Public evidence of President Donald Trump as a devout Christian isn’t plentiful. (In one now-infamous 2016 campaign speech, for instance, he stumbled over the name of one book of the Bible, citing “Two Corinthians.”)
In the lead-up to 2016, white evangelicals were more divided about Trump. Since Trump took office, white evangelicals have remained among his most loyal backers.
This week, an editorial in Christianity Today stunned political observers by calling for Trump’s removal. The magazine, a venue for mainstream evangelical thought, was founded by the preacher Billy Graham, whose brand of bipartisanship seems incongruous with the faith’s politicization.
As Mark Galli, the publication’s editor in chief, told my colleague Emma Green, “Yes, he’s done some good things that I am grateful for. But the moral scales no longer balance.”
1. “Not so long ago, working- and middle-class people were mostly spared the details of wealth.”
One debate-night phrase still echoing through the insular halls of Twitter: wine caves (the underground rooms where wine is stored and aged). Stay with us; there’s actually more to this.
“Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States,” Senator Elizabeth Warren had said during the final Democratic debate of 2019.
Pete Buttigieg, who was recently photographed at a fundraising dinner in a crystal-studded wine cave, hit back (Warren has a “net worth 100 times mine,” he said).
2. “The notion of a purity test by which candidates are measured is similar to another political metaphor drawn from chemical analysis.”
What followed the wine-caves exchange between Warren and Buttigieg was one on the purity test.
Since when did the phrase become ubiquitous political speak? The linguist Ben Zimmer takes a look.
One early political foray for the purity test occurred in 1912, when Kansas was deciding whether to adopt an amendment to the state constitution extending full suffrage to women.
Impeachment has overshadowed another urgent story, one that also hinges on the president’s direct relationship with a foreign leader.
Desperate to salvage the détente, Trump has been warning Kim not to “interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election” (as if North Korea’s totalitarian leader has qualms about messing with American democracy) or to “void his special relationship with the President of the United States” (as if their bromance were contractual). He has relentlessly downplayed the recent spurt of missile tests, even as they’ve become more sophisticated and harder to dismiss.
“You can’t have the North Koreans, for example, do a submarine-launched [nuclear-capable] missile test and say it’s okay, while your closest ally, Japan, is going batshit,” Joseph Yun, who served as the State Department’s North Korea envoy from 2016 to 2018, told me.
Today’s newsletter was written by Saahil Desai, an associate editor on our Politics team, and edited by Shan Wang, who oversees newsletters. You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments, or send a note to politicsdaily@theatlantic.com.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
