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Democrats excoriate Saudis over OPEC+ decision

Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration took aim at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its lead producer, Saudi Arabia, following the announcement that the OPEC+ bloc will cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day. 

The announcement comes months after President Biden visited Saudi Arabia to appeal to the kingdom’s leaders to increase production in hopes of reducing domestic gas prices and depriving Russia of energy revenues.

The cuts could mean an increase in gas prices ahead of election day and throw a lifeline to the Kremlin after weeks of gains by Ukrainian forces against the Russian invasion. 

“It’s clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia with today’s announcement,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters hours after the announcement.

Pierre was noncommittal on whether the announcement would affect broader Washington-Riyadh relations, saying, “I can speak to this decision: it’s a mistake.” 

Democrats in Congress were blunter, specifically questioning the purpose of overlooking Saudi Arabia’s human rights records and selling the nation weapons at no benefit to the U.S.  

“I thought the whole point of selling arms to the Gulf States despite their human rights abuses, nonsensical Yemen War, working against US interests in Libya, Sudan etc, was that when an international crisis came, the Gulf could choose America over Russia/China,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted Wednesday morning. 

Murphy further excoriated the decision in an interview with CNBC Wednesday from the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland, calling for a “full-scale re-evaluation” of the U.S.-Saudi alliance.  

“What’s the point of looking the other way as the Saudis chop up journalists [and] repress political speech inside Saudi Arabia if, when the chips are down, the Saudis essentially choose the Russians instead of the United States?” Murphy said, referencing the 2018 assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

“We’ve been very clear with them; we need them right now … and it seems like either the Saudis aren’t willing to stand with us or have to be pushed very hard to stand with us,” Murphy said. 

The Connecticut senator struck a pessimistic note on Biden’s July visit, saying it “does not seem to have gotten us what we need,” also referencing the collapse of the truce in Yemen’s civil war. “I think you have to be very careful doing business with the Saudis these days.” 

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a frequent critic of both foreign energy dependence and Riyadh’s human rights record in general, went further, telling CNN the Saudis are “actively fleecing the American people and destabilizing the economy.” 

“The Saudis need to be dealt with harshly. They are a third-rate power. We are the most powerful country in the world. I don’t know why we kowtow to them,” Khanna told the network.

He went on to call on the U.S. to retaliate by barring major defense contractors like Boeing and Raytheon from sales to the Saudis. 

“The president needs to make it clear we will cut off their supply. We could ground their air force in a day,” Khanna said. 

The Hill has reached out to the Saudi Embassy for comment. 

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Court agrees to fast-track DOJ's appeal in Trump special master case

A federal appeals court on Wednesday agreed to fast-track an appeal by the Department of Justice (DOJ) over the appointment of a special master to review thousands of pages of government records seized this summer from former President Trump’s Florida home. 

The one-page order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit sets an aggressive timeline for the case, ordering multiple rounds of paper briefs by the DOJ and Trump to wrap up by Nov. 17.

Developing

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'Privileged' Mar-a-Lago tranche include Trump legal docs, discussion on pardons

An inadvertently shared log of potentially privileged materials taken from former President Trump’s Florida home includes details of his calls as president, analyses of who should receive pardons and heaps of records tied to his many legal entanglements.

The logs, apparently unsealed in error, were first reported by Bloomberg News, which shared the filing that has since been removed from the court docket.

The attachments were designed to illuminate the work of the Justice Department’s “filter team” in an Aug. 30 memo the court unsealed Monday — an effort at the time to convince a Florida judge that no special master was needed to review the potentially privileged material.  

The exhibits cover 520 pages of records that the team determined were largely government records, as well as those it determined were personal property that should be returned to Trump, or were private matters covered by attorney-client privilege. The filter team is composed of attorneys not assigned to the case who review records before releasing them to investigators.

Among the tranche of records at Trump’s home were communications about securing clemency for Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic Illinois governor whose sentence was commuted by Trump after he was convicted for trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by former President Obama.

He also had “internal pardon packages[s],” or clemency requests, for individuals listed only as RN, IR, JC and MB.

Those materials also included 35 pages of “The President’s Calls,” with the memo noting one from “Rudy,” which may have been from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, “that does not appear, on its face, to be related to legal advice.”

Other items included folders labeled with NARA, an abbreviation for the National Archives and Records Administration, as well as a draft immigration policy. 

The documents also included some printed emails, including a National Security Council email about the release of John Walker Lindh, an American who pleaded guilty to charges related to supporting the Taliban, and an email from the head baseball coach at the U.S. Air Force Academy to the White House.

“As such, virtually none of those materials appears to be privileged attorney-client communications or protected under the attorney work product doctrine,” the Justice Department wrote, determining that those records ought to be turned over to investigators. 

The 383 pages of documents the filter team determined should be returned to Trump include a number of records related to his taxes, as well an invoice for legal work and other documents related to Trump’s legal affairs.

Also among the documents are two medical records, including the publicly released letter from Trump’s doctor during the 2016 campaign, as well as an insurance plan explanation of benefits. Federal district court Judge Aileen Cannon in part determined a special master was necessary due to the medical records.

The legal documents include a filing related to his lawsuit with niece Mary Trump, and one related to retaining counsel in his dealings with E. Jean Carroll, who has accused Trump of sexually assaulting her. The tranche also includes documents related to his election-related lawsuits in Georgia and numerous other invoices and agreements for retention of counsel.

One invoice included on the list was accompanied by two post-it notes reading “said you agreed to pay this bill? Work prior to his becoming WH counsel” and another reading “No.” The invoice is from Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner, where White House Counsel Pat Cipollone previously worked.

Other files include numerous nondisclosure agreements, as well as Trump’s resignation letter from the Screen Actors Guild, which sought to expel him after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. 

The 520 pages of records covered by the filing are just a fraction of the 200,000 pages recovered during the search of Mar-a-Lago.

The Justice Department secured a court win from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to divert 100 classified records from review, though its broader battle to challenge the special master is still being litigated.

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Biden 'disappointed' by OPEC+ decision to cut oil production

The White House on Wednesday admonished what it called a “shortsighted decision” by OPEC and its allies to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day, a move that could lead to a rise in gas prices domestically.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan and top economic adviser Brian Deese issued a statement that took issue with the decision, citing ongoing concerns about the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“At a time when maintaining a global supply of energy is of paramount importance, this decision will have the most negative impact on lower- and middle-income countries that are already reeling from elevated energy prices,” Sullivan and Deese said in a joint statement, adding that President Biden was “disappointed” by the decision.

The Department of Energy will release 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve next month, the White House said, and Biden will direct releases of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “as appropriate to protect American consumers and promote energy security.”

“The President is also calling on U.S. energy companies to keep bringing pump prices down by closing the historically large gap between wholesale and retail gas prices — so that American consumers are paying less at the pump,” Sullivan and Deese said.

The White House also used the announcement to highlight the importance of transitioning away from a reliance on fossil fuels, which has been a key part of the Biden administration’s agenda.

The announced cut from OPEC+, which includes the 13 OPEC nations and 11 non-members including Russia, is roughly equivalent to 2 percent of global supplies.

The move flies in the face of a push by Biden and the White House to get the coalition to avoid a production cut. Biden in July visited Saudi Arabia to directly appeal to its leaders to increase oil production, despite his administration’s frequent criticism of the kingdom’s human rights record. After the meeting, Saudi Arabia announced a production increase, but a significantly smaller one than the U.S. had requested.

It’s unclear what immediate effect the production cut will have on gas prices, but any spike in costs so close to the midterms could be problematic for Biden and Democrats. The president and his team had in recent weeks touted a steady decline in gas prices from summer highs of more than $5 per gallon, but prices have started to tick up again in recent weeks, according to AAA.

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Petraeus: Putin is 'literally out of moves'

Former CIA Director and retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus said in a new interview that Russia can still inflict destruction upon Ukraine, but Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot reverse Ukrainian gains in the four regions Moscow recently annexed.

“I think he’s literally out of moves,” Petraeus told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble. 

“He’s trying all these different desperate actions, but the fact is, the reality that confronts Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine is that Ukraine has a vastly more capable and larger force than does the country that is more than three times their size,” Petraeus continued. “So the reality on the battlefield now is desperate for Putin. There’s literally nothing he can do. It is irreversible.”

Putin on Wednesday signed documents absorbing four regions in Ukraine’s south and east into Russia after the country’s parliament approved the measure earlier in the week.

Petraeus predicted Ukraine would take back the entirety of those regions and perhaps even the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

The Kremlin says residents voted on its latest plans in a supposed referendum, but the vote and subsequent annexations were widely condemned by U.S. and Western officials as a sham and illegal land grab.

Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, have continued fighting in those areas even as Russia threatens using nuclear weapons, and it remains unclear the exact borders of Russia’s new territorial claim.

“The sham referendum, the annexation — that doesn’t change anything,” Petraeus told CNBC. “The Ukrainians are already taking back these areas that have been annexed as about as quickly as Russia can annex them.”

Over the weekend, Ukrainian forces reclaimed the key transportation hub of Lyman, located in the annexed Donetsk region, and also made gains in the country’s south in the annexed Kherson region.

The gains became the latest embarrassments for Putin, who has faced steep territorial losses in recent weeks from a Ukrainian counteroffensive that previously found significant success in the country’s northeast.

Protests and dissent inside Russia has grown, further increasing when Putin called up 300,000 reservists to aid the country’s fight inside Ukraine. Thousands attempted to flee on planes and through land borders.

Petraeus told CNBC the momentum is “very much against Russia,” saying their military was scrambling to secure defensive positions in the annexed regions.

“There’s still an enormous amount of damage and destruction that Russia can do,” he said. “They can punish and they will continue to punish Ukraine on a daily basis with missiles, rockets and bombs and so forth. But at the end of the day, they cannot reverse the situation on the battlefield.”

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The Hill's Morning Report — Trump heads to Arizona, Nevada as legal troubles mount

As Arizona and Nevada gear up to start their early voting processes in the coming days and weeks, both states are also expecting visits from former President Trump, who in the past has been a vocal opponent of mail-in voting (Time).

Trump is scheduled to speak in Minden, Nev., on Saturday to support Republican candidates, including Senate candidate Adam Laxalt and gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo. Trump’s rally coincides with the planned mass mailing out of ballots to most rural counties in the state — including Douglas County, where Minden is located. Two weeks later, Nevada will start its early voting process (The Nevada Independent).

On Sunday, the former president will hold a rally in Mesa, Ariz. to boost Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters, who is running for the Senate, and Kari Lake, who is running for governor. Three days later, on Oct. 12, Arizona will begin early voting.

Trump has repeatedly said mail-in voting is rife with fraud, despite proof to the contrary. But as states were expanding access to mail-in ballots during the pandemic, the former president stuck by his message and successfully convinced large numbers of Republicans not to trust the method. The MIT Election Lab found that in 2020, 59 percent of Democrats voted by mail, compared to only 30 percent of Republicans.

The former president’s legal team on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to intervene in its legal battle to have a third party review the thousands of pages of government records he stored at Mar-a-Lago, The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch and John Kruzel report.

The filing from the Trump team asks the Court to lift a stay granted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that allowed the Justice Department to review more than 100 classified records taken from Mar-a-Lago during its August search.

Meanwhile, new revelations that Trump himself reportedly packed the initial 15 boxes returned to the National Archives and ignited a criminal Justice Department probe could strengthen the government’s case should it choose to prosecute, writes The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch.

The detail, which was first reported by The Washington Post, was revealed because Alex Cannon, a former Trump Organization lawyer who worked for the campaign and for the former president after he left office, told Trump he could not tell the National Archives all the materials it requested had been returned, even as Trump instructed him to do so.

Cannon told others he was not sure if there were still documents at Mar-a-Lago, people familiar with the matter told the Post.

“The fact that he packed them is very significant because I imagine the Justice Department is trying to resolve how much evidence they have that Trump personally knew and personally was involved in hiding the documents,” Ryan Goodman, co-director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, told The Hill.

▪ Bloomberg News: Inside Mar-a-Lago: Pardons, White House emails, legal bills.

▪ Politico: Arizona GOP chair pleaded the Fifth, Jan. 6 committee attorney says.

▪ NBC News: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.): Calling Jan. 6 an “armed insurrection” is not accurate.

▪ Politico: Texts, recordings show Oath Keepers’ early talk of armed resistance to Biden presidency.

In Georgia, Republican Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign was thrust into turmoil on Monday when The Daily Beast published a report alleging the former football star paid for his then-girlfriend’s abortion more than a decade ago. Walker has said he opposes abortion, including in cases of rape and incest. As The Hill’s Max Greenwood and Al Weaver write, the news account stirred Republicans’ worries about Walker’s chances of ousting Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in an increasingly tight race.

Walker has denied the report and threatened to sue the outlet. The GOP appears to be closing ranks around the candidate.

“Democrats are losing in Georgia and are on the verge of losing the majority, so they and their media allies are doing what they always do — attack Republicans with innuendo and lies,” Chris Hartline, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told The Hill in a statement. “Democrats and the media have tried to stir up nonsense about what has or hasn’t happened in Herschel Walker’s past because they want to distract from what’s happening in the present.”

▪ Politico: Republicans rally around Walker’s imperiled candidacy.

▪ The Guardian: Walker vows to sue over report he says is false that he paid for abortion.

After publishing a series of tweets attacking his father on Monday, Christian Walker on Tuesday explained his relationship with and criticism of his father further in a video. The 23-year-old conservative TikTok influencer called his father a liar and a hypocrite and alleged that he and his mother had to move often to escape his father’s violence.

“This is a candidate issue; this is not a me issue,” his son said in the video. “I wouldn’t have spoken out if there weren’t all these lies every day.”

Meanwhile, the GOP is grilling Pennsylvania Senate candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) on the issue of crime, capitalizing on a rising rate in Philadelphia (The Hill). Republicans cite the recent ransacking of a Wawa store and the shooting of five students outside a Philadelphia high school this past week.

While Fetterman played defense by erasing statements of support for Black Lives Matter from his website, Republicans see the crime issue as one of their best opportunities to drive a wedge between Democrats and suburban swing voters, especially in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina. 

Fetterman on Tuesday rebuked the GOP attacks. Speaking with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, he said, “It’s absurd, and it’s the Oz rule. You know, when he’s on TV, he’s lying.”

▪ The New York Times: A Republican group’s ads take on Fetterman over a 2013 gun incident involving a Black jogger.  

▪ The Philadelphia Inquirer: Republican Senate candidate and physician Mehmet Oz is facing accusations of animal abuse tied to his medical research.

Related Articles

▪ Politico: As the midterms approach, election officials must confront a new problem: Whether they can trust their own poll workers.

▪ The Washington Post: The Supreme Court on Tuesday debated Alabama’s refusal of a second Black voting district in another major test of the Voting Rights Act.

▪ Bloomberg News: An effort to challenge thousands of voter signups, backed Trump ally Michael Flynn, failed in Georgia.

▪ Politico: Inside the GOP’s heated, leaky race to lead the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

▪ Bloomberg News: Trump is using his lawsuit against CNN to raise money.

▪ The Hill: President Biden will head to New York, New Jersey on Thursday to visit IBM and meet with Democratic donors.

LEADING THE DAY 

➤ STATE WATCH

Biden today flies to hurricane-pummeled Florida to meet with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials while surveying the federal response and repeating that all available recovery and rebuilding assistance will be on its way from Washington (The Hill). 

Biden and DeSantis will receive a briefing in Fort Myers, Fla., where part of the subplot will be the body language between two men who have clashed in the past over DeSantis’s recent transport of migrants from Texas to Massachusetts and the governor’s early pandemic-response rebukes aimed at the Biden White House. DeSantis is eyeing a possible presidential bid and has eagerly campaigned for Republican candidates outside his state.

Hurricane Ian devastated Florida, leaving the outspoken governor no option but to seek the maximum natural disaster resources available from Uncle Sam. The president has not hesitated to approve his requests and has coordinated with DeSantis directly.

▪ Politico: Because the hurricane damaged infrastructure in many Florida counties and communities, safely conducting elections on Nov. 8 may require fixes.

▪ The Hill: An analysis of recent hurricanes (before Ian blew through Florida and the Carolinas) corroborates warnings from the Federal Emergency Management agency that fatalities too often occur because of post-storm circumstances. The data tell that story: 371 indirect deaths versus 324 direct deaths.

▪ The Hill: Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is seeking reelection, on Monday extended the existing suspension of the state’s tax on gasoline until after the elections. He cited economic strains from Hurricane Ian.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ ADMINISTRATION

The White House is debating internally how and when to jump into the immigration reform policy arena. NBC News reports a West Wing push in that direction could come after the midterm contests. The policy details of any immigration agenda, as well as its scale and scope depend on the makeup of Congress and the political climate, according to NBC sources. 

If Republicans control one or both chambers next year, intense GOP oversight of border security and management of immigration is a sure bet. Some House Republicans are threatening to impeach the Homeland Security secretary, the president, or both.

If Biden prepares to run for reelection in 2024, his advisers know that any GOP presidential nominee would challenge the incumbent on immigration. With or without Democratic majorities, the White House will be pressured to frame a constructive agenda that’s politically sustainable if Congress continues to duck legislation to repair the nation’s immigration laws.

On another potent election-year issue, abortion, Biden on Tuesday during a White House event touted reproductive healthcare equity, including new federal guidance to universities to urge them to protect access to abortion (CNBC).

More than a dozen red states have effectively banned abortions since the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that sent the issue to the states to decide. The resulting state legislative changes have affected nearly 30 million women of reproductive age, including 22 million barred from accessing abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, according to the White House.

Biden, a Catholic who supports reproductive healthcare rights, bashed the University of Idaho on Tuesday over its new guidance against offering birth control to students. He said contraception should not be controversial in 2022.

“Folks, what century are we in? What are we doing?” the president said. “I respect everyone’s view on this — personal decision they make. But, my lord, we’re talking about contraception here. It shouldn’t be that controversial” (The Hill).

Politico: No state is expanding Medicaid to cover a “crisis” in abortion access, which was an option encouraged in a Biden executive order.

The Treasury Department on Tuesday separately tackled a different equity aspiration: policies aimed at narrowing economic disparities faced by communities of color. The department announced a new internal advisory committee and heard from Vice President Harris, who said, “We see that people in our country are having an experience that is not equal.  And that’s why we talk about equity because we recognize not everybody starts out on the same base. They don’t start out in the same place, even though they have the same God-given capacity.”

The Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity will include 25 members from academia, business and advocacy organizations and was described as an “accountability group” by Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo (The New York Times).

The Hill: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday dismissed an Axios report last week that she might leave government after the midterm elections. “There is no truth to that,” she said when asked if she planned to step down soon.

👉 How big is the U.S. national debt? More than $31 trillion, a record — and a worry. As interest rates rise, the nation’s fiscal woes worsen as borrowing by the Treasury becomes more costly (The New York Times). 

OPINION

■ The help Puerto Rico needs, by Sergio M. Marxuach, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3RzRDsU

■ How much cruelty is a pork chop worth? by Kathleen Parker, columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3SEpbYb

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets Friday at 1:30 p.m. for a pro forma session. Members are scheduled to return to the Capitol Nov. 14.

The Senate convenes Friday at 1o a.m. for a pro forma session. Senators also are scheduled to return for work on Nov. 14.  

The president and first lady Jill Biden will travel this morning to Fort Myers, Fla., arriving at 12:45 p.m. for a survey of damage from the air by helicopter and a briefing on the ground from federal, state and local officials at 2 p.m. The president and first lady will meet at 2:45 p.m. with residents and businesses affected by Hurricane Ian. Biden will deliver remarks from Fisherman’s Wharf in Fort Myers at 3:15 p.m. He will return with the first lady to the White House.  

The vice president will fly to New Britain, Conn., at 9:45 a.m. to join a reproductive rights conversation at Central Connecticut State University at 1:15 p.m. moderated by Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) and including the CEO of Planned Parenthood. Harris will return to Washington this afternoon.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met this morning with Chilean President Gabriel Boric in Santiago, followed by a meeting with Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola. He participates in a joint press conference with Urrejola. At midday, the secretary will meet with U.S. Embassy employees and families in Santiago, followed by an afternoon discussion about sustainable development and innovation with alumni of Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative. Blinken also will visit the National Electric Coordinator Control Room in Santiago.

The Treasury secretary will participate in a Hispanic Heritage Month event at 1 p.m. with Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona at the department. Yellen at 1:30 p.m. will ceremonially swear in Ventris Gibson as director of the United States Mint.

🖥 Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://thehill.com/hilltv, on YouTube and on Facebook at 10:30 a.m. ET. Also, check out the “Rising” podcast here.

ELSEWHERE

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Biden spoke Tuesday to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida about North Korea’s test on Monday of a long-range ballistic missile over Japan, which the president called “a danger to the Japanese people, destabilizing to the region, and a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions” (ABC News). Harris was in Japan and South Korea last week and Biden and the vice president are coordinating the U.S. response with both countries.

South Korea’s reprisal launch of a missile on Wednesday blew up and plowed into the ground after North Korea’s successful launch. The military apologized for alarming the public during a joint drill with the United States, adding that the warhead did not detonate. A U.S. supercarrier prepositioned east of North Korea (Reuters).

North Korea has tested some 40 missiles during an estimated 20 launch events this year as leader Kim Jong Un refuses to return to nuclear diplomacy with the United States. According to ABC, Tuesday’s provocative launch is the fifth round of weapons tests by Pyongyang in the past 10 days, an apparent response to two sets of military drills — between Washington and Seoul and another involving Washington, Seoul and Tokyo —  off the Korean Peninsula last week.

In Ukraine’s south and east, Kyiv says its forces are gaining ground against the Russian army (The New York Times). 

Biden called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday to promise the United States will not recognize Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia while also describing a new $625 million U.S. security assistance package that includes more weapons systems, ammunition, equipment and armored vehicles. In a strongly worded response, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov warned on Telegram that the latest U.S. backing for Ukraine risked a direct military clash between Russia and the West. U.S. security assistance to Ukraine since February exceeds $16.8 billion (South China Morning Post).    

Russia’s defense ministry says it has 200,000 new recruits to join the war, but military analysts say they have yet to see their impact (The New York Times).  

The Hill: Global recession? Yet another ominous forecast emerged on Monday, this one at the United Nations. 

➤ U.S. ECONOMY

U.S. job openings fell sharply in August while layoffs rose, both signs that the labor market and economy are cooling, experts say.

Tuesday data from the Labor Department show total job openings declined 10 percent in August, from a seasonally adjusted 11.2 million to 10.1 million. The drop marks the largest decline since the early months of the pandemic, placing job openings at their lowest rate in 2022 (The Wall Street Journal).

Reuters: U.S. job openings drop sharply, labor market starting to loosen.

Though U.S. heating costs are not expected to be as high as those across the Atlantic, bills are nonetheless set to increase, especially in the Northeast. Natural gas remains in high demand domestically and for export, which for U.S. consumers means expected higher gas and electric bills (The Hill). 

➤ HEALTH & MEDICINE

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer maintain a country-by-country list of travel advisories related to COVID-19, the agency said Monday. “As fewer countries are testing or reporting COVID-19 cases, CDC’s ability to accurately assess the COVID-19 THN [Travel Health Notice] levels for most destinations that American travelers visit is limited,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement to CNN Travel. 

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,060,428. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 322, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

➤ TECH

Elon Musk on Monday proposed a deal that would allow him to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share — the price he’d agreed to pay for the company in April. Since then, he and the company have been engaged in a legal battle as he tried to back out from the $44 billion purchase in July. In a Tuesday statement, Twitter indicated it was planning to accept Musk’s offer, “but because there is great distrust on both sides, Twitter leaders are still questioning whether the letter represents a legal maneuvering, said a person familiar with the situation.” Issues about how the judge in charge of the legal proceedings might oversee the purchasing process were discussed in a Tuesday hearing (The Washington Post).

▪ Bloomberg News: Musk’s texts over Twitter deal included ex-wife Talulah Riley.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Musk proposes closing Twitter deal on original terms.

▪ Bloomberg News: Musk’s Twitter deal has employees asking: Should I stay or should I go?

THE CLOSER

And finally … ☕ It’s a battle of the caffeinated morning beverages. The Washington Post pitted coffee and tea against each other in the ultimate test of morning pick-me-ups. While both beverages showed health benefits for drinkers — from improved microbiome health to reduced blood pressure and a lower risk for cancer and diabetes — coffee ultimately eked out a narrow win. 

But both coffee and tea drinkers tend to live longer than people who consume neither brew. While most studies about longevity are observational, the Post notes that experts say both “tea and coffee provide so many health benefits that it’s reasonable to conclude that they could lower your odds of an early death.”

See how your preferred morning cup stacks up HERE.

Stay Engaged

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Republicans see crime as issue that could win them the Senate

Republicans in an increasing number of crucial Senate battleground states are keying in on the issue of crime, bombarding voters with the message that electing Democrats would increase lawlessness. 

In Pennsylvania, Republicans are seizing on high-profile incidents in the Philadelphia area, including the recent ransacking of a Wawa store and the shooting of five students outside a high school last month.

Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, has been forced to play defense by erasing statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement from his website.  

In Wisconsin, Republicans are trying to link Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic Senate nominee, to former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was recalled from office in June amid growing voter frustration over rising crime and homelessness.  

Republicans see the issue as one of their best opportunities to drive base voters to the polls and as a wedge between Democrats and suburban swing voters, especially in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina, according to GOP strategists. 

“There are few issues that unite the concerns of Republicans, independents and Democrats in this environment quite like crime, especially in Pennsylvania,” said a Senate Republican strategist.  

The party sees crime as the antidote to its vulnerability on the issue of abortion rights, which has revved up Democrats and pushed swing voters away from the GOP in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision this summer overturning Roe v. Wade.  

Some Senate Democrats saw rising crime rates as a potential political liability months ago, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) privately pressed the White House to come up with a plan to address the issue.  

“It’s a huge problem. Let’s face it, this guy is repeatedly on film talking about how he wants to release as many people as possible from prisons and end life sentences for murderers. It’s so far outside the mainstream,” retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), whose seat is up for grabs in November, said of Fetterman.   

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has paid for ads highlighting Fetterman’s support for sanctuary cities, eliminating life sentences for murders and reducing prison populations.  

Fetterman responded last week with his own ad featuring Montgomery County Sheriff Sean Kilkenny defending the Democratic candidate and asserted that Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, supports giving second chances to people who deserve it and non-violent marijuana offenders. 

Republicans are also attacking Fetterman for supporting clemency for Lee and Dennis Horton, brothers who served 27 years in prison after being convicted for robbery and a fatal shooting. Fetterman, who chairs the state board of pardons, advocated for their release and hired them to serve as field organizers for his campaign.

The Republican National Committee has tweeted out a near-daily update of crimes and crime statistics in the Philadelphia area. On Tuesday it shared footage of a car-jacking at a Philadelphia gas station and highlighted that there have been more than 1,000 car-jackings in the city this year.  

The strategy appears to be paying off as the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz, has gained some ground in the polls over the last two weeks. On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report, which in August shifted the race from “toss up” to “lead Democratic,” moved it back to its “toss up” column. 

Democrats say that Republicans are trying to distract attention from abortion and other issues where Democratic candidates have an advantage.  

“False ads will not distract voters from Republicans’ unpopular agenda: making abortion illegal, ending Medicare and Social Security and raising tax on working families,” said David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  

In Wisconsin, Republicans are circulating a photo of Boudin, San Francisco’s controversial former district attorney, attending a fundraiser for Barnes a year ago.  

Incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and the NRSC have labeled Barnes as “dangerously liberal on crime” and highlighted Milwaukee’s rising crime rate. More specifically, they have emphasized Barnes’s support for eliminating cash bail. 

The Wesleyan Media Project found that ads about the Wisconsin Senate race have aired more than 14,000 times in just the past two weeks and that 90 percent of the ads aimed at helping Johnson have focused solely on attacking Barnes.  

Like Fetterman, Barnes has tried to push back by criticizing Johnson for voting against the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which he says promoted and supported public safety, and accused Johnson of being sympathetic to the mob of supporters of former President Trump that invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6 of last year.  

A Democratic strategist pointed out that the American Rescue Plan included $350 billion in funding that state and local governments could use to hire new police officers.  

Drumming on the issue of crime has been a tried-and-true Republican strategy in midterm elections, when voter turnout tends to be smaller and the electorate tends to be older than in presidential election years.  

“In the off-presidential year, voters are much more intent on crime and education,” Brandon Scholz, a Republican-based Wisconsin strategist, said.  

“In the U.S. Senate race and to some extent the gubernatorial race, there are some contemporary events that have driven this issue and kept it at the forefront of the minds of voters,” he added, citing an attack by a man who drove a sports utility truck into the Christmas parade in Waukesha last year after being freed two days earlier on $1000 bail for a domestic violence charge.  

“Milwaukee is surging in crime and murders,” he added. “That has elevated crime as an issue. The Johnson is working on Barnes’s statements and record on bail and reducing prison populations.” 

The NRSC launched a television and digital ad late last month that hammered Barnes for saying that he wants to reduce the prison population and criticized Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’s administration for paroling more than 800 convicted criminals.  

Senate Republicans are now trying to expand the debate on crime to other Senate battlegrounds, including Nevada and Wisconsin.  

In Nevada, former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R) on Tuesday released a new ad titled “Dangerous” in which Nevada police groups say they have switched their endorsement from incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) to the Republican challenger.  

The ad featured testimonials by local law enforcement officials who attack Cortez Masto for “rubber stamp[ing] radical officials, including activists who refuse to prosecute drug dealers.”  

In North Carolina, Republicans have put the spotlight on Democratic Senate candidate Cheri Beasley’s record as a state Supreme Court justice.

The NRSC spent over $1 million on an ad in May seeking to define Beasley early in the race by calling attention to her ruling vacating the death sentence of a man who shot a boy in the face and another man convicted of assaulting a young woman. FactCheck.org, however, concluded the ad lacked context.  

The Democrat-allied Senate Majority PAC responded with its own ad buy defending Beasley.

More recently, the NRSC has pursued Beasley’s vote to vacate a man’s habitual felon conviction, which would have resulted in a lighter criminal sentence. The Senate GOP campaign arm says decisions such as these are at odds with her pledge to keep “North Carolina communities safe.”

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who is working to flip Toomey’s seat to Democratic control, says while Republicans talk tough on crime, they have also voted against legislation to make communities safer.  

“It’s an issue that Republicans go to all the time even though they have a pathetic voting record on crime. They voted against the COPS program, they wanted to defund the COPS program, they voted against the Byrd justice grants,” he said, referring to community policing programs.  

He said Fetterman had to withstand “a carpet bombardment” over the past several weeks, and that “as long as Democrats punch back,” they’ll survive. 

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GOP seizes on Biden gaffes to attack competence

Republicans are seizing on recent gaffes from President Biden, putting a spotlight on his slip-ups to attack Biden’s competency ahead of both the midterms and a 2024 presidential race.

The GOP in particular is using a moment last week when Biden asked whether a congresswoman who died in August was in attendance at the event where he was speaking.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) included the gaffe in a list of their top Democrat fails from last week, criticizing the White House’s refusal to say if Biden would apologize for his remarks as “tough to watch.”

The RNC did not make Biden’s age a central part of its criticism, but it is an implicit and sometimes explicit part of the attacks from various Republicans, who see perceptions of Biden’s age and competence as a potentially fruitful line of attack.

Democrats who themselves are wondering if Biden will stick with his stated intensions of running for reelection at the age of 81 acknowledge they are worried that attacks could swing some voters.

“It’s not a great look,” one Democratic strategist acknowledged. “And we all know it only feeds into the criticism of the president and his age. [Biden] has to be really careful to not give the other side easy fodder.” 

Biden was making gaffes before his age was a political issue.  

As a presidential candidate in 2007, then-Sen. Biden apologized after describing then. Sen. Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African American” presidential candidate “who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

As Obama’s vice president in 2010, Biden was caught on a hot mic saying the passage of health care reform was a “big f—ing deal.”

But today’s gaffes are being used by Republicans to question Biden’s competency, given his age.

The remark about former Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), who was killed in an August car accident, was the worst recent verbal gaffe, but there have been others.

In March, he said about Russian President Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” a statement the White House had to walk back a short time later. 

In July, Biden said that he had cancer, which the White House waved off as a nonmelanoma skin cancer treatment. In May, he said, “there have not been many senators from Delaware. … As a matter of fact, there’s never been one.”

On Monday, Biden raised eyebrows when he said he “was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically,” during a trip to the island.

Biden met with Walorski’s family following his gaffe last week to sign a bill honoring her. At the event, also attended by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), he reportedly apologized to Walorski’s family for his comment, though the White House would not confirm the apology.

Bruce Mehlman, a GOP lobbyist at Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, said Biden’s gaffes are a real danger for the president. He said they can be exploited by opponents as evidence that Biden is deteriorating with age.

 “Biden gaffes are mostly exploited by opponents as evidence of senescence rather than for the substance of the statements themselves,” said Mehlman, a former assistant secretary at the Commerce Department under President George W. Bush.

GOP strategist Doug Heye said Republicans “are going to point it out” when Biden stumbles verbally.

“But they would be smart to not be over the top about it,” he added.

Doing so, after all, could backfire with voters.

The harshest public criticism of the Walorski comment came from former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller, who said that Biden should be in “assisted living” and “is not cognitively present.”

Some Republicans downplayed Biden’s gaffes as creating political weapons for their party.

“As alarming as it is, voters are more troubled by the damage Biden’s done to the economy, his rising prices, out of control crime and the open border,” one Republican official told The Hill.

Heye argued that the White House worsened things with the Walorski gaffe by not acknowledging Biden’s mistake more directly.

“Part of the challenge with what Biden said about Walorski is that it was just completely mishandled by the White House. It’s very easy and it’s the obvious thing to do to just say, ‘he misspoke’ and then you move on. But by continuing to do the ‘front of mind’ thing, it stretched any credibility and made it a bigger issue than it was,” Heye said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had attributed Biden’s misstep to Walorski being “top of mind” for Biden when she was pressed by reporters about the misstatement.

Some Democrats, for their part, don’t think Biden’s gaffes will make much of a difference.

“The RNC may have some fun with it, they may be giving themselves high fives, but in the end I don’t think it makes much of a difference at all,” said Democratic strategist Jim Manley. “Everyone knows he has a habit of misspeaking from time to time.”

A second Democratic strategist agreed: “It’s already baked in,” the strategist said. “People elected Joe Biden knowing he can put his foot in his mouth. It’s like pointing out that Donald Trump lies. People know this about him and I don’t think it makes much difference. 

“Sure, Republicans will use this against him and they should,” the strategist added. “But it won’t matter.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump's direct handling of records could strengthen DOJ case

The revelation that Donald Trump himself reportedly packed the initial 15 boxes returned to the National Archives that ignited a criminal Justice Department probe could strengthen the government’s case should it choose to prosecute the former president, legal experts said Tuesday.

The detail was included in Monday reporting from The Washington Post on how one of Trump’s attorneys, Alex Cannon, refused to comply with a request from Trump that he certify that all the government documents stored at Mar-a-Lago had been returned. 

Cannon also reportedly advised other staff to not rummage through the boxes as they might contain classified documents. 

Beyond indicating Trump’s staff did not believe all the government documents had been returned, Trump’s direct handling of the records would indicate he may have had greater awareness of what was stored in his home and was actively involved in determining what to retain despite government orders.

The concern among staff over the documents’ classification status also runs counter to Trump’s claims that he declassified all the records stored in his home – an argument his attorneys have failed to fully assert in court as Trump fights to keep the Justice Department from gaining access to the records. 

“The fact that he packed them is very significant because I imagine the Justice Department is trying to resolve how much evidence they have that Trump personally knew and personally was involved in hiding the documents,” said Ryan Goodman, co-director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law.

The warrant used to search Trump’s property indicated the Justice Department believed the mishandling of the records violated statutes barring willful concealment of government records and the Espionage Act, which bars knowingly removing national defense information. The government recovered more than 100 classified records during the August search.

“The greatest legal significance is it goes to key elements of the criminal offenses which include proving that Trump had knowledge and intent to retain these documents and not fully return them to the Archives. So by personally going through the documents, that’s direct evidence that he had the requisite knowledge and intent,” Goodman told The Hill. 

The Post had previously reported that Trump had directly overseen the packing, but Monday’s story — citing people familiar with the matter — was the first to indicate the former president actually packed the boxes.

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney, said if true, Trump packing the boxes would be a “critically important fact” for the case.

“If Donald Trump himself packed the boxes, it will be very difficult for him to use a defense of lack of knowledge. ‘I had no idea what was in them. I don’t pack my own boxes; I have aides who do that sort of thing. I never knew what was in any of these and what we retained and what we didn’t.’ Especially because in January of 2021, that’s when they sent back 15 boxes, but held back, it turns out, more than 27 boxes. So if he’s the one who packed the boxes, then it seems a fair inference that he knew what was in and what was out and what they were falsely retaining,” she said.

A spokesman for Trump did not deny specific elements of the story, but pushed back on the reporting by saying “Biden’s weaponized DOJ has no greater ally than the fake news media, which seems to only serve as the partisan microphone of leakers and liars buried deep within the bowels of America’s government.”

For his part, Trump spent much of Tuesday on his social media platform insinuating Archives cannot be trusted to manage records. 

“There is no security at NARA,” he wrote, using an abbreviation for Archives. “I want my documents back.”

The new details about his involvement could also help flesh out an obstruction of justice case.

“The fact that he is personally packing the boxes makes it hard to believe that he could have missed seeing 11,000 other government documents and nearly 150 other classified documents including with their brightly colored front covers,” Goodman noted, all of which were items Archives and later the Justice Department asked to be returned.

“It really does suggest he knows exactly what he’s doing at the time in terms of keeping the rest of the classified materials from the Archives.”

That knowledge also comes into play as Trump asked Cannon to comply with a request from the Archives attorney Gary Stern in February to attest that all records had been returned.

But Cannon reportedly declined, as he was unsure the statement was true. 

“This means one of two things is the case, right?” said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor. “It either means that the attorney believed that Trump was asking him or her to lie to the government, which would be a crime. Or alternatively, that the attorney believed that Trump was lying to him or her….Either way that’s problematic,” 

Mariotti said Cannon could potentially be used as a witness against Trump.

“There will be an ability to pierce attorney-client privilege because asking an attorney to commit a crime with you is not privileged. That’s not subject to attorney-client privilege,” he said. 

“There’s more than enough evidence to charge the former president at this point,” he added.

Cannon’s account could also flesh out another aspect of the saga. In June, a different slate of attorneys produced a sworn statement that to the best of their knowledge, all classified records had been returned. The declaration was drafted by Trump attorney Evan Corcoran, but signed by another attorney, Christina Bobb, according to reporting from The New York Times.

“The false statements that were given by his lawyers in June that he had returned everything – it’s difficult to know whether or not they were told to make those statements by Trump,” Goodman said.

“Now, we have evidence that he previously told another lawyer earlier to make a false statement. So I think it significantly adds to the case. Everybody’s been talking about the false certification as strong evidence of obstruction. And that’s true. But the missing link is whether Trump told his attorney to make that false certification. Lo and behold, we have evidence that he now did try to tell another of his attorneys to make a false statement to the Archives.”

Cannon also apparently expressed reservations about opening any of the boxes, as he did not have a security clearance and was unsure whether they contained classified records. He also warned other staff against doing so, indicating it could get them in trouble.

“[It’s] a strong indication that Trump’s lawyers and other aides were well aware that the documents had not been declassified because the lawyer warned other Trump staff not to look into the boxes for fear they would be in legal jeopardy if they did read classified material…It was a lawyer who said it. Not just any old aide but someone giving legal advice trying to stress to the other staff not to look at the material,” Goodman said.

McQuade said it’s another detail that punctures Trump’s claims he declassified the documents in his home.

The argument is a red herring, she said, as none of the crimes weighed by the Justice Department hinge on retaining classified documents. But Cannon’s concern “suggests a knowledge the boxes contained classified information” and that Trump’s excuse was offered after the fact.

“The more recent the emergence of this theory, the less likely it is to be true,” she said.

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How the US might respond to a Russian nuclear attack in Ukraine

As concerns grow over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling amid continued losses in Ukraine, what a U.S. response would look like has become an increasingly urgent question. 

U.S. officials since the start of Russia’s attack on Ukraine have stressed there are plans being developed to counter a range of moves by Moscow but have kept specifics under wraps.  

While the administration says there are no signs that the Kremlin has made moves toward a nuclear strike — and that Washington has not changed its own nuclear position — experts say the potential U.S. options could turn into a very real scenario given Russia’s floundering military campaign and an increasingly frustrated Putin.  

Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official-turned-defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said a U.S. response to a major Russian attack would be twofold — one military and one diplomatic.  

“If the Ukrainians kept fighting, we would continue our flow of aid and we’d probably take the gloves off” in terms of weapons provided to Kyiv, he told The Hill. 

At the top of Ukraine’s wish list is the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), a surface-to-surface missile that can travel four times farther than anything Kyiv has now in its fight against Russia. The embattled country has pressed the U.S. for the system for months, but Washington has been hesitant to provide it over fears it could escalate the conflict. 

However, should Moscow use a tactical nuclear weapon on Ukrainian troops or civilians, or even detonate such a device away from populated areas, Cancian predicted the administration would finally allow Kyiv to have ATACMS or “anything else they wanted” to go after Russian targets.  

On the diplomatic side of things, meanwhile, Russian use of nuclear weapons could very well prompt countries such as India, China and Turkey — the latter a NATO ally — to put pressure on Putin economically, according to Cancian.  

“A nuclear strike would really, I think, put them under a lot of pressure to go along with the sanctions and take a tougher line towards Russia, so Russia would lose these lifelines that they’ve been clinging to and nurturing,” he said.  

National security adviser Jake Sullivan last week said there would be “catastrophic consequences” should Moscow deploy nuclear weapons and said a more specific ultimatum had been delivered to Moscow privately. 

President Biden has said since the start of the war that U.S. troops will not be sent to Ukraine, and experts warn that a nuclear response to a nuclear attack could quickly escalate into a nuclear world war. 

Retired Gen. David Petraeus offered a prediction of how the U.S. would respond to a Russian nuclear attack on Sunday, though he noted that he had deliberately avoided speaking with Sullivan about it. 

“I mean, just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a NATO, a collective effort, that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea,” he said. 

Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, said Tuesday that U.S. officials “have continually consulted with allies about the Russia threat, and the nuclear threat that Russia poses is just one aspect of that, and certainly the NATO forum is our premier forum for consultation on these issues.” 

One Austrian official told The Hill that it’s offered the country as a neutral ground for difficult negotiations and is ready to host de-escalation talks and maintain channels with Russia.

Though Putin’s national televised speech last month was not his first time raising the specter of nuclear war, current and former U.S. officials have raised new alarms over the Kremlin’s increasingly bellicose nuclear rhetoric as it moves to annex four regions of Ukraine. 

Putin threatened on Aug. 21 that Moscow would deploy its massive nuclear arsenal to protect Russian territory or its people — which could now include the four Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions. However, both Kyiv and Washington have said they will not be deterred from continued fighting to take back those regions.   

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in an interview with CNN aired Sunday, said that while he hasn’t seen intelligence to suggest the Russian leader has chosen to use nuclear weapons, “there are no checks on Mr. Putin.” 

“To be clear, the guy who makes that decision, I mean, it’s one man,” Austin said. 

John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, said Monday that the U.S. is “closely” watching Russian activity at the Zaporizhzhia power plant — another location Putin could choose to attack to escalate the war. 

And former national security adviser H.R. McMaster on Sunday said Putin is “under extreme pressure” due to battlefield failures and domestic outcry over a mobilization order that could send hundreds of thousands of reservists into the war.   

“I think the message to [Putin] is If you use a nuclear weapon, it’s a suicide weapon. And the response from NATO and the United States doesn’t have to be nuclear,” McMaster told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan on CBS.  

Fears were further stoked this week when an online video emerged of a train in Russia appearing to carry equipment from a Kremlin military unit that handles nuclear weapons. The video, which Pentagon officials could not confirm, shows military vehicles allegedly from the secretive 12th Main Directorate of the Russian ministry of defense being transported on the train, according to Konrad Muzyka, an aerospace and defense analyst focused on Russia and Belarus. 

The Kremlin unit is responsible for nuclear munitions, their storage, maintenance, transport and issuance, Muzyka tweeted Sunday. 

“I have seen these reports. I have nothing to corroborate,” Cooper told reporters Tuesday when asked about the video. 

Pressed on whether the Pentagon has seen anything to indicate that Russia is contemplating the use of nuclear weapons, she said officials “have certainly heard the saber rattling from Putin” but “see no signs that would cause us to alter our posture.”

Cooper also declined to answer questions on whether the U.S. has seen any movement of Russia’s nuclear forces, citing the protection of U.S. intelligence.  

Some, including Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, have urged the administration to increase its nuclear readiness in Europe and move additional missile defense assets into the region. 

“This administration needs to step up its game on missile defense,” Turner said on Fox News over the weekend. “We have assets in Europe, and we need to engage them so that we can provide protection to our allies.”

Much speculation has also been given as to the exact kind of weapon Putin might potentially use, with fears he could resort to using tactical nuclear weapons — meant to be used in a battle or on a specific population center to try to bring an end to the conflict.  

“We always have to try to take the threat of nuclear use seriously and so we do, and that’s why we are watching very closely, and that’s why we do consult closely with allies,” Cooper said. 

“But at the same time, at this point, [Russia’s] rhetoric is only rhetoric, and it’s irresponsible saber-rattling that we see at this point,” Cooper said. 

For now, the U.S. will respond to Russian aggression by continuing to pour weapons and other aid into Ukraine, including four more of the advanced rocket systems Kyiv has credited with greatly helping its offensive begun at the start of this month.  

The soon-to-be delivered High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — used by the Ukrainians to target bridges, roads and munition storage areas Russia uses to supply its forces — are part of a new $625 million lethal aid package announced Tuesday. 

Asked later on Tuesday whether the United States will provide anything to help the Ukrainians protect themselves against a possible nuclear strike, Cooper said Washington has already provided “a considerable amount of protective equipment against chemical, biological and radiological threats.” 

She pointed to a military aid package from earlier this year that included “a number of personal protective equipment items” as well as “significant quantities” of such equipment given as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. 

Laura Kelly contributed reporting.

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