默默新聞08

2019年7月8日星期一

On Politics With Lisa Lerer: Farewell, Swalwell

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July 8, 2019

Evening Edition

Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. I’m Lisa Lerer, your host.

Eric Swalwell The New York Times

Someone finally jumped out of the clown car.

Exactly three months after announcing his presidential bid, Representative Eric Swalwell of California became the first serious Democratic primary candidate to end his campaign.

“The polling wasn’t moving after the debate,” Mr. Swalwell told reporters this afternoon. “We didn’t want to just screw around here. We wanted to grow with the threshold, and if we didn’t, we wanted to get out.”

Democrats had fretted over the possibility of a drawn-out primary battle, but strategists, politicians and officials are growing more confident that the field will narrow soon after the Iowa caucuses in early February.

As some candidates may be starting to realize, time spent lingering at the bottom of the presidential polls could come at a cost back home.

That’s part of what happened to Mr. Swalwell. Despite his best efforts — a gun control platform, videos of changing diapers, aggressively going after former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the debate — Mr. Swalwell struggled to gain traction in the race. Meanwhile, back in California, a young Afghan-American city counselor who has been compared to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York announced her bid for his House seat.

“I didn’t take anything for granted,” Mr. Swalwell said today, noting that he planned to go directly from his announcement to an immigration event in his district. “I hope the district sees that these issues that I was running on nationally are the district’s issues.”

Mr. Swalwell’s exit may be a harbinger for other ambitious politicians failing to make a dent in the 2020 race.

Aides to former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado recommended he drop out of the primary and challenge Senator Cory Gardner, considered to be one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans.

In Iowa yesterday, Mr. Hickenlooper, whose campaign recently lost some of its top staffers, acknowledged that running for president involves “a bunch of skills that don’t come naturally to me,” but vowed to stay in the race. He has until mid-March to enter the Senate race.

Some Democrats have also urged Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana to run for Senate, hoping the popular governor could win an unlikely Democratic seat in a red state. He would also have until spring to make that decision.

But in Texas, the filing deadline to challenge Senator John Cornyn, another potentially vulnerable Republican incumbent, is Dec. 9 — nearly two months before any primary votes are cast. And although Democrats have already recruited M.J. Hegar, a veteran who won attention for her 2018 congressional campaign, both Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro are better known in the state, and both have been pushed to run for the seat.

The remaining members of Congress in the 2020 race hail from states that have laws allowing them to pursue two offices at once. (New Jersey recently passed legislation permitting it, a bill know as “Cory’s Law.”) But just because some candidates can run for both offices doesn’t mean they should.

In Hawaii, State Senator Kai Kahele is seeking Representative Tulsi Gabbard’s seat, telling Vice News that she has a “tiger on her tail, and she’s going to be in trouble.” In Massachusetts, a second woman announced on Monday that she’d be making a primary run for Representative Seth Moulton’s seat. At least five other Democrats have left the door open to jumping into the race.

But don’t get too excited about the field shrinking quite yet. As Mr. Swalwell leaves, the California billionaire Tom Steyer plans to enter the race.

“I wish him well,” Mr. Swalwell said quickly, before dashing off to afternoon events in his district.

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Cory Booker’s history of ‘showing up’

The New York Times

Last week, after Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey traveled to the southwestern border to escort asylum seekers into the United States, our colleague Nick Corasaniti looked into the senator’s history of getting personally involved. He sent us this:

For almost two decades, Cory Booker has cultivated an aura of ubiquity for his political brand.

And not just on Twitter.

Since his election to the City Council of Newark in 1998, Mr. Booker has capitalized on a unique brand of physical advocacy: inserting himself directly, and publicly, into the issues he’s fighting for, effecting change and drawing attention.

“Publicity stunts? You’re darn right,” Mr. Booker told The Associated Press in 2000. “You’ve got to attract attention to a problem sometimes to get something done about it.”

As he went to the border last week to accompany five refugees seeking asylum, I took a look at Mr. Booker’s habit of “showing up.”

Here are a few scraps from that playbook:

1999: Mr. Booker pitched a tent outside a notorious housing complex in Newark, sleeping there (and fasting) for 10 days to draw attention to brazen drug dealing and decrepit conditions. With growing local media attention, Mayor Sharpe James eventually installed 24-hour security detail and a new fence.

2000: Mr. Booker rented a Holiday Rambler R.V. for the summer, parking it on the city’s most dangerous corners and holding public events like job fairs. The drug dealers mingling with street crowds quickly thinned out, and “60 Minutes,” CNN and other national news outlets dropped in.

2010: In separate snowstorms, Mr. Booker delivered diapers and helped shovel out snowbound residents in response to messages sent on Twitter, showcasing social media changing government. Some critics felt it masked management shortcomings.

2018: During the confirmation hearing for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Mr. Booker released documents he claimed were confidential (some of which were actually declassified). Though it brought added attention to the hearing, Mr. Booker also called it a “Spartacus” moment, earning himself hefty derision.

Read Nick’s full article: Cory Booker’s Brand of Advocacy: Show Up. Cameras Often Follow.

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What to read tonight

• Jeffrey E. Epstein, the billionaire charged with sex trafficking involving underage girls, has connections to Bill Clinton and Donald J. Trump. Here’s a look at how the White House is caught up in the scandal.

• President James Monroe enslaved hundreds of people. For generations, a small African-American community has existed less than 10 miles from his former plantation. But only recently has the full extent of their relationship been revealed.

• Friend of the newsletter Ryan Grim argues in The Washington Post that the divide among Democrats is not as much about the future as the past.

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… Seriously

Is the first public sculpture of the first lady parody or art? No one seems to be sure.

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Thanks for reading. Politics is more than what goes on inside the White House. On Politics brings you the people, issues and ideas reshaping our world.

Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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Your Monday Evening Briefing

Trump frames his environmental record

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Monday, July 8, 2019

NYTimes.com »

Your Monday Evening Briefing

By ADAM PASICK, ANDREA KANNAPELL AND HIROKO MASUIKE

Good evening. Here's the latest.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

1. President Trump listed his environmental accomplishments in a speech from the White House that seemed aimed at voters dismayed by his record.

He said his priorities were "being a good steward of public land," reducing carbon emissions and promoting the "cleanest air" and "crystal clean" water.

But Mr. Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from the international Paris climate change accord, sought to roll back or weaken more than 80 environmental regulations and ceded global environmental leadership, so critics were outspoken.

David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego, called the speech "a true 1984 moment."

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Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

2. Federal prosecutors are seeking to deny bail to Jeffrey Epstein, a Manhattan financier, saying he is a flight risk.

Mr. Epstein was charged today with paying girls, some as young as 14, to engage in sex acts. Investigators said they seized hundreds of nude or partially nude photographs of underage girls from his mansion in Manhattan.

Mr. Epstein, who faces a combined maximum sentence of up to 45 years in prison if convicted, also owns homes in Palm Beach, Fla., New Mexico and Paris, and on a private island in the Caribbean. His seven-story, $56 million Manhattan home is one of the largest in New York City.

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Tiffany Brown Anderson for The New York Times

3. Fund-raising? Elizabeth Warren has a plan for that, too.

The Massachusetts senator raised $19.1 million in the past three months, placing her in the top echelon of Democratic presidential campaigns and ahead of her main progressive rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Ms. Warren, pictured above campaigning in Reno, Nev., last week, raised just $6 million in her campaign's first three months, before her strategy of eschewing high-dollar fund-raising and inundating voters with detailed policy proposals began to pay dividends.

More on 2020: Tom Steyer, the California billionaire who said in January that he would not run, has changed his mind and intends to enter the race on Tuesday, according to multiple people who have been told of his plans. And Eric Swalwell is expected to drop out anytime.

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Mario Tama/Getty Images

4. What happened to California's earthquake app?

Los Angeles residents are wondering why the ShakeAlertLA app on their phones — introduced with fanfare on New Year's Eve — didn't warn them.

The answer: The epicenter was far enough away that the impact projected for Los Angeles County, the only place the app functions, was too low to meet the warning threshold. (The app will now be adjusted.)

Get prepared: Jacob Margolis, a California radio journalist who hosts a podcast called "The Big One," shares advice on how to get ready for the next quake. (Get under a table, not a doorway; leave shoes by your bed; and prepare your will.)

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Sait Serkan Gurbuz/Associated Press

5. A tempest in U.S.-U.K. relations.

President Trump lashed out at Britain's ambassador to the U.S. over leaked confidential cables in which the diplomat, Sir Kim Darrach, above, disparaged Mr. Trump's administration as "clumsy and inept."

"I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S.," Mr. Trump said on Twitter. "We will no longer deal with him." The statement came close to declaring Mr. Darroch persona non grata — an extraordinary breach with one of the closest American allies.

More controversy: Amid ongoing Brexit chaos and political dysfunction, the United Kingdom is struggling with an age-old fight. When pouring tea into a teacup, which should be poured first? The tea or the milk?

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Mika Gröndahl

6. Can Newport be saved?

Architects, planners and engineers are devising novel ways to keep rising coastal waters from ruining the Rhode Island town's trove of historic houses, including some built before the American Revolution.

The usual solutions — building sea walls, raising buildings on stilts, or even moving them to higher ground — would destroy the historic characteristics that patrons are trying to preserve.

So in Newport and other historic areas, including Colonial Annapolis and the island of Nantucket, preservationists are considering bolder approaches: allowing water to flow through basements, installing building-size flotation systems or re-plumbing entire neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, New York and California are racing to become carbon-neutral. Here's where they stand.

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Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

7. Facial recognition technology is being used on a large scale by U.S. law enforcement agencies.

The F.B.I. routinely scans photos from driver's license databases, and newly released records show that immigration officials have done the same in at least three states that issue licenses to undocumented immigrants.

The concerns emerging aren't just about privacy. The software is known to be highly inaccurate for African-Americans — a point of particular frustration in Detroit, a majority-black city where thousands of cameras in stores, restaurants, churches and schools stream videos directly to the Police Department's downtown headquarters.

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Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

8. A magical Wimbledon run ends.

Coco Gauff, a 15-year-old American wild card, lost her fourth-round match to Romania's Simona Halep, ending a crowd-pleasing string of upset victories.

Australia's top-seeded favorite, Ashleigh Barty, lost to U.S. veteran Alison Riske.

Whoever the victor, Wimbledon offers equal paychecks to men and women — in stark contrast to soccer. Despite the chants of "Equal Pay" that accompanied the U.S. women's World Cup victory on Sunday, the sport's financial inequity will hardly be wiped clean by the flurry of American goals.

The team's collective bargaining agreement, which sets the players' salaries and working conditions, runs through the end of 2021.

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Chad Batka for The New York Times

9. "Con Altura," a celebration of style and attitude by the Catalonian singer Rosalía, is one of this summer's most popular songs.

In the latest episode of the Times video series "Diary of a Song," Rosalía and her collaborators discuss their old-school homage to reggaeton, the Caribbean and Latin American rap style, and break down a special moment for music en español:

Language is no barrier, cross-cultural collaboration is common and hip-hop influence seeps in from all sides.

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Mike Lemanski

10. And finally, to the moon.

It took humans a long time to get there, and we didn't stay long. The 12 U.S. astronauts who walked on the lunar surface (starting with Neil Armstrong almost exactly 50 years ago) logged a total of just 80 hours.

The U.S. and China are both talking about getting boots back on the moon, but there are challenging problems of longer-term residency, including lunar dust that cuts like glass and toxic flashes of cosmic radiation that you can see with your eyes closed.

Have a down-to-earth evening.

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