The end of Cuomo’s war with New York City? Don’t count on it.

ALBANY — It seems impossible to imagine now, but there was a shining moment seven years ago when the governor of New York and the mayor of New York City seemed like buddies.

It was 2014, and the city was still recovering from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy. In his autobiography, released that year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote about the challenges that would await the state and city when the next big disaster hit: “Fortunately, my longtime friend and former HUD colleague Bill de Blasio is now mayor of New York, and being able to work cooperatively will be a major asset,” he wrote in "All Things Possible.”

That cooperative spirit, like the book itself, had a very limited shelf life.

Cuomo’s then-longtime friend will soon be a former mayor, raising new questions about how the embattled and combative governor will deal with whomever emerges from the city’s ranked-choice vote counting. Although Cuomo is under investigation and a potential impeachment, he may outlast de Blasio in office. Eric Adams is leading the Democratic primary at the moment — should he prevail, he would be the first New York City mayor with significant experience as a state legislator since Robert F. Wagner, who served three terms in City Hall between 1954 and 1965.

Adams’ eight years as a state senator, the final two of which coincided with Cuomo’s first two years as governor, might help him avoid the bumps and potholes that only mayors seem to find during the journeys north on the New York State Thruway.

"He has a good relationship with the governor and you saw during the campaign that more New York City state officials supported him than any other candidate," Adams campaign adviser Evan Thies said in an interview. "That’s partially because he was a colleague of theirs for so long."

But as Cuomo and de Blasio reminded New Yorkers repeatedly since 2014, the institutional relationship between governor and mayor suggests it was designed not by political theorists but the fireworks-making Grucci family. New York City, despite its might as the nation’s biggest city and a global seat of economic power, very much relies on the people who run its state capitol to get anything done. It’s transit system is controlled by the state, and Cuomo in particular, and many of its most important policies require the blessing of elected officials from as far away as Niagara Falls.

Structurally, conflict between mayor and governor just can’t be avoided — and that has real consequences for the city’s residents.

“Obviously the best outcome for New Yorkers is that the mayor and the governor get along,” said Freddi Goldstein, a former top aide to de Blasio who worked in his office from 2016 to 2020. “But there's very little historical precedent for that. I can say that my experience as a New Yorker and in city government shows that this governor is not really working for friends. And I just don't see that dynamic changing.”

The governor has the raw political power; the mayor, the celebrity befitting the chief executive officer of the media capital of the world. The city is a creature of the state, as mayors often discover to their astonishment not long after taking their oath of office, and Albany — not just the governor, but the Legislature as well — prefers to keep its creation strapped to a gurney rather than have it thrashing about on its own.

That was true when Gov. Al Smith decided that Mayor John Hylan had to go in favor of the ostensibly more-reliable Jimmy Walker in 1925; it was true of Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay, both presidential wannabes who got in each other’s way in the 1960s; and it was true of bitter rivals Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch, the latter of whom managed to get in one last dig at his sparring partner (and his son) before departing for presumably more-peaceful settings.

Add the distinctive personality of Andrew Cuomo to the mix and it would seem inevitable that the next mayor ought to invest in a couple of decent sweaters, for the governor, even in his embattled state, will surely cast a cold shadow over Gracie Mansion in the months to come.

Adams told moderators in a June 10 debate that he was confident he could build a good relationship with the governor, who is now facing an impeachment inquiry and criminal investigations tied to accusations of sexual and governmental misconduct. “Well, I get along with everyone,” Adams said. “That’s the joy of who I am.”

“I’m going to put my ego to the side,” he continued, when pressed for details. “I’m going to sit down and work in relationship with the governor and say, ‘we’re team New York’ and we’re not going to have public disputes. We’re going to solve our problems.‘”

But some problems require not a hearty handshake but a hat in mayoral hand. Humility doesn’t come easily to most politicians, but mayors of New York — as well as the Empire State’s other cities — quickly learn that bowing and scraping are necessary to get the funding and policies that only Albany can provide.

Adams would be the first Democratic mayor to come into office in decades without a foil from Republicans in the state Senate. De Blasio, a progressive, pursued a natural alliance with the downstate-dominated state Assembly, but Adams’ more centrist positions might easier align with moderate ideology in the Senate — and with that of the governor himself. That could facilitate cooperative work with the governor and lawmakers on issues of importance to the city.

Still, there’s humility and then there’s humiliation, and de Blasio became only the latest New York City mayor to learn the difference. Adams might try a different style of responding to Cuomo’s jabs, at least initially, said one longtime Democratic consultant who works in both city and state politics and is familiar with the Adam campaign.

“The thing that I would say about Eric versus de Blasio is that is Eric isn't afraid to get into a fight,” said the consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak frankly about the powerful figures. “He's not afraid to start a fight and he certainly isn't afraid to finish one. So I think that if that's the way that he [Cuomo] wants to take it, I don't think Eric's going to take it lying down.”

Cuomo has undercut, contradicted and superseded de Blasio too many times to count, and as the city prepares for a new regime, the governor saw fit to display the formidable power of his contempt as election results rolled after Tuesday’s primary.

“It’s hard for me to work with an administration that is hyper-political and is not competent,” Cuomo said of de Blasio’s City Hall during a news conference Wednesday morning. “And it’s hard for me to do that for a prolonged period of time. And I believe that’s what happened with New York City … We need to get things done. We need results. And I need a competent partner in local government.”

De Blasio’s response the following day? “I stopped listening to him a long time ago.”

Suffice it to say, the next mayor will be eager to persuade Cuomo that the de Blasio era is truly done and gone.

“Everybody has their own style, but [de Blasio] was running into a buzz saw that was a bad relationship with the governor,” state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris said in an interview. “So every time he poked his head in to try to do something, it seemed like he was smacked down. Hopefully the next mayor will not run into that.”

De Blasio was hard-pressed to find champions — even in the Democratic-led Assembly — who would really go to bat for him. That could have been helpful on several issues, including his unsuccessful attempts to eliminate the controversial entrance exam for the city’s specialized high schools.

It wasn’t necessarily a lack of good will, but an administration that didn’t always work the Albany negotiation levers, state Sen. Brian Benjamin, a Manhattan Democrat, said in an interview at the Capitol.

“You have to get someone who understands how power works,” Benjamin said. “If you’re mayor of New York City, you have jurisdiction over this, I have jurisdiction over that. If you want to get my group to do what you want, you come with the problem and you talk about the solution. You don’t come with the solution you want already. There’s no buy-in.”

In that sense, Adams would appear to have an advantage over the only other two candidates who could overtake him when ranked-choice voting is completely tallied. Neither progressive Maya Wiley, a former de Blasio staffer and an MSNBC commentator, nor the more-moderate Kathryn Garcia, a former city Sanitation commissioner, have held elective office before. Adams has experience in both state and municipal politics, and as a moderate Democrat, he would seem a good fit to work with a governor whom progressives tend to despise.

“I think there's a very high likelihood that the relationship starts out positive,” Goldstein said. “Whoever wins, the governor reaches out to and they form some partnership, all hunky-dory in the beginning. But it would be naive to think that's where the relationship stays.“

So what will Adams start off with on his Albany wish list? Public safety, education and housing, said Thies, the Adams adviser.

“Albany can be most helpful with ensuring we have the resources we need for improvements to public safety,” Thies said. “That’s about dollars and programs from the NYPD to the MTA.”

The perennial war over education funding, which saw a brief detente thanks to the federal stimulus package, is likely to heat up in future budgets, Thies said, and money for public and affordable housing will be an ever-present conflict.

De Blasio press secretary Bill Neidhardt said that a beleaguered three-term Cuomo means the next mayor will enter Albany with a world of possibilities, regardless of who ultimately clinches the title. “You’re really talking about a completely different reality with a severely diminished Andrew Cuomo,” Neidhardt said.

More than 50 Democrats in the state Legislature, both of the state’s U.S. senators and the majority of its House delegation called for Cuomo to resign after his scandals began to snowball earlier this year. Federal investigators are now looking into whether the Cuomo administration hid the number of Covid-19 deaths tied to nursing homes, and state Attorney General Tish James is conducting a widespread investigation into claims of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct made by former aides.

"I think we’ve seen that difference this year, where the state Legislature passed a budget that invested heavily in working people in New York City, and I think we’ll also see that difference carrying forward for the next mayor, whoever it is,” Neidhardt said, citing a “massive shift in power“ has meant that “Cuomo doesn’t call all of the shots any more.”

Cuomo, for his part, said he knows Adams from his work in the Senate “on many budgets, many bills, for many years.” As he did for his old friend de Blasio, he offered plenty of early praise.

“We have a good personal relationship, good professional relationship,” he said on Wednesday. “I think he is a competent individual. I think he is an individual that will instill confidences and I think he is a person who will step up and show real leadership.”

David Giambusso contributed to this report.

Chauvin could face decadeslong sentence in Floyd's death

MINNEAPOLIS — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin learns his sentence Friday for murder in George Floyd' s death, closing a chapter in a case that sparked global outrage and a reckoning on racial disparities in America.

Chauvin, 45, faces decades in prison, with several legal experts predicting a sentence of 20 to 25 years. Though Chauvin is widely expected to appeal, he also still faces trial on federal civil rights charges, along with three other fired officers who have yet to have their state trials.

The concrete barricades, razor wire and National Guard patrols that shrouded the county courthouse for Chauvin's three-week trial are gone, and so is most of the tension in the city as it awaited a verdict in April. Still, there's a recognition that Chauvin's sentencing will be another major step forward for a city that has been on edge since Floyd's death on May 25, 2020.

“Between the incident, the video, the riots, the trial — this is the pinnacle of it,” Mike Brandt, a local defense attorney who has closely followed Chauvin's case, said. “The verdict was huge too, but this is where the justice comes down.”

Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for about 9 1/2 minutes as the Black man said he couldn’t breathe and went limp. Bystander video of Floyd's arrest for suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill prompted protests around the world and a nationwide reckoning on race and police brutality.

Before the sentencing hearing Friday, Judge Peter Cahill denied Chauvin's request for a new trial, saying defense attorney Eric Nelson has not shown that the court abused its discretion or that there was any prosecutorial misconduct that would have deprived Chauvin of his right to a fair trial. Nelson argued that intense publicity around Floyd’s death tainted the jury pool and that the trial should have been moved away from Minneapolis.

Cahill also rejected Nelson’s request for a hearing into possible juror misconduct, saying Nelson failed to show there was any juror misconduct or that a juror gave false testimony during questioning. Nelson had accused juror Brandon Mitchell of not being candid during jury selection because he didn’t mention his participation in a march last summer to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. Prosecutors countered that Mitchell had been open about his views in a jury questionnaire and during the questioning of potential jurors.

Under Minnesota statutes, Chauvin will be sentenced only on the most serious charge, which has a maximum sentence of 40 years. But case law dictates that a 30-year sentence would be the practical maximum sentence Cahill could impose without risk of being overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors asked for 30 years, saying Chauvin’s actions were egregious and “shocked the nation’s conscience.” Nelson requested probation, saying Chauvin was the product of a “broken” system and “believed he was doing his job.”

Cahill has already found that aggravating factors in Floyd’s death warrant going higher than the 12 1/2-year sentence recommended by the state's sentencing guidelines. The judge found Chauvin abused his position of authority, treated Floyd with particular cruelty, and that the crime was seen by several children. He also wrote that Chauvin knew the restraint of Floyd was dangerous.

“The prolonged use of this technique was particularly egregious in that George Floyd made it clear he was unable to breathe and expressed the view that he was dying as a result of the officers’ restraint,” Cahill wrote last month.

Attorneys on both sides are expected to make brief arguments Friday. Floyd's family members — including his brother Philonise, his brother Terrence and his nephew Brandon Williams — will give statements in court.

Ben Crump, an attorney who has represented Floyd’s family, said family members were feeling “anxious and tense” ahead of the sentencing.

“To us, George Floyd is a cause. He’s a case; he’s a hashtag. To them -- that’s their flesh and blood. You know, that that’s their brother,” Crump said.

Chauvin can also make a statement, but it’s not clear if he will. Experts say it could be tricky for Chauvin to talk without implicating himself in the pending federal case accusing him of violating Floyd’s civil rights.

Chauvin chose not to testify at his trial. The only explanation the public has heard from him came from body-camera footage in which he told a bystander at the scene: “We got to control this guy ’cause he’s a sizable guy ... and it looks like he’s probably on something.”

Several experts said they doubted Chauvin would take the risk and speak, but Brandt thought he would. He said Chauvin could say a few words without getting himself into legal trouble.

“I think it's his chance to tell the world, 'I didn't intend to kill him,'” Brandt said. "If I was him, I think I would want to try and let people know that I’m not a monster.”

Several people interviewed in Minneapolis days before Chauvin's sentencing said they want to see a tough sentence.

Thirty years “doesn't seem like long enough to me,” said Andrew Harer, a retail worker who is white. “I would be fine if he was in jail for the rest of his life.”

Joseph Allen, 31, who is Black, said he thinks Chauvin should receive “at least” 30 years, and said he'd prefer a life sentence. He cited nearly 20 complaints filed against the now-fired officer during his career.

Allen said he hopes other police officers can learn “not to do what Derek Chauvin did.”

Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and activist, called for Chauvin to be sentenced “to the fullest extent of the law." She called Floyd's death “a modern day lynching” and predicted community outrage if Chauvin is sentenced lightly.

When asked if she would like to hear Chauvin speak, Levy Armstrong said: “For me as a Black woman living in this community, there’s really nothing that he could say that would alleviate the pain and trauma that he caused ... I think that if he spoke it would be disingenuous and could cause more trauma."

Crump also said he wanted to see a sentence above what is typically given for a second-degree murder conviction.

“There was nothing typical about what Derek Chauvin did in torturing George Floyd to death,” Crump said. “So we don’t expect it to be a typical sentence. It needs to be a sentence that sets a new precedent for holding police officers accountable for the unjustifiable killings of Black people in America.”

No matter what sentence Chauvin gets, he's likely to serve only about two-thirds behind bars presuming good behavior. The rest would be on supervised release.

He's been held since his conviction at the state's only maximum security prison, in Oak Park Heights. The former officer is held away from the general population for his safety, in a 10-by-10-foot cell, with meals brought to his room. He is allowed out for solitary exercise for an hour a day.

It's not clear if Chauvin will remain there. State prisons officials said that decision wouldn't be made until after Cahill's formal sentencing order.

Chauvin and the three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest are awaiting trial in federal court on charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights. No trial date has been set.

The three other officers are also scheduled for trial in March on state charges of aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter.

‘Almost no idea more un-American’: Pence breaks with Trump on Jan. 6

Former Vice President Mike Pence has offered his most forceful rejection yet of former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, but declined to directly criticize Trump by name or blame him for inciting the deadly Capitol attack.

Instead, Pence — speaking Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. — insisted he was not constitutionally empowered to reverse the election results when he presided over the counting of electoral votes in Congress in January. Trump had urged him to do so in the hours before the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol.

In his remarks, Pence described Jan. 6 as “a dark day in the history of the United States of America” and credited “the swift action of the Capitol Police and law enforcement” for quelling the violence, allowing him and lawmakers to resume the formal certification of the election results later that day.

“Now, there are those in our party who believe that in my position as presiding officer over the joint session, that I possessed the authority to reject or return electoral votes certified by states,” Pence said. “But the Constitution provides the vice president with no such authority before the joint session of Congress. And the truth is, there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”

Pence went on to say he “will always be proud that we did our part on that tragic day to reconvene the Congress and fulfill our duty under the Constitution and the laws of the United States,” while also sympathizing with “the disappointment many feel” about the election’s outcome.

“I can relate. I was on the ballot,” he said. “But, you know, there’s more at stake than our party and our political fortunes in this moment. If we lose faith in the Constitution, we won’t just lose elections. We’ll lose our country.”

Pence, who has slowly returned to political speaking engagements in recent weeks, previously broached the subject of Jan. 6 at a speech in New Hampshire earlier this month, where he similarly declined to attack Trump and asserted he was proud of the former administration’s accomplishments.

“President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office. And I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day,” Pence said in New Hampshire. Shortly before the insurrection on Jan. 6, Trump told supporters at a fiery rally outside the White House that he hoped Pence would “do the right thing” when presiding over the joint session of Congress.

“I just spoke to Mike. I said: ‘Mike, that doesn’t take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage,’” Trump said at the Jan. 6 rally. “And then we’re stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot, and we have to live with that for four more years. We’re just not going to let that happen.”

As the assault on the Capitol was actively unfolding, Trump tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”

Security video of the Capitol riot released in February showed the then-vice president being whisked out of the Senate chamber, revealing just how close he came to the mob of Trump supporters — some of whom chanted “Hang Mike Pence!”

On Thursday, Pence, widely viewed as a potential 2024 Republican candidate for president, was careful to show no animosity toward Trump, even eliciting applause as he compared the former president favorably to Ronald Reagan.

“President Donald Trump is also one of a kind. He, too, disrupted the status quo. He challenged the establishment. He invigorated our movement. And he set a bold new course for America in the 21st century,” Pence said at the Reagan Library. “And now, as then, there is no going back.”

Opinion | What Biden’s Anti-Crime Agenda Gets Wrong

If there were any doubt, rising violent crime is a real issue with the potential to do major political harm to Democrats.

That’s the unmistakable subtext of President Joe Biden’s decision to interrupt his push for his trillion-dollar spending plans to announce an anti-crime agenda.

It’s a good thing the president has noticed that homicides increased 30 percent last year, a historic jump that shows no sign of abating. But he leads a national party that is largely incapable of seriously grappling with a problem that requires resisting the yearslong intellectual and political campaign on the left to delegitimize law enforcement and the criminal-justice system.

The Joe Biden of the 1990s would know exactly what to do—throw cops and enhanced sentences at the problem, toward the goal of arresting more criminals and keeping them off the streets longer. But that was a long time ago, and Biden has since said that approach was a mistake.

So, he’s left with measures that are only tangentially connected to the surge in murders.

To his credit, he acknowledges the need for more cops, and his administration is making it clear to localities that they can use funds from the Covid relief bill to hire them (although it shows how heedless the spending in that bill was that it’s now available for a priority that wasn’t part of the original rationale).

The main thrust of his agenda, though is gun control. This is a political gimme, since it is what Democrats favor anyway. As The Washington Post reported: “The Biden White House sees a political advantage in focusing on gun control as a way to stem the violence. The issue polls well among Democrats and independents, as opposed to stiffening sentences or backing aggressive policing tactics.”

Just because the politics are deemed favorable, though, it doesn’t mean these proposals will be effective. In fact, the focus on guns as such is a misdiagnosis.

There has indeed been a massive surge in gun purchases since the onset of the pandemic and the rioting after the death of George Floyd. The research says 6.5 percent of Americans bought guns in 2020, an increase from 5.3 percent in 2019. But the murder rate had been in a long decline since the 1990s, even as gun laws steadily loosened and millions more guns came into circulation.

If the quantity of guns in the country drove crime in and of itself, American cities never would have seen a historic decline in homicide in the first place.

Biden’s signature gun-control initiative, an assault weapons ban, is a political bridge too far, but even if it were practical, it would prove completely irrelevant to urban crime. Almost all the gun-play in America’s cities involves handguns that wouldn’t be touched by a ban of certain varieties of semi-automatic rifles, or even a ban on all semi-automatic rifles.

Biden is settling for small-bore policies such as a crackdown on gun-sellers who don’t conduct required background checks, or deliberately sell to people not allowed to own guns. If we can do more to enforce current laws and to stop dirty gun dealers, by all means, let’s do it.

These guns surely represent a fraction of a drop in the bucket of the firearms used by gangs and other malefactors, though.

According to a January 2019 Justice Department report based on a survey of prison inmates, the vast majority of criminals who possessed a gun during their offense either bought it on the street or underground (43 percent), or got it from a friend or a family member or as a gift (25 percent). Only 7 percent purchased their firearm from a gun shop, and .8 percent got it from a gun show.

So the Biden gun proposals are crafted to sound good, without doing anything meaningful to stop the mayhem blighting urban America.

The other prong of the Biden agenda is focused on prevention—making it easier for ex-prisoners to find jobs and get housing, community violence intervention programs (attempts to influence people likely to commit violent acts before they actually do), and summer programs for youth. All of this is fine, as far as it goes, but it also will be marginal.

To focus on what’s necessary requires an honest diagnosis of the crime problem.

Over the past year, Democrats have tended to blame the pandemic, and its attendant social disruptions, for the rise in murder. But other countries with pandemic lockdowns saw declines in homicides, and even as the lockdowns have eased up or disappeared here at home, the surge has continued.

It is a sign of the weakness of the pandemic explanation that in his anti-crime remarks on Wednesday, Biden said that the end of the pandemic, and more people being out and about, could drive the crime even higher.

The simplest answer for the rise in murder is that police feel besieged in the wake of the George Floyd unrest and have been more cautious or defensive in their patrolling. Indeed, one credible study found that cities with Black Lives Matter protests from 2014 to 2019 saw increases in murder in the aftermath. All of this comes against the backdrop of a yearslong trend in major cities to limit police stops searching for guns and of the election of progressive district attorneys devoted to trying to keep as many people as possible out of jail.

The Rudy Giuliani-Mike Bloomberg approach that proved so effective in New York City—of backing police to the hilt and aggressively working to get illegal guns off the streets—came to be considered a terrible mistake. But it doesn’t look so bad if the alternative is young men routinely getting gunned down in neighborhoods experiencing intolerable levels of chaos.

If the tough-talking ex-cop Eric Adams, currently leading the New York mayoral race, can win and then deliver on his law-and-order promises, perhaps he can show other cities how to step back from the brink. That Biden felt compelled to offer an anti-crime agenda of his own, no matter how ineffectual, highlights the political stakes.

‘Lean into the culture war’: House conservatives push fight against critical race theory

The head of Congress' largest conservative caucus is encouraging Republicans to embrace anti-critical race theory rhetoric, as the GOP looks to lean into the nation’s culture wars ahead of the looming battle for the House.

In a memo sent to members of the Republican Study Committee, its chair Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana said the “backlash against Critical Race Theory is real." Banks framed the GOP's opposition to the ideology “as an effort to renew American patriotism and rebuild our country.”

Critical race theory refers to the concept that racism has been systematically ingrained in American society and institutions. It's sparked a Republican revolt over the ideology's presence in schools, arguing that it teaches children to believe that the country is racist.

“We believe that individuals should be judged based on the contents of their character, not their skin. And we believe that America’s institutions should be colorblind, just as our Constitution is colorblind,” states the memo, obtained by POLITICO. “This is the same vision shared by civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr.”

And if it wasn’t crystal clear, the memo — titled “Lean into the culture war” — goes on to say: “We are in a culture war … we are winning.”

The memo is just the latest sign that the right is hoping to capitalize on the grassroots angst over critical race theory and excite its base voters in next year's midterms. Former President Donald Trump has called for a ban on critical race theory at both the local school level and in the federal government. And several states have already approved bans on teaching critical race theory in schools or anything that can be packaged as such.

Under Banks’ watch, the Republican Study Committee has taken on a larger messaging role inside the House GOP conference. Members of the conservative group were presented polling during their weekly lunch on Wednesday that shows 79 percent of respondents in swing districts do not believe children should be taught “that their destiny and inherent value depends on their skin color” — the definition the GOP has adopted for critical race theory.

In fact, the concept of critical race theory is relatively new and its definition is vague. That’s why Democrats doubt that the anti-critical race theory rhetoric will actually break through with the average voter. They also point out that teaching critical race theory does not imply white students should feel guilty about past infringement on Black Americans' civil rights and that the ideology is not taught in many of the schools where lawmakers are seeking to ban it.

Meanwhile, not everyone in the GOP agrees that Republicans should lean too heavily into the culture wars. During a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library last month, former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said: “As the left gets more ‘woke,’ the rest of America is getting weary. It’s exhausting. And we conservatives have to be careful not to get caught up in every little cultural battle. “

DHS is concerned about Trump reinstatement conspiracy theory, top official says

The conspiracy theory that Donald Trump will be reinstated as president in August has sparked concerns at the Department of Homeland Security, a top official there told members of Congress on Wednesday.

The exchange came in a members-only briefing that John Cohen, the department’s top counterterrorism official, gave to the House Committee on Homeland Security. Three people familiar with the briefing described it to POLITICO. They requested anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

In the briefing, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) asked Cohen how DHS is following the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories, as well as the way that discourse can fuel violence. She specifically brought up the conspiracy theory claiming Trump will be reinstated as president in August — a theory Trump himself has reportedly promoted.

Cohen replied that DHS is not aware of any specific, credible threats of violence linked to the conspiracy theory about Trump being reinstated. But he added that DHS is following discussion of the topic online among extremist communities. And he said department officials are highly concerned about it because it fuels the false narrative that the election was rigged — a narrative that may trigger a violent response from extremists.

The briefing’s topic was domestic terrorism. But Cohen also fielded a significant number of questions from members about violent crime, which has surged in 2020 and 2021. Cohen said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has directed officials there to look at factors fueling the violence that fall in the department’s mission. And earlier this week, the Biden administration rolled out a strategy to combat violent crime.

Conspiracy theorists –– notably including Mike Lindell, the pillow magnate who appears frequently in commercials on Fox News — have claimed in recent months that Trump will be reinstated as president in August, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and National Review reported earlier this month that Trump himself has told acquaintances he expects to be reinstated as president by the end of the summer. Lindell told The Daily Beast that Trump probably reached that conclusion because he has been promoting it. Commentator Charlie Sykes wrote for MSNBC that the August date is “based on guesswork and conspiratorial theories tied to nonexistent election fraud in Arizona and a delusional hope that the Supreme Court will invalidate the election.”

“If Trump is saying August, that is probably because he heard me say it publicly,” Lindell said.

And Sidney Powell, who did legal work for Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election results, told a QAnon conference earlier this year that he “can simply be reinstated.”

A Morning Consult/POLITICO survey from earlier this month showed that almost one-third of Republican voters have bought into the conspiracy theory. It traffics in the same themes of election-rigging that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Republican members of Congress blocked an effort to establish a 9/11-style commission to investigate that attack. So this morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she will set up a select committee to probe the event.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has made combating domestic terrorism a priority. The White House released a strategy document earlier this month detailing their approach to the problem. And the Department of Homeland Security has set up a dedicated team of intelligence analysts focused exclusively on the topic. But the work has generated concerns among civil liberties advocates, who say they worry about expanded government surveillance of activity the First Amendment protects — along with potential disparate impacts on marginalized communities.

'The Tea Party to the 10th power': Trumpworld bets big on critical race theory

Former top aides to President Donald Trump have begun an aggressive push to combat the teaching of critical race theory and capitalize on the issue politically, confident that a backlash will vault them back into power.

These officials, including Trump’s former campaign chief and two former budget advisers, have poured money and organizational muscle into the fight. They’ve aided activists who are pushing back against the concept that racism has been systemic to American society and institutions after centuries of slavery and Jim Crow. And some of them have begun working with members of Congress to bar the military from holding diversity trainings and to withhold federal funds from schools and colleges that promote anything that can be packaged as critical race theory.

The immediate goal, two Trump alumni said, is to get legislative language included in a must-pass bill. The larger one is to harness a national movement that could unseat Democrats.

“This is the Tea Party to the 10th power,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser who has zeroed in on local school board fights over critical race theory, said in an interview. “This isn’t Q, this is mainstream suburban moms — and a lot of these people aren’t Trump voters.”

Concerns about critical race theory, which examines how race and racism permeates society, have been percolating for months in what activists describe as a sincere grassroots phenomenon led by parents. Critical race theory dates back to the 1970s, but as the country remains in a prolonged conversation about race following George Floyd’s death, a new political battle over how to teach American history has emerged.

It has increasingly become a major focus of the Republican establishment, which has sought to capitalize on the angst even as some officeholders have failed to define what critical race theory is and the threat it poses. (Critical race theory, for example, does not imply white students should feel guilty about past civil rights issues and is not taught in many of the schools where lawmakers are seeking to ban it).

Their efforts to elevate the issue have worked.

Google searches for “critical race theory” skyrocketed on March 18, for example, the same day that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed banning it from Florida’s school curriculum. Fox News mentioned critical race theory nearly 1,300 times over a three-and-a-half-month span, according to an analysis done by the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America. Last week, Texas became the fifth state that passed a law taking aim at critical race theory or similar topics, and legislation has been proposed in more than a dozen other states.

Democrats, liberal political analysts, and even celebrities have used the power of the Black press and broadcast news to push back.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association and a friend to the Biden White House, supported a thorough teaching of American history — including the more painful parts — in an NBC interview last week. “We have made many mistakes in this country, but our kids, our kids deserve to learn all of that truth,” she said.

Journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates and Hollywood actress and LGBTQ activist Lena Waithe, along with dozens of academics and writers, are also backing efforts to support teaching students about systemic racism. They penned an open letter in The Root in support of Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 project, which many Republicans see as a key tool for pushing critical race theory.

They are combating the decision of major Trump World and other national Republican figures who are increasingly entering the fray. Earlier this month, Republicans at the North Carolina GOP’s annual convention jumped to their feet with enthusiastic applause when Trump called for a ban on critical race theory from the local school level to the federal government. Some top Republicans aren’t coy when they talk about the electoral benefits that stoking such a culture war issue could provide.

“I look at this and say, ‘Hey, this is how we are going to win.’ I see 50 [House Republican] seats in 2022. Keep this up,” Bannon said. “I think you’re going to see a lot more emphasis from Trump on it and DeSantis and others. People who are serious in 2024 and beyond are going to focus on it.”

Jessica Anderson, executive director of the Heritage Foundation’s advocacy arm, said critical race theory is one of the top two issues her group is working on alongside efforts to tighten voting laws. A former Office of Management and Budget official in the Trump administration, Anderson’s Heritage Action for America put out a pamphlet on Monday calling critical race theory a “destructive” ideology and urging voters to call on their lawmakers to support anti-critical race theory bills introduced by Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Dan Bishop (R-N.C.). It also urges voters to use Freedom of Information Act requests as a tactic to identify critical race theory-tied elements in schools’ curricula.

“It could turn out to be one of the most important conservative grassroots fights since the Tea Party movement,” she said.

In addition to Heritage Action, a new group called Citizens for Renewing America, an outfit started by Russ Vought, Trump’s former Office of Management and Budget director, has rushed in to bolster anti-critical race theory efforts.

As OMB director, Vought drafted a September memo warning federal agencies that Trump wanted them to “cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions." More recently, Citizens for Renewing America has circulated a 33-page document titled “An A to Z Guide on How to Stop Critical Race Theory and Reclaim Your Local School Board.”

In Washington, Heritage Action is pursuing a long shot strategy to try to shoehorn anti-critical race theory language into must-pass legislation such as the annual defense spending bill. Vought’s group, meanwhile, is pushing for Republicans to force the provisions in Bishop’s bill to be included in legislation to raise the debt limit this fall.

“We believe it’s necessary for us to find leverage points to get that onto bills that must pass,” Vought said in an interview.

Slightly outside Washington, another prominent Trump alum has been active on one of the other major frontlines of the critical race theory debate.

Ian Prior, a former Justice Department spokesperson in the Trump administration whose children go to Loudoun County, Va., schools, is spearheading an effort to recall six Democratic school board members in that Washington D.C. suburb. Heritage Action helped organize a rally there earlier this month after a Loudoun County High School teacher complained that white students “are being told to check their white privilege.”

But Prior, who has become a semi-regular on Fox News to discuss the matter, insists that his group, Fight for Schools, isn’t “some astroturf thing that’s powered by big money,”

“We just sat on a back porch and started it,” he added. “There is an energy here that transcends political parties.”

Polls don’t quite show that the issue is cutting across party lines. A new Morning Consult/POLITICO survey, for example, found that while the majority (54 percent) of Republicans believed critical race theory was negatively impacting society, a plurality of Democrats (48 percent) and Independents (46 percent) said they didn’t have a sense of any impact. The survey found that the population was fairly split on whether it should be taught in K-12 schools: 32 percent supporting it and 36 percent opposing it.

Few of the organizations working to oppose critical race theory, including Heritage Action and Citizens for Renewing America, disclose their donors. Prior said he did not have donor information to share. So it is impossible to know which big-moneyed interests, if any, are funding the anti-critical race theory initiatives those groups are undertaking.

But some deep-pocketed individuals are contributing to the cause.

Anderson, for one, said Heritage Action had “huge donor interest in this.” Other donors have started new groups of their own — including some who revved up the budding Tea Party movement a decade ago.

Frayda Levin, a longtime libertarian donor who’s served on the Club for Growth’s board, recently started her own group, Color Us United, which aims to be a counterweight to Black Lives Matter in the press.

“Our side is really gearing up to push back against what we call the race industrial complex,” Levin said.

And 1776 Project PAC, which was founded to support local school board candidates against critical race theory in schools, has raised over $135,000 from 1,600 donors in less than a month, said its founder Ryan Gidursky, a 34-year-old former political operative who created the PAC after listening to complaints from friends with kids.

“It really isn’t this organized effort on the part of, like, a right-wing intelligentsia or political think tank or some plan for us to have a boogeyman so we can get the suburbs back,” Gidursky said. “I’m sure it would be a lot more interesting if we were all meeting up in a castle somewhere.”

Delece Smith-Barrow contributed to this report.