The next generation of telecom may be years away, but the Biden administration is starting to plan for 6G wireless telecommunication. On Friday, the White House is scheduled to meet with corporate, government and academic experts to begin developing goals and strategies for the new 6G communications technology, according to a Wall Street Journal article https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-begins-planning-for-6g-wireless-communications-246868d0. The technology would ostensibly take cloud computing and the mobile internet to new levels of use.
As Silicon Valley Bank was wobbling last month, large account holders with balances exceeding the federal deposit insurance limits panicked, sparked a bank run that ultimately prompted the federal government to step in with a rescue plan, and triggered widespread debate about potential reforms to the federal deposit insurance system.
All that drama, however, was at odds with federal data showing that bank failures stretching back to the start of the 2007-2009 global financial crisis have in aggregate done very little harm…
Some clarity is emerging regarding statements from Biden administration officials that no one making less than $400,000 will see higher audit rates by the Internal Revenue Service, which is about to step up its scrutiny of wealthy taxpayers.
The Inflation Reduction Act — the tax and climate package enacted last summer — earmarked $80 billion for the IRS over the next decade and a half. The money is intended in part to facilitate more audits of corporations and wealthier individuals.
Ahead of the bill’s passage, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledged that there would be no increase in the audit rate for households and small businesses with annual incomes below $400,000 “relative to historical levels.”
But Republican critics and other observers have asked what “historical levels” might actually mean.
The audit rate on returns for tax year 2018 is the reference point to keep in mind, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told senators on Wednesday. He emphasized that “there’s no surge coming for workers, retirees and others.”
The IRS audited fewer than 1% of 2018 returns with total positive incomes — the sum of all positive amounts shown for various sources of income reported on an individual income-tax return, which excludes losses — of between $1 and $500,000, according to statistics that the tax agency released last week.
The agency has three years to start an audit from the time it receives a return.
The numbers show that 0.4% of returns for taxpayers earning up to $25,000 were audited. That figure was 0.3% for returns between $200,000 and $500,000 and more than 9% for returns over $10 million, the IRS data show. Six years earlier, more than 13% of returns over $10 million were scrutinized, according to the IRS.
“Help us with understanding what the words ‘historic level’ means,” Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, asked Werfel during a Wednesday budget hearing.
“We will take the most recent final audit rate, and it’s historically low … and we allow that to be the marker for least several years, and then we’re revisit it,” Werfel said. The 2018 audit rates were the newest final rates, he added.
“So the 2018 number is what it’s going to be?” Lankford asked.
“Yes,” Werfel replied.
“Werfel’s explanation that 2018 audit levels will be the reference point is the most detail I’ve heard so far,” Erica York, s senior economist at the Tax Foundation, told MarketWatch. “He did seem to leave open the possibility of revisiting the reference year for ‘historical’ in the future,” she added.
Another open question has been how the $400,000 income threshold will be determined. Months after the Inflation Reduction Act passed, IRS and Treasury officials still hadn’t finalized what counted as $400,000 in income, according to a January Treasury Department watchdog report.
“How are you arriving at this number?” asked Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee. Blackburn’s state has many self-employed entrepreneurs who might appear richer on paper than they actually are, she said. “While they may have a higher gross, their net is very low,” she added.
“We’re going to look at total positive income as our metric,” Werfel said. He later added that “there would be no increased likelihood of an audit if they have less than $400,000 in total positive income.”
The IRS description of total positive income as “the sum of all positive amounts shown for the various sources of income reported on an individual income tax return and, thus, excludes losses” represents, effectively, a tally of income before taxpayers subtract their losses.
Total positive income is a metric the IRS usually applies to categorize audits, the Tax Foundation’s York noted. But one challenge of strict thresholds for more audits, she said, “is that it creates incentives for underreporting income” to stay under the line.
Compared with recent years, there are now more specifics about how the IRS will implement additional audits of higher-income taxpayers, said Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
“But still there are questions,” she noted, about how the agency will treat situations when taxpayers don’t provide full picture of their income.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday extended access to an abortion pill through Friday. Abortion opponents are seeking to roll back federal government approval of the drug, mifepristone. The Biden administration and drug maker Danco Laboratories want the high court to reject limits on the drug’s use. In an order last Friday, the Supreme Court put restrictions on hold through today to consider an emergency appeal.
S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Monday afternoon that a 2017 rule barring companies with multiple share classes from joining indexes such as the S&P 500 SPX, +0.33%
has been dropped. The move comes after the index manager consulted with “market participants” at the end of last year to discuss several potential changes to the policy.
Snap’s move was an acceleration of an approach used by a generation of Silicon Valley tech companies to ensure that founders retained control of their companies even while selling shares to the public. Companies such as Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. META, -1.19%
and Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, -2.66% GOOG, -2.78%
used similar structures that provided their leaders with special shares that included increased voting rights, which Snap took further by offering no voting rights.
In response, FTSE Russell established rules about putting votes in the public’s hands while selling stock, and S&P Dow Jones Indices completely barred all companies that had multiple classes of stock from joining its core indexes. While FTSE Russell’s rule — which requires that at least 5% of votes rest in the hands of public investors — remains, S&P Dow Jones Indices will now drop its rule entirely, after roughly 80% of respondents voted in favor of a change in 2017.
There were other options besides completely dropping the rule. Participants in the consultation process were given several options and asked to rank them, including barring companies that only offer nonvoting stock to the public — such as Snap — or allowing companies that establish “sunset” provisions that would eventually revert all shares to equal voting rights.
The change to allow all companies with multiple share classes to join the S&P Composite 1500 and its multiple component indexes is effective as of Monday, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced, though no changes were immediately made to any index. Tracking stocks will still not be eligible for inclusion, according to the announcement.
BRUSSELS — In the weeks since Chinese leader Xi Jinping won a third five-year term as president, setting him on course to remain in power for life, leaders and diplomats from around the world have beaten a path to his door. None more so than those from Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron made a high-profile state visit to Beijing last week accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, just days after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in the northeast port city of Tianjin on Thursday, following a visit by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in November. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, would have been in China this week, too, but he tested positive for COVID-19.
For the 27-nation trading bloc, the reasons to head to China are clear.
As an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi could play a pivotal role in helping to end the war in Ukraine. The conflict has dragged on for over a year, driven up energy prices and inflicted more damage on economies struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Europeans want Xi’s help. They want him to talk to Ukraine’s president as well as Russia’s, but they don’t see him as the key mediator. China’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine is mostly a list of its previously known positions and is unacceptable, EU officials say.
The EU also fears that Xi might supply weapons to Russia. They’ve been particularly disturbed by Putin’s plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. That announcement came just days after Xi and Putin met to cement their “no-limits friendship.”
Baerbock said the war is “top of my agenda.” Praising Beijing for easing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, she said that “its influence vis à vis Russia will have consequences for the whole of Europe and for our relationship with China.”
At the same time, the EU is deeply concerned about a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait. China launched war games just after Macron left. But unlike the U.S., with its military and strategic interest in Taiwan, the Europeans mostly see the island in economic and pro-democracy terms.
So the visits are meant to reassure Xi of respect for Beijing’s control over all of Chinese territory and to urge calm. They also highlight the challenge the U.S. faces as it tries to build a coalition of countries to ramp up pressure on Beijing over its expansionist policies.
“The key is that we have every interest, both in Europe and in China, to maintain the status quo,” a senior EU official said Wednesday, briefing reporters on plans for Borrell’s sensitive trip on condition that he not be named. “It has worked well for all sides for decades.”
Beyond the geopolitics lies business. The EU and China did more than 2.3 billion euros’ ($2.5 billion) worth of trade every day last year, and the Europeans don’t want to endanger that. However, the EU’s trade deficit has more than tripled over the past decade, and it wants to level the business playing field.
It’s also desperate to limit its imports of critical resources from China, like rare earth minerals or hi-tech components, after painfully weaning itself off its biggest, and most unreliable, gas supplier, Russia.
It’s a fine line to walk, and China is adept at divide-and-conquer politics.
Over the past two decades, the Chinese government has often used its economic heft to pry France, Germany and other allies away from the U.S. on issues ranging from military security and trade to human rights and Taiwan.
Beijing has called repeatedly for a “multi-polar world,” a reference to Chinese frustration with U.S. dominance of global affairs and the ruling Communist Party’s ambition to see the country become an international leader.
“There has been a serious deviation in U.S. understanding and positioning about China, treating China as the primary opponent and the biggest geopolitical challenge,” the Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, told reporters last month.
“China-Europe relations are not targeted, dependent, or subject to third parties,” he said.
Macron’s visit appeared to illustrate that Qin’s view isn’t just wishful thinking. As tensions rise between Beijing and Washington, the French leader said, it is important for Europe to retain its “strategic autonomy.”
“Being a friend doesn’t mean that you have to be a vassal,” Macron said Wednesday, repeating a remark from his trip that alarmed some European partners. “Just because we’re allies, it doesn’t mean (that) we no longer have the right to think for ourselves.”
Such comments could strain ties with the U.S. and have also exposed divisions within the EU.
Without mentioning Macron, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned that some in Europe were too slow to heed the “wake-up call” on China.
“You could see this over the past couple of weeks as some European leaders went to Beijing,” Morawiecki said, adding: “I do not quite understand the idea of strategic autonomy, if it means de-facto shooting into our own knee.”
For its part, the White House has sought to downplay Macron’s talk of Europe as “an independent pole in a multi-polar world.”
It thinks European skepticism toward Beijing is growing. U.S. officials note a recent Dutch decision to restrict China’s access to advanced computer chip components or Scholz publicly prodding Xi not to deliver weapons to Russia.
Despite the differences of national emphasis, the EU’s strategy on China remains much as it was enshrined in 2019 — that the Asian giant is “a partner, a competitor and systemic rival.” The aim of the recent visits fit that mold: to secure Xi’s commitment to peace, keep trade flowing fairly and reduce Europe’s reliance on China for critical resources.
___
Joe McDonald in Beijing, Aamer Madhani in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.
BRUSSELS — In the weeks since Chinese leader Xi Jinping won a third five-year term as president, setting him on course to remain in power for life, leaders and diplomats from around the world have beaten a path to his door. None more so than those from Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron made a high-profile state visit to Beijing last week accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, just days after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in the northeast port city of Tianjin on Thursday, following a visit by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in November. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, would have been in China this week, too, but he tested positive for COVID-19.
For the 27-nation trading bloc, the reasons to head to China are clear.
As an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi could play a pivotal role in helping to end the war in Ukraine. The conflict has dragged on for over a year, driven up energy prices and inflicted more damage on economies struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Europeans want Xi’s help. They want him to talk to Ukraine’s president as well as Russia’s, but they don’t see him as the key mediator. China’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine is mostly a list of its previously known positions and is unacceptable, EU officials say.
The EU also fears that Xi might supply weapons to Russia. They’ve been particularly disturbed by Putin’s plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. That announcement came just days after Xi and Putin met to cement their “no-limits friendship.”
Baerbock said the war is “top of my agenda.” Praising Beijing for easing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, she said that “its influence vis à vis Russia will have consequences for the whole of Europe and for our relationship with China.”
At the same time, the EU is deeply concerned about a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait. China launched war games just after Macron left. But unlike the U.S., with its military and strategic interest in Taiwan, the Europeans mostly see the island in economic and pro-democracy terms.
So the visits are meant to reassure Xi of respect for Beijing’s control over all of Chinese territory and to urge calm. They also highlight the challenge the U.S. faces as it tries to build a coalition of countries to ramp up pressure on Beijing over its expansionist policies.
“The key is that we have every interest, both in Europe and in China, to maintain the status quo,” a senior EU official said Wednesday, briefing reporters on plans for Borrell’s sensitive trip on condition that he not be named. “It has worked well for all sides for decades.”
Beyond the geopolitics lies business. The EU and China did more than 2.3 billion euros’ ($2.5 billion) worth of trade every day last year, and the Europeans don’t want to endanger that. However, the EU’s trade deficit has more than tripled over the past decade, and it wants to level the business playing field.
It’s also desperate to limit its imports of critical resources from China, like rare earth minerals or hi-tech components, after painfully weaning itself off its biggest, and most unreliable, gas supplier, Russia.
It’s a fine line to walk, and China is adept at divide-and-conquer politics.
Over the past two decades, the Chinese government has often used its economic heft to pry France, Germany and other allies away from the U.S. on issues ranging from military security and trade to human rights and Taiwan.
Beijing has called repeatedly for a “multi-polar world,” a reference to Chinese frustration with U.S. dominance of global affairs and the ruling Communist Party’s ambition to see the country become an international leader.
“There has been a serious deviation in U.S. understanding and positioning about China, treating China as the primary opponent and the biggest geopolitical challenge,” the Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, told reporters last month.
“China-Europe relations are not targeted, dependent, or subject to third parties,” he said.
Macron’s visit appeared to illustrate that Qin’s view isn’t just wishful thinking. As tensions rise between Beijing and Washington, the French leader said, it is important for Europe to retain its “strategic autonomy.”
“Being a friend doesn’t mean that you have to be a vassal,” Macron said Wednesday, repeating a remark from his trip that alarmed some European partners. “Just because we’re allies, it doesn’t mean (that) we no longer have the right to think for ourselves.”
Such comments could strain ties with the U.S. and have also exposed divisions within the EU.
Without mentioning Macron, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned that some in Europe were too slow to heed the “wake-up call” on China.
“You could see this over the past couple of weeks as some European leaders went to Beijing,” Morawiecki said, adding: “I do not quite understand the idea of strategic autonomy, if it means de-facto shooting into our own knee.”
For its part, the White House has sought to downplay Macron’s talk of Europe as “an independent pole in a multi-polar world.”
It thinks European skepticism toward Beijing is growing. U.S. officials note a recent Dutch decision to restrict China’s access to advanced computer chip components or Scholz publicly prodding Xi not to deliver weapons to Russia.
Despite the differences of national emphasis, the EU’s strategy on China remains much as it was enshrined in 2019 — that the Asian giant is “a partner, a competitor and systemic rival.” The aim of the recent visits fit that mold: to secure Xi’s commitment to peace, keep trade flowing fairly and reduce Europe’s reliance on China for critical resources.
___
Joe McDonald in Beijing, Aamer Madhani in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.
The contest to become the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee is heating up, with Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and longshot candidate Vivek Ramaswamy each announcing runs since the beginning of the year, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson joining the fray in a Sunday-show appearance on April 2.
And former President Donald Trump appears to be getting a political lift from a Manhattan district attorney’s case against him, though some analysts don’t see the boost lasting.
Biden gave a fresh hint on Monday about his re-election bid at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, saying in an interview with Al Roker of NBC’s “Today” show that he aims to take part in “at least three or four more Easter egg rolls. Maybe five. Maybe six.”
“I’m planning on running, Al, but we’re not prepared to announce it yet,” the president said.
Democrats largely have closed ranks behind President Joe Biden ahead of next year’s election, but he isn’t completely without challengers for the party’s nomination.
Author and activist Marianne Williamson has thrown her hat in the ring, pursuing a longshot bid that comes after her 2020 presidential campaign fizzled out before the Iowa caucuses.
Why isn’t she falling in line and supporting her party’s incumbent president? What’s her pitch to people who think she’s not a serious candidate? What are her top economic proposals?
Williamson, 70, tackled those questions and more in a phone interview earlier this week.
Our Q&A with the Democratic presidential hopeful has been edited for clarity and length.
MarketWatch: In a nutshell, could you explain why you’re running for president?
Williamson: I’m running for president because I believe that some things need to be said and some changes need to be made, in order to repair some serious damage that’s been done to our democracy, to our country, to our people and to our environment over the last 50 years.
MarketWatch: You’ve talked about running to address “systemic economic injustices endured by millions of Americans” because of the “undue influence of corporate money on our political system.” What do you see as the top examples of that?
Williamson: During the 1970s, the average American worker had decent benefits, could afford a home, could afford a yearly vacation, could afford a car and could afford to send their child to college. In the last 48 years, there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1% of Americans. That transfer has decimated our middle class. We are now at a point where if you are among 20% of Americans, then the economy’s doing pretty well for you. But, unfortunately, that 20% is surrounded by a vast sea of economic despair. We have 60,000 people in the United States who die every year because they can’t afford healthcare XLV, -1.11%,
one in four Americans living with a medical debt, and 18 million Americans unable to fill the prescriptions that their doctors give to them.
If you are in the club in America, if you are making it in America — and I have sold some books, so I understand the high side of the free market and have benefited, and I’m grateful for that — but no conscious persons wants to feel that they create wealth at the expense of other people having a chance. That is not American. It’s not what the American Dream is supposed to be.
I’m not trying to whitewash and romanticize American capitalism before this era. I’m not saying we were ever perfect, but it does seem to me that when I was growing up, the social consensus is that we were supposed to try. We knew that the higher good was that there would be this balance between individual liberty, including economic liberty, and a concern for the common good. But today concern for the common good has become almost derided as some quaint notion, and that we shouldn’t really give much more than lip service to it. And that’s a lot of human suffering that occurs because of that change in the social contract.
MarketWatch: Here’s kind of a two-part question. What would be your top economic priorities, and how in particular would you address high inflation and the recent banking KBE, -1.65% crisis?
Williamson: I’d like to see universal healthcare. I want to see tuition-free college at state colleges and universities, which is what we had in this country until the 1960s. There should be free childcare. There should be paid family leave. There should be guaranteed sick pay and a livable wage. And I think Americans are waking up to the fact that those things that I just mentioned are considered moderate issues in every other advanced democracy. They should not be considered left-wing fringe issues. They are granted to the citizens of every other advanced democracy.
That was your first question. The second has to do with high inflation. A lot of that high inflation has to do with price gouging by huge corporations, whether it has to do with food companies, transportation companies and so forth. All of those CEOs should testify before Congress and talk about the ways that they have — for the sake of their own profits — gouged the American people, particularly at such a time as this. And this is what happens when we normalize such a lack of conscience and such a lack of ethics within our system.
In terms of what happened with the bank in Silicon Valley SIVBQ, -3.39%,
which is what your third question was, right? I think the depositors should be made whole, but the bank executives who were taking multimillion-dollar bonuses for themselves, both before and right after the crash, they certainly should not get those bonuses. And also it’s concerning that some of the tech investors that would benefit the most from those deposits were the ones who caused the run on the bank. I don’t think that they should receive the benefit of what happens when those deposits are made whole. But the average depositor absolutely should be made whole in such cases.
MarketWatch: You mentioned free tuition and child care. Where would the funding for that come from?
Williamson: The funding should come, first of all, from taxation. The 2017 tax cut in this country was a $2 trillion tax cut, and 83 cents of every dollar went to the highest-earning corporations and individuals. Now that tax cut also included the middle-class tax cut, and the middle-class tax cut was good.
That tax cut for the highest earners should be repealed, but the middle-class tax cut should be put back in immediately.
Secondly, we should stop all the corporate subsidies. Why are we giving subsidies to these companies that are already making multibillions of dollars in profit and often then price gouging the American people?
Third, I believe there should be a wealth tax. If somebody has $50 million, I don’t have any problem with their paying an extra 2% tax. And if they have $1 billion, let them pay another 1%. Somebody with a $50 million portfolio, much less $1 billion in assets, would not even feel that change, but the changes in people’s lives that would be created by those shifts would be huge.
MarketWatch: Your campaign often gets described as a real longshot bid. Why are you running when so many people say you have a low chance for success?
Williamson: Well, certainly Donald Trump was considered a longshot. For that matter, when he began Barack Obama was considered a longshot. Surely we remember when Hillary Clinton was considered a shoo-in.
MarketWatch: A recent Monmouth University poll of Democratic voters found 11% had a favorable view of you, 16% had an unfavorable view, 21% had no opinion, and 52% had not heard of you. How do you win over those voters who have an unfavorable view, and how do you reach the folks who haven’t heard of you?
Williamson: Well, there was a poll that came out last week that put me at 10%, including 18% with independents and 21% with people under 30.
It’s very difficult for someone like myself to get the message out when you have such institutional resistance to my even being in the conversation, and that is displayed in various ways. But there is independent media today. God knows there’s TikTok, where my information seems to be doing quite well.
This early, no candidate should be allowing the polls to determine their path forward. I didn’t go into this expecting the approval of institutional forces. And I, as a matter of fact, expected the kind of resistance that I’ve received, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that a certain agenda be placed before the American people, and I am providing that option — the option of that alternative agenda.
I believe that agenda is the way for the Democrats to win in 2024. But even more importantly, I think it’s the agenda that will lead to the repair of this country.
MarketWatch: You mentioned TikTok, and that has been a hot topic in Washington, D.C., in recent weeks. Do you have a view on the Democratic and Republican proposals to ban TikTok in the U.S.?
Williamson: I think the United States government does need to be concerned with tech XLK, -1.00%
surveillance, but I wish they were as concerned when it comes to American-run companies as when it comes to Chinese. It’s a serious issue, it’s a valid issue — the whole issue of surveillance. But it’s a gnarly issue as well, and rushing to shut something down, which is so obviously a platform depended on by millions and millions of Americans for information sharing, is never something that should be done lightly.
MarketWatch: Some Americans may know you only for your spiritual work, and these folks may not think you’re a serious presidential candidate. The White House press secretary indicated she’s in that camp. What’s your message to win those folks over?
Williamson: First of all, I don’t think of my campaign as quote-unquote trying to win anyone over. There’s something that I read years ago that has always guided my work: “If there’s something you genuinely need to say, there’s someone out there who genuinely needs to hear it.” I am speaking to people who I know agree with me. I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t aware that millions of people agree with me.
I think it’s very sad that the president would allow a presidential press podium to be used to mock a political opponent, and I think that many people were and are offended by that. This is a democracy. We should have as many voices out there as possible. We should have as many people running in an election as feel moved. Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. There are ideas on the left and ideas on the right. There are ideas all across the spectrum, and this is a point in American history where we as Americans should hear them all.
MarketWatch: What do you think are some of the main things that President Biden has gotten right, and in what areas has he gone wrong?
Williamson: Well, the first thing he did right was he defeated Donald Trump. The president has taken an incremental approach to America’s problems, and I believe that he does wish to alleviate the suffering of many people whose lives are affected by some deeply unjust systems. But I don’t think that the alleviation of stress is enough right now. We need fundamental economic reform.
We also need a serious answer to climate change, and the president’s approval of the Willow project is not that. The president has said that he recognizes that climate change is an existential crisis, and yet he has given more oil CL00, +0.34%
permits than even Donald Trump did, and he has approved the Willow project.
The Democratic House and Senate — they did cut child poverty in half with the child tax credit, but then, when that expired six months later, they didn’t bother to permanentize it.
These are the kinds of half-measures and incremental measures which are not enough to change the fundamental economic patterns in this country that lead to so much chronic economic anxiety and despair.
Joe Biden is shown in conversation in August 2019 with Marianne Williamson during an event for Democratic presidential candidates in Clear Lake, Iowa.
AFP via Getty Images
MarketWatch: One thing that comes up often with President Biden is his age, which is 80, while you’re 70. Do you think his age should be a concern, or is it ageism to bring it up?
Williamson: I think the individual has to consider this themselves. I have a problem, of course, contributing to the conversation because of the issue of ageism. But on the other hand, everybody can see for themselves what they can see for themselves.
I can only say if I were 80, I wouldn’t be running. But you know, I will not take potshots at the president, and I think that veers into potshots.
MarketWatch: Let’s talk about taking on Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or whomever the Republican nominee ends up being. Why do you think you’re the Democrat who could end up beating one of them?
Williamson: Republicans are going to throw some big lies at the Democrats in 2024, and the only way that we’re going to defeat them, in my opinion, is to tell some big truths. Franklin Roosevelt said we would not have to worry about a fascist takeover in this country as long as democracy delivered on its promises. Democracy has not delivered on its promises. The only way to beat Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis in 2024 is to propose an agenda in which democracy once again delivers on its promises to the majority of the American people. And that would mean the issues I mentioned before: universal healthcare, tuition-free college, free child care, a guaranteed livable wage and paid family leave. Those are given to the citizens in every other advanced democracy, and there is no good reason whatsoever why they are not delivered to the average citizen in the United States.
MarketWatch: There are Democrats who could be challenging President Biden for the party’s 2024 nomination, but they aren’t and instead they’re supporting him. Why aren’t there more efforts in the party to get people to run for president?
Williamson: Well, you’d have to ask them why they’re not running. But there’s clearly a trope that the field should clear, and everybody should simply get in line with the opinion of the Democratic establishment that Biden is the man because they have decided so. I don’t see it that way. I believe the Democratic primary voters — and independent voters and anyone else, if it’s an open primary — they should decide who the Democratic candidate is. To me, that’s what democracy is. That’s what elections are about.
MarketWatch: The Democratic Party is not expected to hold presidential primary debates for 2024. What can you do to change that and get some time on a debate stage?
Williamson: Well, I hope to have a successful campaign. I hope to have high poll numbers. I hope to have a lot of people in those primary states yelling foul. It’s a government of the people, by the people, for the people. The American people should hear what their options are, and that’s what a debate would be. If enough people realize that and believe it and make laws about it, then that is what will happen.
I think sometimes there’s a kind of learned powerlessness on the part of the American people today. We forget the radicalism of the American experiment, which is that the governance of this country is supposed to be in our hands. But the American people have been trained to expect too little and almost trained to give up the power of independent thought. I hope that my campaign and other things that occur in this campaign season will awaken people, and I think a certain kind of awakening is happening already.
MarketWatch: We’re a financially focused publication, so here’s a question along those lines. I looked at your financial disclosure from your 2020 presidential run. It showed some investments in big public companies like Apple AAPL, -0.58%
and Mastercard MA, +0.27%
…
Williamson: Wait, what are you talking about?
MarketWatch: That’s from your 2019 executive-branch personnel public financial disclosure report. It shows investments in various stocks and funds. The question — for our readers who are investors or people saving for retirement — is could you describe your own approach to investing and preparing for retirement?
Williamson: Socially responsible investing, and that’s why I said, “Whoa, what?” Because I believe in investing in socially responsible companies.
MarketWatch: One last question: What else would you like people to know?
Williamson: America has some serious problems, but we have infinite potential to solve those problems. We need to revisit our first principles, as John Adams said, and find that place in our hearts where, as Americans, as adults in this generation, we recognize that this profound idea of American democracy is put in our hands for safekeeping. And that doesn’t just give us rights; it gives us responsibilities. The political system in the United States speaks to us too often like we’re children, like we’re seventh-graders. Our public dialogue is too often on this kind of seventh-grade level. This is not a time to be an immature thinker, and it’s not a time to get into mean-spiritedness or cynicism either. If we allow ourselves to rise to the occasion, no matter what our politics are, we’re going to repair what has been broken, and we are going to initiate a new beginning. I think that’s possible. Other generations have done it, and we can do it, too.
MarketWatch: Thank you for being available to chat.
DUBLIN — DUBLIN (AP) — In Ireland this week, well-wishers have lined the streets to catch a mere glimpse of President Joe Biden. Photos of his smiling face are plastered on shop windows, and one admirer held a sign reading, “2024 — Make Joe President Again.”
No wonder Biden keeps joking about sticking around.
Back home, Biden’s approval rating is near the lowest point of his presidency. And even some fellow Democrats have suggested he shouldn’t run for reelection. On trips within the U.S. to discuss his economic and social policies, Biden often gets a smattering of admirers waving as he drives by, and friendly crowds applaud his speeches. But the reception doesn’t compare with the overwhelming adoration he’s getting here in the old sod.
Expect more of the same on Friday, when Biden wraps up his visit to Ireland by spending a day in County Mayo in western Ireland, where his great-great-grandfather Patrick Blewitt lived until he left for the United States in 1850. The locals have been abuzz for weeks with preparation for Biden’s visit, giving buildings a new coat of paint and hanging American flags from shopfronts.
It’s a dynamic that most of Biden’s predecessors also have faced: The world abroad tends to love American presidents. Back home, not always. Not so much.
“With the greatest of respect, Mr. President, I must say, you sure can draw a crowd,” Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl, speaker of the lower chamber of Ireland’s parliament, said as he introduced Biden’s joint address to lawmakers on Thursday. “Perhaps afterwards you might give me some hints on how we could ensure good attendance around here.”
A U.S. president’s overseas trips often offer a backdrop and substance that are difficult to replicate on home turf. Biden’s Ireland trip has been heady with nostalgia and fellowship — grand sweeping hills and cozy towns fitting for just such a mood.
Presidential visits come with the pageantry of Air Force One landings, long motorcades and “the beast,” Biden’s limo, which other world leaders, like Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, delight in riding.
“He can feel the love in a way that’s hard to do at home,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “There’s something about an American president being in your country that makes a nation’s press and public go gaga.”
“With the exception of the pope, the American president is usually the most coveted global figure,” Brinkley said.
During Biden’s visit to Warsaw, Poland, in February, thousands of people gathered at the foot of the Royal Castle to hear the president deliver a speech on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With the castle lit in the colors of the Ukrainian flag behind him, Biden vowed that “Democracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow and forever” to a rapt audience. As Biden exited the stage, he paused one more time to take in the scene, and a man in the audience bellowed out: “You’re our hero!”
When Biden spoke to the Canadian parliament in March, the chamber broke into applause 34 times. In a country in which English and French are spoken, Biden produced a thunderous round of clapping by simply opening his speech with “Bonjour, Canada.”
Even in Ireland, though, the acclaim was not universal. The small left-wing party People Before Profit vowed to boycott Biden’s speech to parliament because of opposition to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.
People Before Profit lawmaker Paul Murphy said the president’s trip was being “treated as a visit by an interesting Irish-American celebrity, as opposed to a visit of the most powerful person in the world who needs to be asked hard questions about the kinds of policies that he is pursuing.”
But Biden’s critics overseas tend to be far less personal with their jibes than what he gets in the U.S.
One demonstrator Thursday held up a paper sign that said “Arrest War Criminal Biden” as the president’s motorcade headed for the Irish president’s house. During his Warsaw trip, a group stood in a square across the street from his hotel and chanted for hours, asking him to supply fighter jets to Ukraine. In 2021, when Biden met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland, protesters urged the U.S. president to press the case of jailed Russian leader Alexei Navalny.
In the U.S., a few demonstrators routinely line up along the presidential motorcade route with flags emblazoned with “Let’s Go Brandon” — a coded insult for something far more vulgar that’s been embraced by some on the right. He’s also often confronted with signs claiming “Trump won,” a reference to former President Donald Trump’s repeated lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
Biden is far from the only U.S. president to find appreciation abroad that seems more elusive at home.
Then-President Bill Clinton found refuge overseas from the investigations pressing in on him at home. In his last year in office, President George W. Bush was about as well liked at home as Richard Nixon right before he resigned in scandal, according to the Pew Research Center. Bush’s reputation also plunged around the world as the Iraq War devolved into a quagmire.
But Bush remained more popular in Africa, where he boosted foreign aid and battled the AIDS epidemic. He visited five countries on a trip to the continent in 2008, touting his accomplishments at a time of domestic backlash.
His successor, President Barack Obama, saw his fortunes diverge in his first term. The grinding fallout from the Great Recession dragged down his approval ratings in the U.S., but views elsewhere in the world remained untarnished.
The Irish response to Biden has been overwhelmingly positive for Cousin Joe, as many have called him. In the town of Dundalk, in County Louth, thousands of people waited nearly eight hours to see him. As he made his way through streets filled with admirers, some strained to get even a touch from him.
Biden took selfies. He smiled at children. And he took a whirlwind tour of ancestral sites, pausing at Carlingford Castle, which could well have been the last Irish landmark that Owen Finnegan, his maternal great-great-grandfather, saw before sailing for New York in 1849. As he gazed at the sea, thousands cheered to him from the streets below, mixing with the sound of bagpipes that wafted from the green hills.
“I don’t know why the hell my ancestors left here,” Biden said. “It’s beautiful.”
___
Megerian reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Josh Boak and Zeke Miller in Washington, Jill Lawless in London and David Keyton in Dublin contributed to this report.
Series I bonds had a good two-year run at the top of the interest-rate heap, but the next 6-month rate that will be announced on May 1 is likely to fall so low that buyers probably won’t show up in record-breaking numbers.
I-bonds are priced based on two factors: a variable rate based on six months of inflation data (from October through March) and a fixed rate that is less transparently calculated. The latest CPI numbers for March indicate that the variable rate is going to pan out at an annualized rate of 3.38%, down from…
BELFAST, Northern Ireland — President Joe Biden is in Northern Ireland to participate in marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to this part of the United Kingdom after the U.S. helped negotiate an end to decades of sectarian violence that killed thousands.
On his first presidential visit to Northern Ireland, Biden was set to deliver congratulations and encourage the country’s leaders to work on universally beneficial trade and economic policies when he speaks Wednesday at a business development event at Ulster University’s campus in Belfast.
But Biden was not expected to make any attempt to help resolve a new political crisis that has rattled the Good Friday peace deal and put Northern Ireland’s government on pause.
Instead, the Democratic president will deliver at least two messages, said White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, who is traveling with Biden.
“Congratulations on 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement, which has brought unprecedented peace and prosperity,” Kirby said. “And that kind of goes to the second goal, which is to talk about the importance of trying to work on trade and economic policies that benefit all communities, as well as the United States.”
Biden opens his brief public schedule in Northern Ireland on Wednesday over coffee with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Before speaking at Ulster, he will meet with each of the leaders of Northern Ireland’s five main political parties.
Northern Ireland is without a functioning government. Stormont, the seat of its assembly, has been suspended since the Democratic Unionist Party, which formed half of a power-sharing government, walked out a year ago over a post-Brexit trade dispute.
Britain’s departure from the European Union left Northern Ireland poised uneasily between the rest of the U.K. and EU member Ireland, and put the peace agreement under increased strain.
After much wrangling, Britain and the EU struck a deal in February to address the tensions over trade, an agreement welcomed by the U.S., which had urged London and Brussels to end their post-Brexit feud. The Democratic Unionist Party, though, says the Windsor Framework doesn’t go far enough and has refused to return to government.
As he set off for Belfast, Biden on Tuesday said a priority of his trip to Northern Ireland was to “keep the peace.”
After the speech at Ulster University, Biden will travel to the Republic of Ireland for a three-day visit, including an address to the Dublin parliament, attendance at a gala dinner and trips to two ancestral hometowns. He will fly to County Louth, on Ireland’s east coast, on Wednesday to visit a cemetery, tour a castle, walk around downtown Dundalk and attend a community gathering.
A few Belfast residents said Biden’s visit was important even though it will be short.
“I think it’s great that he’s coming because of the anniversary of ‘the Troubles,’” Julie McNeill said Monday as she waited in the rain for a bus. She was referring to more than three decades of sectarian violence that left more than 3,600 people dead. “I think it’s important that he does come.”
Still, McNeill said she was a little disappointed that the Irish American president would spend less than a day in Belfast. But she said she understood.
“I mean, the man’s a busy man, and he’s 80 years old. I’m sure it’s hard for him,” she said.
Samuel Olufemia, who is studying for a degree in public health from Ulster University, said he was looking forward to meeting Biden on campus.
“Having him in Belfast here is a privilege,” said Olufemia, who is from Nigeria. “It’s going to be an historic visit and that’s one of the reasons I’m excited.”
He said he also understands that Biden is too busy to stay longer. “The president always have other things to do,” Olufemia said.
A massive security operation was in place for Biden’s stay in Belfast, with a heavy police presence on blocked off streets around the president’s hotel and the Ulster campus.
Last month, U.K. intelligence services raised the country’s terrorism threat level from “substantial” to “severe.” But Biden said then that not even the heightened risk of an attack would keep him from making the trip.
Biden last visited Ireland in 2016, when he was U.S. vice president.
Moderna Inc. said Tuesday it’s working to develop its first bacterial vaccine to protect against Lyme disease, the tick-borne illness that causes a range of painful symptoms, including fever, headaches, fatigue, joint pain and rash.
The biotech MRNA, -2.75%,
whose first product to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was its mRNA-based COVID vaccine, said it has two candidates in development to address Lyme disease, named mRNA-1982 and mRNA-1975.
It announced the news at its fourth Vaccine Day, where it offered a full update on its clinical pipeline, which includes vaccines to protect against flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, as well as HIV, Epstein-Barr virus and herpes simplex virus, among others.
There are about 120,000 cases of Lyme disease in the U.S. and Europe every year, creating a “significant quality of life burden,” the company said in a statement. Rising temperatures are helping the disease spread more easily, and it is difficult to diagnose, because the symptoms are similar to those of many other diseases. It most seriously affects children below the age of 15 and older adults.
“Older adults appear to have higher odds of unfavorable treatment response as compared with younger patients, and neurologic manifestations are more common at presentation for this older adult population,” said the statement.
Tick and Lyme disease season is here, and scientists warn this year could be worse than ever. Dr. Goudarz Molaei joins Lunch Break’s Tanya Rivero to explain what triggered the rapid spread of the disease and how people can avoid being affected. Photo: Kent Wood/Science Source
The mRNA-1982 candidate is designed to create antibodies for Borrelia burgdorferi, the pathogen that causes almost all Lyme disease in the U.S., while mRNA-1975 is designed to elicit antibodies specific to the four major Borrelia species that cause the disease in the U.S. and Europe.
Other new candidates in Moderna’s pipeline include mRNA-1405 and mRNA-1403, which aim to address the enteric virus norovirus. Norovirus is highly contagious and is the leading cause of diarrheal disease globally, Moderna said. It’s associated with about 18% of all such illnesses worldwide and causes about 200,000 deaths every year.
Overall, Moderna is expecting to launch six major vaccine products in the next few years, all of them with large addressable markets.
The company expects the annual global endemic market for COVID boosters alone to be worth about $15 billion.
It has dosed the first participant in a late-stage trial of its next-generation, refrigerator-stable COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1283. The vaccine “has demonstrated encouraging results in multiple clinical studies,” the company said.
A separate trial of a flu vaccine called mRNA-1010 fared less well, however.
That trial “did not accrue sufficient cases at the interim efficacy analysis to declare early success in the Phase 3 Northern Hemisphere efficacy trial and the independent DSMB recommended continuation of efficacy follow-up,” the company said.
The company expects the market for respiratory-product sales to range from $8 billion to $15 billion by 2027 and for operating profit that year to range from $4 billion to $9 billion.
The stock was down 4% Tuesday and has fallen 15% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.17%
has gained 7%.
Moderna Inc. MRNA, +1.19%
outlined its clinical goals for its mRNA platform on Tuesday to mark its 4th Vaccine Day, including a new development candidate against Lyme disease that would be its first bacterial vaccine. The company, whose first product to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was its COVID vaccine, said it has dosed a first participant in a late-stage trial of its next-generation, refrigerator-stable COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1283. The vaccine “has demonstrated encouraging results in multiple clinical studies,” the company said in a statement. Moderna is expecting the annual global endemic market for COVID boosters to be worth about $15 billion. It expects the market for respiratory product sales in 2027 to range from $8 billion to $15 billion. The company expects to launch six major vaccine products in the next few years with “significant addressable markets.” The stock was down 6% premarket.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge in Texas on Friday ordered a hold on the U.S. approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, throwing into question access to the nation’s most common method of abortion in a ruling that waved aside decades of scientific approval.
The abortion drug has been widely used in the U.S. since 2000 and there is essentially no precedent for a lone judge overruling the medical decisions of the Food and Drug Administration. Mifepristone is one of two drugs used for medication abortion in the United…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it had reached a final decision to fully withdraw approval of preterm-birth drug Makena and its generics, a full 12 years after the treatment hit the market.
The drug was approved in 2011 using the agency’s accelerated-approval pathway as a treatment to reduce the risk of spontaneous preterm birth in pregnant women who had a history of the condition.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China vowed reprisals against Taiwan after a meeting between the United States House speaker and the island’s president, saying Thursday that the U.S. was on a “wrong and dangerous road.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in a show of U.S. support for the self-ruled island, which China claims as its own, along with a bipartisan delegation of more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers.
The Biden administration maintains there is nothing provocative about the visit by Tsai, which is the latest of a half-dozen to the U.S. Yet, it comes as the U.S.-China relationship has fallen to historic lows, with U.S. support for Taiwan becoming one of the main points of difference between the two powers.
But the formal trappings of the meeting, and the senior rank of some of the elected officials in the delegation from Congress, could lead China to view it as an escalation. No speaker is known to have met with a Taiwan president on U.S. soil since the U.S. broke off formal diplomatic relations in 1979.
In response to the meeting, Beijing said it would take “resolute and forceful measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” in a statement issued early Thursday morning by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It urged the U.S. “not to walk further down a wrong and dangerous road.”
In December, China’s military sent 71 planes and seven ships toward Taiwan in a 24-hour display of force directed at the self-ruled island after China expressed anger at Taiwan-related provisions in a U.S. annual defense spending bill. China’s military pressure campaign on Taiwan has intensified in recent years, and the Communist Party has sent planes or ships toward the island on a near-daily basis.
But as of Thursday afternoon, there was no overt sign of a large-scale military response.
“We will take resolute measures to punish the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and their actions, and resolutely safeguard our country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said a statement from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Thursday morning, referring to Tsai and her political party as separatists.
Chinese vessels were engaged in a joint patrol and inspection operation in the Taiwan Strait that will last three days, state media said Thursday morning. The Fujian Maritime Safety Administration said its ship, the Haixun 06, would inspect cargo ships and others in the waters that run between Taiwan and China as part of the operation.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said Wednesday evening it had tracked China’s Shandong aircraft carrier passing southeast of Taiwan through the Bashi Strait. On Thursday morning, it tracked three People’s Liberation Army navy vessels and one warplane in the area around the island.
U.S. Congressional visits to Taiwan have stepped up in frequency in the past year, and the American Institute in Taipei, the de facto embassy, announced the arrival of another delegation Thursday. House Foreign Affairs Committee head Michael McCaul of Texas is leading a delegation of eight other lawmakers for a three-day visit to discuss regional security and trade, according to a statement from AIT.
At their meeting Wednesday, Tsai and McCarthy spoke carefully to avoid unnecessarily escalating tensions with Beijing. Standing side by side at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, the two acknowledged China’s threats against the island government.
“America’s support for the people of Taiwan will remain resolute, unwavering and bipartisan,” McCarthy said at a news conference later. He also said U.S.-Taiwan ties are stronger than at any other point in his life.
Tsai said the “unwavering support reassures the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated.”
More than a dozen Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including the House’s third-ranking Democrat, had joined the meeting.
Tsai said she and McCarthy spoke of the importance of Taiwan’s self-defense, of fostering robust trade and economic ties and supporting the island government’s ability to participate in the international community.
But she also warned, “It is no secret that today the peace that we have maintained and the democracy which we have worked hard to build are facing unprecedented challenges.”
“We once again find ourselves in a world where democracy is under threat and the urgency of keeping the beacon of freedom shining cannot be understated,” she said.
The United States broke off official ties with Taiwan in 1979 while formally establishing diplomatic relations with the Beijing government. As part of its recognition of China, the U.S. “One China” policy acknowledges that Beijing lays claim to Taiwan, but does not endorse China’s claim, and the U.S. remains Taiwan’s key provider of military and defense assistance.
Washington also has a policy of strategic ambiguity, where it does not explicitly say whether it will come to Taiwan’s aid in the case of a conflict with China.
In Taiwan, Tsai’s visit did not make a huge splash, though fellow politicians paid close attention.
Ko Wen-je, the former Taipei city mayor who’s thought to have presidential aspirations, said he welcomed any exchange between Taiwan and international leaders.
“Taiwan hopes to have a greater space to operate globally, and the mainland shouldn’t get flustered because of this,” Ko wrote on his Facebook page. “It should show the attitude of a civilized nation and stop its suppression by military force.”
Opposition lawmaker Johnny Chiang of the Nationalist party said that Tsai’s meeting with McCarthy was still within the guardrails of the “One China” policy because it showed that while Congress was relatively free to support Taiwan, the White House was more constrained, according to local media.
In August, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taiwan to meet with Tsai. China responded with its largest live-fire drills in decades, including firing a missile over the island.
Taiwan and China split in 1949 after a civil war and have no official relations, although they are linked by billions of dollars in trade and investment.
CHICAGO — Brandon Johnson, a union organizer and former teacher, was elected as Chicago’s next mayor Tuesday in a major victory for the Democratic Party’s progressive wing as the heavily blue-leaning city grapples with high crime and financial challenges.
Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, won a close race over former Chicago schools CEO Paul Vallas, who was backed by the police union. Johnson, 47, will succeed Lori Lightfoot, the first Black woman and first openly gay person to be the city’s mayor.
Lightfoot became the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose her reelection bid when she finished third in a crowded February contest.
Johnson’s victory in the nation’s third-largest city topped a remarkable trajectory for a candidate who was little known when he entered the race last year. He climbed to the top of the field with organizing and financial help from the politically influential Chicago Teachers Union and high-profile endorsements from progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Sanders appeared at a rally for Johnson in the final days of the race.
Taking the stage Tuesday night for his victory speech, a jubilant Johnson thanked his supporters. He recalled growing up in a poor family, teaching at a school in Cabrini Green, a notorious former public housing complex, and shielding his kids from gunfire in their west side neighborhood.
“Chicago, tonight is just the beginning,” Johnson told the crowd. “With our voices and our votes, we have ushered in a new chapter in the history of our city.”
He promised that under his administration, the city would look out for everyone, regardless of how much money they have, whom they love or where they come from.
“Tonight is the beginning of a Chicago that truly invests in all of its people,” Johnson said.
It was a momentous win for progressive organizations such as the teachers union, with Johnson winning the highest office of any active teachers union member in recent history, leaders say. It comes as groups such as Our Revolution, a powerful progressive advocacy organization, push to win more offices in local and state office, including in upcoming mayoral elections in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
Speaking to supporters Tuesday night, Vallas said that he had called Johnson and that he expected him to be the next mayor. Some in the crowd seemed to jeer the news, but Vallas urged them to put aside differences and support the next mayor in “the daunting work ahead.”
“This campaign that I ran to bring the city together would not be a campaign that fulfills my ambitions if this election is going to divide us,” Vallas said.
He added that he had offered Johnson his full support in the transition.
The contest surfaced longstanding tensions among Democrats, with Johnson and his supporters blasting Vallas — who was endorsed by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat — as too conservative and a Republican in disguise.
Johnson and Vallas were the top two vote-getters in the all-Democrat but officially nonpartisan February race, which moved to the runoff because no candidate received over 50%. Both candidates have deep roots in the Democratic Party, though with vastly different backgrounds and views.
Johnson, who is Black, grew up poor and is now raising his children in one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods. After teaching middle and high school, he helped mobilize teachers, including during a historic 2012 strike through which the Chicago Teachers Union increased its organizing muscle and influence in city politics.
Vallas, who finished first in the February contest, was the only white candidate in that nine-person field. A former Chicago budget director, he later led schools in Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Bridgeport, Connecticut. He has run unsuccessfully for office multiple times, including a 2019 bid for Chicago mayor.
Among the biggest disputes between Johnson and Vallas was how to address crime. Like many U.S. cities, Chicago saw violent crime increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, hitting a 25-year high of 797 homicides in 2021, though the number decreased last year and the city has a lower murder rate than others in the Midwest, such as St. Louis.
Vallas, 69, said he would hire hundreds more police officers, while Johnson said he didn’t plan to cut the number of officers, but that the current system of policing isn’t working. Johnson was forced to defend past statements expressing support for “defunding” police — something he insisted he would not do as mayor.
But Johnson argued that instead of investing more in policing and incarceration, the city should focus on mental health treatment, affordable housing for all and jobs for youth. He has proposed a plan he says will raise $800 million by taxing “ultrarich” individuals and businesses, including a per-employee “head tax” on employers and an additional tax on hotel room stays. Vallas says that so-called “tax-the-rich” plan would be a disaster for the city’s recovering economy.
Resident Chema Fernandez, 25, voted for Johnson as an opportunity to move on from what he described as “the politics of old.” He said he saw Vallas as being in line with previous mayors such as Rahm Emanuel, Lightfoot and Richard M. Daley, who haven’t worked out great for places like his neighborhood on the southwest side, which has seen decades of disinvestment.
“I think we need to give the opportunity for policies that may actually change some of our conditions,” Fernandez said.
MADISON, Wis. — A Democratic-backed Milwaukee judge won the high stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race Tuesday, ensuring liberals will take over majority control of the court for the first time in 15 years with the fate of the state’s abortion ban on the line.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz, 60, defeated former Justice Dan Kelly, who previously worked for Republicans and had support from the state’s leading anti-abortion groups.
The victory speaks to the importance of abortion as an issue for Democrats in a key swing state, with turnout on pace to be the highest ever for a Wisconsin Supreme Court race that didn’t share the ballot with a presidential primary.
In a jubilant scene at her victory party, the other three liberal justices on the court joined Protasiewicz on the stage and raised their arms in celebration.
Protasiewicz tried to downplay the importance of abortion as an issue in her victory, even though she and her allies, including an array of abortion rights groups including Planned Parenthood, made it the focus of much of her advertising and messaging to voters.
“It was really about saving our democracy, getting away from extremism and having a fair and impartial court where everybody gets a fair shot in the courtroom,” Protasiewicz told The Associated Press after her win. “That’s what it was all about.”
The new court controlled 4-3 by liberals is expected to decide a pending lawsuit challenging the state’s 1849 law banning abortion enacted a year after statehood. Protasiewicz said during the campaign that she supports abortion rights but stopped short of saying how she would rule on the lawsuit. She had called Kelly an “extreme partisan” who would vote to uphold the ban.
In addition to abortion, Protasiewicz’s win is likely to impact the future of Republican-drawn legislative maps, voting rights and years of other GOP policies. It will also ensure that liberals will have the majority leading up to the 2024 presidential election and immediately after.
Four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point and Trump turned to the courts in 2020 in his unsuccessful push to overturn his roughly 21,000-vote loss in the state. The current court, under a 4-3 conservative majority, came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s win in the state in 2020, and both major parties are preparing for another close race in 2024.
Kelly is a former justice who has also performed work for Republicans and advised them on a plan to have fake GOP electors cast their ballots for Trump following the 2020 election even though Trump had lost.
Ahead of the vote, Protasiewicz called Kelly “a true threat to our democracy” because of his advising on the fake elector scheme.
Kelly had expressed opposition to abortion in the past, including in a 2012 blog post in which he said the Democratic Party and the National Organization for Women were committed to normalizing the taking of human life. He also had done legal work for Wisconsin Right to Life.
Kelly was endorsed by the state’s top three anti-abortion groups, while Protasiewicz was backed by abortion rights advocates.
Kelly was appointed to the state Supreme Court by then-Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, in 2016. He served four years before being defeated in 2020 on the same ballot as the Democratic presidential primary. Kelly was endorsed by Trump that year.
Trump did not endorse this year. Protasiewicz’s endorsements included Hillary Clinton.
Kelly tried to distance himself from his work for Republicans, saying it was “irrelevant” to how he would work as a justice. He tried to make the campaign about Protasiewicz’s record as a judge, arguing that she was soft on crime and accusing her of being “bought and paid for” by Democrats.
The Wisconsin Democratic Party gave Protasiewicz’s campaign more than $8 million, leading her to promise to recuse herself from any case brought by the party.
Protasiewicz said that while she anticipates many of the issues raised in the campaign will come before the court in the coming years, she pledged to be impartial and not beholden to Democrats and her liberal backers who poured an unprecedented amount of money into the race.
“I’ve told everybody on the entire time that I was running, despite the fact that I was sharing my personal values, every single decision that I will render will be rooted in the law,” she said. “And that is the bottom line. They’re independent and rooted in the law.”
Kelly, in a statement after his loss, said Protasiewicz “made her campaign about cynical appeals to political passions, serial lies, and a blatant disregard for judicial ethics and the integrity of the court.”
“I wish Wisconsin the best of luck,” he said. “I think it will need it.”
Protasiewicz was outspoken on Wisconsin’s gerrymandered legislative maps, calling them “rigged.” Kelly accused her of prejudging that case, abortion and others that could come before the court.
The state Supreme Court upheld Republican-drawn maps in 2022. Those maps, widely regarded as among the most gerrymandered in the country, have helped Republicans increase their hold on the state Legislature to near supermajority levels, even as Democrats have won statewide elections, including Tony Evers as governor in both 2018 and 2022 and Biden in 2020.
Protasiewicz will serve a 10-year term starting in August replacing retiring conservative Justice Pat Roggensack.
