São Paulo, Brazil
CNN
 — 

Brazil’s polarizing presidential race will go to a second round after no candidate achieved more than a 50% majority in an election that saw long lines at polling booths as millions turned out to vote.

With more than 99% of the vote counted on Sunday evening, results released by Brazil’s Electoral Superior Court (TSE) showed left-wing candidate and former president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva held a slight lead over right-wing incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro – but not enough to cross the threshold to victory.

The latest official count put Lula ahead with 48.4% of the vote versus 43.2% for Bolsonaro, a divisive figure often referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics.”

Bolsonaro’s result was eight points higher than the latest Datafolha poll showed on Saturday, while Lula’s was two to three points lower than predicted by polls.

Lula told reporters in Sao Paulo Sunday night that he was confident of winning the run-off vote to be held on October 30.

“It will be important (to have a second round) because we will have the chance to do a face-to-face debate with the current president to know if he will keep on telling lies,” said Lula, who was Brazil’s leader from 2002 to 2010.

In a brief news conference Sunday, Bolsonaro said the voting reflected the poor economic conditions felt by poorer Brazilians, and promised to appeal to voters who are worried about rising prices.

“We have a second round ahead where everything becomes the same, the (television advertising) time for each side becomes the same. And now we are going to show it better for the Brazilian population, especially the most affected class, the consequence of the ‘stay at home, we’ll see the economy later’ policy,” Bolsonaro said.

Bolsonaro, who has routinely discredited the Brazilian electoral system and threatened to not accept its results, managed to beat Lula in the southeast states, the most populous of the country.

More than 123 million Brazilians waited in long lines to vote in the world’s fourth largest democracy, while another 32 million abstained. According to TSE President Alexandre de Moraes, the extensive queues were caused by new biometric security checks and higher than expected voter turnout.

Several other presidential candidates were in the running but trailed far behind the two frontrunners.

Simone Tebet of the Brazilian Democratic Movement came third with 4.1% of valid votes, and Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labour Party received 3.05% of the vote.

Gomes said in a news conference Sunday that he is “deeply concerned” about Brazil’s political polarization. “I have never seen a situation so complex, so challenging, so potentially threatening to our fortunes as a nation,” he said.

After voting alongside his wife, Rosangela da Silva, at a Sao Paulo school on Sunday, Lula told reporters: “We don’t want more discord, we want a country that lives in peace. This is the most important election. I am really happy.”

He also referenced the 2018 elections, where he had been unable to run – or vote – because of a corruption conviction that was overturned last year.

“Four years ago I couldn’t vote because I had been the victim of a lie in this country. And four years later, I’m here, voting with the recognition of my total freedom and with the possibility of being president of the republic of this country again, to try to make this country return to normality,” Lula said.

While there were nearly a dozen candidates on the ballot, the race was dominated from the outset by Lula and Bolsonaro, two titans of Brazilian politics who engaged in a bruising campaign season marked by bitter verbal attacks and a series of violent incidents between rival supporters.

Bolsonaro, 67, ran for re-election under the conservative Liberal Party. He has campaigned to increase mining, privatize public companies and generate more sustainable energy to bring down energy prices. He has vowed to continue paying a R$600 (about $110) monthly benefit known as Auxilio Brasil.

His government is known for its support for ruthless exploitation of land in the Amazon, leading to record deforestation figures. Environmentalists are warning that the future of the rainforest could be at stake in this election.

Bolsonaro has also been widely criticized for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 686,000 people in Brazil have died from the virus.

Lula, 76, focused his campaign on getting Bolsonaro out of office and highlighted his past achievements throughout his campaign.

He left office with a 90% approval rating in 2011, and is largely credited for lifting millions of Brazilians from extreme poverty through the “Bolsa Familia” welfare program.

His campaign promised a new tax regime that will allow for higher public spending. He has vowed to end hunger in the country, which has returned during the Bolsonaro government. Lula also promises to work to reduce carbon emissions and deforestation in the Amazon.

Lula, however, is also no stranger to controversy. He was convicted for corruption and money laundering in 2017, on charges stemming from the wide-ranging “Operation Car Wash” investigation into the state-run oil company Petrobras. But after serving less than two years, a Supreme Court Justice annulled Lula’s conviction in March 2021, clearing the way for him to run for president for a sixth time.

Bolsonaro, who has been accused of firing up supporters with violent rhetoric, has sought to sow doubts about the result and said that the results should be considered suspicious if he doesn’t gain “at least 60%.”

On Saturday, he repeated claims that he expected to win in the first round of presidential elections “with a margin higher than 60%,” despite being 14 points behind in the most recent poll that day.

Both Bolsonaro and his Liberal Party have claimed that Brazil’s electronic ballot system is susceptible to fraud – an entirely unfounded allegation that has drawn comparisons to the false election claims of former US President Donald Trump.

There have been no proven instances of voter fraud in the electronic ballot in Brazil.

The Supreme Electoral Court has also rejected claims of flaws in the system, as “false and untruthful, with no base in reality.”

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CNN
 — 

Former President Donald Trump praised the “courage and strength” of Ginni Thomas at a rally Saturday, days after the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas met with congressional investigators about her efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In a four-and-a-half hour meeting with investigators on Thursday, Thomas discussed her marriage to the conservative justice, claiming in an opening statement obtained by CNN that she “did not speak with him at all about the details of my volunteer campaign activities.”

Thomas, who attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021 landed on the radar of the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol after text message exchanges she had with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about election fraud claims surfaced during the ongoing congressional probe.

Thomas had “significant concerns about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election. And, as she told the Committee, her minimal and mainstream activity focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated,” her attorney Mark Paoletta said after her closed-door testimony.

During a campaign appearance in Michigan, Trump claimed that Thomas told the House panel “she still believes the 2020 election was stolen,” commending her because “she didn’t wilt under pressure.”

“Do you know Ginni Thomas?” the former President polled the crowd. “She didn’t say, ‘Oh, well I’d like not to get involved. Of course, it was a wonderful election.’ It was a rigged and stolen election. She didn’t wait and sit around and say, ‘Well let me give you maybe a different answer than [what] I’ve been saying for the last two years.’”

“No, no,” Trump continued, “She didn’t wilt under pressure like so many others that are weak people and stupid people… She said what she thought, she said what she believed in.”

Thomas, who has previously criticized the House probe into January 6, has long been a prominent fixture in conservative activism – even becoming a persistent annoyance to some Trump White House officials as she tried to install friends and allies into senior administration roles throughout his presidency. She and her husband attended a private lunch with Trump and his wife Melania at the White House shortly after the 2018 midterms, though CNN has previously reported that her direct interactions with the former President were fairly limited beyond that meeting.

But on Saturday, Trump praised Thomas as “a great woman,” comparing her to countless former aides and allies who have admitted in their own depositions with the House panel that they themselves didn’t believe Trump’s claims about voter fraud following the 2020 election.

Thomas said she “never spoke” with her husband about “any of the legal challenges to the 2020 election,” addressing ethical questions that were raised in the wake a Supreme Court ruling last year on a January 6-related case. Thomas and Meadows texted repeatedly about overturning the election results.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the committee, said that Thomas did confirm during her testimony that she still believes the election was stolen, adding that “at this point we are glad she came in.”

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As Hurricane Ian has devastated parts of Florida, the national political spotlight in America has shone brighter than ever on Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, rising star of the hard right and probable presidential contender in 2024.

Since his election in 2018, DeSantis has made his name as a ruthless culture-warrior, an ally of Donald Trump but also perhaps his most serious rival.

DeSantis has embraced an extremist agenda on everything from immigration to election integrity, positioning himself as Trumpist on policy but more mainstream on personality and temperament. He has championed “don’t say gay” legislation in Florida schools and this month used taxpayers’ money to send two planeloads of migrants from the southern border in Texas to Massachusetts, a Democratic-run state.

That move prompted anger, investigation and legal action. The transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said DeSantis was “hurting people in order to get attention”. But such opprobrium did not deter a governor playing to a Trumpist base. For his next move, DeSantis suggested, he would send another planeload of unsuspecting asylum seekers to Delaware, where Joe Biden has a weekend home.

But then Hurricane Ian hit. And like ambitious Republicans before him – most famously Chris Christie of New Jersey, whose photo ops with Barack Obama after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 were reckoned to have hurt him in the 2016 primary – DeSantis realised he needed to talk to the president.

On Wednesday, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked: “Given how politicised things are at the moment, are you confident you’re gonna get the federal support Florida needs?”

DeSantis said: “So I actually spoke with the president and he said he wants to be helpful. So we did submit a request for reimbursement for the next 60 days at 100%. That’s significant support, but it’s a significant storm.

“We live in a very politicised time, but you know, when people are fighting for their lives, when their whole livelihood is at stake, when they’ve lost everything, if you can’t put politics aside for that, that you’re just not going to be able to do so.

“So I’ll work with anybody who wants to help the people of south-west Florida and throughout our state.”

Critics were quick to point back to Hurricane Sandy, which battered the east coast 10 years ago, and how DeSantis approached the matter of federal aid then.

DeSantis was elected to Congress in November 2012, becoming a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, the far-right House group which would morph into the nest of Trump supporters and election deniers it constitutes today.

Sandy hit in late October, unusually far north, bringing chaos to New Jersey and New York and leading to more than 100 US deaths. Months later, in January 2013, DeSantis was one of 67 Republicans to vote against a $9.7bn federal aid package for Sandy victims.

He said then: “I sympathise with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid. At the same time, allowing the program to increase its debt by another $9.7bn with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible.

“Congress should not authorise billions in new borrowing without offsetting expenditures in other areas. If a family maxes out its credit cards and faces the need for new spending, it is forced to prioritize by reducing its spending in other areas … this ‘put it on the credit card mentality’ is part of the reason we find ourselves nearly $17tn in debt.”

Times change. Now DeSantis – who budgeted $12m, from federal Covid relief funds, for efforts to move migrants to Democratic states – is facing “one of the biggest flood events we’ve ever had” and needs federal help.

“Dear Mr President,” his formal aid request began. “I request that you issue a Major Disaster Declaration for the State of Florida as a result of Hurricane Ian and authorise and make available all categories of individual assistance and public assistance.”

Ironically, in light of his comparison of aid for Sandy victims to irresponsible home economics, DeSantis also said that as Ian would “hamper local activity … federal aid through the Individuals and Households Program will help alleviate these household budget shortfalls”.

Reporters noticed. Responding to the New York Times, a spokesperson said DeSantis was “completely focused on hurricane response” and added: “As the governor said earlier, we have no time for politics or pettiness.”

Late-night comedians, however, had plenty of time for pointing out DeSantis’s hypocrisy – and pettiness.

Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show on CBS, perhaps put it most pithily: “If you can, get out of the storm’s path. Worst-case scenario, tell Ron DeSantis you’re Venezuelan, maybe he’ll fly you to Martha’s Vineyard.”

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CNN
 — 

A former employee of the National Security Agency was arrested Wednesday on espionage-related charges for allegedly trying to sell US secrets, the Justice Department announced.

Jareh Dalke, 30, attempted to transmit classified national defense information (NDI) to a representative of a foreign government, the department said in a news release. He faces charges related to three violations of the Espionage Act and made his first appearance in court Thursday.

CNN has reached out to Dalke’s attorneys for comment.

The Colorado man, who worked at the NSA for less than a month as an information system security designer, used an encrypted email to send excerpts of three classified documents to someone he believed to be a representative of a foreign government, according to an affidavit. The person was an undercover FBI agent.

The excerpts, which Dalke obtained while employed at the NSA, related to threat assessments of a foreign government’s military offensive capabilities and “sensitive US defense capabilities,” as well as a US agency’s “plans to update a certain cryptographic program,” the affidavit said.

Dalke left the NSA in early July, citing a situation with his family, and began corresponding with the undercover agent weeks later.

He provided the excerpts as a “small sample to what is possible,” and soon after transmitted a secret document related to a different US agency that contained information about a foreign leader, as a “show of good faith,” the affidavit said.

Days later, Dalke applied to an open position at the NSA, leading law enforcement to believe he might have been “seeking to access additional national defense information,” according to the affidavit.

The undercover agent transferred about $16,000 in cryptocurrency to Dalke following the initial information transfers and Dalke requested $85,000 in exchange for all the information he possessed at the time.

The government said Dalke then arranged to transfer additional classified information to the undercover FBI agent at a location in Denver. When Dalke showed up on Wednesday, the FBI arrested him.

Convictions under the Espionage Act carry sentences of up to life in prison or potential death sentences, the Justice Department said in its release.

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CNN
 — 

European security officials on Monday and Tuesday observed Russian Navy support ships in the vicinity of leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines likely caused by underwater explosions, according two Western intelligence officials and one other source familiar with the matter.

It’s unclear whether the ships had anything to do with those explosions, these sources and others said – but it’s one of the many factors that investigators will be looking into.

Russian submarines were also observed not far from those areas last week, one of the intelligence officials said.

Three US officials said that the US has no thorough explanation yet for what happened, days after the explosions appeared to cause three separate and simultaneous leaks in the two pipelines on Monday.

Russian ships routinely operate in the area, according to one Danish military official, who emphasized that the presence of the ships doesn’t necessarily indicate that Russia caused the damage.

“We see them every week,” this person said. “Russian activities in the Baltic Sea have increased in recent years. They’re quite often testing our awareness – both at sea and in the air.”

But the sightings still cast further suspicion on Russia, which has drawn the most attention from both European and US officials as the only actor in the region believed to have both the capability and motivation to deliberately damage the pipelines.

US officials declined to comment on the intelligence about the ships on Wednesday.

Both Denmark and Sweden are investigating, but a site inspection has yet to be done and details on exactly what caused the explosions remains sketchy. One European official said that there is a Danish government assessment underway and it could take up to two weeks for an investigation to properly begin because the pressure in the pipes makes it difficult to approach the site of the leaks — although another source familiar with the matter said the probe could begin as soon as Sunday.

The prime ministers for both Denmark and Sweden said publicly on Tuesday that the leaks were likely the result of deliberate actions, not accidents, and Sweden’s security service said in a statement Wednesday that it cannot be ruled out “that a foreign power is behind it.” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday evening also called the leaks “apparent sabotage” in a tweet.

But senior Western officials have so far stopped short of attributing the attack to Russia or any other nation.

The Kremlin has publicly denied striking the pipelines. A spokesman called the allegation “predictably stupid and absurd.”

CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment on the presence of the ships.

The Danish government is taking the lead on the investigation and has put in place an exclusion area of five nautical miles and a 1 kilometer no-fly-zone, according to European sources familiar with the matter.

Other than Sullivan, US officials have been far more circumspect than their European counterparts in drawing conclusions about the leaks.

“I think many of our partners have determined or believe it is sabotage. I’m not at the point where I can tell you one way or the other,” a senior military official said Wednesday. “The only thing I know there is that we think the water is between 80 and 100 meters [deep] at that location where the pipeline is. Other than that, I don’t know anything more.”

But one senior US official and a US military official both said Russia is still the leading suspect – assuming that the European assessment of deliberate sabotage is borne out – because there are no other plausible suspects with the ability and will to carry out the operation.

“It’s hard to imagine any other actor in the region with the capabilities and interest to carry out such an operation,” the Danish military official said.

Russia has requested a UN Security Council meeting on the damaged pipeline this week – something the senior US official said is also suspicious. Typically, the official said, Russia isn’t organized enough to move so quickly, suggesting that the maneuver was pre-planned.

If Russia did deliberately cause the explosions, it would be effectively sabotaging its own pipelines: Russian state company Gazprom is the majority shareholder in Nord Stream 1 and the sole owner of Nord Stream 2.

But officials familiar with the latest intelligence say that Moscow would likely view such a step as worth the price if it helped raise the costs of supporting Ukraine for Europe. US and western intelligence officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is gambling that as electricity costs rise and winter approaches, European publics could turn against the Western strategy of isolating Russia economically. Sabotaging the pipelines could “show what Russia is capable of,” one US official said.

Russia has already taken steps to manipulate energy flows in ways that caused itself economic pain, but also hurt Europe. Russia slashed gas supplies to Europe via Nord Stream 1 before suspending flows altogether in August, blaming Western sanctions for causing technical difficulties. European politicians say that was a pretext to stop supplying gas.

“They’ve already shown they’re perfectly happy to do that,” one of the sources said. “They weight their economic pain against Europe’s.”

The new Nord Stream 2 pipeline had yet to enter commercial operations. The plan to use it to supply gas was scrapped by Germany days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February.

US, European and Ukrainian officials have been warning for months, however, that critical infrastructure – not only in Ukraine but also in the US and Europe – could be targeted by Russia as part of its war on Ukraine.

The US warned several European allies over the summer, including Germany, that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines could face threats and even be attacked, according to two people familiar with the intelligence and the warnings.

The warnings were based on US intelligence assessments, but they were vague, the people said – it was not clear from the warnings who might be responsible for any attacks on the pipelines or when they might occur.

The CIA declined to comment.

Der Spiegel was the first to report on the intelligence warnings.

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CNN
 — 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed into law a slate of bills aimed at protecting and expanding access to abortion in the state.

“An alarming number of states continue to outlaw abortion and criminalize women, and it’s more important than ever to fight like hell for those who need these essential services. We’re doing everything we can to protect people from any retaliation for accessing abortion care while also making it more affordable to get contraceptives,” the Democrat said in a news release.

Newsom has been supportive of abortion rights and has vowed to keep California a safe haven for abortion seekers, while Republican-led states have banned or severely restricted abortion after the US Supreme Court eliminated the federal right to the procedure.

A number of the measures that Newsom signed Tuesday, which were passed at the end of the legislative session late last month, seek to protect abortion patients and providers from potential prosecution or penalties brought by states, or civil action originating in states, where abortion is banned.

AB 1242 prohibits California law enforcement and other specified individuals from assisting or cooperating with other states’ investigations related to abortion if the procedure was lawful under California statutes. Under the law, California technology companies are blocked from sharing digital reproductive information with out-of-state law enforcement seeking to enforce their state’s abortion ban.

AB 2223 removes the requirement in state law that a coroner investigate deaths related to self-induced or criminal abortion, and makes it so that a coroner’s statements about a fetal death certification could not be used to bring a criminal prosecution or civil action against a person for their pregnancy outcome. It also prohibits a person from facing civil or criminal liability for getting an abortion or assisting someone in obtaining an abortion.

Opponents had argued that AB 2223 would hinder law enforcement’s abilities to investigate and prosecute “infanticide,” while proponents called this a mischaracterization of the bill, which they say protects women from being criminally prosecuted for a miscarriage, abortion, perinatal death or stillbirth.

Other bills in the legislative package are intended to expand access to the procedure.

One such measure expands the Abortion Practical Support Fund that provides grants to nonprofit organizations that help low-income Californians obtain an abortion, so that the grants can be used to help out-of-state residents obtain an abortion in California.

Newsom has taken several steps to bolster abortion rights in California this year, including launching a new state website aimed at connecting women who live out of state with reproductive health care, including a tool that would help them find a provider and how to seek financial assistance for those services.

He also signed an executive order over the summer barring state agencies from sharing medical records and other information with other restrictive abortion states’ inquiries or investigations. The executive order blocks the state from extraditing California abortion providers and patients sought by another state for lawful abortion services in California.

Additionally, the governor has advocated for a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

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WASHINGTON — President Biden’s plan to erase significant amounts of student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans could cost about $400 billion, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report Monday, making it one of the costliest programs in the president’s agenda.

The C.B.O. said the price tag might rise even higher because of Mr. Biden’s decision to extend a pause on federal student loan repayments through the end of the year, which could end up costing some $20 billion. The report gauged the cost over a period of 30 years, though the bulk of the effects to the economy would be felt over the next decade.

Although the office called the figures “uncertain,” they are generally in line with those that economists put forth after Mr. Biden announced the program in August. The report is certain to revive the political debate over student loan forgiveness just weeks before the midterm elections. Critics have cast the plan as a costly giveaway that could exacerbate inflation, while the administration argues that it will help millions of low- and middle-income Americans get their footing in a volatile economy.

Mr. Biden’s plan cancels $10,000 in debt for those earning less than $125,000 per year and $20,000 for those who had received Pell grants for low-income families. In its report, the C.B.O. said that of the 37 million borrowers with direct loans from the federal government, 90 percent who are eligible could be expected to take advantage of debt forgiveness once it becomes available. (White House officials have suggested that a far smaller share of eligible borrowers are likely to opt into the program than the budget office predicts, which would reduce its cost.)

In a joint statement, Senators Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, two Democrats who pressured Mr. Biden to enact the policy, said the C.B.O. estimate “makes clear that millions of middle class Americans have more breathing room thanks to President Biden’s historic decision to cancel student debt.”

Still, critics have accused the Biden administration of hiding the plan’s true cost.

Marc Goldwein, the senior vice president for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said that the C.B.O. score did not take into account a significant part of the administration’s loan relief program: a plan to reduce payments for future borrowers who go on to earn low incomes after college, which outside analysts say could host hundreds of billions of dollars more.

“You’re basically buying a very expensive lottery ticket,” Mr. Goldwein said. “When you’re taking out the loan, you’re going to have no idea of how much you’re going to be paying back.”

Monday’s report, issued by a nonpolitical budget scorekeeper, is one of several attempts to estimate the total cost of the program, which Mr. Biden enacted using executive action rather than legislation. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calculates the cost at somewhere between $440 billion and $600 billion over a decade. The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates just over $600 billion over 10 years. The White House has not yet released its own estimate, but officials say it should be available in the coming weeks.

Administration officials have tried to portray the potential costs as much lower than outside groups’ estimates, asserting that debt cancellation is “paid for” by higher-than-expected tax revenues this year — an explanation that defies traditional budget accounting conventions.

“Under the president’s leadership, we are on track to reduce the deficit by over $1 trillion this year,” a White House spokesman, Abdullah Hasan, said in a statement defending the cancellation plan on Monday.

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.

But the budget deficit is coming down not only because of increased tax revenue. The government also borrowed trillions more than usual last year to pay for a $1.9 trillion stimulus package aimed at helping people, businesses and government endure the pandemic — and then did not do a similar round of borrowing this year. Administration officials are effectively arguing that they are paying for student loan relief in part by not borrowing more money for pandemic aid.

In a call with reporters on Monday held shortly after the C.B.O. score was released, administration officials called the estimate “highly uncertain.” In an effort to put the top-line figure into rosier context, the officials pointed out that the administration’s plan would reduce the amount repaid to the Treasury by about $21 billion, or 0.08 percent of the gross domestic product, in 2023, an amount reflected in the C.B.O. report.

The budget office uses a more conventional way of estimating the costs from policies like debt forgiveness, called a present value calculation. It estimates the cost of a plan as if it were delivered in a single windfall. It, too, called its estimates highly uncertain.

The official timing for debt relief is uncertain; the Department of Education has said it would set up an application process by the end of the year. About 60 percent of student loan borrowers have received Pell grants, and a majority come from families making less than $30,000 a year. The Education Department estimated that 27 million borrowers would qualify for up to $20,000 in relief.

More on Student Loan Debt Relief

Millions of other borrowers will be eligible for $10,000 in debt relief, as long as they earn less than $125,000 a year or are in households earning less than $250,000. Borrowers will be assessed based on the income they reported in 2021 or 2020.

Supporters of the measure have argued that Black and Hispanic Americans could benefit the most from the initiative. An analysis released by the Census Bureau last week estimated that some of the largest debt reductions would be among Hispanics with an associate degree, and that Black and Hispanic women would see some of the largest reductions overall.

“We don’t agree with all of C.B.O.’s assumptions that underlie this analysis, but it is clear the pandemic payment pause and student debt cancellation are policies that demonstrate how government can and should invest in working people, not the wealthy and billionaire corporations,” the statement from Mr. Schumer and Ms. Warren said.

Republicans quickly pounced on the report, pointing out that taxpayers who never took out federal student loans would have to help make up the difference.

“Every American should be outraged by the president’s cynical ploy and by the real cost it places on those who stand to benefit the least,” said Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate committee that focuses on health and education and a lawmaker to whom the C.B.O. report was addressed.

The White House indicated on Monday that it would push forward with its plan despite the response from conservative critics. Officials in several states, including Arizona, have threatened to launch legal challenges.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the criticism amounted to “noise” and said that Americans who are eligible should be able to apply for forgiveness “very soon.”

Emily Cochrane contributed reporting from Washington.

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AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida wanted to irritate a set of wealthy, liberal elites when he flew migrants to Martha’s Vineyard from Texas, delivering them a slice of the humanitarian crisis simmering along the nation’s southern border.

But Mr. DeSantis’s stunt also annoyed an entirely different group — fellow Republicans in Austin, including some of the allies and aides of Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.

Publicly, Mr. Abbott has not criticized Mr. DeSantis’s migrant flights from his state. “Every state that wants to help, I’m happy for it,” said Dave Carney, Mr. Abbott’s top campaign strategist.

But privately, the Florida governor’s gambit stung Mr. Abbott’s team. No one in the Texas governor’s office was given a heads-up that Mr. DeSantis planned to round up migrants in San Antonio, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Abbott had spent months — and millions of state tax dollars — methodically orchestrating a relocation program that, since April, had bused 11,000 migrants to Washington, New York and Chicago. Mr. DeSantis’s adaptation was considerably smaller.

But it immediately put the national spotlight on Mr. DeSantis, garnering headlines and earning him praise from Republicans and condemnation from Democrats. It also led to an investigation by the sheriff in San Antonio and a lawsuit from migrants who said they had been lured onto the planes under false pretenses. Mr. DeSantis grabbed the attention of right-wing America, using Mr. Abbott’s tactic, on Mr. Abbott’s turf, to bigger and more dramatic effect.

Mr. DeSantis’s instinct for political theater has helped him quickly turn into Republicans’ leading alternative to former President Donald J. Trump. Even Texas Republicans tell pollsters that they prefer Mr. DeSantis over Mr. Abbott for president in 2024.

The two Republican governors have been locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship, wielding their own unique brands of conservatism and pushing boundaries by using desperate migrants for political gain. In Florida, Mr. DeSantis mused to donors last year about Mr. Abbott’s good political fortune to share 1,254 miles of border with Mexico and complained that he didn’t have the same to use as a backdrop, according to one person familiar with the conversation.

For all the bluster, the war between Austin and Tallahassee is decidedly more cold than hot. Yet, the two governors’ policy moves antagonizing the Biden administration and the Democratic Party as a whole have been unfolding as an interstate call and response, with national repercussions.

The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections

With the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.

In August 2020, Mr. Abbott proposed legislation to punish cities in Texas that took funding away from police departments by preventing them from raising more property tax revenue. The following month, Mr. DeSantis went further, saying he would seek to cut state funding from municipalities that defunded the police.

In February of this year, Mr. Abbott ordered state officials to open child-abuse investigations into medically accepted treatments for transgender youth, including hormones and puberty-suppressing drugs. Last month, Mr. DeSantis said doctors who “disfigure” young people with gender-affirming care should be sued.

In June 2021, on the first day of Pride Month, Mr. DeSantis signed a bill into law that barred transgender girls from playing on female sports teams at public schools. Mr. Abbott followed suit with a similar measure that October.

The competition between Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott has more to do with their job descriptions than any personal animosity. Governors elected to lead megastates like Florida and Texas — two of America’s three largest states that accounted for 15 percent of the Republican presidential vote in 2020 — are automatically injected into the national political arena, where they are sized up and watched closely for signs of White House ambitions.

“Love Florida. Love Texas. Love Florida more,” Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor with deep familial ties to Texas, said when asked about the rivalry between the two states.

When Rick Scott was the governor of Florida and Rick Perry was the governor of Texas, the two Ricks shared a bromance even as both eyed the White House. From Florida, Mr. Scott spoke glowingly of his counterpart’s record of luring businesses. In Texas, Mr. Perry admired his rival’s refusal to accept federal stimulus money for railroads or to expand Medicaid.

Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott have lacked such camaraderie. Their brinkmanship has played out against the backdrop of their re-election bids. Both men are seeking additional four-year terms while facing challenges by well-known Democrats in contests that could help determine their presidential aspirations and the direction of the Republican Party for years to come.

“No one has ever been elected governor of even a small state who didn’t, somewhere deep in their heart, start dreaming about being president,” said Chris Wilson, a pollster who has worked for both men. “So it’s not shocking to see both Abbott and DeSantis jockeying at least a little toward 2024 or beyond.”

Mr. Abbott is the more institutional politician.

He faced no opposition in his first primary election for attorney general in 2002, and was effectively unopposed inside the party when he ran to succeed Mr. Perry as governor in 2014. He has worked to maintain ties with business groups, social conservatives and fellow Republican governors. A former Texas Supreme Court justice, he is a rather lawyerly governor.

Mr. DeSantis is more instinctual.

He emerged from a six-way Republican primary in his first race for the House of Representatives in 2012. He was viewed as an underdog in the 2018 governor’s primary until he became separated from the pack, thanks to an endorsement — and constant promotion — from Mr. Trump. A former lawyer for the Navy at Guantánamo Bay, he is more pugilistic than judicial.

Still, Mr. DeSantis has positioned himself as something of a political loner.

He has eschewed events coordinated by the tight-knit Republican Governors Association. Instead of joining a group of current and former Republican governors on the campaign trail this year to support fellow incumbents, Mr. DeSantis embarked on his own victory lap, promoting the migrant flights during campaign stops with Republican candidates for governor in Kansas and Wisconsin. Those events were organized not by the Republican Governors Association, but by Turning Point USA, a group of younger and more provocative conservative activists close to Mr. Trump and his family.

In Tallahassee, the migrant flights had been discussed for more than a year and had, at one point, centered on relocating the migrants to the Hamptons, the popular Long Island destination for wealthy New Yorkers, according to people familiar with the talks. Initially, the proposal caused some division within Mr. DeSantis’s team.

The contrasting styles of Mr. Abbott and Mr. DeSantis were on clear display last year in their handling of high-profile election bills.

When Mr. Abbott signed a new round of voting restrictions, he traveled to Tyler, the hometown of one of the bill’s chief proponents, and was surrounded by Republican lawmakers, supporters and reporters. When Mr. DeSantis signed his state’s voting restrictions, he, too, was surrounded by fellow Florida Republicans, but the only network that was allowed to cover the event was Fox News, which aired the footage live on its program “Fox & Friends.”

The coronavirus pandemic has been a defining moment for both governors.

Mr. DeSantis burnished his conservative bona fides by challenging Covid safety guidelines from public health officials. He lifted pandemic restrictions on businesses in Florida in September 2020, earlier than most governors.

By contrast, Mr. Abbott found himself clashing with conservatives over the business restrictions and mask mandate that he had ordered. Some donors confronted Mr. Abbott, expressing their disappointment that he was not following Mr. DeSantis’s lead and suggesting that he could lose re-election if he did not move quicker to reopen businesses and return the state to normalcy, according to two Republicans who participated in the meeting.

Mr. Abbott eventually lifted restrictions on businesses in March 2021, months after Mr. DeSantis did.

“Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis have a solid working relationship, having worked together on various initiatives through Republican governors organizations,” Renae Eze, Mr. Abbott’s press secretary, said.

A spokeswoman for Mr. DeSantis did not respond to requests for comment about his relationship with Mr. Abbott and his remark about the border to donors last year.

Last year, after the start of the Biden administration and as migrants arrived at the border in increasing numbers, Mr. Abbott and Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona sought assistance from other states to help police the border.

Florida sent a large contingent of officers and equipment, including low-water boats that could be used along the Rio Grande in Texas.

Soon after, Mr. DeSantis planned a trip to visit the Florida officers stationed at the border. When members of Mr. Abbott’s office learned about the Florida governor’s trip, they timed a news conference to Mr. DeSantis’s arrival and invited him, according to a person familiar with the plans.

On the day of the news conference in July 2021, in an airplane hangar in Del Rio, Texas, Mr. DeSantis arrived long before Mr. Abbott. He met with Florida officers and officers from Texas, and then spent an extended period of time sitting on a couch in the hangar waiting for Mr. Abbott, who arrived about 10 minutes before the briefing.

The two men were dressed in similar black button-down shirts with their respective state seals embossed over the left breast pocket (long sleeves for Mr. DeSantis, short sleeves for Mr. Abbott). They took their positions at a table set up in front of a boat, a plane and a helicopter that had been used to patrol the border. Then they proceeded to stumble over one another at the start of the news conference.

“I think we’re ready to go,” Mr. Abbott began.

“OK,” Mr. DeSantis said, looking into the cameras.

“Good,” Mr. Abbott added.

“Well,” Mr. DeSantis said, his right elbow pointing toward the Texas governor seated next to him.

“So,” said Mr. Abbott, looking back at Mr. DeSantis. “Oh. Help kick it off?”

“I just want to thank ——” Mr. DeSantis said.

“Sure,” Mr. Abbott said.

“Thank you, Greg, for hosting us,” Mr. DeSantis said, turning back to the cameras.

Mr. Abbott invited fellow Republican governors to another news conference at the border that October. Ten showed up.

Mr. DeSantis was not among them.

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Biden will cite the Democrats’ $369 billion climate package, the largest such investment in US history — one that could have significant implications for global greenhouse gas emissions and the US’ standing in the world.

“Last month, I signed the biggest climate bill in history, biggest ever, $369 billion to slash emissions,” Biden will say, according to the remarks.

“This is a whole new chapter for America and for the planet. We have to do a lot more. I pledged $11 billion here to help poor countries fight climate change. Working with Congress, with your help we can get this done,” he’ll say.

The passage of the climate bill boosted Biden’s ability to make good on his international climate commitments, putting the US on a path to slash greenhouse gas emissions from 31% to 44% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, according to nonpartisan climate think tank Rhodium Group. Biden has also pledged to cut US emissions in half by 2030.

First lady Jill Biden is also expected to join her husband in touting the climate package.

“From the Paris agreement, to defending democracy, to standing up to the NRA, we’ve seen what’s possible when we come together, when we vote, when we raise our voices, and work for change,” Jill Biden will say, according to the remarks. “The world is counting on us, all of us, to stand up for the values we hold dear.”

The Global Citizen Festival is focused on tackling extreme poverty and is taking place in New York City. The Bidens’ address — which is pre-taped and will air Saturday evening — was part of an ongoing engagement between the administration and the broader coalition, including climate advocates who are attending the festival, according to the White House official.

The remarks come ahead of November’s COP27 UN climate summit, which will allow Biden to further tout the climate package — this time on the international stage — after not having the necessary legislative weight behind his calls to action at last year’s summit.

CNN’s Ella Nilsen and Angela Dewan contributed to this report.

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U.S. politics faces an awakening

Usually, when the president of the United States and the majority of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are of the same political persuasion, the mid-term elections provide the opposite party with a win in the House or Senate, or both. That said, a few months ago the Republican-loaded Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and set the stage for a fight. The court gave the states the option to allow state legislatures to vote yea or nay as to enacting an abortion ban. The Indiana legislature voted for the ban. Governor Eric Holcomb, Republican, signed it into law.

As shock waves continue to roll through the country, the abortion ban is being forced on American women by male-dominated Republicans in most states. This has stirred up a hornet’s nest in the hearts and minds of women everywhere. I have granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. Needless to say, this new law concerns all of us.

These politicians have no idea what it’s like to be pregnant, or to be pregnant and have complications requiring an abortion. And they appear not to care. Power and domination seem to be their game. A woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions doesn’t matter. And trying to force little girls who have been raped to carry a child to full term is unthinkable. These children’s bodies are hardly ready for pregnancy, let alone motherhood at age 10. As if all of this isn’t enough, doctors will be arrested and sent to prison if they assist and treat women, or young girls, who need their help.

I am reminded of the Battle of Midway at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the Japanese Admiral, Isoroku Yamamoto, who said: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

The mid-term elections are looming, and the women of America are awake.

— Deanna Thompson Mott, Brazil

The Tribune-Star is committed to publishing a diversity of opinions from readers. Email us at opinion@tribstar.com.

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