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The troubling question haunting US foreign policy

A troubling question haunts U.S. foreign policy: What is the endgame of American strategy? One thing that it appears not to be is an effort to find a balance of interests and power that through history has tended to be a cornerstone of a stable order.

To listen the White House, one could be forgiven for concluding that the goal is a coalition of like-minded democracies living happily ever after, while major powers with contrary views – like China and Russia – either accept U.S. primacy or succumb to regime change. Never mind that, according Freedom House, democracies have been in decline for nearly two decades, or that the U.S. political system is broken, dysfunctional, polarized and at grave risk.

It is difficult to imagine a stable and prosperous world order in which the largest trading power and exporter of capital and two mature nuclear weapons states are isolated and outside some framework and guardrails in which their interests were factored in. Look no further than the Ukraine war and current tensions over Taiwan, both volatile situations that could easily escalate into direct U.S. conflicts with Russia and China, respectively.

This predicament of a world near spinning out of control was astutely summed up by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. in a recent interview, he told the Wall St. Journal, “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to.”

The current state of geopolitics seems reminiscent of the prelude to World War I. It was also a time of unprecedented globalization, yet one of misperceptions and miscalculations among the major powers of the time. These erupted into conflagration, in response to the trigger event, the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand. Could Ukraine or Taiwan be contemporary equivalents?      

I’m not a fan of catastrophism, but some of the hysteria with regard to Taiwan is worrying. The D.C. commentariat have been fear mongering for almost two years that China is about to invade Taiwan.

Taiwan is an existential issue of legitimacy for the Chines Communist Party, and it is committed to reunify with Taiwan. But it is not imminent. The outrageous Beijing military provocations are mostly designed to deter Taipei from declaring formal independence and, as seen in response to the Taiwan visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), find an excuse to simulate a People’s Liberation Army joint forces blockade of Taiwan and air and naval exercises.

The U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity,” based on the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), has been harshly criticized as outdated. Under the TRA, the U.S. is obliged to help Taiwan defend itself, but there is no treaty-like commitment to militarily intervene in case of a Chinese attack.

The TRA has underpinned stability in the Taiwan straits for nearly 50 years. What critics get wrong is that U.S. policy is aimed at preventing any unilateral change in the status quo by either side. PLA planning must assume an attack would mean U.S. intervention regardless of stated U.S. policy. So abandoning ambiguity would not have much effect on Beijing. But it could tempt some in Taiwan who favor independence to formally declare it, which would trigger a Chinese attack.      

An invasion of Taiwan would require an amphibious lift capability not seen since the U.S. and allied landing at Normandy during World War II. The Chinese do not have any such capability. In fact, Beijing has many non-kinetic means of coercing Taiwan, and may employ such methods to win, as Confucian philosopher Sun Tzu advised, without fighting. A military assault could occur, but it’s unlikely before the last years of this decade.

Both the U.S. and Taiwan would be far better off if we laid off the symbolism and quietly worked with Taipei to build the strongest porcupine defense and strengthened economic ties with steps like a U.S.-Taiwan trade accord.

U.S. policy toward the Ukraine war has been more cautious, uniting allies, providing key military hardware and training, but ruling out direct U.S. intervention. Unlike Taiwan, the U.S. has no defense obligation to Kyiv. As D.C. chants of “total victory” have given way to the harsh reality of a drawn out, less decisive outcome, concerns about escalation are rising as increasingly sophisticated weapons are supplied to Kyiv. And Kissinger’s question of how does it end echoes: with a negotiated outcome, a stalemate or Putin using tactic nukes?

Can Russia simply be cancelled? Putin has found coping mechanisms, the technology and financial sanctions over time will make it impossible to sustain a competitive, modern nation, regardless of how Ukraine ends.

Are Ukraine and Taiwan crowding out broader U.S. relations with two nuclear weapons states? In the case of China, a broad range of overlapping interests and previous areas of cooperation (such as climate change, counter-narcotics, an uncertain $657 billion bilateral trade relationship and strategic dialogue to reduce risk) remain in limbo.

In sum, there are more questions than answers about U.S. strategy. For example, can Asia be the top priority if the U.S. is deepening commitments and resources in Europe and the Middle East? The tyranny of the inbox always plagues U.S. administrations. But we are at an inflection point in history, with all the balls of global order in the air. A little clarity would go a long way.

Robert A. Manning is a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center. He served as senior counselor to the undersecretary of state for global affairs from 2001 to 2004, a member of the U.S. secretary of state’s policy planning staff from 2004 to 2008 and on the National Intelligence Council Strategic Futures Group from 2008 to 2012. Previously, he was director of Asian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Follow him on Twitter @Rmanning4.

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State Department warns US travelers of 'kidnapping risk' in Mexico

The State Department has released a notice warning U.S. citizens of the risk of violent crime, including possible kidnapping, in Mexico and urging them to exercise precautions if they choose to travel to the country.

“Violent crime — such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery — is widespread and common in Mexico,” the State Department wrote in its notice issued Wednesday.

The department added, “The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in many areas of Mexico” due to restrictions on travel to country by government employees.

The notice outlined restrictions given to U.S. government employees, encouraging all U.S. citizens to adhere to the same precautions.

“U.S. government employees may not travel between cities after dark, may not hail taxis on the street, and must rely on dispatched vehicles, including app-based services like Uber, and regulated taxi stands,” the notice said.

The State Department added specific warnings for each state in Mexico, placing a level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory on six states, Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas, because of crime and kidnapping.

The department told citizens to reconsider travel to seven additional states for the same reasons: Baja California, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos and Sonora.

The State Department released a shelter-in-place alert in five cities located in the state of Baja California last weekend after criminal gangs caused fires, roadblocks and increased police activity.

“Transnational criminal organizations compete in the border area to establish narco-trafficking and human smuggling routes,” the most recent notice elaborated on the Baja California area. “Most homicides appeared to be targeted; however, criminal organization assassinations and territorial disputes can result in bystanders being injured or killed.”

It added that some U.S. citizens have been victims of kidnapping in border cities like Tijuana.

Source: TEST FEED1

Seoul and Washington must not blink in the face of Pyongyang’s nuclear blackmail

Julius Caesar he is not. But Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator, in 2018 set in motion a chain of events that eerily reflects Caesar’s dictum made over 2,000 years ago: “In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes.”  

Back then, no one — perhaps save for Kim himself, the patrilineal grandson of the “ever-victorious, iron-willed” state founder Kim Il Sung — could have foreseen that one day Kim would win a “brilliant victory” over COVID-19. Still, by mid-May of this year, Pyongyang’s vigilant seers may have foretold ultimate victory when Kim, calling the spread of the coronavirus a historical “great upheaval” to befall his nation, declared war on the pandemic.  

The North’s state media reported last week that Kim had “solemnly declared the victory” at a party gathering on Aug. 10. This unverifiable victory, the state news agency stressed, was “priceless,” “great” and “shining.” How could it be anything less? After all, the third-generational Great Leader had walked, talked and balked at offers of medical aid from abroad, and yet, had easily, Caesar-style, conquered his nation’s invisible enemy. 

Even an easier victory Kim already had won four years ago in discussions with former President Trump. Kim’s victory was aided by pre-game assistance from former South Korean President Moon Jae-In, which, rather than diminishing Kim’s achievement, only underscores Moon’s trivial concerns. Riding high with an 80 percent approval rating coming out of his first tragi-comical faux peace summit with Kim at the inter-Korea border village, Moon turned next to further beautifying Kim’s brutish image. In the weeks leading up to the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore, Moon repeatedly told Trump that Kim was amenable to “denuclearization” and, thereby, was a reasonable fellow who can be trusted. Just whom Kim was willing to denuclearize — himself or his adversaries — was a matter on which Moon equivocated.  

Kim manipulated Trump in more ways than one. In addition to selling Trump the same “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” practiced by his predecessors in 1991, 1994, 2005 and 2007 — Kim persuaded Trump to suspend indefinitely America’s decades-old, defensive live military exercises with South Korea. After the summit, Trump, using North Korean verbiage, said the “war games” were “very provocative,” “tremendously expensive,” and unnecessarily damaging to North Korea’s security and America’s economy. The Pentagon indefinitely suspended select exercises. 

Moon’s determination to please Kim and his sister, Kim Yo Jong, by undermining South Korea’s combat readiness was no small victory for Kim Jong Un. That the Trump administration also came on board made Kim’s win even more gratifying. 

Just as the notion of “snapping back” financial sanctions after a period of lax enforcement is a myth, so is the thought of snap-back military drills after an extended hiatus. Both require manpower, resources and coordinated execution. Even in Iceland, the perennial leader in the Global Peace Index, a police station that settles for year-round computer simulation exercises without live training exercises may be accused of dereliction of duty. But for South Korea, which faces across the border a model state purveyor of international terrorism-cum-crimes against humanity that threatens it, to eschew field training and endanger itself and U.S. troops in Korea may be gross negligence.  

With the resumption of the combined U.S.-Republic of Korea field exercises set to begin Aug. 22, Kim will escalate and deflect blame on Seoul. After all, timely troublemaking is his métier. The more threats he dispenses, the more likely he is to be regarded and ultimately accepted as the firm steward of a legitimate, growing nuclear arsenal. Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine means that little, if any, penalty beyond verbal rebuke will come Kim’s way. 

During the victory-over-COVID political event with her brother last week, Kim Yo Jong averred that the coronavirus was intentionally transmitted into the North by South Korean “human trash” and “scumbags,” that is, human rights activists. She claimed that coronavirus-contaminated “leaflets, cash, and dirty booklets” the activists put inside balloons and launched into the North were the first source of the “malicious virus” in her nation and threatened “deadly vengeful response” against the South, including “extermination” of the South Korean government.  

South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, must brace for a period of accentuated inter-Korean tension. His administration must stay firm in the face of Pyongyang’s escalation and possible limited attacks on the South. And it must not go wobbly at the first fake olive branch Kim dangles. During his Aug. 15 Liberation Day speech, Yoon said if the North were to cease its nuclear program and turn to a “genuine and substantive process for denuclearization,” the South would revamp its infrastructure — from building power plants, ports and airports to facilitating international financial investment in the nation of misery and thievery by day and darkness and hunger by night.  

Not only would such joint ventures with the North require the approval of the United Nations Security Council 1718 Committee, Kim would only manipulate the tantalizing prospect for such financial aid to buy more time and money with which to further advance his nuclear capabilities. 

Still, the U.S.-ROK alliance today is poised to revive itself from the state of disrepair into which it plunged during the past five years. At a summit in Seoul in May, Presidents Biden and Yoon, using strong language, reaffirmed the alliance. In particular, Biden affirmed “the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional and missile defense capabilities.” The two leaders pledged to grow the entente into a “global comprehensive strategic alliance” beyond keeping the peace in the Korean peninsula, and to closely cooperate on economic and critical technology interests. 

Once North Korea escalates, the U.S. and South Korea must send, beyond strong words, an unequivocal message to Kim Jong Un that his game could result in massive counterattacks on all his estates throughout his country. Firm, credible threats — otherwise known as deterrence — have kept the de facto peace in Korea for 79 years. Seoul and Washington must not blink now that Pyongyang has begun threatening a preemptive nuclear strike. The stakes are higher than ever before. Not only “peace with justice and honor” but the very preservation of human lives in the Korean peninsula depends on it. 

As Shakespeare’s Hamlet intoned, “The readiness is all.” The essential task of keeping the peace stands not on the triviality of opinion poll numbers or inter-Korean projects but the paramount importance of prescience and planning. 

Sung-Yoon Lee is Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies and assistant professor at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and faculty associate at the U.S.-Japan Program, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Follow him on Twitter @SungYoonLee1.

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The Hill's Morning Report — Judge teases Trump affidavit release

A slow end to the week in Washington has not extended to other parts of the country, especially in Florida as former President Trump got some good and bad news in the fight over the Justice Department’s search of his Mar-a-Lago estate last week. 

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart indicated during a Thursday hearing that he may unseal parts of an affidavit accompanying a search warrant the department obtained and carried out last Monday — marking a middle ground between prosecutors’ objections and public interest in transparency. 

Instead, he told Justice Department officials they have a week to suggest redactions to the document, arguing that they did not sufficiently make the case why it should remain under lock and key. Reinhart told federal prosecutors that coming steps, including over possible redaction, will be a “considered, careful process.”

“I find that on the present record the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed,” Reinhart said in a brief order. “I’m not prepared to find that the affidavit should be fully sealed.”

The judge issued his ruling during a hearing in West Palm Beach, Fla., in response to major news outlets petitioning to disclose the affidavit as a matter of public interest (The Hill). 

The Justice Department has maintained that the entirety of the document should stay out of public view, saying that release of the affidavit in any form would compromise the ongoing probe. Specifically, the government argued revealing the contents would expose the identities of witnesses and serve as a roadblock to potential cooperation from future witnesses during an investigation (The Associated Press). 

“This is not a precedent that we want to set,” Jay Bratt, the head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, told the judge. 

Christina Bobb, an attorney for the former president and a former host at One America News Network, was present in the courthouse, but said she was only there to observe the hearing.

However, Trump was on the receiving end of some not-so-welcome news during the court appearance as Bratt told Reinhart that the investigation is in its “early stages,” signaling that the department’s probe continues. 

“This investigation is open,” Bratt said (Politico). 

The Justice Department, working through the courts last week, disclosed a search warrant and an inventory of presidential documents and materials the FBI retrieved at the behest of the National Archives. Included in those documents were some that were labeled “top secret” and “classified.”

▪ CNN: Six takeaways from the court hearing on releasing more documents from the Mar-a-Lago search.

▪ CBS News: Reinhart unsealed: The magistrate judge at the center of the Justice Dept’s inquiry into Trump’s handling of classified records.

▪ Maggie Haberman, The New York Times: Another Trump mystery: Why did he resist returning the government’s documents?

▪ Reuters: Half of Republicans line up behind Trump in fight with FBI: poll.

▪ The Washington Post: How the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search helped fuel GOP attacks on the IRS.

While Trump deals with the government, other potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates are making moves. As The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in his latest Memo, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is keeping his name in the national spotlight with a series of rallies supporting GOP candidates in this year’s midterms. The mini tour is taking him to Arizona, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Ohio. 

However, the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago has muddied the political picture for the Florida governor, who released a statement after news of the search, asserting that the Biden administration was engaged in “weaponization” of government powers against “the Regime’s political opponents.” DeSantis never mentioned Trump’s name.

Florida authorities arrested 20 people suspected of violating state election laws in 2020 based on convictions for felony sexual offense or murder, DeSantis said on Thursday. They were charged with voter fraud — a third-degree felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison, he stated (The Floridian).  

Related Articles

▪ CNN: “Ludicrous.” “Ridiculous.” “A complete fiction.”: Former Trump officials say his claim of a presidential “standing order” to declassify is nonsense.

▪ The New York Times: Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty on Thursday to 15 felonies in a tax scheme.

▪ CNN: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) previews “extremely close” Senate races this fall as GOP hopefuls struggle to raise money.

▪ The Hill: Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) widens lead over Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) in New York House race: poll.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS & INTERNATIONAL

To end a bloody war described as a stalemate between Russia and Ukraine, U.S. and European leaders have said diplomacy and negotiations are key. But talks Thursday in Lviv among Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, each exploring potential paths toward peace, did not appear to produce progress.

Among subjects discussed: expanding exchanges of prisoners of war and arranging for U.N. atomic energy experts to visit and help secure Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, currently in the middle of fierce fighting that has raised fears of catastrophe.

Erdoğan said he would follow up with Russian President Vladimir Putin, given that most of the matters discussed would require the Kremlin’s agreement (The Associated Press).

NBC News: Ukrainian military intelligence said Russia told nuclear power plant workers not to go to work today amid Ukraine’s concerns about a planned Russian incident or attack. On Thursday, Russia threatened to shut down the plant, warning that there was a risk of a human-made disaster due to alleged continued shelling by Ukraine. But Ukraine has a different story about which country is risking a nuclear catastrophe.

In a move that raises tensions, the Russian military said Thursday it deployed warplanes armed with state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles to the country’s westernmost Baltic region, according to The Associated Press.  

🇺🇦 The Hill’s Laura Kelly is reporting in Odesa, Ukraine, where she describes the evidence of war but less fear of death or destruction from Russian attacks than in neighboring cities such as Mykolaiv to the northeast, which experiences daily bombardment. Farther east is Kherson, one of the first cities to fall under Russian occupation because of its strategic land- and sea-supply routes from Russia-occupied Crimea.   

▪ The New York Times: Odesa is defiant. It’s also Putin’s ultimate target.

▪ The Associated Press: Doctors stay in Ukraine’s war-hit towns: “People need us.”

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Mercenaries Enter the Spotlight as Russian Troops Struggle in Ukraine.

▪ The Washington Post: Russia’s spies misread Ukraine and misled Kremlin as war loomed.

▪ Bloomberg News: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend G-20 summit in Indonesia in November.

🇰🇪 In Kenya, a delegation led by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) arrived on Thursday to meet with President-elect William Ruto and U.S. Ambassador Meg Whitman. The U.S. group, which includes Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and House lawmakers, also met with outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Coons, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee along with Portman, and the rest of the delegation have already visited Cape Verde and Mozambique and are expected to visit Rwanda, where tensions with Congo and human rights should be on the agenda following Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Kigali last week.

The political transition in Kenya following the Aug. 9 election will have significant impact on the East Africa region, where Kenyatta had been working with the U.S. to try to mediate in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict and promoting peace efforts between Rwanda and Congo. Ruto, in his public comments this week, focused on domestic rather than regional issues (The Associated Press).

Taiwan’s representative to the United States, Bi-khim Hsiao, told The Hill’s Morgan Chalfant in an interview that U.S. congressional delegations are welcome on the island despite China’s aggressive rhetoric, sanctions aimed at Taiwan and military drills. “We are very concerned and worried about China’s provocative, reckless and irresponsible actions that are extremely dangerous,” she said Wednesday. “But then again, as a victim of their bullying, we’re not going to go out and say, ‘We don’t want friends. Stop visiting us.’ In fact, the more they bully us, the more we need friends.” 

▪ The Hill: U.S. and Taiwan agree to start trade talks amid China tensions.

▪ The Associated Press: Some 29 of 47 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists have pleaded guilty to charges of “conspiracy to commit subversion” and face hearing in September. The accused, ages 23 to 64, face possible life sentences as the Beijing government seeks to further silence opposition voices in Hong Kong.

In Saudi Arabia, another country known for its intolerance of dissent, a court recently sentenced a medical school doctoral candidate and mother of two, Salma al-Shehab, a researcher at Leeds University in Britain, to 34 years in prison for retweeting dissidents and sharing “false rumors” on social media (The Associated Press). She was appealing an initial six-year sentence when the court escalated her punishment to 34 years, coupled with a 34-year travel ban. During a family vacation in January 2021, al-Shehab was detained days before she planned to return to the United Kingdom, according to the Freedom Initiative, a Washington-based human rights group. She told judges she spent at least 285 days in solitary confinement before her case was referred to a Saudi court, according to legal documents obtained by AP.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ ADMINISTRATION

President Biden is staring down an Aug. 31 deadline to decide if the government will extend a freeze on student loan payments, which is about to expire. The president has been meeting with administration and outside advisers for months to decide how to help some borrowers with their student loan debts. White House and Cabinet officials have promised answers “soon” (The Hill). 

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Here are some of the key decisions complicating the administration’s student loan forgiveness decision making.

▪ Forbes: Biden could deliver the administration’s “Fresh Start” initiative to 7.5 million student loan borrowers.

In electric vehicles, batteries raise sticker prices compared with gasoline-powered counterparts, an impediment to widespread consumer adoption, analysts say. Electric vehicle batteries are typically made with expensive lithium, cobalt and nickel (The Hill).

On Thursday, Biden’s order that had paused oil and gas leasing sales was permanently blocked by a Louisiana judge in states that sued the administration. The states in question are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. The injunction does not apply to any states outside the lawsuit (The Hill).  

OPINION

■ How a reorganized HHS can improve pandemic readiness, by W. Craig Vanderwagen and Jennifer B. Alton, opinion contributors, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3QSOkNj

■ Five ways the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce business owners’ taxes, by Gene Marks, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3T13n9O

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 11 a.m. for a pro forma session. It will reconvene on Sept. 13.

The Senate convenes at 2:30 p.m. for a pro forma session during its summer recess, which ends Sept. 6.

The president has no public events scheduled. He is in Wilmington, Del.

First lady Jill Biden is in South Carolina shaking off a confirmed breakthrough case of COVID-19. 

Vice President Harris has no public events. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is in Nevada, where he will host a roundtable discussion about provisions of the new Inflation Reduction Act, including lower-cost prescription drugs for seniors, at 9 a.m. PT at Community Health Alliance in Sun Valley. Becerra will be joined by Gov. Steve Sisolak (D). The secretary will hold a second roundtable event, about youth mental health, at 11 a.m. PT at Crisis Support Services of Nevada in Reno. 

🖥  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

➤ PANDEMIC, POX & HEALTH

The administration plans to shift the tab to patients and insurers for COVID-19 vaccinations and treatments, reports The Wall Street Journal. The end of Uncle Sam’s underwriting could lead to a windfall for drugmakers and higher costs for consumers for years to come.

The administration will accelerate the delivery of its remaining supply of monkeypox vaccines and will make an additional 1.8 million doses available for ordering starting Monday with the caveat that the doses must be jabbed beneath the skin using a technique meant to stretch the available supply, officials said Thursday (The Hill).

In addition, the U.S. is pushing to expedite the delivery of millions of doses after Bavarian Nordic, the Danish manufacturer of the lone U.S.-approved monkeypox vaccine, and Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing, a Michigan-based company, struck a deal to shift the final packaging steps to the U.S. The goal is to fill and package 2.5 million vials of the Jynneos vaccine the Biden administration ordered in July (The Hill).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reported a “fast-moving” outbreak of the bacteria E. coli, a pathogen often originating in the intestines of animals. Cases have been confirmed in 15 people in Michigan and 14 in Ohio. No source of the transmission had been identified as of Thursday (The Washington Post). 

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,039,745. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 394, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

➤ TECH, PRIVACY & SECURITY

The Federal Trade Commission threatened to sue Idaho-based Kochava, an adtech company the government alleges reveals people’s visits to sensitive locations, including women’s reproductive health clinics, according to a lawsuit filed Friday by the company. The FTC alleges the company violates laws that prohibit “unfair or deceptive practices” by allowing its customers to license data collected from mobile devices that can identify people and track the location and times of their visits to health care providers, therapists’ offices, addiction recovery centers and other medical facilities. The company denies it is in violation of consumer protection laws (The Washington Post).

Apple on Thursday revealed that iPhones, iPads and Macs have serious security vulnerabilities that could allow cyberattackers to take complete control of the devices. The tech giant said in a statement that it is “aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited,” and released a pair of security reports about the issue. Security experts told The Associated Press that users of most of those devices should download the latest software updates to combat the situation. 

➤ NEWS MEDIA

CNN, which seeks a less partisan-left editorial identity amid internal corporate upheaval and new ownership by Warner Brothers Discovery, canceled its media news and talk show, “Reliable Sources.” Brian Stelter will host the last program on Sunday and depart the network. “It was a rare privilege to lead a weekly show focused on the press at a time when it has never been more consequential,” Stelter told The Hill, noting he has anchored the show for almost a decade. Stelter is considered one of the top media reporters and critics in the country, having worked as The New York Times’s chief media correspondent after creating a successful blog while in college about the insidery business of television news. CNN President Chris Licht reportedly informed Stelter early this week of the network’s decision to cancel the show.

For some educated theories about why CNN ended Stelter’s services, Vox and The New York Times break it all down (spoiler alert: internal politics, a sprint to the middle and perhaps money). CNN says Licht simply wants different programming on Sunday mornings.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏👏👏 Bravo to the winners of this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Today is former President Clinton’s 76th birthday and our readers traveled through the wayback machine to answer some trivia questions about his natal days of old.

Here’s who recalled, guessed or Googled their way into the winner’s circle: Ki Harvey, Amanda Fisher, Richard Baznik, Kody Kirk, Pam Manges, Candi Cee, Daniel Bachhuber, Jaina Mehta, “Bruce,” Lou Tisler, Shaun Donnelly, Randall Patrick, Joan Domingues, Robert Bradley, William Chittam, Terry Pflaumer, Patrick Kavanagh, Tim Mazanec, Len Jones, Stephen Delano, Luther Berg, Stephen Delano, Lesa Davis and Steve James.  

They knew that Clinton made his Hope, Ark., birthplace a part of his campaign messaging in 1992. 

In 1995, the 42nd president celebrated his 49th birthday during a family vacation in Wyoming.

In 1996, Clinton marked his 50th birthday with a gargantuan audience at Radio City Music Hall and enjoyed Tony Bennett crooning “The Best is Yet to Come.” (Those who answered Aretha Franklin also were correct; she was on the program.)

Two days before his birthday in 1998, Clinton addressed the nation about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and his admissions under oath earlier that day to a federal grand jury. 

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver. Follow us on Twitter (@alweaver22 & @asimendinger) and suggest this newsletter to friends!

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Alabama GOP shared KKK imagery by 'mistake,' chairman says

LAWRENCE COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) – A local Republican Party in Alabama is being scrutinized after a photo that appeared to contain Ku Klux Klan imagery was shared on its Facebook page.

Sunday night, a post was made on the Lawrence County Republican Party’s page, thanking the group’s former chairman and welcoming the new chairman, Shanon Terry. The post, shared on Twitter by Alabama House minority leader Anthony Daniels, initially included a photo of a “GOP elephant” that used the white space between the elephant’s legs to create what appears to be hooded figures.

The post was taken down later that night and then reposted with a different GOP elephant image, but not before Facebook users noted the Ku Klux Klan imagery.

Some have even called on the new chairman to resign from the county’s school board.

Terry apologized Monday, saying, “I would like to offer a deep and sincere apology for a picture that temporarily appeared on this page last night. A Google search picture of a GOP elephant was used and later found to have hidden images that do not represent the views or beliefs of the Lawrence County Republican Party. The picture was then immediately replaced. As chairman I take full responsibility for the error.”

In a statement to Nexstar’s WHNT, Terry said he will not resign from his elected seat.

“The voters of District Four elected me to represent them and I am proud of the accomplishments of this administration over the past six years. I look forward to continuing to strive to give every student in Lawrence County the best opportunity to be successful.”

Terry went on to say that he regrets the mistake, calling it “unintended.”

“The image posted by me on a political Facebook page was not done with any malicious or harmful intent,” he explained. “Once made aware of the negative portion of the picture I immediately replaced it and followed up with an apology/explanation the next day. My error was rushing to post a thank you note to the outgoing chairperson, in doing so I did not properly review a cut and paste image used in that post from an internet search for a ‘GOP elephant’. I do not support or agree with any hate group agenda and certainly would not try to further their cause.

The image, created by Woody Harrington, initially appeared in a 2020 Mother Jones article “about the hate, bigotry and racism hidden within Trump’s GOP.” The freelance illustrator addressed Terry’s use of the image on Instagram Wednesday, saying, “[It has] come to my attention that the Hate Elephant has been given new life (without permission or credit of course) in not one, but two republican campaigns.”

Alabama House minority leader Anthony Daniels was also critical of the post, saying on Twitter that the use of the image was “disgusting.”

The Lawrence County NAACP is scheduled to host a press conference about the incident and to call for Terry’s resignation on Friday.

Source: TEST FEED1

Five noteworthy nuggets from Jared Kushner’s new book

Jared Kushner’s “Breaking History” is the latest memoir from a Trump administration official, this one from the former president’s son-in-law who also served as senior adviser in the White House and on his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

But while Kushner touches on his time getting to know Trump before he ran for president and covers his full campaign and four years in the White House, the book offers scant critical assessments of his father-in-law.

Instead, Kushner focuses largely on his own efforts to broker peace agreements in the Middle East, his attempts to aid the pandemic response and internal squabbles in which he invariably comes out on top.

Here are six notable takeaways from the book, which will be released Tuesday. An advanced copy was obtained by The Hill.  

Kushner claims violence on Jan. 6 was unexpected

Kushner distances himself from the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress’s Electoral College vote count of the 2020 election results sealing Trump’s defeat.

Kushner wrote that he was flying back to Washington, D.C., from Saudi Arabia when he got a call from attorney Eric Herschmann saying rioters had broken into the Capitol. But Kushner’s assessment of the riot, which led to multiple deaths and scores of injuries, is that the White House could not have known there would be violence that day.

“The violent storming of the Capitol was wrong and unlawful. It did not represent the hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters, or the tens of millions of Trump voters, who were good, decent and law-abiding citizens,” Kushner wrote.

“What is clear to me is that no one at the White House expected violence that day. I’m confident that if my colleagues or the president had anticipated violence, they would have prevented it from happening,” he continued. 

“After more than six hundred peaceful Trump rallies, these rioters gave Trump’s critics the fodder they had wanted for more than five years. It allowed them to say that Trump’s supporters were crazed and violent thugs. The claim was as false as the narrative that the violent Antifa rioters who desecrated American cities that summer were representative of the millions of peaceful demonstrators who had marched for equality under the law.”

Kushner’s assessment that nobody in the White House expected there to be violence on Jan. 6 stands in stark contrast with the findings of the House committee investigating the attack.

Former Trump administration official Cassidy Hutchinson testified that then-chief of staff Mark Meadows predicted things “could get bad” and she said Trump was aware some in the crowd at his speech that day were armed.

Kushner himself testified to the committee that he was in the shower when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called him asking for help that day, something he echoes in the book.

Kushner also glossed over how Trump and his allies spread falsehoods about the election, writing that he was out with COVID-19 when Rudy Giuliani was put in charge of investigating those claims.

Kushner says he sealed door connecting his office and Bannon’s

Kushner reveals in the book that he had the door connecting his office with former White House strategist Stephen Bannon’s sealed shut and accused the former Breitbart executive of leaking unsavory stories about the former president’s son-in-law to the media.

The book highlights a number of rivalries Kushner had with other administration officials, most notably former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former chief of staff John Kelly, as well as Bannon.

Bannon in particular draws much of Kushner’s ire in the early parts of the book, with the former president’s son-in-law frequently accusing Bannon of leaking to the press to make Kushner and others look bad. Kushner and Bannon had connecting offices in the West Wing, something that didn’t last for long.

Kushner wrote that Bannon was left out of the loop in 2017 when Trump decided to fire then-FBI Director James Comey, a move that ultimately triggered the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.

“Soon after, in what I suspected was a Bannon leak, the press reported that I advised the president to make the decision, which was false,” Kushner wrote.

“One weekend while the president and the usual entourage of senior staff were in Mar-a-Lago, I had the White House maintenance team seal off the internal doorway between my office and Bannon’s,” Kushner added.

Later in the book, Kushner recalls his feelings about Trump giving Bannon a pardon, something he said he had no problem with.

“Bannon single-handedly caused more problems for me than anyone else in my time in Washington,” Kushner wrote. “He probably leaked and lied about me more than everyone else combined. He played dirty and dragged me into the mud of the Russia investigation. But now that he was in trouble, I felt like helping him was the right thing to do.”

Trump on Trillion Trees initiative: ‘What is this … bullshit?’

Trump, who has for years cast doubt on the effects of climate change despite labeling himself an “environmentalist,” initially scoffed at the idea of pledging to join the Trillion Trees Initiative, under which nations pledge to plant a combined 1 trillion trees to combat carbon pollution.

“What is this trillion trees bullshit?” Trump asked while reviewing his speech for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Kushner wrote.

“Are you trying to push more liberal shit on me?” Trump asked.

“No, it’s a smart idea,” Kushner responded, according to the book. “It costs zero dollars right now and conservatives like Kevin McCarthy love it. You always say you agree with the environmentalists in wanting clean air and clean water. The quality of both has actually improved under your presidency, but you never get any credit for it.”

“‘Fine. I’ll leave it in,’ the president huffed,” Kushner wrote.

Trump routinely claimed he was an environmentalist who wanted clean air and clean water, though his administration repeatedly loosened environmental restrictions. He also publicly conflated weather with climate change, and he skipped a key Group of Seven (G-7) summit focused on climate.

Trump holding up Bible at church was ‘improvised’

When Trump and a coterie of aides walked across the street from the White House to St. John’s Church in Lafayette Park, the plan was for the president to go inside the building, Kushner wrote.

But it was boarded up after a minor fire caused damage during demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd, leading Trump to hold up a Bible outside the building in a now infamous photo-op.

“[W]hen Trump walked through the empty Lafayette Square, which the US Park Police had cleared, he was surprised to find the church boarded up,” Kushner wrote. “He had planned to go inside and say a prayer, so he improvised by holding up his Bible in front of the church. 

“The press alleged that the president had emptied the square expressly for this visit. But that was not the case—the Park Police had cleared it as part of a preexisting plan to create a safer perimeter around the White House,” Kushner wrote.

Trump’s photo-op was widely panned after he stood silently holding a Bible, surrounded by other aides. The photo-op came moments after hundreds of demonstrators near the White House were cleared from the space following days of protests over Floyd’s killing.

Book paints flattering picture of Saudi crown prince

Kushner was known throughout his time in the White House to have a friendly relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Kushner’s book only reinforces that idea.

The crown prince, referred to throughout the book by his initials, MBS, is a prominent player throughout Kushner’s many meetings with Middle East leaders in hopes of a breakthrough on a peace agreement.

Much of Kushner’s focus when writing about MBS is on the crown prince’s supposed desire to modernize the kingdom and loosen restrictive laws toward women in particular, with little mention of Saudi Arabia’s glaring human rights issues.

Kushner does mention the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who wrote critically of the Saudi government in The Washington Post. The crown prince “took responsibility for the fact that it happened on his watch, though he said he was not personally involved,” Kushner wrote.

U.S. intelligence officials have since concluded that the crown prince directed the killing of Khashoggi.

Later, Kushner weighs Khashoggi’s murder against the crown prince’s proposed reforms to Saudi society.

“While this situation was terrible, I couldn’t ignore the fact that the reforms that MBS was implementing were having a positive impact on millions of people in the kingdom—especially women,” Kushner wrote, noting under his rule, the crown prince allowed women the freedom to travel, participate in the economy and own property. 

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WAR IN UKRAINE: Calm is an illusion in Odesa

ODESA, Ukraine — The signs of war are everywhere in Odesa, but it feels like there’s little fear of death or destruction from Russian attacks. 

Air raid sirens ring out almost daily, but rocket and missile strikes largely appear to fall far from the city center — a far different reality from neighboring cities such as Mykoliav to the northeast, which suffers daily, devastating bombardment. 

A little bit farther east is Kherson, one of the first cities to fall under Russian occupation over its strategic position of providing a military land- and sea-supply route from the Crimean peninsula, which has been Russian occupied since 2014.

Ukrainian forces are trying to claw back this territory since it was first seized by Russia in the earliest days of its February invasion, while resistance fighters inside Kherson have carried out high-profile attacks with car bombs targeting collaborators or Russian forces.   

Odesa’s relative feeling of peace is a credit to the Ukrainian forces holding the front line outside these cities and Voznesens’k, north of Mykolaiv, said Odesa’s mayor, Gennadiy Trukhanov. 

Calm is more likely an illusion, Trukhanov said in an interview with The Hill from his office in the city center, where security officials are refilling and replacing old sandbags that reinforce the perimeter of the building. 

The windows of nearby museums of this town center, home to some of the most beautiful buildings of the city, remain boarded up to protect against explosions. 

“Children, elderly, youth — all the citizens of Odesa, they live under constant threat and stress these past six months,” Trukhanov said through a translator, adding that although they can have some respite in the warm weather, with the sun shining, “they’re always reminded by the air alert that the war is still here.”

Attacks continue around Odesa — launched from Russian positions in Crimea or from its fleet in the Black Sea.

On the night of this reporter’s arrival in Odesa, on Tuesday, a Russian missile attack injured four people and set off a fire covering 600 square meters, the spokesperson for Odesa Oblast’s administration, Serhiy Bratchuk, said on his Telegram channel. 

Trukhanov said that the missile strike hit a resort complex where people can rent small apartments near the sea, and part of the damage included private houses. 

“Mostly they have made long-range attacks from war ships of [their] Black Sea Fleet,” Trukhanov said, adding that the Russians have also launched missiles from Crimea and through air attacks. 

Another reason for the relative quiet is Russia’s agreeing to allow commercial ships to begin exporting grain from Odesa’s ports under a United Nations and Turkish-mediated agreement called the Black Sea Initiative.

The Hill’s Foreign Policy Reporter Laura Kelly with the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov.

Grain shipments are the top commercial export for Ukraine in general, and are the most critical commodity in global efforts to alleviate world hunger worsened by Moscow’s nearly six-month offensive war against Ukraine.  

Russia, however, fired off at least one attack on Odesa shortly after the initiative was signed on July 22, despite the agreement’s parameters that “no party” would attack port facilities or ships. 

Dmitriy Barinov, the deputy head of Ukraine’s Seaport Authority — the second top official overseeing more than a dozen of the nation’s ports — said the Russian rocket attack on July 23 fell just 200 meters from a train shipment terminal involved in the export of grain. 

“It shows that nobody can believe Russia, no trust. But we need to work,” he told The Hill in an interview from the port authority headquarters. The streets leading to the ports are blocked by the military, with only those with official access allowed entrance. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to arrive in Odesa on Friday in support of the initiative, following meetings in Lviv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

Barinov said such a high-level meeting in Lviv and the visit to Odesa should take place with a “new” announcement expanding the Black Sea Initiative to include opening Mykolaiv’s ports, which would require Russia to cease its punishing attacks on the city. 

“It’s dangerous, but we still control the port and hope, maybe, some agreement will be reached and this port can start to work,” he said. 

Before the war, Odesa served as a top vacation destination, with Ukrainians and Russians, as well as other Europeans and people from elsewhere, enjoying the beaches of the Black Sea.  

But the hotels, restaurants and city streets are largely empty of tourists. The visitors are now aid workers, journalists or internally displaced people (IDPs) — coming from places that have fallen under Russian occupation after brutal siege, including Mariupol to Odesa’s east.  

Ukrainian IDPs line up in the city center for food handouts provided by the municipality, supplemented through José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen and other nongovernmental organizations. Next to the food line is a play area set up for children, shaded by a tent bearing the logo for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. 

Hedgehog tank busters — the road barriers made of steel beams arranged in the shape of a jack — are pushed to the side of streets and administration buildings, to be quickly deployed if tensions and threats to the city increase. 

Billboards with pictures of Ukrainian soldiers appeal to people to support the troops. 

Everyday life appears to continue normally, but the war has caused unexpected interruptions.  

Locals not serving in the military find their own ways to contribute to the war effort, including fashion designer-turned-tactical supplier Ivan Fotesko. Stencils outlining women’s dresses line his studio’s walls even as his draft table is covered with camouflage fabric for military pants and shirts. Fotesko says that since March, he has delivered about 750 bullet-proof vests to the front lines.

Restaurants apologize that locally caught flounder is unavailable because fishermen are blocked from accessing the Black Sea, the water there mined to prevent a Russian invasion.  

There are a few guests staying at the NEMO Hotel, a famous beachside resort and spa that boasts a wall of celebrity photos, including Zelensky. The guests enjoy the rooftoop hot tub before an early dinner. The city has imposed a ban on alcohol sales after 8 p.m., leading some restaurants to close early despite the city curfew taking place at 11 p.m. 

The curfew ends at 5 a.m., and early risers can take the chance to steal a swim in the sea, which is generally off limits because of the dangers of floating mines.  

They sneak under barricade tape — red signs with a skull and cross bones warning them against coming onto the sand — and jump in the water before the police begin their security patrols.  

A few hundred feet from the water, a group of police sit at a cafe that faces away from the sea, finishing their coffee and preparing to start their day.

At the NEMO’s famed Dolphinarium, people can still pay to swim, dive or take pictures with captive dolphins. The dolphins also maintain a performance schedule of three daily shows; a sign at the ticket booth advises that sales halt when air raid sirens sound — but will continue when the all-clear is given. 

The Hill’s Laura Kelly is on assignment in Ukraine. 

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The Memo: DeSantis tries to thread the needle on Trump and 2024

The FBI raid on the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida has complicated the political picture — and not only for former President Trump.

Potential rivals to Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination have had their own responses carefully scrutinized — none more so than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

DeSantis is widely seen as the most formidable challenger to Trump if the 45th president enters the race. That being so, he has to walk a particularly fine line, preserving his own political identity while not stoking gratuitous resentment among the MAGA base.

The Florida governor’s initial response to the Mar-a-Lago raid carried strong implied support for Trump — but with a good deal of wiggle room.

In a tweet, DeSantis cast the Aug. 8 search of the former president’s Florida club as an “escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies” by the Biden administration. DeSantis alleged the raid was motivated by a desire to target “the Regime’s political opponents.”

But if those sentiments were very much in tune with the outrage that was heard in conservative quarters in the wake of the raid, the response also contained no actual mention of Trump.

The omission did not go unnoticed. Some close observers of Florida politics believe it is consistent with DeSantis’s overall approach. They say he takes care not to alienate or aggravate pro-Trump votes, but also does not tether himself too closely to the former president.

DeSantis’s overall strategy for now, according to longtime Florida GOP operative John ‘Mac’ Stipanovich is “to be sufficiently supportive of Trump that he cannot be criticized for failing to support Trump, much less be accused of betraying him — but without hugging him so closely that he gets himself dirty.”

The same approach can be seen on another topic: It is notoriously hard to pin the Florida governor down on where he stands regarding Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

A Politico report on Wednesday noted that although the Florida governor shies away from making such claims himself, he is currently in the middle of a mini tour that encompasses support for candidates who have been less cautious.

DeSantis rallied in support of Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake (R) last weekend, and will repeat the favor for Lake’s counterpart in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano (R), on Friday. Both Lake and Mastriano have amplified Trump’s 2020 election fictions.

The mini tour will keep DeSantis’s name in the national spotlight. In all, it includes four states — Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania — which have high-profile races in November. Coincidentally or otherwise, three of the four states are also competitive in presidential elections, the only exception being New Mexico.

Meanwhile, DeSantis is also deft at raising issues that win him the favor of the populist base of today’s GOP.

In big picture terms, he is best known — for good or for bad — for his resistance to COVID lockdowns in his state, his vehement opposition to critical race theory and his deep skepticism about the teaching of sexuality and gender identity in schools.

Within the past couple of weeks, he has suspended a state attorney who had signed a pledge not to prosecute cases rooted in Florida’s recent 15-week ban on abortion; described a Biden administration plan to boost IRS staffing as “basically just the middle finger to the American public”; and, on Thursday, asserted that his state’s new Office of Election Crimes and Security had found 20 instances of voter fraud.

At a news conference on the voter fraud issue, DeSantis said the state “has charged and is in the process of arresting 20 individuals across the state.”

Susan MacManus, a political science professor emerita at the University of South Florida and a veteran observer of the state’s politics, described DeSantis as “very savvy” and often on the lookout for topics that might play to his political advantage.

While DeSantis’s embrace of many hot-button issues makes him plenty of enemies, MacManus noted, “they do realize he has an ability to communicate that is more effective than many politicians.”

MacManus added however, that DeSantis has his own reasons for not plunging too quickly into a 2024 field. 

He still has his own gubernatorial election to fight this year. Next week, Democrats will choose whether state agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried or Rep. Charlie Crist will be his opponent. Recent polling shows DeSantis with an advantage in the high single digits against either candidate.

One key metric in the fall will be whether DeSantis can win his race by a bigger margin than Trump carried Florida at the last election. Trump defeated Biden by about three percentage points in the state. If DeSantis does better, it will help make the case that the Florida governor has wider appeal — or fewer off-putting traits — than the former president.

How DeSantis fares will also be watched closely by Trump and his allies. There is barely concealed resentment at the attention devoted to DeSantis among those around the former president.

It hasn’t been forgotten that DeSantis’s victory in his original 2018 gubernatorial primary was fueled by a Trump endorsement. Trump loyalists also question whether the Florida governor really has the appetite for a head-to-head battle against the former president.

As for Trump himself, he told The New Yorker in a June story, “I don’t know if Ron is running, and I don’t ask him. It’s his prerogative. I think I would win.”

DeSantis, of course, doesn’t necessarily need to challenge Trump. He has time on his side since, at 43, he is 33 years younger than the former president.

His conservative fanbase, meanwhile, isn’t going anywhere.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

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Kushner knew Trump felt better after COVID-19 when he asked for McDonald's

Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner in his new memoir offers few details about former President Trump’s battle with COVID-19 in 2020, but he did pinpoint a moment when he knew his father-in-law was on the mend.

“I knew he was feeling better when he requested one of his favorite meals: a McDonald’s Big Mac, Filet-o-Fish, fries and a vanilla shake,” Kushner wrote in “Breaking History,” due out Tuesday.

In the book, an advanced copy of which was obtained by The Hill, Kushner does not offer many insights into how serious Trump’s condition was when he contracted the virus in the home stretch of the 2020 campaign, before any COVID-19 vaccines had been authorized.

He mentions then-chief of staff Mark Meadows saying he was “nervous” about Trump’s diagnosis, but otherwise just recounts encouraging Trump to go to Walter Reed Medical Center, which could offer better treatment than remaining at the White House.

“As the president recovered at Walter Reed, we all recognized that the campaign would have to wait until Trump was both physically strong and medically cleared to return to the trail,” Kushner wrote. “In the meantime, he spoke directly to Americans through social media to update them on his recovery.”

Trump contracted the virus days after his first debate with now-President Biden in Cleveland. The White House at the time did not disclose whether he complied with the venue’s testing requirement for both candidates.

Meadows was caught days later attempting to brief reporters anonymously about Trump’s condition at Walter Reed, expressing concern about his oxygen levels. At one point, Trump left isolation in the hospital to take a ride around the block with Secret Service so he could wave at supporters gathered near the hospital.

Kushner himself tested positive for the virus in November 2020, a short time after the election. He attributes the fact that he missed much of the discussion over how to handle fraud claims to his absence while in isolation.

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Judge permanently blocks Biden leasing pause in states that sued

A Louisiana judge issued a permanent injunction against the Biden administration’s moratorium on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands Thursday night, a day after another court tossed an earlier injunction against it. 

In the Thursday ruling, Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked the January 2021 order in 13 states that sued over the order last March. The states in question are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. It does not apply to any states uninvolved in the lawsuit. 

In his ruling, Doughty ruled the order in violation of the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA) and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), saying it took steps reserved for Congress. 

“Both statutes require Government Defendants’ agencies to sell oil and gas leases. The OCSLA has a Five-Year Plan in effect that requires eligible leases to be sold. Government Defendants’ agencies have no authority to make significant revisions in the OCSLA Five-Year Plan without going through the procedure mandated by Congress,” Doughty wrote.  

“The MLA requires the [Interior Department] to hold lease sales, where eligible lands are available at lease quarterly. By stopping the process, the agencies are in effect amending two Congressional statutes. Neither the OCSLA nor the MLA gives the Government Defendants’ agencies the authority to implement a Stop of lease sales,” he added. 

On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals tossed an earlier injunction by Doughty, sending it back to the Western District to clarify the injunction.  

“We cannot reach the merits of the Government’s challenge when we cannot ascertain from the record what conduct—an unwritten agency policy, a written policy outside of the Executive Order, or the Executive Order itself—is enjoined,” the appeals court wrote. 

Biden’s original order blocked new federal oil and gas leasing on federal lands while allowing existing leases to continue as well as leases on private land. Although the order called for the pause to allow for an Interior Department review of federal leasing and permitting, the administration has continued to defend the order in court since the completion of the review. Further lease sales, including one by the end of the year, are required under the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed earlier this week. 

The Hill has reached out to the Interior Department for comment. 

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