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1 big thing: Biden's hardline Russia reset | Friday, September 18, 2020

View in browser   Presented By BlackRock   Axios AM By Mike Allen ·Sep 18, 2020 Happy Friday! Today's Smart Brevity™ count ... 1,494 words ... 5½ minutes.     1 big thing: Biden's hardline Russia reset Photo illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios. Getty Images photos: Mark Reinstein   When he talks about Russia, Joe Biden sounds like Ronald Reagan, setting up a potential Day 1 confrontation with Vladimir Putin if Biden wins. Why it matters: Biden has promised a forceful response against Russia for both election interference and alleged bounty payments to target American troops in Afghanistan. But being tougher than President Trump could be the easy part. The risk is overdoing it and making diplomacy impossible. If Biden wins, his challenge will be to punish Putin while also preserving his ability to work with him on arms control and China. "I believe Russia is an opponent — I really do," Biden said at a CNN town hall last night. "I view China as a competitor, a serious competitor." The big picture: Other voices in Biden's party, and the foreign policy establishment, call for a more cautious approach. What's next: The New START treaty, which limits the number of deployed strategic warheads and delivery systems for the U.S. and Russia, expires on Feb. 5 — 16 days into a potential Biden presidency. The latest: Biden has seized upon Russian headlines — most recently the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny — to sharpen contrasts with Trump, and has repeatedly warned Russia not to meddle in the 2020 election. Share this story.     2. Trump v. his own administration President Trump holds a "Great American Comeback" rally in Mosinee, Wisc., last night. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images   The day after President Trump slapped down his CDC director, we had two stunning new cases of administration officials being undermined from the top: On the Hill, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified about "very active" efforts by Russia to denigrate Joe Biden and sow discord ahead of the election. Trump later tweeted: "But Chris, you don't see any activity from China, even though it is a FAR greater threat than Russia, Russia, Russia. They will both, plus others, be able to interfere in our 2020 Election with our totally vulnerable Unsolicited (Counterfeit?) Ballot Scam. Check it out!" At the CDC, it turns out that a heavily criticized recommendation about who should be tested for the coronavirus wasn't written by scientists, but "was posted to the agency's website despite their serious objection," the N.Y. Times' Apoorva Mandavilli scoops (subscription). A federal official told The Times the wording came from HHS and the White House coronavirus task force and "does not reflect what many people at the C.D.C. feel should be the policy."     3. Scoop: Mike Bloomberg's anti-chaos theory CNN's Anderson Cooper questions Joe Biden last night at a drive-in town hall in Moosic, Pa., outside Scranton. Photo: CNN   Mike Bloomberg's $100 million Florida blitz begins today and will continue "wall to wall" in all 10 TV markets through Election Day, advisers tell me. Why it matters: Bloomberg thinks that Joe Biden putting away Florida is the most feasible way to head off the national chaos we could have if the outcome of Trump v. Biden remained uncertain long after Election Day. "If Biden wins Florida, it's much harder for Trump to falsely claim victory on election night," a Bloomberg adviser told me. "Florida is a toss-up, but winnable." But many Democrats complain this is a fraction of what he suggested he'd spend. While Trump could win without what is now his home state, it'd be incredibly hard. If Biden were to pair a decisive Florida victory with a win up the coast in swing state North Carolina, we could know the new president quickly. See "Responsibility," from Priorities USA Action, the ad that begins the Bloomberg blitz.     A message from BlackRock Why is water an investment risk?     The demand for water exceeds supply in many areas of the world. This creates a financial risk that investors may not be considering. This episode of BlackRock Bottom Line explores how.     4. Pic du jour Photo: NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Simon, M. via AP Jupiter and its enticing moon Europa shine in a new photo by the Hubble Space Telescope, AP reports. Hubble snapped the picture last month when the planet was 406 million miles away, and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore released it yesterday. Europa, which is smaller than our own moon, appears as a pale dot alongside its giant, color-streaked gas planet. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is unusually red.     5. Scoop: How the Oracle-TikTok deal would work Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   An agreement between TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance and Oracle includes a variety of concessions in an effort to make the deal palatable to the Trump administration and security hawks in Congress, Axios' Ina Fried reports. The deal, in the form of a 20-page term sheet agreed to in principle by the companies, would give Oracle unprecedented access and control over user data as well as other measures designed to ensure that Americans' data is protected, according to the source. Why it matters: President Trump and U.S. leaders have been calling for a complete sale of the business. While this isn't that, it does create several layers of oversight, including a continuous third-party audit and an independent board approved by the U.S. government. TikTok in the U.S. will have its own board, approved by the U.S. government. A separate entity, TikTok Global, will have its own board and be based in the U.S. It's that entity in which Oracle, as well as Walmart, will have an ownership stake. TikTok Global will own TikTok's operations around the world, including the U.S. operation, which will have the extra security measures and its own governance. Keep reading.     6. What might have been: Massive mask drop called off Draft press release provided to Axios by American Oversight In April, the Postal Service "drafted a news release announcing plans to distribute 650 million masks nationwide, enough to offer five face coverings to every American household," the WashPost reports, based on documents obtained by American Oversight, a watchdog group that requested them under FOIA. The idea originated at HHS, "which suggested a pack of five reusable masks be sent to every residential address in the country, with the first shipments going to the hardest-hit areas," per The Post. Why it matters: Imagine if five months ago, Americans not only got a signal from their government that they should wear masks, but even had them handed to them. Incalculable loss — human and economic — could have been avoided.     7. First look: Biden's searing "Knock on the Door" ad Via YouTube Joe Biden, believing President Trump is suddenly vulnerable with military voters, goes up today with an ad called "Knock On The Door," featuring retired Air force Brigadier General John Douglass, a former casualty notification officer. Douglass — who grew up in Florida, and now splits time between Virginia and Florida — used to deliver the dreaded "knock on the door" to military families, letting them know their loved one had made the ultimate sacrifice. Douglass, referring to accusations Trump disputes in a widely covered article by The Atlantic, says in the ad: "These military families suffer, and those spouses are not suckers. And those children are not losers." The ad will air on TV and digital platforms in Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin — targeting media markets and areas with a high number of military households and veterans. The other side: Trump has denied the accusations by The Atlantic, as have many current and former aides. Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told me: "Servicemen and women know that President Trump restored the military to its rightful strength and fixed the scandalous problems at VA hospitals."     8. 1 million mortgage-holders fall through safety net "About one million homeowners have fallen through the safety net Congress set up ... to protect borrowers from losing their homes, according to industry data, potentially leaving them vulnerable to foreclosure and eviction," The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription). What's happening: "Homeowners with federally guaranteed mortgages can skip monthly payments for as long as a year without penalty and make them up later," The Journal reports. "Many people have instead fallen behind on their payments, digging themselves into a deepening financial hole through accumulated missed payments and late fees."     9. Michael Schmidt: Private eye rummaged Bolton's trash Via CNN Here's a juicy nugget near the end of the new book by N.Y. Times scoop machine Michael Schmidt, "Donald Trump v. The United States." It's about the scramble during impeachment to learn what was in former national security adviser John Bolton's manuscript of his White House memoir, "The Room Where It Happened." Schmidt writes: I received a call from a man I had never heard of. He said that several years earlier he had sat next to my father on a train and he had followed my work. The man said that he worked as a private investigator of sorts in the Washington area and he had been trying to figure out what Bolton had written in his book. A friend had told him at a Rotary Club meeting that Bolton was taking sections of his book and sending them out to friends to review and comment on. The friends were then mailing them back to him, and he was throwing them in his trash. Bolton had apparently done this because he did not want to create an electronic record of his correspondences. The man said that he had been scouting Bolton's wife's office and their house on the nights he put his trash out. After Bolton moved the trash onto the street, he went through it. ... [H]e said ... Thursday morning was trash pickup day in Bolton's neighborhood. I made sure not to tell him whether he should go through the trash again. I knew that what he wanted to do was likely legal, but the idea of the Times aligning ourselves with a private eye was potentially troublesome. Read a preview.     10. 🍽️ How a 3-star restaurant reopens Chef Eric Ripert (black T-shirt) plans reopening menus in Le Bernardin's war room/library. Photo: Eric Ripert's Twitter On Sept. 30, Le Bernardin, one of the world's seminal seafood restaurants, will become New York's first Michelin three-star dining room to reopen indoors since March, Bloomberg's Kate Krader reports. Chef-owner Eric Ripert told her he's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on updates: One of Ripert's biggest investments has been the installation of the Needlepoint BiPolar Ionization system, [which] eliminates more than 99% of any Covid-19 particles in the air within 30 minutes ... "Right away, we say yes when it was proposed to us. The system was just installed in the United Nations," according to Ripert.  ... [T]he lounge has been turned into a "welcoming center" for temperature checks and to allow for distance between incoming parties. The restaurant's exit is the former entrance to the private dining room, allowing a flow through the dining area.     A message from BlackRock Shareholders hold companies accountable on sustainability     Investment stewardship involves engagement with companies to promote positive actions. Sandy Boss, BlackRock's Global Head of Investment Stewardship, discusses how COVID-19 has impacted behavior.   📱 Thanks for joining the Axios AM breakfast table. Invite your friends to sign up here!   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 1300, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox. And make sure you subscribe to Mike's afternoon wrap up, Axios PM.   Follow Axios on social media: