the pandemic. But the effect has been that the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill has, by intention or inaction, left unchecked insidious claims by Trump and those backing him undermining faith in the democratic process and Biden’s legitimacy as president. One by one Monday, many of McConnell’s closest allies, including most of his leadership team, began to break ranks. “I think he is president-elect, subject to whatever additional litigation is ongoing,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the former second-ranking Republican, referring to Biden as the winner of the election for the first time. “I’m not aware of any.” Cornyn sought to discourage members of his own party from challenging the electoral results further when Congress meets in a joint session in early January to tally and finalize the outcome. “That would be a bad mistake,” he said. “I think there comes a time when you have to realize that despite your best efforts, you’ve been unsuccessful. It’s sort of the nature of these elections. You’ve got to have a winner and you’ve got to have a loser.” Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the longest-serving Republican, captured the grudging acceptance of many of his colleagues after the Electoral College action when asked by a reporter if he now considered Biden the president-elect. “I don’t have to — the Constitution does,” he said as he hustled to a vote. “I follow the Constitution.” Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a Republican who rode Trump’s coattails to reelection last month, called Biden the “presumptive president,” pending the outcome of any lawsuits yet unresolved. Others were more direct. “We’ll deal with Vice President Biden as the president-elect,” said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, chair of the Republican Policy Committee and the congressional panel planning next year’s inauguration. After initially dismissing a query about the Electoral College results as a “gotcha question,” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican leader, said he would “respect the result of the Electoral College vote today” even if he was disappointed. “The presidential election is over,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a close ally of McConnell’s. “States have certified the votes. Courts have resolved disputes. The electors have voted. I hope that President Trump will put the country first.” Still, many of Trump’s most ardent backers did not appear ready to change course. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., planned to convene a hearing Wednesday to give Trump’s claims an airing in the halls of Congress. That posture has infuriated Democrats and even some Republicans, who warned again Monday that by pressing Trump’s false claims about the election, the party was willfully misleading voters and abetting a threat to the democratic process itself. “It is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third-world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote,” Rep. Paul Mitchell of Michigan wrote in a letter to Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the party’s top House leader. Mitchell, a member of his party’s leadership who is retiring, released the letter shortly after his state cast its 16 electoral votes for Biden. He wrote that he was leaving the Republican Party over its refusal to accept Trump’s defeat, and warned that his colleagues were risking “long-term harm to our democracy.” “If Republican leaders collectively sit back and tolerate unfounded conspiracy theories and ‘stop the steal’ rallies without speaking out for our electoral process, which the Department of Homeland Security said was ‘the most secure in American history,’ our nation will be damaged,” Mitchell wrote.

After Electoral College votes, more Republicans warily accept Trump’s loss

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated US President-elect Joe Biden for his victory in the US presidential election, the Kremlin announced on Tuesday. This comes in the aftermath of the state-by-state counting in the Electoral College vote which decides the winner in US presidential elections.

Earlier, the Kremlin had said that it would wait for the officials results to be announced before congratulating anybody, breaking from global tradition. A few days after the election (November 3), it became clear that Biden had won the presidency.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/putin-said-to-have-2-identical-offices-1-in-moscow-the-other-at-the-beach-349812" hreflang="en">Putin said to have 2 identical offices: 1 in Moscow, the other at the beach</a>

"For my part, I am ready for interaction and contact with you," Putin was cited as saying by the Kremlin in a statement.

"Putin wished the president-elect every success and expressed confidence that Russia and the United States, which have a special responsibility for global security and stability, could, despite their differences, really help to solve the many problems and challenges facing the world," the Kremlin said.

President-elect Joe Biden criticised Donald Trump on Monday after emerging victorious in the Electoral College. Biden said that the Republican and his allies attempted to constitution and the “will of the people” by not accepting the results.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/navalny-poisoning-putin-critic-survived-the-second-assassination-attempt-349605" hreflang="en">Navalny poisoning: Putin critic survived the second assassination attempt</a>

"It's a position so extreme we've never seen it before. A position that refused to respect the will of the people refused to respect the rule of law, and refused to honour our constitution," Biden said in a speech after emerging victorious in the Electoral College.

"The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power can extinguish that," Biden said.

"It is my sincere hope we never again see anyone subjected to the kind of threats and abuse we saw in this election," Biden added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated US President-elect Joe Biden for his victory in the US presidential election, the Kremlin announced on Tuesday. This comes in the aftermath of the state-by-state counting in the Electoral College vote which decides the winner in US presidential elections.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated US President-elect Joe Biden for his victory in the US presidential election, the Kremlin announced on Tuesday. This comes in the aftermath of the state-by-state counting in the Electoral College vote which decides the winner in US presidential elections. Earlier, the Kremlin had said that it would wait for the officials results to be announced before congratulating anybody, breaking from global tradition. A few days after the election (November 3), it became clear that Biden had won the presidency. Also read: Putin said to have 2 identical offices: 1 in Moscow, the other at the beach "For my part, I am ready for interaction and contact with you," Putin was cited as saying by the Kremlin in a statement. "Putin wished the president-elect every success and expressed confidence that Russia and the United States, which have a special responsibility for global security and stability, could, despite their differences, really help to solve the many problems and challenges facing the world," the Kremlin said. President-elect Joe Biden criticised Donald Trump on Monday after emerging victorious in the Electoral College. Biden said that the Republican and his allies attempted to constitution and the “will of the people” by not accepting the results. Also read: Navalny poisoning: Putin critic survived the second assassination attempt "It's a position so extreme we've never seen it before. A position that refused to respect the will of the people refused to respect the rule of law, and refused to honour our constitution," Biden said in a speech after emerging victorious in the Electoral College. "The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power can extinguish that," Biden said. "It is my sincere hope we never again see anyone subjected to the kind of threats and abuse we saw in this election," Biden added.

Putin finally congratulates Joe Biden on election win, says ready for 'collaboration'

Even when the question of who will be the next US President seems to have settled, the actual power Joe Biden administration will wield has come to be decided on a single election in Georgia in US. The result of this election will decide which party will control US Senate and thereby the effective strength of Biden administration.

Republican Party currently controls US Senate with 52-48 majority. If Democratic party is able to win two Senate seats from Georgia, Republican Party will lose its majority in the Senate. Democratic Party already controls House of Representatives. Both Senate seats in Georgia are currently held by Republican Party.

Knowing the gravity of the situation, both parties have put in their best efforts to campaign for the Senate elections due next month. Major names from both parties are already addressing the people of Georgia

Former President Barack Obama and Vice President Pence campaigned for opposing candidates in Georgia on Friday (December 4), throwing political muscle into the January runoff elections that will determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/criminal-cruel-and-traitorous-donald-trump-belongs-in-prison-says-his-niece-mary-trump-347718">'Criminal, cruel and traitorous' Donald Trump belongs in prison, says his niece Mary Trump</a>

"You are now once again the center of our civic universe, because the special election in Georgia is going to determine ultimately the course of the Biden presidency and whether Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can deliver legislatively all the commitments they've made," Obama said during a virtual event featuring organized by the Democratic Party of Georgia.

A pair of Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs will be held on January 5 after no candidate won a majority in the Nov. 3 election. Republican Senator David Perdue is seeking re-election against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. And Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler is facing Democrat Raphael Warnock in the other runoff.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/i-wouldnt-demand-it-be-mandatory-biden-on-vaccine-347715">I wouldn't demand it be mandatory: Biden on vaccine</a> 
 
Pence visited Georgia on Friday, where he received a briefing on the pandemic at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and then joined a rally for Perdue and Loeffler.

"We're going to keep Georgia. We're going to save the Senate and then we're going to save America," he told supporters.

Trump, a Republican who has still refused to concede to Biden, is scheduled to headline a rally with Perdue and Loeffler on Saturday.

(With Reuters inputs)

Even when the question of who will be the next US President seems to have settled, the actual power Joe Biden administration will wield has come to be decided on a single election in Georgia in US.

Even when the question of who will be the next US President seems to have settled, the actual power Joe Biden administration will wield has come to be decided on a single election in Georgia in US. The result of this election will decide which party will control US Senate and thereby the effective strength of Biden administration. Republican Party currently controls US Senate with 52-48 majority. If Democratic party is able to win two Senate seats from Georgia, Republican Party will lose its majority in the Senate. Democratic Party already controls House of Representatives. Both Senate seats in Georgia are currently held by Republican Party. Knowing the gravity of the situation, both parties have put in their best efforts to campaign for the Senate elections due next month. Major names from both parties are already addressing the people of Georgia Former President Barack Obama and Vice President Pence campaigned for opposing candidates in Georgia on Friday (December 4), throwing political muscle into the January runoff elections that will determine control of the U.S. Senate. Also Read | 'Criminal, cruel and traitorous' Donald Trump belongs in prison, says his niece Mary Trump "You are now once again the center of our civic universe, because the special election in Georgia is going to determine ultimately the course of the Biden presidency and whether Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can deliver legislatively all the commitments they've made," Obama said during a virtual event featuring organized by the Democratic Party of Georgia. A pair of Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs will be held on January 5 after no candidate won a majority in the Nov. 3 election. Republican Senator David Perdue is seeking re-election against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. And Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler is facing Democrat Raphael Warnock in the other runoff. Also Read | I wouldn't demand it be mandatory: Biden on vaccine Pence visited Georgia on Friday, where he received a briefing on the pandemic at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and then joined a rally for Perdue and Loeffler. "We're going to keep Georgia. We're going to save the Senate and then we're going to save America," he told supporters. Trump, a Republican who has still refused to concede to Biden, is scheduled to headline a rally with Perdue and Loeffler on Saturday. (With Reuters inputs)

With US Senate majority in the pot, parties bring out big guns for Georgia elections

Incumbent US President Donald Trump has a few weeks left in the White House, and now he wants to save his allies and children from prosecution. Once they leave the White House, Trump and his inner circle could be sued. Until Trump holds office, he is immune to any legal action.

Watch |&nbsp;

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-will-trumps-kids-need-a-presidential-pardon-347039/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Reportedly, Donald Trump is considering a way to keep his kids and allies safe from prosecution. Trump has discussed with his advisers whether he could fetch pre-emptive pardons to protect his three eldest children - Donald Trump Junior, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump along with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Why is Trump mulling that?

Reportedly, Trump is concerned that the US Justice Department might prosecute his inner circle. Donald Trump Junior has been under investigation for his contacts with Russians during the 2016 election campaign.

Jared Kushner faces the charge of lying to federal authorities about his contacts with foreigners. There are no clear charges against Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump or Rudy Giuliani yet. But the legal scrutiny against team Trump is tightening.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/trump-threatens-military-spending-veto-in-social-media-bias-battle-346871" hreflang="en">Trump threatens military spending veto in social media bias battle</a>

The US Justice Department has opened an investigation into an alleged "bribery for pardon" scheme at the White House. Allegedly, during Trump's tenure an individual offered a substantial political donation in exchange for a presidential pardon. The court filings are heavily redacted and nobody knows if Donald Trump or any members of his inner circle are named in this case. Donald Trump called the official investigation fake news.

A presidential pardon is an action by a sitting president to completely set aside the punishment for a federal crime. Pardons that pre-empt criminal charges are not common. Perhaps the most famous example of one is when Gerald Ford gave a pardon to Richard Nixon.

Ford succeeded Nixon when he was forced to leave office after the “watergate” scandal. After taking over, Ford gave a full and unconditional pardon to Nixon for any crimes that he might have committed against the United States as president. Donald Trump claims he can pardon myself. No one has done it before, which is why the move is bound to trigger a legal challenge.

Setbacks continue

US Attorney general William Barr has now said that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of this year's election. American attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up on specific complaints, but have been unable to find any evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/biden-vows-no-quick-rollback-of-trumps-china-tariffs-346892" hreflang="en">Biden vows no quick rollback of Trump's China tariffs</a>

“This is incredibly significant for the attorney general to come out and say there is no widespread voter fraud that would impact the outcome of the election. It you know, directly contradicts what we've heard from the president and his allies who have alleged that there is such fraud. But the attorney general was very clear here. The justice department had investigated specific instances where, you know, allegations had been made. They've looked into these claims and they've determined there was no evidence of widespread fraud”, Michael Balsamo, Associated Press’ Justice Department reporter said.

Despite that, the Trump campaign has moved the American supreme court, and a petition challenging the results from Wisconsin has been filed. As Biden prepares for his inauguration, it looks like Trump is unwilling to go down without a fight.

Incumbent US President Donald Trump has a few weeks left in the White House, and now he wants to save his allies and children from prosecution. Once they leave the White House, Trump and his inner circle could be sued.

Incumbent US President Donald Trump has a few weeks left in the White House, and now he wants to save his allies and children from prosecution. Once they leave the White House, Trump and his inner circle could be sued. Until Trump holds office, he is immune to any legal action. Watch | Reportedly, Donald Trump is considering a way to keep his kids and allies safe from prosecution. Trump has discussed with his advisers whether he could fetch pre-emptive pardons to protect his three eldest children - Donald Trump Junior, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump along with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Why is Trump mulling that? Reportedly, Trump is concerned that the US Justice Department might prosecute his inner circle. Donald Trump Junior has been under investigation for his contacts with Russians during the 2016 election campaign. Jared Kushner faces the charge of lying to federal authorities about his contacts with foreigners. There are no clear charges against Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump or Rudy Giuliani yet. But the legal scrutiny against team Trump is tightening. Also read: Trump threatens military spending veto in social media bias battle The US Justice Department has opened an investigation into an alleged "bribery for pardon" scheme at the White House. Allegedly, during Trump's tenure an individual offered a substantial political donation in exchange for a presidential pardon. The court filings are heavily redacted and nobody knows if Donald Trump or any members of his inner circle are named in this case. Donald Trump called the official investigation fake news. A presidential pardon is an action by a sitting president to completely set aside the punishment for a federal crime. Pardons that pre-empt criminal charges are not common. Perhaps the most famous example of one is when Gerald Ford gave a pardon to Richard Nixon. Ford succeeded Nixon when he was forced to leave office after the “watergate” scandal. After taking over, Ford gave a full and unconditional pardon to Nixon for any crimes that he might have committed against the United States as president. Donald Trump claims he can pardon myself. No one has done it before, which is why the move is bound to trigger a legal challenge. Setbacks continue US Attorney general William Barr has now said that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of this year's election. American attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up on specific complaints, but have been unable to find any evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims. Also read: Biden vows no quick rollback of Trump's China tariffs “This is incredibly significant for the attorney general to come out and say there is no widespread voter fraud that would impact the outcome of the election. It you know, directly contradicts what we've heard from the president and his allies who have alleged that there is such fraud. But the attorney general was very clear here. The justice department had investigated specific instances where, you know, allegations had been made. They've looked into these claims and they've determined there was no evidence of widespread fraud”, Michael Balsamo, Associated Press’ Justice Department reporter said. Despite that, the Trump campaign has moved the American supreme court, and a petition challenging the results from Wisconsin has been filed. As Biden prepares for his inauguration, it looks like Trump is unwilling to go down without a fight.

Why does US President Trump want pre-emptive pardons for himself and family?

Five years ago, Jeffrey D. Zients was the head of the Obama administration’s National Economic Council, working to push across the finish line a federal rule that would prevent financial advisers from taking advantage of retirees. He won praise from progressives for fending off fierce resistance from Wall Street and fighting for consumer protections.

These days, Zients is a co-chairman of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team who is being watched warily by members of the Democratic Party’s left wing. Progressive advocacy groups such as the Revolving Door Project and Justice Democrats, concerned he would defend corporate America if given a top economic policy job in the Biden administration, pushed to keep him out of such a role. They view his recent work running an investment fund — Cranemere — and sitting on the board of Facebook as a detriment.

The preemptive resistance to Zients (pronounced ZYE-ents) from the left is the latest indication of how the Democratic Party has shifted in the dozen years since former President Barack Obama took office amid the financial crisis. Now, business and finance experience can turn otherwise qualified White House candidates into pariahs for progressives.

Zients, 54, has emerged as an important power center in the Biden transition team and was mentioned as a possible candidate to once again lead the National Economic Council or head the Office of Management and Budget, a role he held in an acting capacity during the Obama administration. With those jobs set to be filled by others, Zients is the front-runner, according to people familiar with the transition team’s plans, to be the Biden administration’s COVID czar, steering the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a sign of the pushback to come, the Revolving Door Project, which has been urging Biden to keep corporate influence out of his administration, has compiled a 13-page document about Zients. The file highlights his wealth, his appetite for deficit reduction during the Obama years and his recent work as chief executive of Cranemere.

In the Obama administration, “his role was essentially to be a management consultant for the executive branch: cutting costs, finding efficiencies and looking at things like a businessman,” the Revolving Door document says.

The group points to the majority stake that Cranemere took in NorthStar Anesthesia, a company that provides anesthesia services to hospitals and medical offices, in 2018. It cites negative reviews that NorthStar Anesthesia received through the Better Business Bureau, including allegations of surprise billing and a threat to send a dental patient’s bill to a collection agency during a dispute over insurance coverage. That matter was resolved, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer&lt;em&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;

A spokeswoman for NorthStar said that within two months of Cranemere’s acquisition of the company, it had ended its practice of “balance billing” — charging patients the difference between the cost of their services and what their insurers will pay. Jennifer Psaki, a spokeswoman for the Biden transition team, said Zients opposes surprise billing practices.

“Jeff, like President-elect Biden, supports legislation to stop surprise billing by forcing the entire health care system to limit patient payments to in-network rates for all procedures and providers not preapproved by the patient,” Psaki said.

Progressives have been pushing the Biden transition team to install their preferred candidates in top roles and have been fairly supportive of some of Biden’s early picks. These include Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, to be Treasury secretary; Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton University labor economist, to run the Council of Economic Advisers; and Neera Tanden, chief executive of the Center for American Progress, to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

But others are triggering a backlash, including Brian Deese, whom Biden has tapped to head the National Economic Council, and Adewale Adeyemo, the president-elect’s choice for deputy Treasury secretary. Both men have worked at asset management firm BlackRock, and many in the progressive wing view deep industry ties as a red flag.

“Democrats should overall be alarmed by any Democratic administration considering filling the White House with Wall Street insiders and corporate lobbyists,” said Waleed Shahid, spokesman for Justice Democrats, a political action committee.

Early in his career, Zients worked as a consultant at Bain &amp;amp; Co. before joining Advisory Board Co., a health care research and consulting firm, where he rose to chief executive. He helped lead a spinoff of that business, which became the Corporate Executive Board, and both companies ultimately went public, in 1999 and 2001. According to Fortune, the Advisory Board’s profitable initial public offering helped fuel Zients’ net worth, which the magazine placed at nearly $150 million by 2002.

In 2009, Zients joined the Office of Management and Budget as “chief performance officer,” rising to prominence within the Obama administration as a “Mr. Fix-It” with strong operations skills and a knack for solving tough problems. Obama administration officials remember him for reviving the Affordable Care Act’s website, HealthCare.gov, after glitches plagued its rollout.

“I call him the ultimate firefighter on these jobs,” said Denis R. McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, who asked Zients to take on the project of fixing the website in 2013. “He runs into the burning buildings. He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t ask when. He doesn’t ask who’s going with him.”

Later in Obama’s second term, Zients led the National Economic Council, where he shepherded new regulations to crack down on payday lending and steered the development of the so-called fiduciary rule — a requirement that financial professionals put the interests of their customers with retirement accounts ahead of their own. The Labor Department rule, which the financial services and insurance industries strongly challenged, was struck down by a federal appeals court in 2018.

Those efforts earned him accolades from some progressive Democrats.

“The government needs talent and experience,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, which promotes Wall Street reform, and a member of Biden’s transition review team for the Fed, banking and securities regulators. “People who are going to try to regulate an industry as complicated as finance can’t say we’re only going to hire people who know nothing about finance.”

But his role as a bridge to business during the Obama administration has raised some eyebrows. Zients was one of the administration’s chief liaisons to executives and lobbyists when anger at Wall Street over the 2007-08 financial crisis was at its peak. Top lobbyists such as the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have praised Zients as someone who heard them out.

Describing his desire to listen to business leaders, Zients told executives at a 2014 event at the Economic Club of Washington, “You are the customers, all of you as business leaders, in terms of growing the economy.”

After Obama left office, Zients joined private equity investor Vincent Mai’s Cranemere fund as chief executive. The private holding company has investors from the United States, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and takes a long-term investing approach in the mold of Warren Buffett.

Zients, who is on leave from Cranemere, also spent two years on the board of Facebook and was a member of the company’s audit committee. He has told people that he had concerns about the company’s direction and governance, and opted not to seek reelection to the board this year. Facebook has come under fire from Democrats for allowing the spread of disinformation and from Republicans who accuse it of censorship.

Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project, said Zients’ experience working in private equity and at Facebook was particularly problematic and could portend trouble for progressive causes in a Biden White House. And while he sees Zients’ experience in the health care industry as useful for managing the pandemic response, Hauser said he was concerned that Zients could be too accommodating to business as vaccines are rolled out next year.

“Dissemination and delivery of the vaccine will be a significant undertaking,” Hauser said. He added that Zients understood how to do it, “but whether or not he would be too sympathetic to businesses in management of that power is to be determined.”

In a role directing the virus response, which will require coordination across government agencies and the private sector, corporate management experience could be an asset.

Fred P. Hochberg, who was president of the U.S. Export-Import Bank from 2009-17, said that ideological labels evolved over time and that business experience should not be a blemish.

“I think Jeff is certainly progressive, but there’s a pragmatism, a ‘what can we get done to move things forward?’ ” Hochberg said. “In government, it’s about accomplishing things. It’s not just about making a statement.”

Five years ago, Jeffrey D. Zients was the head of the Obama administration’s National Economic Council, working to push across the finish line a federal rule that would prevent financial advisers from taking advantage of retirees.

Five years ago, Jeffrey D. Zients was the head of the Obama administration’s National Economic Council, working to push across the finish line a federal rule that would prevent financial advisers from taking advantage of retirees. He won praise from progressives for fending off fierce resistance from Wall Street and fighting for consumer protections. These days, Zients is a co-chairman of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team who is being watched warily by members of the Democratic Party’s left wing. Progressive advocacy groups such as the Revolving Door Project and Justice Democrats, concerned he would defend corporate America if given a top economic policy job in the Biden administration, pushed to keep him out of such a role. They view his recent work running an investment fund — Cranemere — and sitting on the board of Facebook as a detriment. The preemptive resistance to Zients (pronounced ZYE-ents) from the left is the latest indication of how the Democratic Party has shifted in the dozen years since former President Barack Obama took office amid the financial crisis. Now, business and finance experience can turn otherwise qualified White House candidates into pariahs for progressives. Zients, 54, has emerged as an important power center in the Biden transition team and was mentioned as a possible candidate to once again lead the National Economic Council or head the Office of Management and Budget, a role he held in an acting capacity during the Obama administration. With those jobs set to be filled by others, Zients is the front-runner, according to people familiar with the transition team’s plans, to be the Biden administration’s COVID czar, steering the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. In a sign of the pushback to come, the Revolving Door Project, which has been urging Biden to keep corporate influence out of his administration, has compiled a 13-page document about Zients. The file highlights his wealth, his appetite for deficit reduction during the Obama years and his recent work as chief executive of Cranemere. In the Obama administration, “his role was essentially to be a management consultant for the executive branch: cutting costs, finding efficiencies and looking at things like a businessman,” the Revolving Door document says. The group points to the majority stake that Cranemere took in NorthStar Anesthesia, a company that provides anesthesia services to hospitals and medical offices, in 2018. It cites negative reviews that NorthStar Anesthesia received through the Better Business Bureau, including allegations of surprise billing and a threat to send a dental patient’s bill to a collection agency during a dispute over insurance coverage. That matter was resolved, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. A spokeswoman for NorthStar said that within two months of Cranemere’s acquisition of the company, it had ended its practice of “balance billing” — charging patients the difference between the cost of their services and what their insurers will pay. Jennifer Psaki, a spokeswoman for the Biden transition team, said Zients opposes surprise billing practices. “Jeff, like President-elect Biden, supports legislation to stop surprise billing by forcing the entire health care system to limit patient payments to in-network rates for all procedures and providers not preapproved by the patient,” Psaki said. Progressives have been pushing the Biden transition team to install their preferred candidates in top roles and have been fairly supportive of some of Biden’s early picks. These include Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, to be Treasury secretary; Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton University labor economist, to run the Council of Economic Advisers; and Neera Tanden, chief executive of the Center for American Progress, to lead the Office of Management and Budget. But others are triggering a backlash, including Brian Deese, whom Biden has tapped to head the National Economic Council, and Adewale Adeyemo, the president-elect’s choice for deputy Treasury secretary. Both men have worked at asset management firm BlackRock, and many in the progressive wing view deep industry ties as a red flag. “Democrats should overall be alarmed by any Democratic administration considering filling the White House with Wall Street insiders and corporate lobbyists,” said Waleed Shahid, spokesman for Justice Democrats, a political action committee. Early in his career, Zients worked as a consultant at Bain &amp; Co. before joining Advisory Board Co., a health care research and consulting firm, where he rose to chief executive. He helped lead a spinoff of that business, which became the Corporate Executive Board, and both companies ultimately went public, in 1999 and 2001. According to Fortune, the Advisory Board’s profitable initial public offering helped fuel Zients’ net worth, which the magazine placed at nearly $150 million by 2002. In 2009, Zients joined the Office of Management and Budget as “chief performance officer,” rising to prominence within the Obama administration as a “Mr. Fix-It” with strong operations skills and a knack for solving tough problems. Obama administration officials remember him for reviving the Affordable Care Act’s website, HealthCare.gov, after glitches plagued its rollout. “I call him the ultimate firefighter on these jobs,” said Denis R. McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, who asked Zients to take on the project of fixing the website in 2013. “He runs into the burning buildings. He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t ask when. He doesn’t ask who’s going with him.” Later in Obama’s second term, Zients led the National Economic Council, where he shepherded new regulations to crack down on payday lending and steered the development of the so-called fiduciary rule — a requirement that financial professionals put the interests of their customers with retirement accounts ahead of their own. The Labor Department rule, which the financial services and insurance industries strongly challenged, was struck down by a federal appeals court in 2018. Those efforts earned him accolades from some progressive Democrats. “The government needs talent and experience,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, which promotes Wall Street reform, and a member of Biden’s transition review team for the Fed, banking and securities regulators. “People who are going to try to regulate an industry as complicated as finance can’t say we’re only going to hire people who know nothing about finance.” But his role as a bridge to business during the Obama administration has raised some eyebrows. Zients was one of the administration’s chief liaisons to executives and lobbyists when anger at Wall Street over the 2007-08 financial crisis was at its peak. Top lobbyists such as the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have praised Zients as someone who heard them out. Describing his desire to listen to business leaders, Zients told executives at a 2014 event at the Economic Club of Washington, “You are the customers, all of you as business leaders, in terms of growing the economy.” After Obama left office, Zients joined private equity investor Vincent Mai’s Cranemere fund as chief executive. The private holding company has investors from the United States, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and takes a long-term investing approach in the mold of Warren Buffett. Zients, who is on leave from Cranemere, also spent two years on the board of Facebook and was a member of the company’s audit committee. He has told people that he had concerns about the company’s direction and governance, and opted not to seek reelection to the board this year. Facebook has come under fire from Democrats for allowing the spread of disinformation and from Republicans who accuse it of censorship. Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project, said Zients’ experience working in private equity and at Facebook was particularly problematic and could portend trouble for progressive causes in a Biden White House. And while he sees Zients’ experience in the health care industry as useful for managing the pandemic response, Hauser said he was concerned that Zients could be too accommodating to business as vaccines are rolled out next year. “Dissemination and delivery of the vaccine will be a significant undertaking,” Hauser said. He added that Zients understood how to do it, “but whether or not he would be too sympathetic to businesses in management of that power is to be determined.” In a role directing the virus response, which will require coordination across government agencies and the private sector, corporate management experience could be an asset. Fred P. Hochberg, who was president of the U.S. Export-Import Bank from 2009-17, said that ideological labels evolved over time and that business experience should not be a blemish. “I think Jeff is certainly progressive, but there’s a pragmatism, a ‘what can we get done to move things forward?’ ” Hochberg said. “In government, it’s about accomplishing things. It’s not just about making a statement.”

Biden faces a balancing act in choosing top aides with business ties

A man donning a Donald Trump shirt with an inflatable inner tube wrapping his belly was recently seen&nbsp;purposely exhaling on two women outside incumbent US President Donald Trump’s golf course in Virginia. Now, he has been charged with simple assault.

The 61-year-old Raymond Deskins of Sterling, Virginia was charged with misdemeanour simple assault, as claimed by Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office statement.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/biden-to-name-yellen-to-us-treasury-breaking-a-231-year-gender-barrier-345005" hreflang="en">Biden to name Yellen to US Treasury, breaking a 231-year gender barrier</a>

Out of the two women he was exhaling on, one filmed the video and shared it on social, after which it gained traction across social media.

In another clip of Deskins - he was seeing arguing with women who were protesting against Trump, and without a mask.

Watch the clip below

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Trump supporter forcefully exhaling without a mask on a protester outside the Trump National Golf Club, Nov. 21, 2020 <a href="https://t.co/Bq2mMH1At0">pic.twitter.com/Bq2mMH1At0</a>
— Douglas Christian (@DougChristianDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/DougChristianDC/status/1330209018367926273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
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In the clip, one of the women can be heard saying "Get away from me! Get away from me!" Another woman told him “You don't get up in somebody's face”. Deskins responded with “I’m not in anybody's face."

"You are in my face - and you don't have a mask, so you need to back up”, the woman retorted with.

At this moment, the man was seen exhaling forcefully on women.&nbsp;To this, one of the women responded with “That's assault!" The man said - “I breathed on you" after which he exhaled on the woman filming.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/transition-executive-announces-start-of-process-for-joe-biden-345001" hreflang="en">Transition Executive announces start of process for Joe Biden</a>

The US continues to remain deeply divided in the aftermath of recent presidential election - whereby Democrat Joe Biden emerged victorious, which was quickly followed by Trump blaming his loss on election fraud - a claim largely discredit both by election officials and analysts.

Joe Biden's administration can formally begin its transition to power after President Trump, who has still hasn't conceded the White House race, tweeted he was "recommending" the GSA and others in his administration begin "initial protocols" to kick-start the formal transfer of presidential power.

A man donning a Donald Trump shirt with an inflatable inner tube wrapping his belly was recently seen purposely exhaling on two women outside incumbent US President Donald Trump’s golf course in Virginia.

A man donning a Donald Trump shirt with an inflatable inner tube wrapping his belly was recently seen purposely exhaling on two women outside incumbent US President Donald Trump’s golf course in Virginia. Now, he has been charged with simple assault. The 61-year-old Raymond Deskins of Sterling, Virginia was charged with misdemeanour simple assault, as claimed by Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office statement. Also read: Biden to name Yellen to US Treasury, breaking a 231-year gender barrier Out of the two women he was exhaling on, one filmed the video and shared it on social, after which it gained traction across social media. In another clip of Deskins - he was seeing arguing with women who were protesting against Trump, and without a mask. Watch the clip below Trump supporter forcefully exhaling without a mask on a protester outside the Trump National Golf Club, Nov. 21, 2020 pic.twitter.com/Bq2mMH1At0 — Douglas Christian (@DougChristianDC) November 21, 2020 × In the clip, one of the women can be heard saying "Get away from me! Get away from me!" Another woman told him “You don't get up in somebody's face”. Deskins responded with “I’m not in anybody's face." "You are in my face - and you don't have a mask, so you need to back up”, the woman retorted with. At this moment, the man was seen exhaling forcefully on women. To this, one of the women responded with “That's assault!" The man said - “I breathed on you" after which he exhaled on the woman filming. Also read: Transition Executive announces start of process for Joe Biden The US continues to remain deeply divided in the aftermath of recent presidential election - whereby Democrat Joe Biden emerged victorious, which was quickly followed by Trump blaming his loss on election fraud - a claim largely discredit both by election officials and analysts. Joe Biden's administration can formally begin its transition to power after President Trump, who has still hasn't conceded the White House race, tweeted he was "recommending" the GSA and others in his administration begin "initial protocols" to kick-start the formal transfer of presidential power.

Man donning Trump merchandise charged after 'forcefully exhaling' on two women

In USA, the presidential transition will be complete in 61 days from now. Joe Biden will take oath as 46th President of the United States on January 20 2021. Donald Trump is expected to leave the White House on the same day. However, Trump's lawyers are trying hard to prove that he has won US Elections 2020. They are leaving no stone unturned in challenging the result of this election. And at the same time, they are preparing to fight some legal battles that involve the trump family.

Meanwhile, Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani has made a bizarre claim. He said that Joe Biden won due to a Venezuelan election technology owned by men who were allies of Hugo Chavez.

"The company counting our vote with control over our vote is owned by two Venezuelans who were allies of Chavez, are present allies of Maduro with a company whose chairman is a close associate and business partner of George Soros, the biggest donor to the democrat party, the biggest donor to antifa and the biggest donor to Black Lives Matter. My goodness, what do we have to do to get you to give our people the truth?" said Rudy Giuliani 
&nbsp; 
The claims and efforts of Trump camp do not seem to be working as the election lawsuits filed in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia have been rejected. The rulings came within a few hours from each other.

In Arizona, a state judge dismissed the lawsuit calling it prejudiced. In Pennsylvania, another state judge rejected the lawsuit saying there was no evidence of any fraud or misconduct.

And in Georgia, a federal judge appointed by Mr Trump himself rejected a Republican Party lawsuit saying there was no case at all.

Trump's legal team is suffering one setback after another.

There's trouble brewing for the Trump family as well.

New york's Attorney General has sent a subpoena to the Trump organization. This is over records related to consulting fees paid to Ivanka Trump as part of an investigation into the president's business dealings.

In September this year, The New York Times released an explosive report on trump's tax filings. The report revealed that the president had reduced his company's Income Tax liability for several years. He did so by deducting 26 million dollars in consulting fees as a business expense.

The NYT report said that more than 700 thousand dollars of these fees had been paid to Ivanka Trump. Less than two months since the report was released in public domain, the law seems to be catching up with the Trump family.

Trump's legal team may perhaps want to shift its focus away from proving the elections were fraudulent to saving his business empire.

Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, has been leading Donald Trump's legal battle to invalidate the 2020 presidential election results.

But what's generating more interest than mr. Guiliani's claims is his hair dye.

 
Giuliani appears to sweat off his hair dye at a press conference

<img alt="Rudy Giuliani" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="624f0766-ea02-4df9-bb43-6659ef72741e" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Rudy%20Giuliani.JPG" />

Wiping away sweat and dye, Giuliani answered questions posed by the journalists. The streaks were observed by social media users and Twitter was soon abuzz with Giuliani's hair-dye malfunction.

In USA, the presidential transition will be complete in 61 days from now. Joe Biden will take oath as 46th President of the United States on January 20 2021. Donald Trump is expected to leave the White House on the same day.

In USA, the presidential transition will be complete in 61 days from now. Joe Biden will take oath as 46th President of the United States on January 20 2021. Donald Trump is expected to leave the White House on the same day. However, Trump's lawyers are trying hard to prove that he has won US Elections 2020. They are leaving no stone unturned in challenging the result of this election. And at the same time, they are preparing to fight some legal battles that involve the trump family. Meanwhile, Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani has made a bizarre claim. He said that Joe Biden won due to a Venezuelan election technology owned by men who were allies of Hugo Chavez. "The company counting our vote with control over our vote is owned by two Venezuelans who were allies of Chavez, are present allies of Maduro with a company whose chairman is a close associate and business partner of George Soros, the biggest donor to the democrat party, the biggest donor to antifa and the biggest donor to Black Lives Matter. My goodness, what do we have to do to get you to give our people the truth?" said Rudy Giuliani The claims and efforts of Trump camp do not seem to be working as the election lawsuits filed in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia have been rejected. The rulings came within a few hours from each other. In Arizona, a state judge dismissed the lawsuit calling it prejudiced. In Pennsylvania, another state judge rejected the lawsuit saying there was no evidence of any fraud or misconduct. And in Georgia, a federal judge appointed by Mr Trump himself rejected a Republican Party lawsuit saying there was no case at all. Trump's legal team is suffering one setback after another. There's trouble brewing for the Trump family as well. New york's Attorney General has sent a subpoena to the Trump organization. This is over records related to consulting fees paid to Ivanka Trump as part of an investigation into the president's business dealings. In September this year, The New York Times released an explosive report on trump's tax filings. The report revealed that the president had reduced his company's Income Tax liability for several years. He did so by deducting 26 million dollars in consulting fees as a business expense. The NYT report said that more than 700 thousand dollars of these fees had been paid to Ivanka Trump. Less than two months since the report was released in public domain, the law seems to be catching up with the Trump family. Trump's legal team may perhaps want to shift its focus away from proving the elections were fraudulent to saving his business empire. Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, has been leading Donald Trump's legal battle to invalidate the 2020 presidential election results. But what's generating more interest than mr. Guiliani's claims is his hair dye. Giuliani appears to sweat off his hair dye at a press conference Wiping away sweat and dye, Giuliani answered questions posed by the journalists. The streaks were observed by social media users and Twitter was soon abuzz with Giuliani's hair-dye malfunction.

Rudy Guiliani makes bizarre claim about Joe Biden's victory

The counties won by President-elect Joe Biden experienced worse job losses, on average, during the initial wave of pandemic layoffs than the counties where President Donald Trump was strongest in his bid for reelection.

After the worst of the downturn in April, many of the most affected red counties recovered far more swiftly than blue counties did. By September, as unemployment fell nearly everywhere, blue counties were more likely to have higher unemployment rates.

The economy is usually a big issue in election battles, and this election season saw both historically low levels of unemployment before the pandemic and later the worst rates of job loss since the Great Depression.

Trump’s supporters said consistently as the election approached that the health of the economy was important to them. In exit polls conducted by Edison Research, among those who said the economy mattered the most across a range of issues, 83% voted for Trump, compared with only 17% who supported Biden.

This gap in unemployment between Trump and Biden counties plays out on a state level as well and has persisted even after many people returned to work.

Research has shown that Democratic areas, which tend to be more urban and have higher concentrations of service jobs, were particularly devastated by the economic fallout early in the pandemic. Many of these blue-leaning areas, including Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, rely on tourism. Miami-Dade County, Florida, is another blue county where the disappearance of tourists damaged the economy.

In states such as Alabama and Mississippi, blue-leaning counties also have higher concentrations of Black residents — a group that has been disproportionately vulnerable to job loss and has lagged behind white workers during the economic crisis.

This pattern, however, does not hold true in every part of the country. The state with the highest county unemployment rates in April was Michigan, with 1 out of every 3 residents in some counties out of work. Several of the worst-hit counties in Michigan went on to vote for Trump.

The unemployment gap in Michigan was short-lived: By September, the average unemployment rate for blue counties was similar to the average for red ones.

According to Steven R. Miller, an economist at Michigan State University, unemployment levels in the state can be at least partly explained by underlying seasonal trends. Rural Cheboygan and Mackinac counties, which had the two highest unemployment rates in the country in April, rely heavily on outdoor recreation and tourism. Both had high unemployment rates before the virus outbreak during the offseason months of January and February, but as people spent time outdoors for pandemic-safe recreation over the summer they bounced back. “Over the summer what was surprising is that tourism and outdoor activities actually picked up,” Miller said. “These northern counties had somewhat of a positive economic offset.”

Both Cheboygan and Mackinac counties went to Trump by more than 20 percentage points.

Those summertime economic boosts, however, will not sustain many rural counties through the fall and winter. While the economy has been slowly adding back jobs since April, the current surge of cases spreading through the middle of the country could squeeze the economy, including in places that have so far escaped the worst job losses.

The counties won by President-elect Joe Biden experienced worse job losses, on average, during the initial wave of pandemic layoffs than the counties where President Donald Trump was strongest in his bid for reelection.

The counties won by President-elect Joe Biden experienced worse job losses, on average, during the initial wave of pandemic layoffs than the counties where President Donald Trump was strongest in his bid for reelection. After the worst of the downturn in April, many of the most affected red counties recovered far more swiftly than blue counties did. By September, as unemployment fell nearly everywhere, blue counties were more likely to have higher unemployment rates. The economy is usually a big issue in election battles, and this election season saw both historically low levels of unemployment before the pandemic and later the worst rates of job loss since the Great Depression. Trump’s supporters said consistently as the election approached that the health of the economy was important to them. In exit polls conducted by Edison Research, among those who said the economy mattered the most across a range of issues, 83% voted for Trump, compared with only 17% who supported Biden. This gap in unemployment between Trump and Biden counties plays out on a state level as well and has persisted even after many people returned to work. Research has shown that Democratic areas, which tend to be more urban and have higher concentrations of service jobs, were particularly devastated by the economic fallout early in the pandemic. Many of these blue-leaning areas, including Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, rely on tourism. Miami-Dade County, Florida, is another blue county where the disappearance of tourists damaged the economy. In states such as Alabama and Mississippi, blue-leaning counties also have higher concentrations of Black residents — a group that has been disproportionately vulnerable to job loss and has lagged behind white workers during the economic crisis. This pattern, however, does not hold true in every part of the country. The state with the highest county unemployment rates in April was Michigan, with 1 out of every 3 residents in some counties out of work. Several of the worst-hit counties in Michigan went on to vote for Trump. The unemployment gap in Michigan was short-lived: By September, the average unemployment rate for blue counties was similar to the average for red ones. According to Steven R. Miller, an economist at Michigan State University, unemployment levels in the state can be at least partly explained by underlying seasonal trends. Rural Cheboygan and Mackinac counties, which had the two highest unemployment rates in the country in April, rely heavily on outdoor recreation and tourism. Both had high unemployment rates before the virus outbreak during the offseason months of January and February, but as people spent time outdoors for pandemic-safe recreation over the summer they bounced back. “Over the summer what was surprising is that tourism and outdoor activities actually picked up,” Miller said. “These northern counties had somewhat of a positive economic offset.” Both Cheboygan and Mackinac counties went to Trump by more than 20 percentage points. Those summertime economic boosts, however, will not sustain many rural counties through the fall and winter. While the economy has been slowly adding back jobs since April, the current surge of cases spreading through the middle of the country could squeeze the economy, including in places that have so far escaped the worst job losses.

Counties that suffered higher unemployment voted for Biden

In Pennsylvania, much of President Donald Trump’s attention since the election has focused on Philadelphia, where he has baselessly insisted there is a “mountain of corruption.” In Michigan, litigation by Trump’s campaign has concentrated on Detroit, where Republican poll watchers say they felt intimidated by election workers in Black Lives Matter apparel. And in Wisconsin, legal challenges and rumors have circled around Milwaukee, where one internet conspiracy turns on a briefly misplaced flash drive of election results.

That these three cities would become the chief sites of Republican claims of fraud in this election is unsurprising. All three are heavily Democratic. They have large African American populations. And in their respective states, they have long been targets of racialized charges of corruption.

But in one revealing way, the fixation this year is misplaced. All three cities voted pretty much the same way they did in 2016. Turnout barely budged, relative to other areas in these states. Joe Biden saw no remarkable surge in support — certainly nothing that would bolster claims of ballot stuffing or tampered vote tallies. Trump even picked up marginally more votes this year in all three cities than he did four years ago.

Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit, in other words, were not decisive in explaining why the Northern battleground states flipped from Trump four years ago to Biden in 2020. Voters&nbsp;outside&nbsp;of these cities made the difference.

But the president and his allies have said little about those voters — in places like the Milwaukee suburbs of Ozaukee County, or in predominantly white Kent County, Michigan.

“From a partisan perspective, Trump’s vilification of cities makes no sense,” Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email. “It has little to do with his loss in Wisconsin, which resulted mostly from small shifts in the white vote outside of the city, particularly the suburbs, Dane County, and other parts of Milwaukee County.”

Instead, Burden said, the president appears to be practicing thinly veiled race-baiting, by blaming communities of color for his loss.

Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, concluded the same in criticizing lawsuits brought by the president’s campaign and allies.

“Really the themes that we see, that persist, are this: Black people are corrupt, Black people are incompetent and Black people can’t be trusted,” Nessel said during a call with reporters last week.

These cities did prove central to Trump’s defeat in more symbolic ways.

Biden’s vote count in Wisconsin jumped in the middle of the night after Election Day when the city of Milwaukee completed its count of mail-in ballots about 3:30 a.m. That helped explain why many Americans woke up Wednesday morning to a different picture of the race in Wisconsin.

In Michigan, the TCF Center in Detroit became a center of pro-Trump protests as election workers tallied votes in the city and as Biden’s lead continued to grow on the Friday after the election.

And in Pennsylvania, it was a tabulation of votes in Philadelphia on Saturday that pushed Biden across the threshold where many media outlets were prepared to call the state — and the election — for him. Philadelphia, too, was the scene of some of the most raucous celebrations that followed.

In the unofficial results, however, these cities shifted little from 2016 in their vote tallies for the Democrat, unlike many surrounding suburbs. And Trump picked up about 3,000 additional votes in Milwaukee, about 5,000 in Detroit, and about 21,000 in Philadelphia, in counts that are not yet completed.

Part of what makes these cities perennial targets is their size, said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University. Because of that, they’re slower to count ballots, feeding suspicions about late-changing results. And if a campaign is looking to narrow vote margins through litigation, it makes more sense to go after the county with half a million voters than one with only a few hundred.

But Gillespie said the racial implications of these fraud claims would not be lost on African American voters.

“In one minute, he’s talking about how he’s the greatest president for Black people since Abraham Lincoln, which is historically inaccurate,” she said. “And then in the next breath, you now are trying to disqualify voters in cities with large Black populations, in ways that look like disenfranchisement and voter suppression.”

Recent lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin proposed doing exactly that — excluding millions of votes cast in these large urban centers (including Atlanta) from vote totals in these states. Collectively, those legal challenges are highly unlikely to go anywhere. But they’re notable for how literally they embrace the common partisan claim that urban votes shouldn’t count as much as votes from rural America — that Republicans win Wisconsin, if you just take away Milwaukee and Madison; that Trump wins the popular vote, if you just lop off California and New York.

Such arguments about fraud are clearly alluring for many Americans. Political science research suggests that resentment of immigrants and minorities is correlated with beliefs about voter fraud, said Nyron Crawford, a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. Once you believe African Americans or immigrants are more likely to be corrupt or criminal, it’s not such a stretch to believe their communities steal elections.

“It’s easier to lay those claims if you already harbor some resentment toward the group,” Crawford said.

It would be harder to argue there’s something fishy about the entire eastern half of Pennsylvania, where counties of all kinds shifted toward Biden this year.

(STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.)

On a map of how the state changed from 2016, Philadelphia actually stands out as the lone county in eastern Pennsylvania where Trump improved on his margins this year. Turnout in the city was below expectations, in part because many college students didn’t vote on campus during the pandemic. But turnout was also down in predominantly Black and Hispanic wards. Hispanic parts of North Philadelphia both turned out less and swung toward Trump, as did a number of other Hispanic communities around the country.

Those results didn’t match what local organizers believed would happen this year.

“I’ve never seen such enthusiasm from voters,” said Carol Jenkins, who is a longtime Democratic ward leader in Philadelphia and a retired professor. “Everybody was calling me asking: ‘What can I do? I’ll do anything that I can to help, we’ve got to defeat this man.’” She thought that would mean much higher turnout this year. She anticipated lower numbers in her own ward, normally full of college students.

“But I did not expect it in the rest of the city,” she said. “It was disappointing.”

Broad disruption in Philadelphia this year from the pandemic and protests over police brutality may have affected the results, Crawford suggested, including the unrest after the police shooting of a Black man in the last week before the election. Those events may have both dampened Black turnout and bolstered appeal for Trump among residents who believed the protest movement and pandemic restrictions this year had gone too far.

If, as expected, none of the fraud claims by Republicans change the election result, party leaders appear to be gambling they may at least energize conservative voters vital to one last election this cycle — the January runoffs in Georgia that will determine both of that state’s Senate seats and which party controls the chamber.

But it is possible, too, that Democratic voters in and around Atlanta will be motivated by what has often looked like an attack on African American voters. And Atlanta, unlike these northern battleground cities, did see a surge in turnout this year that was crucial to handing Biden the state.

“If you did not have African Americans being as loyal as they have been to Democratic candidates,” Todd Shaw, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina, said about Georgia, “then you would have no base from which the college-educated white vote would build upon to make a majority.”

In Pennsylvania, much of President Donald Trump’s attention since the election has focused on Philadelphia, where he has baselessly insisted there is a “mountain of corruption.

In Pennsylvania, much of President Donald Trump’s attention since the election has focused on Philadelphia, where he has baselessly insisted there is a “mountain of corruption.” In Michigan, litigation by Trump’s campaign has concentrated on Detroit, where Republican poll watchers say they felt intimidated by election workers in Black Lives Matter apparel. And in Wisconsin, legal challenges and rumors have circled around Milwaukee, where one internet conspiracy turns on a briefly misplaced flash drive of election results. That these three cities would become the chief sites of Republican claims of fraud in this election is unsurprising. All three are heavily Democratic. They have large African American populations. And in their respective states, they have long been targets of racialized charges of corruption. But in one revealing way, the fixation this year is misplaced. All three cities voted pretty much the same way they did in 2016. Turnout barely budged, relative to other areas in these states. Joe Biden saw no remarkable surge in support — certainly nothing that would bolster claims of ballot stuffing or tampered vote tallies. Trump even picked up marginally more votes this year in all three cities than he did four years ago. Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit, in other words, were not decisive in explaining why the Northern battleground states flipped from Trump four years ago to Biden in 2020. Voters outside of these cities made the difference. But the president and his allies have said little about those voters — in places like the Milwaukee suburbs of Ozaukee County, or in predominantly white Kent County, Michigan. “From a partisan perspective, Trump’s vilification of cities makes no sense,” Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email. “It has little to do with his loss in Wisconsin, which resulted mostly from small shifts in the white vote outside of the city, particularly the suburbs, Dane County, and other parts of Milwaukee County.” Instead, Burden said, the president appears to be practicing thinly veiled race-baiting, by blaming communities of color for his loss. Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, concluded the same in criticizing lawsuits brought by the president’s campaign and allies. “Really the themes that we see, that persist, are this: Black people are corrupt, Black people are incompetent and Black people can’t be trusted,” Nessel said during a call with reporters last week. These cities did prove central to Trump’s defeat in more symbolic ways. Biden’s vote count in Wisconsin jumped in the middle of the night after Election Day when the city of Milwaukee completed its count of mail-in ballots about 3:30 a.m. That helped explain why many Americans woke up Wednesday morning to a different picture of the race in Wisconsin. In Michigan, the TCF Center in Detroit became a center of pro-Trump protests as election workers tallied votes in the city and as Biden’s lead continued to grow on the Friday after the election. And in Pennsylvania, it was a tabulation of votes in Philadelphia on Saturday that pushed Biden across the threshold where many media outlets were prepared to call the state — and the election — for him. Philadelphia, too, was the scene of some of the most raucous celebrations that followed. In the unofficial results, however, these cities shifted little from 2016 in their vote tallies for the Democrat, unlike many surrounding suburbs. And Trump picked up about 3,000 additional votes in Milwaukee, about 5,000 in Detroit, and about 21,000 in Philadelphia, in counts that are not yet completed. Part of what makes these cities perennial targets is their size, said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University. Because of that, they’re slower to count ballots, feeding suspicions about late-changing results. And if a campaign is looking to narrow vote margins through litigation, it makes more sense to go after the county with half a million voters than one with only a few hundred. But Gillespie said the racial implications of these fraud claims would not be lost on African American voters. “In one minute, he’s talking about how he’s the greatest president for Black people since Abraham Lincoln, which is historically inaccurate,” she said. “And then in the next breath, you now are trying to disqualify voters in cities with large Black populations, in ways that look like disenfranchisement and voter suppression.” Recent lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin proposed doing exactly that — excluding millions of votes cast in these large urban centers (including Atlanta) from vote totals in these states. Collectively, those legal challenges are highly unlikely to go anywhere. But they’re notable for how literally they embrace the common partisan claim that urban votes shouldn’t count as much as votes from rural America — that Republicans win Wisconsin, if you just take away Milwaukee and Madison; that Trump wins the popular vote, if you just lop off California and New York. Such arguments about fraud are clearly alluring for many Americans. Political science research suggests that resentment of immigrants and minorities is correlated with beliefs about voter fraud, said Nyron Crawford, a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. Once you believe African Americans or immigrants are more likely to be corrupt or criminal, it’s not such a stretch to believe their communities steal elections. “It’s easier to lay those claims if you already harbor some resentment toward the group,” Crawford said. It would be harder to argue there’s something fishy about the entire eastern half of Pennsylvania, where counties of all kinds shifted toward Biden this year. (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.) On a map of how the state changed from 2016, Philadelphia actually stands out as the lone county in eastern Pennsylvania where Trump improved on his margins this year. Turnout in the city was below expectations, in part because many college students didn’t vote on campus during the pandemic. But turnout was also down in predominantly Black and Hispanic wards. Hispanic parts of North Philadelphia both turned out less and swung toward Trump, as did a number of other Hispanic communities around the country. Those results didn’t match what local organizers believed would happen this year. “I’ve never seen such enthusiasm from voters,” said Carol Jenkins, who is a longtime Democratic ward leader in Philadelphia and a retired professor. “Everybody was calling me asking: ‘What can I do? I’ll do anything that I can to help, we’ve got to defeat this man.’” She thought that would mean much higher turnout this year. She anticipated lower numbers in her own ward, normally full of college students. “But I did not expect it in the rest of the city,” she said. “It was disappointing.” Broad disruption in Philadelphia this year from the pandemic and protests over police brutality may have affected the results, Crawford suggested, including the unrest after the police shooting of a Black man in the last week before the election. Those events may have both dampened Black turnout and bolstered appeal for Trump among residents who believed the protest movement and pandemic restrictions this year had gone too far. If, as expected, none of the fraud claims by Republicans change the election result, party leaders appear to be gambling they may at least energize conservative voters vital to one last election this cycle — the January runoffs in Georgia that will determine both of that state’s Senate seats and which party controls the chamber. But it is possible, too, that Democratic voters in and around Atlanta will be motivated by what has often looked like an attack on African American voters. And Atlanta, unlike these northern battleground cities, did see a surge in turnout this year that was crucial to handing Biden the state. “If you did not have African Americans being as loyal as they have been to Democratic candidates,” Todd Shaw, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina, said about Georgia, “then you would have no base from which the college-educated white vote would build upon to make a majority.”

The cities accused in fraud conspiracies didn’t cost Trump the election

At a chic cafe in the West End neighborhood of Washington, a young waiter knew that the incoming vice president lived “upstairs,” as he noted by gesturing to an upscale condominium building overhead, but said he had not actually seen her lately.

“The Secret Service sometimes stops me from taking out the trash, though,” he added, saying that agents closed off the building’s alley when their protectee came and went from its garage.

Around the corner, two black Suburbans with federal license plates were parked by the building’s entrance — the only visible clue to the nearby presence of the California senator and vice president-elect, Kamala Harris.

In the days since he prevailed in the election, President-elect Joe Biden has made several public remarks and released summaries of his calls with foreign leaders as reporters track his every public movement. But Harris has barely appeared on the public radar since her acceptance speech last Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware, where she declared “a new day for America.”

She shared a stage again with Biden in Wilmington two days later, after a coronavirus briefing they had attended together. Harris stood silently several feet away while Biden spoke, without giving remarks of her own.

It is not unprecedented for a vice president-elect to keep a low profile in an election’s aftermath. “You know, you’ve been fairly invisible since the election,” ABC News host George Stephanopoulos told Biden in an interview more than a month after his own election as Barack Obama’s vice president.

Biden replied by insisting he had “been in the room” for every one of Obama’s important transition meetings. Because of social distancing restrictions related to the coronavirus, Harris has no such luxury, at least not in the physical sense.

After spending election week in Delaware, she has returned to the two-bedroom Washington condominium she bought after she was elected to the Senate in 2016. From there, she is in regular touch with Biden, by text message or telephone, according to aides with the Biden-Harris transition team, and with other transition officials. Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, also has a close relationship with the incoming first lady, Jill Biden; the two campaigned together in the race’s final weeks.

One focus of her time is the quantum leap Harris is soon to make from the legislative to the executive branch. Whereas Biden will have virtually no learning curve upon returning to the White House after eight years as vice president, Harris has spent little, if any, substantive time at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (A transition official could not immediately say when she had last visited there.)

That process is made no easier by President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the election results and authorize an official transition process in which Harris and her aides would have access to White House officials and documents. Harris has not been contacted by her departing counterpart, Vice President Mike Pence. Days after the 2016 election, Biden hosted Pence for nearly two hours at the official vice presidential compound at the U.S. Naval Observatory. “I told Mike, the vice president-elect, that I’m available to him 24/7,” Biden told reporters.

Biden-Harris transition officials declined to comment.

For now, Harris remains a senator. It is unclear when she might relinquish her seat. Obama stepped down from his Senate seat days after his 2008 election, but Biden, ever the sentimentalist, hung on to his until shortly before he was sworn in as vice president the following January, telling friends he wanted to take one last oath of office for the seat he had held for decades. (Biden also said he wanted to retain his vote in case it might be needed in a lame-duck Senate session.)

Like Biden, Harris also has her own staff to build — another task potentially made more challenging by her relative lack of Washington experience. While Biden, after nearly 50 years in the capital, has a network of hundreds of former Senate and White House aides, Harris has a smaller circle, though she is expected to hire several familiar faces from her Senate office and her 2020 campaign.

On social media, Harris has stayed rigorously on message, posting on Twitter several times about the coronavirus and her determination to work with Biden to contain it. “In just a few months, we will swear in a new president who is committed to getting the pandemic under control: @JoeBiden,” she tweeted Saturday morning.

Later in the day, Harris, who will become the first occupant of the White House who is of Indian heritage, also tweeted greetings for the beginning of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

Harris has ventured out in the Washington area at least once since the election. On a rainy Veterans Day, wearing blue jeans and a black raincoat, she and Emhoff dropped by Georgetown’s Dog Tag Bakery, which was founded to help support veterans.

She has otherwise been out of sight at her condo building, about 1 mile from the White House, and twice that distance from the Naval Observatory complex she will soon call home. “No great thing created suddenly,” reads an inscription on the side of the building, a quote from the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus.

Mimicking a sad face, the server at the Bluestone Lane cafe on the building’s ground floor said he hoped she would visit again soon.

At a chic cafe in the West End neighborhood of Washington, a young waiter knew that the incoming vice president lived “upstairs,” as he noted by gesturing to an upscale condominium building overhead, but said he had not actually seen her lately.

At a chic cafe in the West End neighborhood of Washington, a young waiter knew that the incoming vice president lived “upstairs,” as he noted by gesturing to an upscale condominium building overhead, but said he had not actually seen her lately. “The Secret Service sometimes stops me from taking out the trash, though,” he added, saying that agents closed off the building’s alley when their protectee came and went from its garage. Around the corner, two black Suburbans with federal license plates were parked by the building’s entrance — the only visible clue to the nearby presence of the California senator and vice president-elect, Kamala Harris. In the days since he prevailed in the election, President-elect Joe Biden has made several public remarks and released summaries of his calls with foreign leaders as reporters track his every public movement. But Harris has barely appeared on the public radar since her acceptance speech last Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware, where she declared “a new day for America.” She shared a stage again with Biden in Wilmington two days later, after a coronavirus briefing they had attended together. Harris stood silently several feet away while Biden spoke, without giving remarks of her own. It is not unprecedented for a vice president-elect to keep a low profile in an election’s aftermath. “You know, you’ve been fairly invisible since the election,” ABC News host George Stephanopoulos told Biden in an interview more than a month after his own election as Barack Obama’s vice president. Biden replied by insisting he had “been in the room” for every one of Obama’s important transition meetings. Because of social distancing restrictions related to the coronavirus, Harris has no such luxury, at least not in the physical sense. After spending election week in Delaware, she has returned to the two-bedroom Washington condominium she bought after she was elected to the Senate in 2016. From there, she is in regular touch with Biden, by text message or telephone, according to aides with the Biden-Harris transition team, and with other transition officials. Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, also has a close relationship with the incoming first lady, Jill Biden; the two campaigned together in the race’s final weeks. One focus of her time is the quantum leap Harris is soon to make from the legislative to the executive branch. Whereas Biden will have virtually no learning curve upon returning to the White House after eight years as vice president, Harris has spent little, if any, substantive time at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (A transition official could not immediately say when she had last visited there.) That process is made no easier by President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the election results and authorize an official transition process in which Harris and her aides would have access to White House officials and documents. Harris has not been contacted by her departing counterpart, Vice President Mike Pence. Days after the 2016 election, Biden hosted Pence for nearly two hours at the official vice presidential compound at the U.S. Naval Observatory. “I told Mike, the vice president-elect, that I’m available to him 24/7,” Biden told reporters. Biden-Harris transition officials declined to comment. For now, Harris remains a senator. It is unclear when she might relinquish her seat. Obama stepped down from his Senate seat days after his 2008 election, but Biden, ever the sentimentalist, hung on to his until shortly before he was sworn in as vice president the following January, telling friends he wanted to take one last oath of office for the seat he had held for decades. (Biden also said he wanted to retain his vote in case it might be needed in a lame-duck Senate session.) Like Biden, Harris also has her own staff to build — another task potentially made more challenging by her relative lack of Washington experience. While Biden, after nearly 50 years in the capital, has a network of hundreds of former Senate and White House aides, Harris has a smaller circle, though she is expected to hire several familiar faces from her Senate office and her 2020 campaign. On social media, Harris has stayed rigorously on message, posting on Twitter several times about the coronavirus and her determination to work with Biden to contain it. “In just a few months, we will swear in a new president who is committed to getting the pandemic under control: @JoeBiden,” she tweeted Saturday morning. Later in the day, Harris, who will become the first occupant of the White House who is of Indian heritage, also tweeted greetings for the beginning of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Harris has ventured out in the Washington area at least once since the election. On a rainy Veterans Day, wearing blue jeans and a black raincoat, she and Emhoff dropped by Georgetown’s Dog Tag Bakery, which was founded to help support veterans. She has otherwise been out of sight at her condo building, about 1 mile from the White House, and twice that distance from the Naval Observatory complex she will soon call home. “No great thing created suddenly,” reads an inscription on the side of the building, a quote from the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus. Mimicking a sad face, the server at the Bluestone Lane cafe on the building’s ground floor said he hoped she would visit again soon.

Largely out of sight in Washington, Kamala Harris preps for White House

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