Matt Stevens

On Veterans Day, former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont released extensive plans outlining how they would help them. They follow a similarly detailed proposal unveiled last week by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and they join a lengthy list of policy plans released by candidates throughout the summer and fall.

Here’s a closer look at the measures Democrats are calling for, and how their proposals contrast with what President Donald Trump has already done.

Improve and update the VA

Almost every candidate agrees that the VA needs to be able to function better than it currently does and has pledged to give the agency the resources it needs to work efficiently. Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren are among those who have called for the agency to fill its more than 49,000 staffing vacancies. Biden and Sanders, among others, have said they would invest in modernizing VA hospitals, clinics and other infrastructure. And in a commonly heard refrain, several Democrats have promised to eliminate the perennial “benefits backlog” that forces tens of thousands of veterans to wait for a determination on the benefits they can receive.

Buttigieg, a former Navy intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan, proposes making the VA apolitical “by appointing leaders with relevant expertise and ensuring continuity in leadership across administrations.” And in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, he said he’d seek to name a woman to head the agency for the first time. “I think leadership plays a huge role, so, absolutely I’d seek to name a woman to lead VA,” he said.

Provide veterans with better care

Several candidates have promised that under their administrations, veterans would get access to affordable and comprehensive health care. Under that umbrella, candidates like Sanders have specifically promised to guarantee dental care, expand the VA’s comprehensive caregiver program and other measures.

Multiple candidates also have called attention to veteran suicide and pledged to invest in research, mental health services and housing to help address the issue. Warren has said she would aim to reduce the number of veteran suicides by 50% within her first term. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey suggested appointing a White House official solely focused on working across agencies to cut the suicide rate.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California, meanwhile, is among those who have called for expanding access to health care and housing assistance for veterans with “other-than-honorable” discharges, which they may have received because they experienced trauma or other reasons beyond their control.

Improve access to education, training and jobs

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and other candidates have also outlined ways to support veterans once they re-enter civilian life. For instance, Klobuchar has proposed extending GI Bill education benefits to members of the National Guard and Reserve and implementing a grant program that would invest in veteran education centers.

Several candidates have also said they would expand and improve incentives for companies to hire veterans, and that they would direct government agencies to invest in more veteran-owned businesses and entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang has argued for what he calls a “reverse boot camp” which would seek to help veterans adjust to life after the military by training them in skills like cooking, financial literacy and how to interview for a job.

Ensuring equal treatment

Candidates also promised to rescind Trump’s ban on transgender service members, stand up for victims of sexual assault in the military and protect veterans and family members of service members from deportation.

Warren has called the ban on transgender service members “shameful.” And Buttigieg said his administration would reach out to people who were discharged because of their gender identity and give them a chance to re-enlist.

Klobuchar said in her proposal that more than 20,000 service members were sexually assaulted in 2018. She and other Democrats have proposed various ways to strengthen the prosecution of perpetrators and expand access to counseling for victims.

In her plan, Warren noted that protections from deportation for veterans have been eroding under the Trump administration, and pledged to restart a program that makes it easier for noncitizens who serve to become naturalized.

What Trump has already done

Trump, who kicked off the 100th annual New York City Veterans Day Parade in Manhattan on Monday, has also sought to court veterans, a group he views as a key piece of his political base.

Public polls have found that Trump’s support among veterans outpaces his support from the public at large. He has garnered praise from some veterans for railing against “endless wars,” much like 2020 Democratic candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard who served two combat tours in the Middle East.

Trump campaigned in 2016 on wanting to put more veterans in private health care. To help accomplish that goal, Congress passed health care legislation known as the Mission Act in 2018 and the VA rolled out new rules this year that allowed a broad group of enrollees to seek care outside the agency. Although Trump has heralded the program as great success, it has struggled to grow its network of doctors to meet coverage demands.

For all his talk of supporting veterans, Trump has also sometimes snubbed them. He admitted in court documents that he gave his campaign control over how to spend $2.8 million that his charity raised through what was ostensibly a fundraiser for veterans.

Last year, he chose to forgo a traditional visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day, a decision that led him to issue a rare apology. He drew wide condemnation during the 2016 campaign when he criticized the parents of a slain soldier who had denounced him, and he frequently attacked Sen. John McCain, saying the former Navy pilot and prisoner of war was “not a war hero.”

This article originally appeared in

How the 2020 Democrats Plan to Help Veterans

The large field of Democrats running for president may have differing views on the best way to provide health care to the masses or exactly how to reform the immigration system. But when it comes to helping America’s veterans they largely agree: The Department of Veterans Affairs needs some serious help, and those who have served need much better access to benefits, health care, housing, education and jobs.

King, who represents a deeply conservative district in northwest Iowa, made the remarks to the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale, Iowa, as he explained his opposition to exceptions for rape and incest in anti-abortion legislation.

“It’s not the baby’s fault,” King said in video of the comments published by The Des Moines Register, which first reported the story.

“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that? Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that’s taken place, and whatever happened to culture after society, I know that I can’t certify that I’m not a product of that. And I’d like to think every one of the lives of us are as precious as any other life.”

A spokesman for King did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

King’s latest remarks come just over a week after J.D. Scholten, a Democrat who nearly defeated him in 2018, announced that he would run again for King’s congressional seat in 2020. King defeated Scholten by just 10,000 votes in November.

“Yet again, Steve King puts his selfish, hateful ideology above the needs of the people of Iowa’s 4th district,” Scholten said in a statement Wednesday. “Excusing violence — in any way — is entirely unacceptable.

“His comments are disrespectful to survivors and don’t reflect Iowan values,” Scholten added.

During his nine terms in Congress, King has publicly promoted white nationalists and neo-Nazis on Twitter and frequently insulted immigrants. He once famously said that for every child of an immigrant in the country illegally who becomes a valedictorian, “there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds, and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

He was stripped of his congressional committee assignments earlier this year by House Republicans after he questioned why white supremacism was offensive. A number of powerful party leaders, including Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, suggested he should resign, and the House overwhelmingly passed a resolution disapproving of King’s statements.

King has insisted that his comments were misunderstood.

Two months later, in March, King came under scrutiny again when he said he did not “have an answer” when asked directly whether he believed a white society to be superior to a nonwhite society.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/politics/steve-king-rape-incest.html" id="e0c6dad1-6825-3d22-aaa5-9e11ef09c39e">The New York Times</a>.

Steve King Asks if There Would Be 'Any Population' Left Without Rape and Incest

Rep. Steve King of Iowa, a Republican whose history of making racist and divisive remarks led him to be stripped of his committee assignments earlier this year, questioned Wednesday if there would “be any population of the world left” if it were not for rape and incest.

Yang had already met the Democratic National Committee’s other debate-qualification threshold by having drawn donations from more than 130,000 people. The new poll of likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa, conducted by Monmouth University, was the fourth qualifying poll to show him with 2% support.

Candidates are required to both have 130,000 unique donors and register at least 2% support in four polls in order to make the cut for the next debates, scheduled for Sept. 12 and 13 in Houston. They have until Aug. 28 to reach those bench marks.

In qualifying for the third round of debates, Yang joins former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

The former housing secretary Julián Castro has also surpassed 130,000 donors and needs to garner 2% support in just one more poll to qualify.

The Monmouth poll released Thursday had Biden in the lead with 28% of likely Iowa caucusgoers selecting him as their first choice for the nomination. Warren finished next with 19% support, followed by Harris with 11% and Sanders with 9%.

While Biden’s support in the August poll was about the same as it was in a similar survey conducted in April, Warren was up 12 percentage points, Harris was up 4 points and Sanders was down 7 points.

The poll was conducted Aug. 1-4 and surveyed 401 Iowa voters who are likely to attend the Democratic presidential caucuses. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The former hedge fund investor turned impeachment activist Tom Steyer, who entered the race a month ago and plans to spend millions of dollars of his own money to help fund his campaign, earned 3% in the Monmouth poll. It was his strongest finish in a debate-qualifying poll, and puts him just one poll result shy of meeting the DNC’s threshold. Though reaching 130,000 donors will be difficult in such a short amount of time, Steyer’s ability to spend large sums on advertisements could help him amass new donors relatively quickly.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York also enjoyed her best finish in a qualifying poll so far, earning 2% support in one for the first time since she officially kicked off her campaign in March. The poll result comes on the heels of a generally well-received debate performance for Gillibrand, which included a particularly memorable line: “The first thing that I’m going to do when I’m president is I’m going to Clorox the Oval Office.”

Gillibrand’s campaign recently announced that it had crossed the 100,000-donor mark, which puts her in striking distance of meeting one qualification bench mark. But in order to get on the stage in Houston, she will also need to earn 2% support in at least three more polls before the end of the month.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii has also crossed the 130,000-donor mark, but she has only one qualifying poll so far.

Yang’s debate performance last week appeared to give his campaign a fundraising boost. A campaign spokesman said that in the four days after he debated, he raised more than $1 million from about 38,000 people, the vast majority of them new donors. By comparison, the Yang campaign raised $2.8 million over the three months ending June 30.

“The country heard my message and is ready to talk about real solutions to gun violence, the new realities of the American economy, and how we measure our health and success as a nation,” Yang said in a statement on Thursday. “I’m excited to have those conversations in Houston and throughout the 2020 election.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/us/politics/andrew-yang-debate-monmouth-poll.html" id="1712b4b9-07c3-3768-a442-136fda3257d3">The New York Times</a>.

Poll Results Put Yang in Lineup for Debates

The entrepreneur and former tech executive Andrew Yang became the ninth Democratic presidential candidate to qualify for the next debates after a new poll of Iowa voters released Thursday showed him earning 2% support.

Yang’s debate performance last week appeared to give his campaign a fundraising boost. A campaign spokesman said that in the four days after Yang’s debate night, he raised more than $1 million from about 38,000 people, the vast majority of them new donors. By comparison, the Yang campaign raised $2.8 million over the three months ending June 30.

Andrew Yang Becomes 9th Democrat to Qualify for the Next Debate

After a taxing weekend filled with frayed nerves, anger and tears, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who hail from the states where two gunmen killed 31 people this weekend, strongly condemned Republican inaction.

Speaking with CNN on Monday morning from Dayton, Ohio, where one of the shootings killed nine people, Ryan demanded that Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, “do something.”

“People are getting killed in the streets in America, and nobody is acting,” Ryan said.

O’Rourke, who is from El Paso, Texas, where the other shooting killed 22 people, continued to focus on a question he had been asked late Sunday about whether there was anything Trump could do to make things better in the wake of the shootings.

O’Rourke, who remained equal parts upset and incredulous, said in an interview Monday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the president had exhibited “open racism” — an “invitation to violence.”

“Anyone who is surprised” by the violence, O’Rourke said, “is part of this problem right now — including members of the media who ask, ‘Hey Beto, do you think the president is racist?’

“Well, Jesus Christ, of course he’s racist,” he said. “He’s been racist from Day 1.”

Ryan and O’Rourke were just two of several Democratic primary contenders who expressed continued outrage about the shootings and the strains of white nationalism some said emanate from the White House. Authorities in Texas have said the El Paso shooter wrote a manifesto posted online that railed against immigrants and that said the attack was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

“We have a president who actively demonizes racial and religious minorities, who coddles Nazis and Klansmen, and who wields white supremacy as a political weapon,” Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Monday.

On Monday morning, Trump said on Twitter that “We cannot let those killed in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, die in vain” and called on Republicans and Democrats to come together to pass background checks, potentially combined with immigration reform legislation — a stipulation that would make Democrats likely to oppose it.

In additional comments later Monday, Trump condemned white supremacy but did not repeat his call for background checks. Instead, he called for stronger action to address mental illness and argued that the internet can “radicalize disturbed minds.”

“Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger,” he said, “not the gun.”

That contention, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., was Trump’s attempt “to avoid truth.”

“There’s mental illness&amp;hate; throughout world, but U.S. stands alone w/high rate of gun violence,” Klobuchar said on Twitter. “When someone can kill 9 people in a minute, that gun should never have been sold.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also took issue with Trump’s framing of the situation.

“White supremacy is not a mental illness,” she said Monday afternoon. “We need to call it what it is: Domestic terrorism. And we need to call out Donald Trump for amplifying these deadly ideologies.”

Warren and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York were among the candidates who called on McConnell to bring lawmakers back into session to vote on gun safety measures. In a CNN interview, Gillibrand called Trump’s suggestion that gun measures be tied to immigration reform “absurd.”

“He’s linking the issue of basic, common-sense gun reform, that we should be going back into the Senate today to vote on, with this issue of immigration because, again, he continues to try to demonize people seeking asylum,” she said.

Gillibrand was also one of a few candidates who turned Trump’s remark that white supremacy should be condemned back on him. She reposted a video of Trump's speech with a comment of her own: “We have been. Now it’s your turn.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/us/politics/trump-shootings-2020-democrats.html" id="8320ed30-1b16-3314-a5e4-c9e0b24b7e1e">The New York Times</a>.

'Of Course He's Racist': 2020 Democrats Criticize Trump After Shootings

Democratic candidates for president excoriated President Donald Trump and his Republican allies anew Monday in frustration over rampant gun violence, the racist and divisive culture they accuse him of fostering, and his early-morning suggestion to tie background checks on gun purchasers to immigration legislation.

'Of Course He's Racist': Democratic Candidates Criticize Trump After Shootings

The survey was conducted by Quinnipiac University from July 25-28, several days after Trump said that a group of four congresswomen of color should “go back” to the countries they came from, even though all four are American citizens and three were born in the United States. The survey period also included the day that the president launched a new attack on Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a leading black congressman, calling him “a brutal bully” whose Baltimore-area district he characterized as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

The poll results come as Democrats seeking the party’s nomination for president prepare for a second round of debates, beginning Tuesday night in Detroit. Nearly all of the 2020 candidates have roundly condemned Trump’s remarks as racist and divisive.

The Quinnipiac poll found that 51% of voters think Trump is racist while 45% do not. When separated by party, 86% of Democratic voters classified Trump as racist while 91% of Republicans said he was not.

About 88% of those who said Trump was racist disapprove of the job he is doing as president, while 94% of those who said he was not racist approve of his performance.

It was one of several surveys in recent days that have offered a window into how Americans are processing Trump’s comments and assessing his core beliefs. National polls conducted by USA Today/Ipsos, The Economist/YouGov and Fox News in July have shown that between half and two-thirds of Americans believe that telling someone to “go back” is a racist statement and that Trump’s tweets “cross the line.”

On Monday, Trump again attacked a prominent black person — this time the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader. Trump denounced Sharpton on Twitter as “a con man” who “Hates Whites &amp; Cops” and again assailed Cummings.

The poll released Tuesday found that 41% of survey respondents believe Trump’s immigration policies are motivated by “racist beliefs,” compared with 49% who ascribed them to “a sincere interest in controlling our borders.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/is-trump-racist.html" id="e8b6a293-12b8-3b24-a9ad-dbf7f9ad9e36">The New York Times</a>.

About half of registered voters believe President Donald Trump is racist, according to a new national poll released Tuesday, which showed voters are sharply divided along partisan lines on the question.

Half of Voters Believe President Trump Is Racist, Poll Shows

He also linked the clash with Cummings to his demand that the four Democratic congresswomen of color — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts — leave the country.

Days after Trump’s first tweets about the congresswomen, the House passed a resolution, largely along party lines, condemning his remarks. Trump has denied that his words were racist and called the House resolution a “con game.”

“Those Tweets were NOT Racist,” Trump wrote on the day the House voted to condemn them. “I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!”

The poll released Tuesday found that 41% of survey respondents believe his immigration policies are motivated by “racist beliefs,” compared with 49% who ascribed them to “a sincere interest in controlling our borders.”

The poll surveyed 1,306 voters nationwide and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Her bid to challenge the incumbent, Chip Roy, comes about six years after she stood and talked for more than 11 hours to temporarily halt passage of an anti-abortion bill.

Davis’ effort vaulted her onto the national political scene — momentum that led her to run for governor in 2014.

But the bill she filibustered eventually passed, and she lost the 2014 election to Greg Abbott by more than 20 percentage points.

Texas Democrats have slowly made gains since, picking up two House seats in the 2018 midterms as Beto O’Rourke came within 3 percentage points of besting Sen. Ted Cruz.

“I’m running for Congress because people’s voices are still being silenced,” Davis said in a video she posted on Twitter. “Even in losing, we help shape the future.”

Wendy Davis’ backstory

Davis has often leaned on her backstory to inspire voters and demonstrate her tenacity.

Now 56, she gave birth to her first child as a teenager. She made her way from junior college into Harvard Law School before winning a seat on the Fort Worth City Council and later a seat in the Texas Senate.

In 2011, she filibustered a budget bill that included huge cuts to public education, forcing then-Gov. Rick Perry to call a special legislative session, where it passed.

Then, on June 25, 2013, Davis began another filibuster in another special session: to block Senate Bill 5. It sought to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and impose other requirements that critics said would force most of the 42 abortion clinics in the state to close.

She did not sit, eat, drink or use the bathroom until she was finished speaking. After various objections and pandemonium, the session officially ended and the bill was declared dead. (The next month, Perry reintroduced the bill in another special session, and it passed.)

Exactly 100 days after the filibuster Davis announced that she would run for governor.

No Democrat had occupied the governor’s mansion since January 1995, the last day of Gov. Ann W. Richards’ tenure. Although Davis raised millions of dollars, she remained far behind Abbott in polls. She went on to lose by almost 1 million votes.

The incumbent: Chip Roy

By running in the 21st District — a part of Central Texas that includes slices of Austin and San Antonio — Davis may already be facing better odds than when she ran statewide.

Roy, a former chief of staff to Cruz, won his seat in 2018 by less than 3 percentage points and has since gained attention for blocking final passage of a long-delayed disaster relief bill. He cited concerns that $4.5 billion for the southwestern border had been left out of the package.

A month later, he faced the wrath of fellow lawmakers angered by his efforts to force dozens of votes late into the night.

In a tweet on Monday, Roy called Davis’ views “radical” and “extreme” and pledged to “continue fighting for the hardworking families of #Tx21.”

After she left the state Senate, Davis founded a nonprofit aimed at empowering young women. Her campaign website said she was running for Congress “to be a voice for those who are forgotten and, worse, ignored.”

“Win or lose, it’s about doing what’s right,” she said. “Because I’m a Texan. And Texans don’t quit.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/politics/wendy-davis-texas-congress.html" id="5cdc0584-d68f-3540-a7ae-f76a69b9ef25">The New York Times</a>.

Wendy Davis, Who Rose to Fame With Filibuster, Will Run for Congress in Texas

Wendy Davis, a former Democratic nominee for governor of Texas whose marathon filibuster as a state senator turned her into an overnight political star, said Monday that she would run for a House seat held by a freshman Republican.

A new study released Monday by the Pew Research Center has found that to be true and that Americans largely perceive trust in Washington to be shrinking. But the deep skepticism is not reserved solely for politicians, according to the survey: Almost two-thirds of respondents said they thought trust in each other had declined, too.

The report paints a rather dreary picture of how Americans today feel about their political leaders, the news media and their neighbors down the block.

“Americans are worried that distrust in the government and in others is taking a toll on the nation,” said Lee Rainie, director of internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center. “They believe that distrust gets in the way of solving some pressing problems, that it flows from a broken political culture and that it keeps neighbors apart.”

But the report, which drew responses from 10,618 people in late 2018, also offered a few reasons for optimism. More than 8 in 10 survey respondents said they believed that trust in federal officials and confidence in each other could improve — though there was far less agreement on how that could be accomplished.

— Race, wealth and age influence personal trust.

Broadly speaking, about a fifth of adults displayed “consistently trustful attitudes,” roughly a third expressed consistently wary views, and the rest were somewhere in between. The researchers found that levels of personal trust were associated with race and ethnicity, age, education and household income. The share of white respondents who showed high levels of trust (27%), for instance, was twice as high as the share of black (13%) and Hispanic (12%) respondents combined.

In general, those who were more likely to be “high trusters” were older, more educated and had higher household incomes than “low trusters.”

“Americans who might feel disadvantaged are less likely to express generalized trust in other people,” the report said.

The generational gap in trust that emerged was especially striking. Almost half of young adults between the age of 18 and 29 fell into the low trust category. The same was true about only one-fifth of respondents 65 and older.

Overall, the Pew study found that three-quarters of Americans thought confidence in the federal government was slipping, and 64% said the same about trust in each other.

— Trust breaks down when politics are involved.

The survey also found that while Americans trusted each other to carry out certain civic responsibilities — like reporting serious problems to authorities, obeying laws and honestly reporting income during tax season — confidence in each other did not extend to politics.

Respondents were basically split on whether they could count on their fellow Americans to accept election results regardless of who wins. The same went for whether they could rely on others to reconsider their views after learning new information, stay informed about important issues and events and respect the rights of people who were not like them. An even higher share — 57% — said they were not confident that others would cast informed votes in elections.

And in disheartening news for Thanksgivings everywhere, some 58% of adults said they were not confident that Americans were collectively capable of holding civil conversations with people who had different views.

— Many distrust the media, particularly Republicans.

The news media did not fare very well in the Pew survey, either.

About two-thirds of Americans said the federal government intentionally withholds important information from the public that it could safely release, and 61% said the news media intentionally ignores stories that are important to the public.

About 64% of respondents said it was hard to tell the difference between what was true and untrue when they heard elected officials speak. Roughly half said the same thing about information they encountered on social media; and 41% said it was “very hard” or “somewhat hard” to distill truth from cable news.

And the survey revealed a strong partisan divide when it came to trust in journalists. Only 30% of Republican respondents expressed confidence in them, compared with 76% of Democrats.

“There hasn’t been a single positive story on President Trump,” one 56-year-old man commented to Pew Research. “He’s a patriot who had a day job already and didn’t need the mess of the presidency, but entered into it as a citizen tired of the political crap that’s infected the nation.”

— One thing both parties agree on.

On a more positive note, the survey found that strong majorities of both Democrats and Republicans wished trust would rise.

More than 90% of both groups said they thought it was important to improve the level of confidence Americans have in government and in each other. And more than 80% thought such improvement was possible.

“Each one of us must reach out to others,” a 66-year-old woman told the researchers. “It takes interaction with people face to face to realize that we do all inhabit this space and have a vested interest in working together to make it a successful, safe and environmentally secure place to live. No man is an island.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/politics/pew-trust-distrust-survey.html" id="59361876-af18-3370-a90b-bb6734ca75cc">The New York Times</a>.

Falling Trust in Government Makes It Harder to Solve Problems, Americans Say

It will probably come as no surprise that most Americans distrust the federal government.

Trump attacks congresswomen and Democrats return fire

On Sunday, President Donald Trump hurled an ugly insult at a group of four first-term congresswomen of color, saying they should “go back” to the countries they came from, despite the fact that all are U.S. citizens and all but one was born in the country.

Trump’s remark ignited fury and condemnation from congressional Democrats and a unified response from the four congresswomen, who are known in some circles as “the squad”: Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts. The House voted, nearly along party lines, to condemn Trump’s comments as racist.

Many of the Democrats seeking to defeat Trump in the general election roundly criticized him for the comments as well, calling them “reprehensible,” “disgusting” and “un-American.”

Sen. Kamala Harris of California condemned the remarks in intensely personal terms. “I‘ve personally been told, ‘Go back to where you came from,’” she said Tuesday. “It is vile, ignorant, shallow, and hateful. It has to stop.”

The stage is set for the next round of debates

Harris will face off against former Vice President Joe Biden once again — and while this is no boxing match, the Democratic debates are starting to feel like reality television.

CNN, which will host the next round of debates this month, broadcast an elaborately staged “live drawing” to determine the lineups, complete with overhead cameras and multiple boxes.

We learned that Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will square off against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the first night, July 30, pitting the two top liberals in the race against each other. That debate will also feature Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota standing next to Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. Klobuchar has expressed displeasure that less-experienced male candidates like Buttigieg have received gobs of media attention, and now the debate will give her a chance to take him down a peg.

The second night, July 31, could generate another Harris-Biden clash, a month after Harris highlighted Biden’s record on race and desegregation. And Biden will also face Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who memorably called on Biden to apologize for his comments about segregationist senators.

Marianne Williamson, Tim Ryan, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, John Hickenlooper, John Delaney and Steve Bullock.

Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Julián Castro, Cory Booker, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee and Bill de Blasio.

5 big fundraisers lead the money race

Reports detailing how much money the 2020 Democrats raised during the second quarter of the year were released on Monday. Broadly speaking, they showed that five of the Democratic presidential candidates are ahead of the pack.

Those five candidates, Buttigieg, Warren, Biden, Sanders and Harris, raised a combined $96 million from individual donors in the last three months — about three-quarters of the total fundraising by the entire Democratic field.

— Buttigieg raised more money from individual donors than any other Democrat.

— Sanders has the most cash in the bank ($27.3 million).

— Trump has more than twice that amount of cash on hand ($56.7 million).

— Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas raised only $3.6 million in the last three months — a sign of serious money struggles.

Is Trump getting a new primary challenger?

Former Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., said Tuesday that he was considering challenging Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. If he does, Sanford, who is also a former governor of the state, said he aimed to campaign as a fiscal conservative intent on ending what he views as the country’s profligate spending.

He is the second Republican to say publicly that he is exploring a primary challenge against Trump; William F. Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, formally entered the race in April.

Sanford has a bit of a history with Trump, whom he initially supported in 2016. He quickly became one of the president’s most vocal Republican critics in Congress. With that in mind, Trump unleashed a last-minute Twitter attack on Sanford last summer that helped ensure he would lose his primary.

Sanford plans to use the next month to consider a fresh primary run, he told The Post and Courier.

“Sometimes in life you’ve got to say what you’ve got to say, whether there’s an audience or not for that message,” Sanford told the newspaper. “I feel convicted.”

Harris jumps out front in California

A new Quinnipiac University Poll released this past week has Harris leading the field in California with the backing of 23% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters in her delegate-rich home state.

Like several other surveys conducted after the June Democratic debates, the poll shows that a clear top tier has emerged. Biden registered 21% support, followed by Sanders at 18% and Warren at 16%. No other candidate garnered more than 3% support in the California poll.

The survey also shows how much the race has tightened and changed since April when Quinnipiac last conducted a poll of California Democrats. At that time, Harris trailed both Biden — who had yet to formally enter the race — and Sanders, having earned 17% support. And at the time, only 7% of voters said they would vote for Warren.

Sanders and Biden clash over health care

Two of the top candidates to become the Democratic nominee offered starkly different visions of health care in America this week.

On Monday, Biden unveiled his health care proposal. In essence, his plan would seek to improve the Affordable Care Act instead of replacing it with the sort of single-payer “Medicare for all” system favored by Sanders. Specifically, Biden’s plan would create a public option that would enable anyone to sign up for a government-run health plan like Medicare.

The policy rollout came after Biden attacked Sanders’ “Medicare for all” plan days earlier, citing its $3 trillion price tag and saying that Sanders would raise taxes on the middle class.

On Wednesday Sanders punched back, defending “Medicare for all” in a speech in which he also called on his Democratic rivals to reject contributions from the health care industry.

“My Republican friends, and some others, seem to think that the American people hate paying taxes but they just love paying insurance premiums,” Sanders said, taking an apparent shot at Biden.

“Frankly,” he added, “I am sick and tired of talking to doctors who tell me about the patients who died because they came into their offices too late because they were uninsured or underinsured.”

And in other policy news:

Several candidates released policy proposals this week aimed at supporting farmers, families and seniors.

— Biden detailed a plan for rural America that promises investment in clean energy, the creation of a White House “StrikeForce” that would help rural communities gain access to federal funds and various efforts aimed at keeping rural hospitals open. Former Rep. Joe Sestak also released an agriculture plan in which he pledged to stop imposing “reckless” tariffs, strengthen antitrust laws and end subsidies for industrial farming corporations.

— Biden also unveiled a plan for older Americans that seeks to decrease the cost of prescription drugs, protect Medicare and Medicaid and strengthen Social Security. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s “Aging With Dignity” plan similarly seeks to expand Social Security and lower drug prices.

— Gillibrand’s plan for older Americans would also enact paid family leave that would cover workers needing to care for aging family members. In a similar vein, Booker rolled out a plan that would expand access to long-term care and support for older Americans.

— Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Putting Families First” plan would institute paid family leave, too, and would also provide benefits like subsidized child care and free or reduced college tuition in an effort to “strengthen families at every stage of life.”

— Harris released her “People Over Profit” plan that seeks to lower prescription drug costs by taxing any pharmaceutical company profits made from selling a drug above the fair price and sending the funds back to consumers in the form of a rebate. Her plan would also close a tax loophole used by pharmaceutical companies related to their advertising expenses. And Harris pledged to take executive action if necessary to investigate all “predatory” pharmaceutical companies.

— Warren released a “plan to rein in Wall Street” that includes a series of measures aimed at transforming the private equity industry. The plan also calls for tough new executive compensation rules to discourage speculation, a postal banking program and more.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/20/us/politics/2020-presidential-race.html" id="138c54c0-6c45-3cc6-aec6-944d3fa473ce">The New York Times</a>.

Every Saturday morning, we’re publishing “This Week in the 2020 Race”: a quick way to catch up on the presidential campaign and the field of 24 candidates for the Democratic nomination. Here’s our latest edition:

Democrats Call Out Racism, New Debate Lineups: This Week in the 2020 Race

“You’re too nice,” a man told Yang. “You need to be meaner.”

As his better-known rivals like Sen. Kamala Harris of California and former Vice President Joe Biden have ratcheted up their attacks of President Donald Trump, Yang, the former tech executive promising to give Americans $12,000 a year, has portrayed himself as a math-obsessed, solution-focused nerd who would be an ideal foil to the president.

But, in part because Yang is nice — he peppers his stump speech with jokes and the occasional self-deprecating remark — voters have sometimes questioned his pleasant demeanor and whether he can effectively spar with Trump or even political firebrands on the left like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

“I’m very passionate about how we can improve Americans’ day-to-day lives, and that’s where I’m focused,” Yang told dozens of voters inside a packed New Hampshire coffee shop on Friday. “But to the extent anyone has a vicious agenda that tries to keep that from happening — I’ll fight.”

At a restaurant pub Friday night in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, David Ho, a 27-year-old data scientist, said he had been drawn to Yang because of their shared Asian-American heritage, but worried the candidate was too soft-spoken compared with his rivals and could struggle to compete with Trump.

At the same time, Ho said, it is possible Yang is falling victim to false stereotypes that paint Asian-Americans as “reserved and submissive,” as Ho put it.

CONCORD, N.H. — It is a backhanded compliment Andrew Yang has received before, and one that a New Hampshire voter paid him again on Friday as Yang was campaigning and trying to raise his profile in the 21-candidate Democratic field.

Matt Stevens

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