ATLANTA (AP) — From her earliest campaigns in California to her serving as President Joe Biden’s , Kamala Harris has honed an aggressive but calibrated approach to debates.

She tries to blend punch lines with details that build toward a broader narrative. She might shake her head to signal her disapproval while her opponent is speaking, counting on viewers to see her reaction on a split screen. And she has a go-to tactic to pivot debates back in her favor: saying she’s glad to answer a question as she gathers her thoughts to explain an evolving position or defend a past one.

Tuesday’s presidential debate will put the Democratic vice president����ap skills to a test unlike any she’s faced. faces former President , the Republican nominee, who will participate in his seventh general election debate since 2016 for an event that will be seen by tens of millions of viewers just as around the country.

People who have competed against Harris and prepared her rivals say she brings a series of advantages to the matchup, including her prosecutorial background juxtaposed with Trump being the first U.S. president . Still, Harris allies warn that Trump can be a challenging and unpredictable opponent who veers between policy critiques, personal attacks, and falsehoods or conspiracy theories.

“She can meet the moment,” said Marc Short, who led Republican Vice President Mike Pence’s debate preparation against Harris in the fall of 2020. “She has shown that in different environments. I would not underestimate that in any way.”

Julian Castro, a Democrat who ran for president against Harris in the 2020 primary, said Harris blended “knowledge, poise and the ability to explain things well” to stand out during crowded primary debates.

“Some candidates get too caught up with trying to be catchy, trying to go viral,” Castro said. “She’s found a very good balance.”

Balancing narrative and detail

A former Harris aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about her approach, said the vice president views the events like a jury trial she would have led when she was district attorney in San Francisco or querying a judicial nominee on Capitol Hill as a U.S. senator. The idea, the former aide said, has always been to win the debate on merit while leaving more casual or piecemeal viewers with key takeaways.

“She understands that debates are about the individual interactions themselves but also about a larger strategy of offering a vision for what your leadership and style looks like,” said Tim Hogan, who led Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s 2020 primary debate preparation.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a political communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said Harris makes deductive arguments but folds them into a broader narrative — the same way she would talk to jurors.

“She states a thesis and then follows with fact, fact, fact,” Jamieson said.

Jamieson pointed to the 2020 vice presidential debate in which Harris hammered Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy, and to her most memorable 2019 primary debate when she skewered Biden for how he had talked about race and institutional racism. She weaved her critique of Biden’s record with her own biography as a young, biracial student in the early era of school integration.

“That little girl was me,” Harris said in a widely circulated quip that punctuated her story about court-ordered busing that helped non-white students attend integrated schools.

“Most people who are good at the deductive argument aren’t good at wrapping that with an effective narrative,” Jamieson said. “She’s good at both.”

Landing memorable punches

Castro said Harris has a good feel for when to strike, a quality he traced to her trial experience. In 2019, as multiple Democratic candidates talked over one another, Harris sat back before getting moderators to recognize her.

“Hey, guys, you know what? America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re going to put food on their table,” she said, taking control of the conversation and drawing applause.

When Harris faced Pence in 2020, it was a mostly civil, substantive debate. But she got in digs that framed Pence as a serial interrupter, as Trump had been in his first debate with Biden.

“Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” she said at one point, with a stern look. At another: “If you don’t mind letting me finish, we can have a conversation.”

Finding traps in policy

Debates have sometimes put Harris on the defensive.

In the 2020 primary matches, Tulsi Gabbard, who this year has endorsed Trump, over how aggressively she prosecuted nonviolent drug offenders as a district attorney.

That fall, Pence made Harris sometimes struggle to defend Biden’s positions. Now, her task will be to defend not just Biden’s record, but her own role in that record and what policies she would pursue as president.

Short, one of Pence’s top aides, noted that Republicans and the media have raised questions about more liberal positions Harris took in her 2020 primary campaign, especially on fracking, universal healthcare, reparations for slavery and how to treat migrants who cross the U.S. border illegally.

“We were surprised that she missed some opportunities (against Pence) when the conversation was centered around policy,” Short said.

Timing, silence and nonverbal communication

One of Harris’ earliest debate triumphs came in 2010 as she ran for California attorney general. Her opponent was asked about his plans to accept his public pension while still being paid a salary for a current public post.

“I earned it,” Republican Steve Cooley said of the so-called “double-dipping” practice.

Harris looked on silently, with a slightly amused look as Cooley explained himself. When moderators recognized her, she said just seven words – “Go for it, Steve. You earned it!” — in a serious tone but with a look that communicated her sarcasm. The exchange landed in her television ads within days.

“Kamala Harris is quite effective at nonverbal communication and knowing when not to speak,” Jamieson said.

The professor said Harris often will shake her head and, with other looks, telegraph her disapproval while her opponent is speaking. Then she smiles before retorting, or attacking, in a conversational tone.

“She defuses some of the argument that Trump makes that she is ‘a nasty woman,’ that she’s engaging in egregiously unfair behavior, because her nonverbal presentation is actually undercutting that line of attack,” Jamieson said.

Meeting a new challenge with Trump

For all of Harris’ debate experience, Tuesday is still a new and massive stage. Democrats who ordinarily tear into Trump instead appeared on Sunday’s news shows to make clear that Harris faced a big task ahead.

“It will take almost superhuman focus and discipline to deal with Donald Trump in a debate,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, yet another of Harris’ 2020 opponents, on CNN. “It����ap no ordinary proposition, not because Donald Trump is a master of explaining policy ideas and how they’re going to make people better off. It����ap because he’s a master of taking any form or format that is on television and turning it into a show that is all about him.”

Castro noted that Trump is “a nasty and crafty stage presence” who makes preparation difficult. And with ABC keeping the candidates’ microphones off when they are not speaking, Harris may not find it as easy to produce another viral moment that hinges on viewers having seen or heard Trump at his most outlandish.

“The best thing she can do,” Castro said, “is not get distracted by his antics.”

Privately, many Democratic leaders say this is a Code Red necessitating a change.

While those leaders are not speaking out publicly, the voters are. Almost half of Democrat voters said in a new CBS News/YouGov poll that Biden should step aside and not accept the party’s nomination in late August. Seventy-two percent of respondents don’t think he possesses the mental and cognitive health necessary to serve. In another poll conducted by Our Revolution, nearly 70% of progressive Democratic voters said it was time for Biden to step aside. Pollster Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, expects some further decline in those numbers.

The debate was painful to watch. And, while winning the election is critical, a president must be able to effectively serve. As much as the White House and his allies desperately want to spin this as one bad debate performance, Americans have seen with their own eyes that Biden does not possess the cognitive and physical stamina to begin a second term, let alone finish it when he will be 86.

President Biden should gracefully withdraw his nomination, take a well-deserved victory lap, and pass the torch to the next generation.

Joe Biden is an American hero with a remarkable legacy that spans five decades. Of course, this is a difficult decision for a proud and stubborn man. Biden has been essentially running for president since 1987 when I met him in Iowa on the campaign trail. If high-level Democrats truly believe that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy, then they must convince him to withdraw.

At the beginning of our republic, President George Washington chose to step aside and ensure the peaceful transition of power, rather than run for a third presidential term. Washington did not want to be a king. Washington’s adversary, King George III asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what Washington would do after winning independence and West reportedly replied: “they say he will return to his farm.” According to legend, King George III replied: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” We have good reason to believe that Trump wants to be king. Like Washington, Biden should not seek a second term for the love of our country and the future of our democracy.

As of now, Biden, his family, and closest aides are doubling down on his commitment to stay in the race trying to quell concerns by calling his debate performance simply a bad night.  In a remarkable, oblivious twist, they have privately blasted his debate preparation team for his unnerving debate performance rather than come to terms with Biden’s obvious decline.

Biden and his team went apoplectic when Special Counsel Robert Hur released his report saying that it would be difficult to prosecute Biden in the classified documents matter because Biden was a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and it would be difficult to prove the mental state of willfulness. Hur’s report, which came under fire, described Biden’s memory as “hazy”, “faulty” and having significant limitations, now seems legitimate and fair.

The report was inimical to the picture that the White House has tried to paint.

Take, by way of example, Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates who said that, “not only does the president perform around the clock, but he maintains a schedule that tires younger aides, including foreign trips into active war zones, and he proves he has that capacity by delivering tangible results that pundits had declared impossible.”

But behind the scenes, a new Axios report presents a different picture where the White House tries to shield Biden from the public to avoid verbal miscues and obvious fatigue outside of the hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. when he is dependably engaged. That����ap fine for a Walmart greeter, but not so fine for the leader of the free world with the code for nuclear bombs. Biden has held the fewest solo press conferences of any president since the 1980’s.

Biden’s physical and mental health will only get worse from here.

In order to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee, he must step aside, which would release his 3,894 delegates (of 3,937) to vote for a different candidate in an open convention. Delegates would be under no obligation to support Vice President Kamala Harris.

The good news is that Democrats have a deep bench of talented potential presidential and vice-presidential candidates including, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore,  Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

For many of us, the choice between Trump and Biden is no choice at all. Voters are looking for fresh voices to solve this country’s thorniest issues. Biden’s family and closest allies need to seize this moment and speak truth to power and let him leave with honor and a legacy he and Americans alike can be proud of. America’s future may depend on it.

Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

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Last night I watched a debate between two men running for President of the United States; one came across as robust, eco-centric, and delusional; the other as old, befuddled, and confused. My takeaway is that one is off his rocker and the other is, sadly, in need of a rocker.

If these are our only choices in November, I can only say, “God help us all.”

Kathy Lutwack, Broomfield

During Watergate, once it became clear that Nixon was guilty and was headed for impeachment, a group of respected Republican leaders met with Nixon to tell him he had lost the confidence of the party and demanded his resignation for the good of the nation and party. While Joe Biden is a competent president and may or may not be for the next five years, it is now clear that he is no longer a competent candidate. We now need a “come to Nixon” intervention, for the good of the nation and party.

Steve Billig, Denver

President Biden’s debate performance was abysmal. From his tentative walk onto the stage to his stating he “beat Medicare,” and conflating Trump’s name with Putin’s, he demonstrated that he is not up to another four years.

This is very bad for the USA because of the Republican candidate. If Donald Trump says good morning, you’d better check your watch. He cheats at golf; he cheats on his wife; he contracts with workers and then doesn’t pay them. If he’s not lying, his lips aren’t moving. He mocks people with handicaps, lies about his support for the military, and says he can grab women by their genitals with no consequences. He needs to be challenged on his estrangement from the truth.

I believe that we have a new Joe here in Colorado who would be up to that task. His name is Congressman Joe Neguse. He’s voted with Joe Biden 100% of the time, is youthful, energetic, and brilliant. He would be able to send the con-man Trump back to Mar-a-Lago to peruse his top-secret stolen documents.

Philip Brien Clarke, Lone Tree

Dear President Biden,

You have done an excellent job as president and I have no doubt you place our nation and its people as your top priority in all that you do, and that you uphold the presidential oath every day.

There comes a time when all of us need to make tough decisions about ourselves as we get older. I decided to stop jogging due to my knee injury history. My Mom decided to stop driving when she realized she could be a danger behind the wheel. Paul Newman knew when he could no longer remember his lines or play a role to his personal standards, he retired from acting. Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Diane Feinstein are unfortunate examples of folks who put personal pride before national interest.

Just because we stop doing something does not mean we cannot channel the energy for that activity in some other way. I now power walk. My Mom gladly learned all the bus routes and engaged Meals on Wheels. Paul Newman put more effort and time into Newman’s Own.

Please step aside as the Democratic candidate for reelection. We need new energy in Jan 2025 for the toughest job on the planet. You have done your part with dignity and loyalty to this country. See the forest for the trees. The exact reason you feel you need to run again, to save our democracy from Donald Trump, is now the very reason you need to step aside.

You will be revered in history for such an unselfish act! Not only that, but you can channel your reelection energy into supporting and advocating for the best candidate the Democratic Party can nominate to win in November, knowing that starting in Jan 2025 you can start enjoying all that time spoiling your grandkids!

Best regards,

Gerard Witt, Commerce City

The Democrats keep saying how important this election is. That our democracy is at stake. If they really believe that they should have the courage to tell Joe Biden to step aside and run a viable candidate such as Amy Klobuchar or Gavin Newsome.

Linda Doran, Broomfield

Joe Biden has had a long and distinguished career as a public servant culminating in his election as president. He is in a unique position to help stop the rise of a dictatorial nation under Donald Trump. Until his recent extremely poor showing in the national debate, it was felt the race for president was close. Now it seems more likely that Trump will win.

A major reason is the showing of age decline by Biden. That is no crime and it eventually happens to all of us. However, as president that age issue has now taken center stage in the race to the great advantage of Trump. Biden can top off his great career with a dramatic act of selflessness if he drops out of the race and allows the Democrats to pick a new, younger, more aggressive ticket. Trump is vulnerable if the right team attacks him on his character, his plans, and his desire to be King. Biden can go down in history as the man who, admittedly not by choice, helped Trump or the man who gave up power to save his country.

Steven Spirn, Denver

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Four years ago, Colorado voters could have seen a wide array of Democratic contenders in the flesh in the weeks leading up to the March 2020 primary, including Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg and Tulsi Gabbard, while Joe Biden hit up donors in Denver. Several campaigns had paid staff on the ground here for weeks or months.

Even then-President Donald Trump stopped by for a visit just weeks before the primary, landing in Colorado Springs for a rally at the Broadmoor World Arena.

“This election is not going to be confused with past presidential primaries in Colorado,” said Eric Sondermann, an independent political analyst. “This year strikes me as a going-through-the-motions exercise.”

Ahead of Haley’s rally in Centennial, her campaign on Monday announced her “Colorado state leadership team” — a list of prominent supporters who will try to build support as primary voters return their ballots in the next week. Among them are former U.S. attorneys Troy Eid and Jason Dunn; Tom Norton, a former state Senate president and a former Greeley mayor; Todd Chapman, a former diplomat and U.S. ambassador; and Wendy Buxton-Andrade, a Prowers County commissioner.

But in terms of paid staff, Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration, has a minimal state operation, with one staffer on the ground.

The reasons for Colorado’s quiet campaign season begin with the slate of candidates on the Republican side being effectively winnowed down early to a David-and-Goliath battle between Haley and Trump. And despite polls showing that voters have concerns about of 81-year-old President Biden, who’s less than four years older than Trump, no serious Democratic contender has arisen to take him on.

The other major reason is that as Colorado has continued to drift to the left — fully shedding its status as a swing state — candidates can’t afford to waste time or money in a place where their political prospects are already evident.

“Nobody should be spending money in Colorado when all those other swing states need to get their infrastructure built,” said Ian Silverii, a longtime Democratic strategist, referring to Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and other states likely to be in play in November. “A Biden win in Colorado is all but guaranteed — the question is by what margin.”

Biden bested Trump in 2020 by 13.5 percentage points.

Sheena Kadi, a spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, said she was not aware of a campaign office or a state director for Biden’s reelection effort in Colorado. The same goes for Dean Phillips, a Minnesota congressman who’s the best-known Democrat taking on the president.

Biden was last in Colorado in November, when he promoted recent economic investments at a wind tower factory in Pueblo and attended a private fundraiser in Cherry Hills Village.

“Not speaking for either campaign — campaigns take three finite things: time, money, and resources,” Kadi said. “They are making the best decisions they can with the information they’ve got.”

If Trump wins the nomination, whether he will build the kind of multifaceted general election campaign organization he assembled in Colorado in 2016, during his first presidential run, is yet to be seen.

“Biden and Trump are pretty confident where they are in the presidential primaries,” said Dick Wadhams, a former chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

Colorado allows unaffiliated voters to participate in the party primary of their choosing. Those voters received mail ballots for both parties but may return only one of them.

Wadhams said perhaps the most interesting thing about Colorado’s March 5 primary is the “noncommitted delegate” option at the bottom of the listed Democratic candidates on the ballot. While Kadi, with the state Democratic Party, said that option was added to the ballot because “Democrats are the party of choice, the party of empowering people,” others see it differently.

“It will allow voters who are concerned with Biden’s physical and mental state to vote for someone else,” Wadhams said. “It’s a potential embarrassment for Biden if that gets a significant number of votes.”

Kristi Burton Brown, another former chair of the Colorado GOP, called the uncommitted line a potential “protest vote” for disaffected Democrats.

“They’re trying to gauge how much dissatisfaction is out there,” Brown said of the Democratic Party.

Fellow Democrat David Skaggs, who represented Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District in Washington, D.C., for a dozen years, wrote in a column in The Post last week that had cast his ballot for “uncommitted.”

“It is the ballot option that could lead to an open convention, where Democrats can pick a ticket that could more assuredly save the nation from the disaster of a second Trump administration,” he wrote.

������ showed Biden with the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. But Silverii said that whatever headwinds Biden is facing nationally, he won’t lose Colorado in November.

That’s because of the state’s large contingent of unaffiliated voters, who broke hard for the president in 2020.

“Unaffiliated voters have proven twice now that they will not vote for Trump — and in increasing numbers,” he said.

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At a time when our democratic traditions are already being threatened, the prospect of a general election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — with polls showing that some 65% of voters are opposed to both men — seems likely to increase the public’s despair about our way of government.

For the good of the country, as a patriotic act, somebody should step up to change this unhappy picture. And a man from Colorado could be the one to do it.

In short: Gov. Jared Polis should run for president in 2024.

There are two reasons why Polis should make this gutsy move.

First, a challenge to Biden from a serious, respected contender could galvanize the Democratic Party to do what its leaders know they ought to do: find a presidential candidate who has a better chance to win than the unpopular 81-year-old incumbent.

If Polis jumps into the race, he would encourage other often-mentioned possibilities — e.g., Govs. Gretchen Whitman (Mich) and Gavin Newsom (Cal.), Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) — to enter as well.

It����ap widely reported that each of those leading Democrats has considered a 2024 race, but they’re all holding back to show respect for their party’s incumbent president. If one prominent Democrat — Jared Polis, for example — had the guts to mount a primary campaign, others would probably do the same. Then the Democrats — and the American people — could land a presidential candidate who’s free of Biden’s considerable baggage.

Even Joe Biden would benefit from such a challenge. If he managed to beat Polis or other major figures in a serious primary contest, Biden would enter the general election as a proven winner, rather than as “Sleepy Joe,” the default choice of a somnolent party.

The second reason Jared Polis should run for president in 2024 is that Jared Polis could win.

After a generally successful first term, a well-received response to the COVID pandemic, and a runaway re-election victory against a Trump-endorsed challenger, Polis is gaining national recognition as the kind of person who might become a president. Established pundits ranging from the to the have cited Colorado’s governor as a candidate they’d like to see in the race.

On a personal level, Polis checks a lot of boxes. He’d be our first Jewish president, a fact that might be an asset at a time when many are worried about anti-Semitism in the U.S. He’s a happily married man with two kids — who happens to be gay. He’s an unapologetic capitalist; in fact, he’s a multi-millionaire business tycoon who started his first profitable venture in his college dorm room. That����ap the kind of biographical detail that Republican candidates love to boast about. He’s a strong campaigner who has never lost an election; that����ap a biographical item that any candidate would like to mention.

Although he’s the Democratic governor of an increasingly Democratic state, Polis has taken some positions that seem likely to appeal to conservative-leaning voters. He has consistently called for lower taxes, even suggesting that Colorado should reduce the state income tax to zero. He takes a wary — indeed, libertarian — approach to government regulations.

Katherine Mangu-Ward, the editor of Reason Magazine, a leading libertarian journal, was asked this month which candidates she might support for president. She mentioned one name: Jared Polis.

Coloradans know that Polis and his fellow Democrats were losers this month when voters soundly rejected Proposition HH, their plan to offset impending property tax increases. But that loss can be turned into lemonade in a national campaign. The vote on HH has forced Polis to call a special session of the legislature to reduce (partly) the coming tax hikes. When he runs for president, Polis can traverse the nation bragging that he ordered the state legislature into session specifically to cut taxes — and he never has to mention the ill-fated Prop HH.

Polls suggest that the likely Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, is even more unpopular than Biden. But at least the Republican Party has several serious people who had the courage to take on Trump in the primaries. Some Democrat needs to show the same courage by challenging Biden. And the best guy to do that is a Coloradan: Jared Polis.

Political reporter T. R. Reid, of Denver, covered four presidential campaigns for The Washington Post. He did not confer with Polis or any of his staff about this column.

Cerberus Capital Management, a big private equity firm, has long attracted controversy. In 2007, it took over Chrysler, but after two years of Cerberus ownership, the company needed a government bailout to stay in business. It spent years buying up companies that made guns — one of which was used by Adam Lanza in 2012 to kill 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Now the firm, which has some $60 billion in assets, is trying to pull off a deal that is expected to face intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators. Cerberus is the largest investor in Albertsons, the country’s second-largest supermarket chain by revenue. In October, Kroger, which is nearly twice the size of Albertsons, announced it was going to buy its smaller rival for $24.6 billion. If the deal were to go through without any government-mandated divestitures, the combined company would own some 5,000 stores, making it by far the dominant grocery chain in the country. The two companies hope to complete the deal in early 2024, according to federal filings.

At a time when corporate consolidation has become a major concern in Washington, D.C., the proposed deal has drawn a great deal of pushback. At a hearing on the merger held by the Senate antitrust subcommittee a few weeks ago, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who leads the subcommittee, suggested that the merger would lessen competition and lead to price hikes. And Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, complained that for all of their promises that the deal would be good for everyone, the two companies hadn’t explained “why the merger is necessary in the first place.”

But there is another aspect to this deal that may be even more contentious.

Albertsons, which Cerberus bought for $350 million in 2006, is planning to pay a $4 billion dividend to its investors — and to do it now, more than a year before the merger closes. Although Albertsons became a public company in 2020, Cerberus remains its largest shareholder, with a 30% stake. It also controls the Albertsons board. (Cerberus did not respond to an email requesting an interview.)

“In my opinion, the $4 billion special dividend is straightforward corporate raiding,” Sarah Miller, founder of the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in an email. Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., noting that the dividend was 57 times as much as any previous Albertsons’ dividend, called it “a cash grab.” He and others also pointed out that Albertsons did not have $4 billion in hand; it would have to borrow $1.5 billion, adding to its nearly $7.5 billion debt load.

Dividend recapitalizations — or dividend recaps, as they are called — have become a fairly common trick in the private equity playbook. Last year, according to a Bloomberg report, companies borrowed around $80 billion — a record — to pay out dividends to their private equity owners. Critics say that dividend recaps too often leave companies without enough capital to withstand a business downturn. For private equity firms, said Andrew Park, a policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, “it����ap heads, I win; tails, you lose.”

Dividend recaps are usually under the radar, as private companies are not required to make the same level of financial disclosure as public companies. The Albertsons recap, however, was right there in the merger documents — and critics quickly pointed to it as a classic example of how private equity firms take care of themselves ahead of the companies they own.

“When you saddle a company with serious debt before a merger, what happens if it doesn’t go through?” asked Phil Weiser, Colorado’s attorney general who has also served in the Justice Department����ap antitrust division. “This level of stripping a company of its assets is alarming.” (Albertsons said it will still have $3 billion in liquidity after the dividend is paid.)

Last month, a group of attorneys general, including Racine in Washington, D.C., and Bob Ferguson in Washington state, filed lawsuits against Kroger and Albertsons hoping to stop the dividend payment. In the suit filed by Washington state, Ferguson brought up other aspects of the deal that the attorneys general find troublesome, including the loss of competition if Kroger decides to shut down stores that are too close to one another, the potential for food prices to rise and the effect on unionized workers. (Each company owns some unionized stores and some nonunion stores. Union leaders fear that Kroger will close or spin off the unionized stores before the nonunion stores. Kroger, however, has promised to protect workers’ jobs.)

But it is the dividend that is front and center in the legal pleadings. Ferguson argued that the dividend violated the state’s consumer protection laws because it would so badly weaken Albertsons. However, in a ruling in Washington state Dec. 9, Judge Ken Schubert of King County Superior Court rejected that argument.

“It����ap not like the two of them got together and said, ‘How can we screw the consumers of Washington state and the nation?’” he said from the bench, according to The Seattle Times. “Albertsons from the start wanted to get rid of this money.”

A restraining order was put in place to block the payout while Ferguson appeals Schubert����ap decision to the state’s Supreme Court. It was extended Friday. Colorado has filed an amicus brief siding with Washington state.

If the dividend had been negotiated as part of the merger agreement, that would have been a violation of antitrust laws. But both Kroger and Albertsons said that was not the case — that the dividend was not part of the merger discussions — which means it is unclear whether Ferguson and his allies will ultimately prevail.

“This is an instance where the equitable powers of the court can stop the dividend even without a lot of direct legal precedent,” Weiser said. “We believe that Washington state has made a very compelling case.”

Even if the higher court rules against Washington state and the dividend is paid, the scrutiny it has received suggests that government officials are no longer willing to shrug their shoulders at the excesses of private equity. Almost everyone I spoke to about Albertsons’ dividend mentioned the Toys R Us bankruptcy in 2017. The toy company’s debt rose to $5 billion from $100 million while under private equity ownership; in the end, that debt load sunk it. “Part of our concern with this special dividend is that it could lead to another Toys R Us situation,” said Jonathan Williams, communications director for the union representing many of the grocery workers.

It is doubtful that the dividend recap will go away — not without some drastic change, such as the passage of a new law — but thanks to Albertsons and Cerberus, it����ap going to receive some long overdue attention.

This article originally appeared in .

On Thursday, the Democratic lawmaker from Colorado is set to introduce a bill that would attempt to soften the financial blow faced by homeowners when they take steps to replace their privately-owned lead water pipes, or service lines.

The country was hit with the reality of the toxic metal’s dangers when, beginning in 2014, residents of Flint, Mich., were exposed to it through their water supply. But, Coloradans aren’t immune to the health hazard.

— which provide the population with electricity, gas and, in this case, water — are in the process of changing out publicly-owned lead service lines nationwide. Denver Water, Colorado’s oldest and largest water utility, is doing the same with its , which kicked off in January 2020.

The agency serves lead-free water to 1.5 million people in the Mile High City and surrounding areas, but it can become contaminated when moving through lead-containing household fixtures, plumbing and service lines.

Denver Water is “financing the removal of all public and private lead service lines in its service area at no cost to its customers by issuing tax-exempt bonds,” according to Bennet’s office. are a means typically used by state and local governments to fund public projects.

The Internal Revenue Service has slowed Denver Water’s efforts, though, with a “costly and time-consuming analysis of its service area as part of the ‘private business use test'” that’s necessary to qualify for the tax exemption, Bennet’s office said.

The proposed solution lies in a change to the nation’s tax code. The measure would ensure bonds issued by public water utilities are tax-exempt if the entities are replacing privately-owned lead service lines to comply with a National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for lead.

“Coloradans deserve to know the water they and their children drink is safe,” Bennet said. “This legislation would not only help cut through red tape but alleviate some of the financial burden that homeowners typically face when replacing their lead pipes. We should learn from the experiences of Denver Water and use innovative financing to help eliminate lead pipes completely across our communities.”

There are about 64,000 to 84,000 lead service lines in Denver Water’s system — all of which are privately owned, said CEO Jim Lochhead. The agency agreed to remove those lines over a period of 15 years, with the program currently in year No. 3.

Denver Water is obligated to remove about 4,500 lines annually, he said. “This is a public health problem that needs to be solved.”

Lochhead called Bennet’s bill “extremely beneficial” because this specific type of bond is usually designed for transit projects, stadiums, airports and other uses. “It really helps us and other utilities across the country with additional flexibility on a way forward to more affordably get at this problem.”

The U.S. government prohibited the use of lead pipes in public water systems in 1986, but homes constructed before 1951 are more likely to have such lines, according to Denver Water. Residents of the Mile High City and the surrounding areas can find out the likelihood of a lead service line linked to their property on .

Keith McLaughlin, executive director of the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority, backed Bennet’s bill, calling it “a common sense policy that helps ensure all communities in Colorado can access safe and clean drinking water, especially our underserved communities who are disproportionately exposed to lead.”

Bennet’s measure is cosponsored by Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Dianne Feinstein and Chris Van Hollen. , a Democrat who was born and raised in Flint, introduced the House companion bill in March.

“What happened to my hometown of Flint is not an anomaly; it is a warning to other communities across America,” Kildee said. “We need to get serious about removing every lead pipe to ensure everyone has access to clean, affordable drinking water.”

Lead, which is a toxic metal that can be harmful even at low exposure levels, can result in elevated blood pressure and incidence of hypertension, reduced kidney function and reproductive problems in adults, according to the . Children are particularly vulnerable, with low exposure levels “linked to damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing and impaired formation and function of blood cells.”

WASHINGTON — As Republicans continued Sunday to defend former President Donald Trump after an unprecedented FBI search of his residence in Florida, deep fissures were visible in the party’s support for law enforcement amid a federal investigation into Trump’s handling of top secret documents.

Immediately after the search, congressional Republicans, including members of leadership, reacted with fury, attacking the nation’s top law enforcement agencies. Some called to “defund” or “destroy” the FBI, and others invoked the Nazi secret police, using words like “gestapo” and “tyrants.”

On Sunday, more moderate voices in the party chastised their colleagues for the broadsides against law enforcement, making a more restrained case for defending Trump while also carrying out oversight of the Justice Department.

Many Republicans called for the release of the affidavit supporting the search warrant that was executed last Monday, which would detail the evidence that had persuaded a judge there was probable cause to believe a search would find evidence of crimes. Such documents are typically not made public before charges are filed.

“It was an unprecedented action that needs to be supported by unprecedented justification,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., a former FBI agent, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation. But he added, “I have urged all my colleagues to make sure they understand the weight of their words.”

The calls for a more cautious tone came as threats emerged against law enforcement. A gunman on Thursday attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati, and Friday, the Department of Homeland Security distributed an intelligence bulletin to law enforcement around the country that warned of “an increase in threats and acts of violence, including armed encounters, against law enforcement, judiciary and government personnel” after the search.

“The FBI and DHS have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI headquarters and issuing general calls for ‘civil war’ and ‘armed rebellion,’” said the bulletin, which was obtained by The New York Times.

Adding to the sense of alarm, another gunman crashed a car into a barricade outside the Capitol around 4 a.m. Sunday. After he exited the car and it became engulfed in flames, he shot into the air several times before killing himself, the Capitol Police said.

Fitzpatrick said he had begun checking in with his former colleagues at the FBI “to make sure they were OK.”

“We’re the world’s oldest democracy, and the only way that can come unraveled is if we have disrespect for institutions that lead to Americans turning on Americans,” he said, adding, “A lot of that starts with the words we’re using.”

Republicans have struggled to coalesce around a unified strategy to respond to the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, amid daily revelations and quickly shifting explanations, excuses, defenses and false accusations by the former president.

On Friday, a federal judge unsealed the warrant authorizing the search and an inventory of items removed from the property by federal agents. The list showed that the FBI had retrieved 11 sets of classified documents as part of an inquiry into potential violations of the Espionage Act and two other laws.

Some of the documents were marked “classified/TS/SCI” — shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information.” Such information is meant to be viewed only in a secure government facility.

Trump and his allies have argued that former President Barack Obama also mishandled documents (an allegation quickly dismissed as false by the National Archives); that the judge who signed the warrant authorizing the search must have been biased; that the FBI might have planted evidence; that the documents were covered by attorney-client or executive privilege; and that Trump had declassified the documents.

The former president has worked to cash in on the search.

Trump’s political action committee has been furiously fundraising off the FBI search, sending out at least 17 text messages to donors since Tuesday. “The Dems broke into the home of Pres. Trump,” one read. “This is POLITICAL TARGETING!” another alleged. “THEY’RE COMING AFTER YOU!” a third said.

Donald Trump Jr., the former president����ap son, wrote another fundraising email Sunday: “The witch hunt continues…The FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago was a DISGRACE. In fact, it����ap UNFATHOMABLE.”

On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also called for the repeal of the Espionage Act, one of the statutes that prompted the investigation.

But the shifting explanations have made it difficult for Republicans, many of whom are eager to please the former president, to come together with a unified defense. They are divided about whether to attack the nation’s top law enforcement agencies and how aggressive to be in those attacks.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., whom the National Republican Congressional Committee is featuring in fundraising appeals, has begun selling merchandise that says “Defund the FBI.”

That is a much different approach from Rep. Michael Turner of Ohio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, who defended Trump on Sunday.

Republicans on the committee have said they continue to support law enforcement. Still, they said that tough questions remained for Attorney General Merrick Garland about his decision to take the bold step of ordering a search of the former president����ap home, and they promised to hold the Justice Department accountable.

“Clearly, no one is above the law,” Turner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Donald Trump is not above the law. And Attorney General Garland is not above the law, either. And Congress has the powers of oversight. He needs to comply.”

Turner said he had not been convinced “whether or not this actually is classified material and whether or not it rises to the level of the highest classified material,” despite the documents released by the court.

“I’d be very surprised if he has actual documents that rise to the level of an immediate national security threat,” Turner said.

Two of the laws referred to in the search warrant, however, make the taking or concealment of government records a crime regardless of whether they are related to national security. The third, which bars the unauthorized retention of material with restricted national security information, applies whether or not the material is classified.

The Republican leaders in the Senate and the House, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, have also said that Garland needs to provide answers.

Garland, for his part, held a news conference Thursday defending the way the Justice Department has handled the case.

“Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly, without fear or favor,” he said. “Under my watch that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing.”

The White House, trying to avoid the appearance of partisan interference, has been reluctant to comment on the investigation. “We do not interfere. We do not get briefed,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding, “We’re going to let Merrick Garland speak for himself and his department.”

But other Democrats immediately seized on Republicans’ anti-law enforcement statements.

“I thought in the old days the Republican Party used to stand with law enforcement,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I hope some of them do today because this kind of rhetoric is very dangerous to our country.”

She pointed out that when she reviews classified documents she must do so in a secure room. “I can’t even wear my Fitbit,” she said.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., chair of the Intelligence Committee, has called for the director of national intelligence to conduct an “immediate review and damage assessment” and provide a classified briefing to Congress about the potential harm done to national security by Trump’s handling of documents.

“The fact that they were in an unsecure place that is guarded with nothing more than a padlock or whatever security they had at a hotel is deeply alarming,” he said on “Face the Nation.”

Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, called on his panel to scrutinize Garland’s actions.

“Never has a former president and potential political opponent to the sitting president been subject to such a search,” Portman said in a statement. “The attorney general and the FBI should now demonstrate unprecedented transparency and explain to the American people why they authorized the raid.”

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., took a similar approach.

“I’m not one of the individuals out there that says that, you know, ‘Immediately attack the FBI or the Justice Department,’” he said on “Meet the Press.”

“But,” he added, “I think it����ap very important long term for the Justice Department, now that they’ve done this, that they show that this was not just a fishing expedition.”

This article originally appeared in .

The initiative would have changed the city charter to remove a requirement that the city have a police department with a minimum number of officers. Supporters said a complete overhaul of policing was necessary to stop police violence. Opponents said the proposal had no concrete plan for how to move forward and warned it would leave some communities already affected by violence more vulnerable as crime is on the rise.

The ballot proposal had roots in the abolish-the-police movement that erupted after Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer last year. The debate over racial justice in policing brought national attention to Tuesday’s vote, as well as a river of out-of-state money seeking to influence the outcome that could have shaped change elsewhere, too.

The ballot question called for a new Department of Public Safety to take “a comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions” that would be determined by the mayor and City Council. Supporters argued it was a chance to reimagine what public safety can be and how money gets spent. Among other things, supporters said, funding would go toward programs that don’t send armed officers to call on people in crisis.

Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey was also in a tough fight for a second term, facing a bevy of opponents who have attacked him for his leadership in the wake of Floyd’s death. Frey opposed the policing amendment. Two of his leading challengers in the field of 17 candidates, Sheila Nezhad and Kate Knuth, strongly supported the proposal.

With nearly complete returns, Frey had about 43 percent of the vote. He needed 50% to win under the city’s ranked-choice voting system, with the city to begin sorting second- and third-place choices Wednesday morning.

Frey had 44% of the first-choice votes with over 70% of precincts reporting, while Nezhad and Knuth were both near 20%. But Frey would need 50% to win outright Tuesday night under Minneapolis’ ranked choice voting system. Otherwise, the outcome would be determined Wednesday when the second- and potentially the third-choice votes are tallied.

Minneapolis voters were also deciding whether to replace the city’s unusual “weak mayor, strong council” system with a more conventional distribution of executive and legislative powers that would give the mayor clearer authority over day-to-day government operations.

The future of policing in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice overshadowed everything on the municipal ballot. The debate brought national attention to the election, as well as a river of out-of-state money seeking to influence a contest that could shape changes in policing elsewhere, too.

Rishi Khanna, 31, a tech worker, voted yes on replacing the police department, saying he doesn’t believe police officers are qualified to deal with many situations, such as mental health crises. He said he thinks having professionals equipped to deal with a range of public safety issues in the same department as law enforcement will benefit both residents and police officers.

“I understand that law enforcement will have to have a seat at the table, but I think both in our community and in communities around the country, too often law enforcement is the only seat at the table,” he said. “I don’t think that����ap the right solution.”

Askari Lyons, 61, voted against the ballot initiative. A resident of the city’s largely Black north side, where violent crime runs higher than in the rest of the city, he said he believes Minneapolis police officers “may have learned a lesson after George Floyd’s death and what happened to the cop that killed him.”

Lyons called it “unwise” to replace the department and said he believes change within the department is imminent.

“People are so frustrated, so angry, so disappointed” with the violence occurring citywide as much as they are with the city’s law enforcement, he said.

The proposed amendment to the city charter would have removed language that mandates that Minneapolis have a police department with a minimum number of officers based on population. It would have been replaced by a new Department of Public Safety that would take a “comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions” that “could include” police officers “if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety.”

Supporters of the change argued that a complete overhaul of policing is necessary to stop police violence. They framed it as a chance to re-imagine what public safety can be and to devote more funding toward new approaches that don’t rely on sending armed officers to deal with people in crisis.

But opponents said the ballot proposal contained no concrete plan for how the new department would operate and expressed fear that it might make communities already affected by gun violence even more vulnerable to rising crime. The details, and who would lead the new agency, would be determined by the mayor and the City Council.

Two nationally prominent progressive Democratic leaders — U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents the Minneapolis area, and state Attorney General Keith Ellison — both supported the policing amendment. But some leading mainstream liberals, including Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, opposed it and feared the backlash could lead to Democratic losses across the country in 2022.

Support didn’t cleanly follow racial lines. Opponents included several prominent Black leaders, including some who have been top voices in the police accountability movement.

Minister JaNaé Bates, a spokeswoman for the pro-amendment campaign, told reporters Monday that even if the proposal fails, the activists behind it have changed the conversation around public safety.

“No matter what happens, the city of Minneapolis is going to have to move forward and really wrestle with what we cannot unknow: that the Minneapolis Police Department has been able to operate with impunity and has done quite a bit of harm and the city has to take some serious steps to rectify that,” Bates said.

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Mohamed Ibrahim is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

WASHINGTON (AP) — While accusing the giant social network of pursuing profits over safety, a former Facebook data scientist told Congress Tuesday she believes stricter government oversight could alleviate the dangers the company poses, from harming children to inciting political violence to fueling misinformation.

Frances Haugen, testifying to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, presented a wide-ranging condemnation of Facebook. She accused the company of failing to make changes to Instagram after internal research showed apparent harm to some teens and being dishonest in its public fight against hate and misinformation. Haugen’s accusations were buttressed by tens of thousands of pages of internal research documents she secretly copied before leaving her job in the company’s civic integrity unit.

But she also offered thoughtful ideas about how Facebook’s social media platforms could be made safer. Haugen laid responsibility for the company’s profits-over-safety strategy right at the top, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but she also expressed empathy for Facebook’s dilemma.

Haugen, who says she joined the company in 2019 because “Facebook has the potential to bring out the best in us,” said she didn’t leak internal documents to a newspaper and then come before Congress in order to destroy the company or call for its breakup, as many consumer advocates and lawmakers of both parties have called for.

Haugen is a 37-year-old data expert from Iowa with a degree in computer engineering and a master’s degree in business from Harvard. Prior to being recruited by Facebook, she worked for 15 years at tech companies including Google, Pinterest and Yelp.

“Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy,” Haugen said. “The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.”

“Congressional action is needed,” she said. “They won’t solve this crisis without your help.”

In a note to Facebook employees Tuesday, Zuckerberg disputed Haugen’s portrayal of the company as one that puts profit over the well-being of its users, or that pushes divisive content.

“At the most basic level, I think most of us just don’t recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted,” Zuckerberg wrote.

He did, however, appear to agree with Haugen on the need for updated internet regulations, saying that would relieve private companies from having to make decisions on social issues on their own.

“We’re committed to doing the best work we can, but at some level the right body to assess tradeoffs between social equities is our democratically elected Congress,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Democrats and Republicans have shown a rare unity around the revelations of Facebook’s handling of potential risks to teens from Instagram, and bipartisan bills have proliferated to address social media and data-privacy problems. But getting legislation through Congress is a heavy slog. The Federal Trade Commission has taken a stricter stance toward Facebook and other tech giants in recent years.

“Whenever you have Republicans and Democrats on the same page, you’re probably more likely to see something,” said Gautam Hans, a technology law and free speech expert at Vanderbilt University

Haugen suggested, for example, that the minimum age for Facebook’s popular Instagram photo-sharing platform could be increased from the current 13 to 16 or 18.

She also acknowledged the limitations of possible remedies. Facebook, like other social media companies, uses algorithms to rank and recommend content to users’ news feeds. When the ranking is based on engagement — likes, shares and comments — as it is now with Facebook, users can be vulnerable to manipulation and misinformation. Haugen would prefer the ranking to be chronological. But, she testified, “People will choose the more addictive option even if it is leading their daughters to eating disorders.”

Haugen said a 2018 change to the content flow contributed to more divisiveness and ill will in a network ostensibly created to bring people closer together.

Despite the enmity that the new algorithms were feeding, she said Facebook found that they helped keep people coming back — a pattern that helped the social media giant sell more of the digital ads that generate the vast majority of its revenue.

Haugen said she believed Facebook didn’t set out to build a destructive platform. “I have a huge amount of empathy for Facebook,” she said. “These are really hard questions, and I think they feel a little trapped and isolated.”

But “in the end, the buck stops with Mark,” Haugen said, referring to Zuckerberg, who controls more than 50% of Facebook’s voting shares. “There is no one currently holding Mark accountable but himself.”

Haugen said she believed that Zuckerberg was familiar with some of the internal research showing concerns for potential negative impacts of Instagram.

The subcommittee is examining Facebook’s use of information its own researchers compiled about Instagram. Those findings could indicate potential harm for some of its young users, especially girls, although Facebook publicly downplayed possible negative impacts. For some of the teens devoted to Facebook’s popular photo-sharing platform, the peer pressure generated by the visually focused Instagram led to mental health and body-image problems, and in some cases, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts, the research leaked by Haugen showed.

One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.

She also has filed complaints with federal authorities alleging that Facebook’s own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest, but that the company hides what it knows.

After recent reports in The Wall Street Journal based on documents she leaked to the newspaper raised a public outcry, Haugen revealed her identity in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday night.

As the public relations debacle over the Instagram research grew last week, Facebook put on hold its work on a kids’ version of Instagram, which the company says is meant mainly for tweens aged 10 to 12.

Haugen said that Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to thwart misinformation and incitement to violence after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election, alleging that doing so contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

After the November election, Facebook dissolved the civic integrity unit where Haugen had been working. That was the moment, she said, when she realized that “I don’t trust that they’re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.”

Haugen says she told Facebook executives when they recruited her that she wanted to work in an area of the company that fights misinformation, because she had lost a friend to online conspiracy theories.

Facebook maintains that Haugen’s allegations are misleading and insists there is no evidence to support the premise that it is the primary cause of social polarization.

“Today, a Senate Commerce subcommittee held a hearing with a former product manager at Facebook who worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports, never attended a decision-point meeting with (top) executives – and testified more than six times to not working on the subject matter in question. We don’t agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about,” the company said in a statement.

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Associated Press writers Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, and Amanda Seitz in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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Follow Marcy Gordon at https://twitter.com/mgordonap.