The Daily

In a two-part examination of the policies of the president and of the man seeking to replace him, Joe Biden, we first take a look at what Donald Trump said he would do four years ago — and what he’s actually accomplished. On some of the big issues, Mr. Trump has been the president he told us he was going to be, keeping commitments on deregulation, taxes, military spending and the judiciary. But ot...

It was a 12-hour session. Twenty-two senators took turns questioning Judge Amy Coney Barrett on her record and beliefs. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, evoked personal experience of life before Roe v. Wade and asked Judge Barrett whether she would vote to overturn abortion rights. On that question, Judge Barrett demurred — an approach she would take to other contentious issues, i...

In March, Congress pushed through a relief package that preserved the U.S. economy during the pandemic. It felt like government functioning at its best. But now, that money is running out and bipartisanship has given way to an ideological stalemate. While Republicans balk at plans for further significant government spending — even those coming from the White House — Democrats are holding out for m...

Most Americans say that abortion should be legal with some restrictions, but President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, signed a statement in a 2006 newspaper advertisement opposing “abortion on demand.” Her accession would bolster a conservative majority among the justices. How did that happen? According to Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, abortion righ...

“We are conditioned to believe that art is safe,” Sam Anderson, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, explained in this week’s The Sunday Read. “Destruction happens in a number of ways, for any number of reasons, at any number of speeds — and it will happen, and no amount of reverence will stop it.” Today, Sam explores his personal relationship with Michelangelo's David and the imperfect...

This episode contains strong language. Over the summer, Dave Mitchko started a makeshift pro-Trump sign operation from his garage. By his estimate he has handed out around 26,000 signs, put together with the help of his family. Mr. Mitchko might seem like the kind of voter Joseph R. Biden Jr. wants to peel away from the Republicans in November. He had always been a Democrat — he voted for Barack O...

During most campaigns, the job of the vice-presidential candidates focuses on boosting the person heading the ticket. Proving their suitability for the top job is secondary. But this year is different. The president is 74 and spent much of the past week in the hospital, and his Democratic rival is 77. So it was vital for their running mates, Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris, to...

The pandemic has killed more than one million people around the world, at least 210,000 in the United States alone. The illness has infiltrated the White House and infected the president. Today, we offer an update on measures to fight the coronavirus and try to predict the outbreak’s course. Guest: Donald G. McNeil Jr. , a science and health reporter for The New York Times. For more information on...

This episode contains strong language. Jack Nicas, a technology reporter for The New York Times, moved to Oakland, Calif., five years ago. When he arrived, he set out to find a bar of choice. It quickly became the Hatch. Unpretentious, cheap and relaxed, the Hatch was a successful small business until the coronavirus hit. After the announcement in March that California would order bars and restaur...

On Saturday morning, the doctors treating President Trump for the coronavirus held a news conference outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center — a show of strength, aimed at reassuring the American public that he was in capable hands. But instead of allaying concern, it raised questions, casting doubt on the timeline of the president’s illness and the seriousness of his condition. We sp...

They came from Tel Aviv, Aleppo and a “small house by the river.” They were artists, whiskey drinkers and mbira players. They were also fathers, sisters and best friends. Today, we hear people from around the world reflect on those they’ve lost. For more information on today's episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily . Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can al...

He assured the country the coronavirus would “disappear” soon. Then he tested positive. We explore how President Trump testing positive for the coronavirus could affect the last days of the 2020 race — and consider what might happen next. Guests: Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman , White House correspondents for The Times. For more information about today's episode, visit: nytimes.com/thedaily . Sub...

This episode contains strong language. During much of this election cycle, Julius Irving of Gainesville, Fla., spent his days trying to get former felons registered to vote. He would tell them about Florida’s Amendment Four, a ballot initiative that extended the franchise to those who had, in the past, been convicted on felony charges — it added an estimated 1.5 million people to the electorate, t...

The pandemic will mean that many more Americans vote by mail this year. All 50 states require people to register before they can cast a mail-in vote. But from there, the rules diverge wildly. And a lot could still change. Our correspondent Luke Broadwater, a reporter in Washington, says there are more than 300 challenges to voting-related rules winding through courts across the country. Americans...

This episode contains strong language. Both presidential candidates had clear goals for their first debate on Tuesday. For Joseph R. Biden Jr., the contest was an opportunity to consolidate his lead in polls before Election Day. President Trump’s task was, politically, a taller order — to change the course of a race that he seems to be losing. His tactics for doing that emerged quickly: interrupt...

Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig, investigative reporters for The Times, have pored over two decades and thousands of pages of documents on Donald J. Trump’s tax information, up to and including his time in the White House. What they found was an existential threat to the image he has constructed about his wealth and lifestyle. The tax documents consistently appeared to call into question the busin...

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick to fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court, is a product of the conservative legal movement of the 1980s. She clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, a giant of conservative jurisprudence, and his influence is evident throughout her judicial career. Opponents of abortion, in particular, are hoping that her accession to the Supreme Court would be a cruci...

In August, Abrahm Lustgarten, who reports on climate, watched fires burn just 12 miles from his home in Marin County, Calif. For two years, he had been studying the impact of the changing climate on global migration and recently turned some of his attention to the domestic situation. Suddenly, with fires raging so close to home, he had to ask himself the question he had been asking other people: W...

This episode contains strong language. In June, weeks after George Floyd was killed by the police, a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council expressed support for dismantling the city’s police department. The councilors’ pledges to “abolish,” “dismantle” and “end policing as we know it” changed the local and national conversation about the police. President Trump has wielded this decis...

This episode contains strong language. Breonna Taylor’s mother and her supporters had made their feelings clear: Nothing short of murder charges for all three officers involved in Ms. Taylor’s death would amount to justice. On Wednesday, one of the officers was indicted on a charge of “wanton endangerment.” No charges were brought against the two officers whose bullets actually struck Ms. Taylor....

President Trump appears to be on course to give conservatives a sixth vote on the Supreme Court, after several Republican senators who were previously on the fence said they would support quickly installing a replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In our interview today with Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, she says she senses a turning point. “No...

This episode contains strong language and descriptions of sexual violence. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ensuing battle to fill her seat is set to dominate American politics in the lead up to the election. A poll conducted for The New York Times before Justice Ginsburg’s death found voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Maine and North Carolina placed greater trust in Jo...

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated from law school, she received no job offers from New York law firms, despite being an outstanding student. She spent two years clerking for a federal district judge, who agreed to hire her only after persuasion, and was rejected for a role working with Justice Felix Frankfurter because she was a woman. With her career apparently stuttering in the male-dominated l...

In the second episode of a two-part special, we consider the ramifications of Justice Ginsburg’s death and the struggle over how, and when, to replace her on the bench. The stakes are high: If President Trump is able to name another member of the Supreme Court, he would be the first president since Ronald Reagan to appoint three justices, tipping the institution in a much more conservative directi...

According to Ludmila Savchuk, a former employee, every day at the Internet Research Agency was essentially the same. From an office complex in the Primorsky District of St. Petersburg, employees logged on to the internet via a proxy service and set about flooding Russia’s popular social networking sites with opinions handed to them by their bosses. The shadowy organization, which according to one...