Friday Morning: Domestic terrorism

And what else you need to know today.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story October 9, 2020 By David Leonhardt Good morning. The Nobel Peace Prize goes to the World Food Program. Trump says no to a virtual debate. And the F.B.I. foils a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor. Demonstrators outside Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office at the Michigan State Capitol in April.Seth Herald/Reuters Domestic terrorism Three years ago, the polling firm YouGov asked Americans whether they thought it could ever be justified for their political party to use violence to advance its goals. The overwhelming response was no. Only 8 percent of people said anything other than “never.” This year, YouGov asked the same question — and the share saying that political violence could be somewhat justified roughly doubled. The increase spanned both Democratic and Republican respondents. I thought of that alarming finding yesterday, after law enforcement officials charged 13 men with a violent plot that included storming the Michigan State Capitol and kidnapping Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Conservative groups have criticized Whitmer for her attempts to control the coronavirus by restricting normal activities. In April, President Trump tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Yesterday’s arrests are the latest evidence that a small but meaningful number of Americans believe that violence is the only answer to the country’s political divisions. “We’re seeing more and more citizens expressing openness to violence as more and more partisan leaders engage in the kinds of dehumanizing rhetoric that paves the way for taking violent action,” Lee Drutman, one of the political scientists who oversaw the YouGov poll, told me. Since May, more than 50 people have driven vehicles into peaceful protesters. Armed protesters shut down the Michigan legislature in May. Armed groups on the left and right have done battle in Oregon and Wisconsin. Extremists have attacked journalists, including an instance in Brooklyn on Wednesday night. “Political violence in democracies often seems spontaneous: an angry mob launching a pogrom, a lone shooter assassinating a president,” Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently wrote in The Washington Post. “But in fact, the crisis has usually been building for years.” She added, “This is where America is now.” It’s important to note that the problem is bipartisan — and also that it is not equally bad on both sides: The American right today has a bigger violence problem than the American left. Of the 42 killings by political extremists last year, right-wing extremists committed 38, according to the Anti-Defamation League. And top Republican politicians have encouraged violence in ways no prominent Democrat has. Greg Gianforte, a Republican congressman now running to be Montana’s governor, pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter who asked a question he didn’t like in 2017. Trump, for his part, has encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies and has often refused to condemn violent white-supremacist groups, including during last week’s debate. Whitmer, speaking after the arrests yesterday, cited that debate: “Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke, but as a rallying cry, a call to action,” she said. Political scientists emphasize that the drift toward violence is not inevitable. When political leaders denounce violence, it often influences public opinion, research suggests. These denouncements are especially effective when leaders — or individuals — criticize their own side for engaging in violence. Condemning the other side is easy. “Outbreaks of political violence are a real threat,” Brendan Nyhan, a government professor at Dartmouth, has written. “Every person of good faith in either party must speak up.” For more on Michigan: The Detroit News reported that some of the plot’s conspirators met during a Second Amendment rally at the Michigan State Capitol in June. And one expert told The Detroit Free Press that Michigan “has always been a hotbed for militia activity.” THE LATEST NEWS THE 2020 CAMPAIGN A bar in Brooklyn played the first debate between Trump and Joe Biden last week.Jordan Gale for The New York Times Trump threw the schedule for the two remaining presidential debates into doubt. He refused to take part in Thursday’s debate after its organizers announced the event would be held virtually, to prevent spreading the virus. In response, Joe Biden’s campaign said it would hold a televised town hall instead. Asked about the vice-presidential debate, Trump referred to Senator Kamala Harris as a “monster.” Biden called the comment “despicable,” and said Trump “has great difficulty dealing with strong women.” Biden, Harris and Vice President Mike Pence all traveled to Arizona yesterday, a sign that both campaigns believe the historically Republican state is up for grabs in November. Polls show Biden leading narrowly there. Daily polling diary: Biden’s share of the vote is up to 52 percent in The Times’s average of polls, an unusually high level for a candidate at this stage in the race. And Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight wrote, “More polls are coming in showing Biden up double digits than not at this point.” THE VIRUS Trump left Walter Reed medical center on Monday.Doug Mills/The New York Times The World Food Program, a United Nations agency, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, during a pandemic that has “contributed to a strong upsurge in the number of victims of hunger in the world,” the committee said in a statement. The White House physician said Trump had completed his treatment for Covid-19 and could resume public events as soon as Saturday, after the president revealed early last Friday that he had tested positive. Trump suggested that Gold Star families — those whose relatives have died in military conflicts — could have spread the virus at a White House event last month. There is no evidence for the claim. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, said he had not been to the White House since early August because of its resistance to masks and social distancing. “Their approach to how to handle this is different from mine,” McConnell said. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, hosted a 70-person indoor wedding for his daughter in May, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. At the time, local public health rules limited gatherings to 10 people or fewer. Photographs showed none of the guests wearing masks. OTHER BIG STORIES Sandbags on top of a previously damaged levee in Grand Isle, La.Sophia Germer/The Advocate, via Associated Press Forecasters expect Hurricane Delta to hit the Louisiana coast today, bringing high winds and heavy rains to a state that has already been battered this storm season. Federal prosecutors charged Elliott Broidy, a top fund-raiser for Trump, with violating foreign lobbying laws to benefit Chinese and Malaysian interests. A Morning read: Online orders have surged for retailers in the pandemic, as curbside pickup helps Americans satisfy their desire to hop in a car and drive to the store. What started as a coronavirus stopgap is likely to have a permanent impact on the way people shop. Lives Lived: He was the son of a public school custodian and an emergency room nurse who grew up to become one of the great chroniclers of New York life. He crusaded against injustice and covered 9/11, the police, the subway, the coronavirus and more for six daily newspapers. Our colleague Jim Dwyer has died at 63. Every day, a team of Times journalists works with reporters and editors around the world to create this newsletter — and help you make sense of the world. Please consider supporting our work by subscribing to The Times. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT IDEA OF THE DAY: WHAT TRUMP OBSCURES Carlos Lozada, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic for The Washington Post, set himself a daunting (and arguably masochistic) task a few years ago: He decided to read every book that said something meaningful about the Trump era. Ultimately, he has read more than 150 — books by the president’s most ardent defenders and harshest critics, as well as those about the larger forces that helped create Trumpism. Lozada has just published his own book about the experience, “What Were We Thinking.” One of its central points is that the best Trump books aren’t the obvious Trump books. “The books I found most useful and enlightening in the Trump area have not necessarily been about Trump himself, but about the fights the country has always had in defining and redefining itself,” Lozada told me. Those books include Jennifer Silva’s “We’re Still Here,” about the rural working class; Erika Lee’s “America for Americans,” about immigration; and others you can find mentioned toward the end of this excerpt. (He lists 12 in his epilogue.) Some parts of Trumpism may quickly fade when his presidency ends. But many of the toughest arguments will not, Lozada suggests: What’s the right level of immigration? What should the future of policing look like? And what about voting rights, the Supreme Court and the state of America’s democracy? For more: The Times review calls Lozada’s book “crisp, engaging and very smart,” and The New Yorker Radio Hour has interviewed him. PLAY, WATCH, EAT, TART Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times Dessert first Monday is Thanksgiving for Canadians. These delicious butter tarts, a Canadian specialty, are an ideal treat regardless of where you live. Small and sweet, with hints of butterscotch and caramel, each bite delivers three textures: flaky crust, chewy top, gooey center. Adding pecans or raisins helps cut some of the sugar. The French Open plays on The French Open is approaching its final weekend, without fans. In the men’s draw, both Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have reached the semifinals. (Here’s an analysis of Djokovic, the youngest and least predictable of the Big Three of men’s tennis, which includes Nadal and Roger Federer.) The women’s final features Sofia Kenin, an American, and Iga Swiatek, an unseeded 19-year-old from Poland. Noah Beck, Blake Gray and Josh Richards at their rental home provided by the video app Triller.Jake Michaels for The New York Times A TikTok competitor pays When talk of a possible TikTok ban began in July, a small social video app called Triller saw an opportunity. To attract users, the company set its sights on TikTok’s biggest names and shelled out. It rented Los Angeles mansions for top creators and paid for housekeeping, food and production equipment. When 16-year-old Charli D’Amelio, TikTok’s most-followed star, joined Triller, it provided her with a leased Rolls-Royce. Diversions In this week’s Modern Love, a young man wonders — after losing his best friend, at 29, to the coronavirus — if love is worth the cost of grief. The late-night comedy hosts were still focused on the fly at Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate. Games Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Fast food chain with buckets (three letters). Or try this week’s news quiz. Are you up-to-date on the headlines? Get notified when our news quiz is published. Sign up You can find all of our puzzles here. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you on Monday. — David P.S. The word “whitesplainers” appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday — in an article about Black communities on LinkedIn — as noted by the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said. You can see today’s print front page here. Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about the campaign for Pennsylvania’s working-class voters. The Modern Love podcast is going to sound a little different this season. Listen to the trailer and tune in every Wednesday starting next week. Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. The Morning Briefing newsletter is now The Morning newsletter. You received this email because you signed up for the newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. 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Monday Morning: Trump’s taxes

And what else you need to know today.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story September 28, 2020 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Biden keeps his polling lead. Child labor is surging around the world. And The Times publishes details of Trump’s finances. Trump’s taxes President Trump waiting to board Air Force One this month.Doug Mills/The New York Times Even though taxes on wealthy Americans have fallen sharply in recent decades, most still pay a lot to the federal government. A typical billionaire pays tens of millions of dollars in federal income taxes each year. President Trump, however, is different. Yesterday, The Times published an investigation of his finances, based on thousands of pages of documents that had not previously been public. They showed that Trump paid no taxes in 11 of the 18 years between 2000 and 2017. In both 2016 and 2017, he paid only $750. He was able to do so both because many of his businesses report losing large amounts of money — which reduces his taxable income — and because he has engaged in questionable tax practices. Even while declaring losses, he has managed to enjoy a lavish lifestyle by taking tax deductions on what most people would consider personal expenses, including residences, aircraft and $70,000 in hairstyling for television. The investigation also found that: As president, he has received more money from foreign sources and U.S. interest groups than previously known. Ivanka Trump, while working as an employee of the Trump Organization, appears to have received “consulting fees” that also helped reduce the family’s tax bill. Trump is facing a series of large looming bills in the next few years, and it is not obvious how he will cover them. You can read the full story, by Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Mike McIntire, here. I’ve compiled a list of major takeaways here. We’ve also put together a timeline of his finances. Below is a sample of outside reactions to the story: Susan Hennessey, Lawfare: “Now we know for sure why Trump was refusing to release his tax returns.” Lily Batchelder, New York University: “Trump’s tax returns suggest he has only ever been successful as a showman, not at running actual businesses.” Seth Hanlon, Democratic policy adviser: “In 2017, a single worker without children who made $18,000 would have paid $760 in federal income tax. Donald Trump paid $750.” Avi Asher-Schapiro, of Thomson Reuters Foundation: “Perhaps the most instructive thing re: Trump taxes is the $75K deduction for haircuts. It really illustrates how easy it is for rich people to manipulate their tax burden, & pay less than us. Trump’s haircuts are a business expense […] but not my entire rent when I work from home.” Robert George of The New York Daily News noted that Trump telegraphed his tax avoidance during a 2016 presidential debate by saying, “I take advantage of the laws of the nation.” George added: “It’s not like he wasn’t up front about this.” Some Trump supporters, like Mike Cernovich, emphasized that the documents contained no new revelations about Trump’s ties to Russia. Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight: “No particular instinct for how much the Trump tax news will resonate with rank-and-file voters. May depend on how much the Biden campaign chooses to emphasize it. There is a damaging headline for Trump (that he paid only $750) which is sometimes lacking in these sorts of stories.” TWO MORE BIG STORIES Joe Biden leaving North Carolina last week.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times 1. Biden still leads Joe Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points nationwide, 49 percent to 41 percent, in a new poll from The Times and Siena College. Polling on this presidential race has been consistent for months: Since May, Biden has led by between five and nine points, according to an average calculated by FiveThirtyEight. He probably needs to win the national popular vote by several points to win the Electoral College. The new poll also found that 56 percent of voters said the next president should nominate the Supreme Court justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And 67 percent of voters — including 40 percent of Republicans — said they would support a national mask mandate to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Suman Das, 13, waited to load bricks with his father in West Bengal, India.Atul Loke for The New York Times 2. A surge in child labor School closures and economic pressures caused by the virus have thrust children into the role of breadwinner across the developing world. In India, children as young as 6 pick through trash in search of recyclables. In Kenya, 10-year-olds mine sand. Some families have sent their teenage girls into sex work. United Nations officials estimate that at least 24 million children will drop out of school worldwide as a consequence of the pandemic, and that millions could end up working. The surge in child labor could roll back recent progress in school enrollment, literacy, social mobility and children’s health. In other virus developments: As more activities move indoors, there are simple ways to reduce the risk of spreading the virus, The Times’s Apoorva Mandavilli writes. Keep windows open while the weather is still mild, and invest in a basic air filter. Millions of people in the United States could lose their job-based health insurance by the end of the year. And with a new relief bill unlikely and the Affordable Care Act in peril, the safety net is quickly fraying. Here’s what else is happening A federal judge temporarily halted a Trump administration order that would have blocked new downloads of TikTok in the United States, granting the Chinese-owned app a reprieve. A woman was charged with attempted murder after she drove a car into a crowd of racial justice protesters and counterprotesters in California. A judge this morning restored Uber’s transportation license in London, one of the ride-hailing company’s most important global markets, where regulators had threatened to ban its cars for safety concerns. A prickly, bespectacled 65-year-old man could end up being the sole bulwark between Fox News viewers and a premature declaration of victory by Trump, writes Ben Smith, The Times’s media columnist. Lives Lived: The professional skateboarder Keith Hufnagel was known for his “pop,” the seemingly effortless way he leapt onto and over tall obstacles. After years touring the world, he opened a store in San Francisco, and grew it into a global streetwear brand. He died at 46. Every day, a team of Times journalists works with reporters and editors around the world to create this newsletter — and help you make sense of the world. Please consider supporting our work by subscribing to The Times. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT IDEA OF THE DAY: OREGON’S WHITES-ONLY HISTORY Members of the Proud Boys during a rally in Portland, Ore., on Saturday.Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi for The New York Times The Proud Boys, a far-right group sympathetic to white nationalism, staged their latest rally in Portland, Ore., this weekend. To some people, it may be surprising that Portland — which has a famously progressive reputation — has become a center for right-wing gatherings. But Oregon has a strong strain of white supremacy running through its history. “Racism has been entrenched in Oregon, maybe more than any state in the north, for nearly two centuries,” Alana Semuels wrote in a 2016 Atlantic article. When Oregon became a state in 1859, it barred Black people from living there. White settlers streamed West, dreaming of a white utopia. At some points in the 20th century, Oregon had the largest Ku Klux Klan membership per capita, and active Klan members played important roles in the state legislature. By the 1990s, Portland had acquired the nickname “Skinhead City” because it was the home base of Volksfront, a neo-Nazi group. Today, only a tiny minority of Oregon residents support such groups, and Oregon can also claim a long history of progressivism. But the state’s whites-only legacy still shapes the present, the writer Walidah Imarisha told Oregon Public Broadcasting. One example: Portland is the whitest city of at least 500,000 residents in the U.S. PLAY, WATCH, EAT, ROCK Tom Jamieson for The New York Times Make some dal Start the week with this recipe for Sri Lankan dal with coconut and lime kale. Green chiles, garlic and ginger add depth to the quick-cooking red lentils. Hot rice and a spoonful of yogurt on the side turn it into a luxurious meal. Music to argue over Rolling Stone has revamped its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, which the magazine originally published in 2003. It’s the most widely read feature in the magazine’s history, and compiling such a list is no easy feat: As part of the process, the editors collected Top 50 lists from more than 300 producers, critics, music industry figures and artists, including Beyoncé and Gene Simmons. On this newest list, Marvin Gaye’s 1971 album “What’s Going On” is No. 1, displacing the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Of the 500, 86 come from this century, and 154 are new additions. Take a peek, and let the debating begin. Mariah Carey won Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards in 1991.G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times The making of Mimi On her 18th birthday, Mariah Carey sobbed. “I thought I was a failure because I didn’t have a record deal yet,” the singer and songwriter writes in her memoir. Now 50, Carey has recorded 15 studio albums and more No. 1 singles than any other solo artist. In her new memoir, she opens up about her difficult family life growing up, some of her struggles with mental and physical health, and Derek Jeter being the “catalyst” for her to end an abusive marriage. Diversions Care for a cup of Satan’s Slumber, Throat of Lucifer or Dark Blood? One tea company has set out to make the cozy drink a little more goth. New biographies about Malcolm X and Sylvia Plath are among 17 new books worth checking out in October. Games Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Book replaced by Google Maps (five letters). You can find all of our puzzles here. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. Nestor Ramos, a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize at The Boston Globe this year, is coming to The Times next month as an editor on the Metro desk. You can see today’s print front page here. Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about Trump’s new Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. On the latest episode of “Sway,” Kara Swisher interviews the tech executive Elon Musk. Amelia Nierenberg, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. The Morning Briefing newsletter is now The Morning newsletter. You received this email because you signed up for the newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018