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Politico
4 days ago
- Politics
- Politico
Ukraine's big drone gamble
TALKING TURKEY — Russian and Ukrainian diplomats were sitting down today in Istanbul for American-brokered peace talks when the first explosions went off. Using drones launched from disguised cargo trucks, Kyiv's special forces struck military targets deep inside Russia, blowing up billions of dollars-worth of strategic warplanes at airbases as far away as Siberia. As much as a third of the nuclear-capable bomber fleet has been damaged. Now, with President Donald Trump pushing for negotiations to end the war, the daring move could swing momentum back in favor of Ukraine. 'The operation was very timely, there's no doubt about that,' Oleg Ustenko, who served as a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy until last year, told POLITICO Nightly. 'You could clearly see from the faces of the Russian delegation in Turkey that they are not so brave or so rude as they once were and it showed the White House and the new president what we can do.' 'Trump said we don't have the cards — this shows we do have the cards, and we can play them.' So far, the Russians have shown no sign of living up to the White House's assessment that the Kremlin is negotiating in good faith, pounding cities across Ukraine with missiles and killing dozens of civilians. Trump has himself voiced frustration at the lack of progress, writing that Russian leader Vladimir Putin 'has gone absolutely CRAZY' and the refusal to do a deal 'will lead to the downfall of Russia!' For the time being, that standstill looks unlikely to change. In a statement issued this evening, Moscow claimed it was ready to sign a ceasefire, but with the improbable condition that Ukraine hand over vast swathes of its territory, including major cities the Russian armed forces have never been able to occupy. The sudden hybrid counter-offensive has left Putin with few ways to respond, according to Oleg Ignatov from Crisis Group. 'The Kremlin's options for escalation beyond its current tactic of wearing down Ukraine are limited and risky,' he said. 'For now, all eyes are on negotiations, present and future — the true targets of both Russia's and Ukraine's military operations.' The head of the Ukrainian president's office, Andriy Yermak, said the brazen refusal to make concessions showed the Russian side is 'doing everything they can to avoid a ceasefire and continue the war.' Now, Trump might have to roll up his sleeves and get involved to try and save the process. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today offered to hold three-way peace talks with Putin and Zelenskyy, while the White House has said Trump would be 'open' to an invitation. Meanwhile, pro-Ukrainian Republicans are trying to nudge the White House into taking a tougher line. The same day, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Berlin to build support for new sanctions on Russia, with the pair discussing how to put 'further pressure' on Putin, including by further tightening the noose around the Kremlin's oil and gas revenues. With the White House increasingly angry at Russia and Ukraine's allies circling the wagons, Moscow's plans to buy time seem to be leaving it more and more isolated — while the cost of its war rises and some of its most expensive military hardware burns in a Siberian field. 'If we secure a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting, we want to have our allies around the table,' said Ustenko. 'The Russians will go alone — we'll be trying to build a team.' Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@ Or contact tonight's author at ggavin@ What'd I Miss? — Trump blames immigration policy for Boulder attack: President Donald Trump blamed an attack in Boulder, Colorado, that injured at least eight people who were demonstrating in support of the release of Israeli hostages on lax U.S. immigration laws. In a post on Truth Social, Trump seized on the attack's implications for immigration policy after a Department of Homeland Security official wrote in a social media post this morning the suspect in the attack had overstayed his visa and was in the country illegally. The FBI is investigating the incident as an act of terror, with local authorities identifying the suspect as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman of Colorado Springs. Soliman, who was encountered on the scene, is in custody has been charged with a federal hate crime, according to an FBI affidavit. — Sean Gallagher named interim Capitol Police chief: The U.S. Capitol Police will be led by Assistant Chief Sean Gallagher on an acting basis while a search continues for a new permanent leader, the department confirmed today. Gallagher's appointment by the Capitol Police Board comes after Chief Thomas Manger retired last month after about four years on the job. Gallagher is seen by some in the department as a strong contender for the permanent position after having held a variety of roles within the department over the past two decades. Gallagher, who oversees uniformed operations as one of three assistant chiefs, has been with the department since 2001. — Pentagon to redraw command map to more closely align Greenland with the US: The Pentagon is poised to shift its oversight of Greenland by putting it under U.S. Northern Command, a symbolic gesture that would more closely align the island territory with the U.S. as President Donald Trump continues to show interest in taking control over the Arctic landmass. The shift in oversight, which could come as soon as this week, could also help the U.S. broaden its Golden Dome missile shield by providing more radars for coverage. Under the plan, Greenland would shift from European Command's jurisdiction to Northern Command, which is responsible for overseeing the security of North America, according to a DOD official and two people familiar with the planning. — Supreme Court to consider reviving case over counting ballots after Election Day: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Republican lawmaker's challenge to an Illinois state law requiring election authorities to count mail-in ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked or certified by the voter as being cast by that date. The lawsuit brought by six-term Rep. Mike Bost is one of a series of cases President Donald Trump's allies have filed seeking to exclude votes received after Election Day from official results. AROUND THE WORLD PUT IT TO A VOTE — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk intends to call a parliamentary vote of confidence in his government following the victory of opposition-backed Karol Nawrocki in Sunday's presidential election, he said this evening. 'I want everyone to see, including our opponents at home and abroad, that we are ready for this situation, that we understand the gravity of the moment, but that we do not intend to take a single step back,' Tusk said. Nawrocki, a right-wing populist who counts U.S. President Donald Trump among his allies, will aim to use the presidency to block Tusk's domestic agenda. His election victory casts doubt on whether Tusk's government can make meaningful progress on social security reform, restoring the rule of law, or on hot-button issues like allowing same-sex partnerships or loosening Poland's strict abortion rules. COURT ORDERED — A Berlin court ruled today that the German government's push to turn away asylum-seekers at the country's borders is unlawful, upending a key feature of conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz's promised crackdown on migration. 'People who submit an asylum application during border controls on German territory may not be turned back,' the court said in a statement on its decision. The ruling came in response to a complaint by three Somali asylum-seekers who crossed into Germany from Poland in May, but were then returned by German police. The ruling poses a major challenge to Merz, who in the lead up to his conservatives' election victory earlier this year promised to implement an 'effective entry ban' on undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers from his first day in office. Merz made that promise under pressure from the rising far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which ran on an anti-immigration platform and is now the country's strongest opposition party. Nightly Number RADAR SWEEP DATA GOLD MINE — A pioneer in the digital space, Brazil champions a first-of-its-kind data monetization program allowing its citizens to sell their digital data in a skyrocketing, multibillion dollar global data market. The program, named 'dWallet' is the product of a public-private partnership that coincides with the deliberation of a 2023 federal bill designating data as personal property. Advocates acclaim the initiative's potential to empower individuals in the digital market, but critics argue it could target Brazil's most vulnerable rural populations into selling their private information. Gabriel Daros reports for Rest of World from São Paulo, Brazil. Parting Image Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
Politico
10-03-2025
- Business
- Politico
Trump's risky recession dance
'PERIOD OF TRANSITION' — President Donald Trump and some of his top officials are engaging in an eyebrow-raising strategy in the first weeks of their administration: warning of economic tremors and entertaining the prospect of a recession. Generating ominous headlines about an economic downturn may not seem like a natural path to winning public support for Trump's 'golden age of America.' And it's left people from Washington to Wall Street wondering what's really at play. The unusual drumbeat picked up in recent days amid rising market volatility. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday warned of a 'detox' period for the economy as the Trump administration hacks away at federal spending. Trump himself followed over the weekend by declining to brush off rising fears of an economic downturn, saying 'there is a period of transition' necessary to bring wealth back to America. 'You can't really watch the stock market,' Trump later said, a sign of how much Trump 47 is operating in a vastly different mindset than Trump 45 — a man who closely watched stock indices and loved to claim credit for gains on his watch. This time, he isn't thinking about reelection for himself — or for anyone in his party. The two-week slide in stocks — including another nosedive today — largely reflects mounting uncertainty driven by Trump's reordering of the world's economic order. The president is proudly tearing up America's decades-old playbook on global trade, immigration and the role of government. 'These latest economic pressures are largely of the president's own making and will test his appetite for weathering short-term economic uncertainty and political backlash in the hope of long-term economic gain,' POLITICO's Megan Messerly, Sam Sutton and Victoria Guida write today. How does Trump's take-your-medicine strategy play out? Watch for several lines of argument in the coming months as long as the economic gauges look worrisome: Trump and his aides are trying to deploy a blame-Biden strategy, crediting the former president for anything they inherited. That won't work if the economic data — from consumer sentiment to hiring rates — show an unmistakable drop just as Trump's rapid-fire policies began over the past seven weeks. For now, Trump's team is banking on 'animal spirits' — the sense of optimism seen in CEO surveys and among small-businesses eager for deregulation. They're hoping the wave of domestic investment announcements can counter the mounting signs of uncertainty, such as the Delta Air Lines warning this afternoon about softening demand. The reality is that much of Trump's change will take far longer than an election cycle to execute. Tariffs won't make American factories suddenly sprout from the ground; they take years of planning, requiring a stable policy environment. Anyone running as a Republican in 2026 has good reason to sweat today's recession chatter and the 'period of transition' ahead. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@ Or contact tonight's author at sreddy@ or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Reddy. What'd I Miss? — Supreme Court will take up state bans on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children: The Supreme Court agreed today in a case from Colorado to decide whether state and local governments can enforce laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children. The conservative-led court is taking up the case amid actions by President Donald Trump targeting transgender people, including a ban on military service and an end to federal funding for gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The justices also have heard arguments in a Tennessee case over whether state bans on treating transgender minors violate the Constitution. But they have yet to issue a decision. Colorado is among roughly half the states that prohibit the practice of trying to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling. — House Republican support grows for keeping clean energy tax breaks: A growing number of House Republicans are urging the party to preserve the clean energy tax credits in Democrats' climate law — and warning they may oppose the party's budget bill if those incentives get axed. In a letter shared exclusively with POLITICO, 21 House Republicans — whose districts have drawn billions in new investments because of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives — said developing clean energy was critical for the U.S. to meet President Donald Trump's goal of becoming 'energy dominant.' And they threatened to resist their colleagues' efforts to gut the law to help pay for a small fraction of the GOP's multi-trillion-dollar tax-cut package. — Harvard pauses hiring amid 'financial uncertainties' under Trump: Harvard University leaders announced a temporary hiring freeze today, citing 'substantial financial uncertainties' as colleges and universities face widespread scrutiny of their federal funds by the Trump administration. The temporary freeze 'is meant to preserve our financial flexibility until we better understand how changes in federal policy will take shape and can assess the scale of their impact,' wrote Harvard President Alan Garber, Provost John Manning, Executive Vice President Meredith Weenick and Vice President for Finance and CFO Ritu Kalra in a message to faculty and staff. The university's pause on faculty and staff hiring comes after the Trump administration pulled $400 million worth of grants and contracts at Columbia University on Friday for 'failing to address' antisemitism. — Trump lauds ICE detainment of Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University protests: President Donald Trump touted the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and Palestinian activist detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the weekend — signaling a larger campaign to punish anti-Israel protesters on college campuses. 'This is the first arrest of many to come,' Trump said in a Truth Social post today, linking Khalil's detainment to his previously signed executive orders to combat antisemitism on college campuses. — Trump admin formally revokes a raft of Biden officials' security clearances: U.S. spy chief Tulsi Gabbard announced today she formally revoked clearances for a number of top Biden administration officials, following through on directives issued by President Donald Trump upon taking office. Gabbard, who serves as director of national intelligence and oversees the gamut of U.S. intelligence agencies, wrote in an X post that she revoked the clearances of former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former national security adviser Jake Sullivan and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Monaco oversaw the prosecution of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also in keeping with a prior announcement by Trump, former President Joe Biden will no longer receive the President's Daily Brief, a summary of key intelligence findings that is delivered to the president in the morning, Gabbard said. Former presidents have typically been allowed to receive the brief even after leaving office, though Biden suspended Trump's access to the briefings in 2021. AROUND THE WORLD GREEN NO DEAL — Germany's Greens are vowing to put an end to Friedrich Merz's paradigm-changing plan to invest massively in defense and infrastructure. Greens leaders today said they would urge lawmakers in the party to reject a historic deal by Merz's conservatives and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) to unleash hundreds of billions of euros of new spending to bolster the military and invest heavily in the economy. In order to pass the proposed bills as soon as next week, as Merz intends, he needs the support of the Greens. 'If the CDU and SPD think that, because of the security threat posed by Putin in the Kremlin — and, honestly, also Donald Trump in the White House — we will simply have to go along with this, then we reject that outright,' one of the party's leaders, Felix Banaszak, said today in Berlin, referring to Merz's Christian Democratic Union and the center-left Social Democratic Party, who are set to hold coalition talks following the Feb. 23 election. If the Greens follow through on their rejection of the plan, the decision would put Merz in a bind. His plans to effectively exempt defense spending from the country's constitutional debt brake and create a €500 billion infrastructure fund require a two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag. If the sitting parliament doesn't agree, the far-right, pro-Kremlin Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and The Left, which opposes military spending, will have the strength to block the deal once the newly elected Bundestag convenes by March 25 at the latest. SYRIA CLASHES — More than 1,000 people have died in two days of clashes and revenge killings in Syria as the country's security forces allegedly killed hundreds of civilians belonging to the Alawite religious minority, a war monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 745 civilians were killed on Friday and Saturday in ongoing violence along the country's coast, along with 125 members of government security forces and 148 fighters from armed groups linked to ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa called for national unity on Sunday, saying the country 'has the characteristics for survival' and that what is happening in Syria now is 'within the expected challenges.' The clashes erupted on Thursday and marked a major escalation in the challenge to the new government led by Sharaa's movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, three months after the insurgents took over following the removal of Assad from power. Nightly Number RADAR SWEEP FRAUD'S GOLDEN AGE — Phone scams are proliferating and changing so quickly that authorities can't keep up. With the use of AI technology, they're getting more advanced rapidly. And across the Global South in particular, many of these scam artists are professionalizing. They have office setups, multiple people working on the technology and are spreading across the world. In Maclean's, Sarah Treleaven gets inside the story of how the Royal Canadian Mounted Police busted the biggest fraud ring successfully targeting Canadians — but also how despite their efforts, new versions of these scams are popping up in their place every day. Parting Image Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
