The Economist

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September 27th 2024

A sharp round-up of the most important political news

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The US in brief

A sharp round-up of the most important political news

Prosecutors charged Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, with bribery, fraud and campaign-finance violations. The indictment accuses Mr Adams of accepting money from straw donors. It also details his alleged relationship with Turkish businessmen and at least one Turkish official, who for years lavished perks on Mr Adams. In exchange for free flight upgrades and rooms in “opulent hotels”, prosecutors say, Mr Adams fast-tracked the opening of a Turkish consular building, skipping fire-safety checks. The mayor, whose official residence was searched in a dawn raid on Thursday, denies wrongdoing. At a chaotic press conference Mr Adams, surrounded by supportive preachers and activists, vowed to remain in office, rejecting calls by fellow Democrats to resign.

Mr Adams was not the only New York mayor to have a bad Thursday. Rudy Giuliani, who held the job from 1994 to 2001 and more recently worked as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, had his licence to practise law in Washington, DC revoked. In July an appeals court in New York disbarred Mr Giuliani over his attempt to help Mr Trump overturn his election defeat in 2020. A court in Washington ordered him to explain why his licence should not also be revoked there; he failed to respond.

Mr Trump is to begin a swing-state tour through Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on Friday. Vice-President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, heads to Arizona, to give a speech at the Mexican border. Mr Trump has tarred her as a failed “border czar” for President Joe Biden. Ms Harris has hit back that Republicans and Democrats agreed on tougher border-security measures, only for Mr Trump to convince his party-mates to kill the deal for his own advantage.

Newsmax, a right-wing television station, settled a lawsuit with Smartmatic, a voting-machine company, just as their trial was soon to begin. The details of the settlement are confidential. Smartmatic had accused Newsmax of spreading conspiracy theories about its machines in the wake of Mr Trump’s defeat in 2020. Dominion, another voting-technology firm, won a $787m settlement from Fox News in a similar case last year.

Alabama conducted the second execution ever administered with nitrogen gas. Alan Miller, convicted of murdering three people in the 1990s, shook and gasped for several minutes before losing consciousness, according to journalists who witnessed his death. In January Alabama executed Kenneth Smith, who reportedly reacted similarly. Some states have approved nitrogen for executions because of difficulties in obtaining lethal-injection drugs; critics say the method could amount to torture.

The future of post-truth politics

J.D. Vance is no more truthful than the man he shares the Republican ticket with, Donald Trump. But he is more discriminating about how he insists on alternative realities. In style and execution he is a much more conventional politician than his boss. But, as Lexington argues, that also makes him a worrying exemplar of what is now conventional in the era of Mr Trump.

A view from elsewhere

There is no longer “a gap” between male and female voting behaviour in America. There is “a chasm”, wrote Lawrence Martin in the Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, and “thank heavens”. “Without the rise of enlightened women” voting Democratic there would be “no hope” of stopping Donald Trump from “marching the country backward”.

Figure of the day

13 out of 17, the number of times since 1990 when the party that won a special congressional election went on to win the popular vote for the House of Representatives in the regularly scheduled contest. Read our story about what special elections portend.

We want to hear from you
Will you be tuning into the vice-presidential debate on October 1st, and do you think J.D. Vance or Tim Walz will come out on top? Please send your views to usib@economist.com. And, of course, we welcome your feedback on this newsletter.

Editor’s picks

Our latest US coverage

Money for nothing

Kamala Harris is outspending Donald Trump. Will it matter?

The Democratic nominee is raising many millions more than her opponent

Campaign calculus: mini-landslides

Recent special elections bode well for Democrats

They can help in predicting general elections

The centre did not hold

Understanding the Republican Party’s rightward march

Remember the two R’s of Republican history: Rockefeller and Reagan

Today’s poll

Kamala Harris has pulled ahead in national polls. But because candidates must win the electoral college, not the popular vote, our forecast reckons that she and Donald Trump have nearly equal chances of becoming president.

Daily quiz

From Monday to Thursday we’ll quiz you on all things American. This week’s winner is Kip Bohn in Chicago, Illinois. The answers were:

Monday: Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech named “Atoms for Peace” to the UN General Assembly in 1953.

Tuesday: In 2017 Donald Trump told the UNGA that America was ready to “totally destroy” North Korea.

Wednesday: Hugo Chávez was referring to George W. Bush when he spoke of “the devil” who had left a “smell of sulphur” behind him in the UN.

Thursday: The playground next to the UN’s headquarters, built in 1941, was named after Robert Moses.

See how to take part in the quiz at the bottom of this page.

If you enjoyed this week’s quiz, play Dateline, The Economist’s history game.

Read in Eric Adams’s indictment

You know first stop is always instanbul [sic].

—Eric Adams in a text message sent to his girlfriend while en route from New York to Paris, according to prosecutors. They allege that Mr Adams took frequent free or heavily discounted luxury flights from Turkish Airlines, which he denies.

Read all of our recent coverage of the 2024 election. Confused about a term? Check out our A-Z of American politics.

Live digital event

Subscriber-only live event

War in the Middle East, one year on

A year after the October 7th attack, Gaza is in ruins and war may engulf the region. Join our editors as they assess the crisis on Thursday October 3rd at 4pm BST / 11am EDT / 8am PDT.

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