Russian President Vladimir Putin “said on Friday that he would sign decrees to declare four Ukrainian regions part of Russia as the Kremlin seeks to solidify its tenuous hold over Ukrainian territory through a widely denounced illegal annexation,” the New York Times reports.
Trump Threatened to Go After Reporter’s Phone Records
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reports in her book, Confidence Man, out Tuesday — that former President Trump had threatened internally to go after her phone records to expose leakers, Axios reports.
Writes Haberman: “Trump, angry about my published stories, would bellow that he wanted administration officials to obtain my phone records and identify my sources. It did not appear that anyone ever acted on it.”
House GOP Has Already Tried to Impeach Biden
“House Republicans have introduced more than a dozen impeachment resolutions against President Biden and his officials, far outpacing Democrats’ formal impeachment efforts at this point in former President Trump’s term,” Axios reports.
“The failed impeachment efforts provide a roadmap for the investigations that Republicans — eager to make the rest of Biden’s term a living nightmare — will likely pursue if they retake the majority after the midterms.”
The Tories Have Become Unmoored from the British People
“In a single week, Britain has gone from being one among many nations facing fierce economic headwinds to being a financial basket case, its currency plunging, bond yields and mortgage rates rising and pension funds scrambling to stay afloat,” the Financial Times reports.
Bolsonaro’s Party Attacks Brazil’s Voting Systems
“For months, officials in Brazil and across the international community have watched President Jair Bolsonaro cast doubt on Brazil’s voting systems, growing increasingly worried that the far-right leader was setting the stage to dispute an election loss,” the New York Times reports.
“Late Wednesday, the president gave them more reason to worry. In a surprise move less than four days before the vote, Mr. Bolsonaro’s political party released a document that claimed, without evidence, that a group of government employees and contractors had the ‘absolute power to manipulate election results without leaving a trace.’”
The backdrop from the Financial Times: “Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has taken a dominant lead heading into Brazil’s presidential election, with polls suggesting the leftwing former leader is within the margin of error for a first-round victory.”
Putin Escalates Battle of the Wills with the West
“President Vladimir Putin plans to carry out his threat today to declare that some 40,000 square miles of eastern and southern Ukraine will become part of Russia, an illegal annexation denounced by the West, but a signal that the Russian leader is prepared to raise the stakes in the seven-month-old war against Ukraine,” the New York Times reports.
“It is not clear whether even Russia’s staunchest allies will recognize Mr. Putin’s move, and Russian forces only partly control the land he plans to claim.”
The World Economy Is Reeling
The Economist: “The world’s financial markets are going through their most painful adjustment since the global financial crisis. Adapting to the prospect of higher American interest rates, the ten-year Treasury yield briefly hit 4% this week, its highest level since 2010. Global stock markets have sold off sharply, and bond portfolios have lost an astonishing 21% this year.”
“The dollar is crushing all comers. The greenback is up by 5.5% since mid-August on a trade-weighted basis, partly because the Fed is raising rates but also because investors are backing away from risk. Across Asia, governments are intervening to resist the depreciation of their currencies. In Europe Britain has poured the fuel of reckless fiscal policy on the fire, causing it to lose the confidence of investors. And as bond yields surge, the euro zone’s indebted economies are looking their most fragile since the sovereign-debt crisis a decade ago.”
Meanwhile, in a Bloomberg interview, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers likened the array of risks confronting the global economy to the pre-crisis summer of 2007.
Fetterman’s Lead Slips in Pennsylvania
A new Emerson College/The Hill survey in Pennsylvania finds John Fetterman (D) with a two point lead over Mehmet Oz (R), 45% to 43% in the race for US Senate.
In the race for governor, Josh Shapiro (D) leads Doug Mastriano by 10 points, 51% to 41%.
Jay Powell Takes on the World
“Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is waging a relentless battle against inflation that threatens to leave a path of destruction on the global economy in its wake,” Politico reports.
“The Fed — carrying out its steepest interest rate hikes in three decades — has fueled market turmoil by boosting the value of the dollar and feeding higher borrowing costs from the U.K. to Japan to Latin America. But Powell’s No. 1 enemy is inflation at home, and he has signaled that the Fed will do what’s best for the U.S., no matter what.”
Youngkin Sidesteps Question of Finishing Term
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who is said to be weighing a presidential bid in 2024, “sidestepped when asked this week if he would commit to completing all four years of the term he began just eight months ago,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Youngkin: “I’m committed to completing our agenda.”
Two Polls Show North Carolina Senate Race a Toss Up
A new Meredith College poll has finds Cheri Beasley (D) and Ted Budd (R) deadlocked in the U.S. Senate race, 41% to 41%.
A new Civitas/John Locke Foundation poll finds the race tied, 44% to 44%.
Gerrymandering Isn’t Giving the GOP a Huge Edge
Nate Cohn: “You might assume that the House map is heavily gerrymandered toward Republicans, especially after Republicans enacted aggressive gerrymanders in critical states like Texas and Florida. Many of you might even presume that this gerrymandering means that the House isn’t merely likely to go to the Republicans, but that it’s also out of reach for Democrats under any realistic circumstances.”
“In reality, Republicans do have a structural edge in the House, but it isn’t anything near insurmountable for the Democrats. By some measures, this is the fairest House map of the last 40 years.”
Pelosi Resisted Push to Impeach Trump on January 6
The Intercept: “History often unfolds through the collision of structural forces that operate independently of any specific decision or decision maker. But once in a while, a real moment of contingency arises in which a single person, choosing between several genuinely viable options within their reach, can set history on a different course.”
“One such moment arose on the night of January 6, 2021. According to the new book Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump, leading Democrats pushed hard to impeach then-President Donald Trump the day of the insurrection. But they were beaten back by a reluctant House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who instead decided to gavel the chamber out of session once it had finished the business at hand — certifying the election — in the early hours of January 7.”
Quote of the Day
“Even if I did move on, I don’t get to move on, because at this point I am so publicly associated with this story — so, until he stops being a story, I think I’m stuck.”
— Maggie Haberman, quoted by Politico, on covering Donald Trump.
The West Should Hunker Down Against Putin
David Ignatius: “Think of Putin as a gambler who took the biggest risk of his career when he invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. None of his big bets have turned out right since, and he has lost nearly every hand. Yet he has chained himself to the table, and he appears ready to wager everything to intimidate his adversaries and make them fold.”
“Putin’s annexation of four regions in Ukraine, likely to be announced Friday, is a desperation ploy. He may try to dress it up as victory, claiming that he has now achieved the aims of his “special military operation” and can pause for the winter to regroup. Nonsense. This is the most blatantly illegal attempt to seize territory since Adolf Hitler tried to swallow Europe in World War II.“
“Simple advice to Ukraine and its allies in the United States and Europe: Hunker down. Ride out the short-term pain. Don’t fold, but don’t shoot for the moon, either. Resist the pressure to match Putin’s wild nuclear threats. The truth is that he’s holding a weak hand. The longer he stays in, the worse his situation will become. His compulsive addiction to Ukraine will eventually be fatal. Patience is the West’s secret weapon.”
The Key Senate Races
Politico: “In conversations with more than a dozen strategists and senators, members of both parties said Nevada and Georgia represent Republicans’ strongest opportunities to flip seats, while Pennsylvania is Democrats’ best bet for a pickup.“
A Choice Election, but an Uncertain One
Charlie Cook: “In trying to figure out who is likely to win an election, it’s important to remember that one is trying to predict human behavior about something that is certain to be affected by events that have yet to occur. At least in the old days, it was easier for pollsters to be confident that they had reached a reasonably fair cross section of the electorate; now that is not so clear either, despite plenty of methodological tweaking. It is with this in mind that I marvel at those who seem to be supremely confident that they know what will happen on Nov. 8, or Dec. 6 if a runoff is needed in Georgia’s Senate race…”
“The unprecedented situation of this midterm election and the volatility we have seen over the last few months demand a bit of humility employed in this year’s prognostication. It isn’t a bad thing any year, but this year in particular.”
Michael Flynn Warns Governors May Declare War
Donald Trump’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn warned at an Arizona campaign event that governors may soon “declare war.”
Said Flynn: “States’ rights. Did you know that a governor can declare war? A governor can declare war. And we’re going to probably see that.”
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