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| Presented By Amazon |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Aug 23, 2021 |
| Happy Monday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,196 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Fadel Allassan. 🎓 Please join Axios' Russell Contreras, Sara Kehaulani Goo and Erica Pandey tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. ET for a Hard Truths virtual event on systemic racism in higher education. Guests include Howard University president Wayne A.I. Frederick, Common App CEO Jenny Rickard and Harvard's Anthony Jack. Register here. |
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| 1 big thing: Biden's political calculations |
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| President Biden in the Situation Room yesterday. Photo: The White House |
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| President Biden aimed three numbered messages at three specific audiences during Sunday afternoon remarks on Afghanistan, Axios politics editor Glen Johnson points out: - To Fox News viewers: "One, planes taking off from Kabul are not flying directly to the United States. They're landing at U.S. military bases and transit centers around the world."
- To moderates in both parties: "Number two, at these sites where they're landing, we are conducting ... security screenings for everyone who is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident. Anyone arriving in the United States will have undergone a background check."
- To progressives: "Number three, once screened and cleared, we will welcome these Afghans, who helped us in the war effort over the last 20 years, to their new home in the United States of America. Because that's who we are. That's what America is."
Graphic: NBC News "Meet the Press" Between the lines: This "Meet the Press" graphic captures new reasons for White House worry. - Biden's approval in a new NBC News poll was down 15 points in four months — with big drops among independents, rural residents and white respondents.
- The poll was conducted Aug. 14-17. Kabul fell Aug. 15.
After talking to 40 leading Democrats, The New York Times reported (subscription) under the headline, "As Biden Faces a Political Crisis, His Party Looks On in Alarm": - "The harrowing [Afghanistan] images appalled even the president's staunchest supporters, many of whom — like a majority of the American public — support the decision to remove American troops."
- "But some of them worry the execution of the withdrawal has undermined Mr. Biden's central campaign promise to restore a steady hand."
Congressional Republicans, already raring for next year's midterms, savored NBC's big swing toward the GOP among independents. - Among all voters, 47% want Democrats to stay in charge; 46% want a Republican-controlled Congress.
In Gallup polling Aug. 2-17, Biden's approval was 49% — his lowest to date, but statistically unchanged from 50% in July. A danger sign for the White House in a CBS News/YouGov poll out yesterday: 63% approve of removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but only 47% approve of Biden's handling of the withdrawal. - That's down from 60% approval of Biden in July.
Biden's bottom line: "I think that history is going to record this was the logical, rational and right decision to make," he said yesterday. |
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| 2. College students back vax mandates |
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| Illustration: Rae Cook/Axios |
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| The Delta variant is keeping college students from resuming campus life as normal, Neal Rothschild writes from a new Generation Lab/Axios poll. - In our poll of 846 students nationwide from 2-year and 4-year schools (margin of error: ±3.4 points), we asked about going to an indoor party ... dancing with others ... and close conversations without masks.
- 55% of students considered none of those to be safe.
College students are big fans of vaccine mandates — in many cases, bigger fans than their university administrators. - 73% say their school should implement a vaccine mandate for those on campus. 52% say their schools are doing so.
- 86% say they're fully vaccinated. 6% say they definitely won't get the shots.
Share this story. |
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| 3. Ten years ago today: Washington Monument shakes |
 Data: National Park Service and local news reports. Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios Danielle Alberti, Axios data visualization editor, noticed that today is the 10th anniversary of the 5.8-magnitude earthquake that closed the Washington Monument for nearly three years. - "[S]ince the Washington Monument is currently closed ... following a lightning strike," she wrote on Saturday, "I decided to look up how much time it's been closed in the last 10 years."
The bottom line: The monument has been closed 69% of the time since. |
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| A message from Amazon |
| "Amazon has allowed me to live a comfortable life" |
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| When Luv-Luv joined Amazon, she was just looking for a job — any job — with health care. What she found was so much more. Thanks to Amazon's starting wage of at least $15 an hour and comprehensive benefits, she is able to live life on her own terms. Watch her story. |
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| 4. Pic du jour: V.P. in Singapore |
| Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP Above, Vice President Harris holds a news conference in Singapore today with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, as she begins a Southeast Asian swing that will take her to Vietnam later this week. |
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| 5. Tennessee's record rains |
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| Photo: Alan Poizner/The Tennessean via AP |
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| Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee comforts Shirley Foster, who had just learned a friend of hers was among 22 people who died in the state's flooding. Get the latest. |
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| 6. 🍿 Rachel Maddow as "studio boss" |
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| Rachel Maddow reached a multiyear deal with NBCUniversal that takes her from being MSNBC show host to content brand and "studio boss," as a source put it to me: - On top of "The Rachel Maddow Show," she'll run an as-yet-unnamed production company that could include books, documentaries, movies, TV series and podcasts.
- Much of the output will be nonfiction. But her empire includes anything where she's "a purveyor of great storytelling," the source said.
The big picture: Maddow's renewal marks a major win for new NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde, Axios' Sara Fischer reports. Suitors included WarnerMedia (including Warner Bros. and CNN), Disney (including ABC and ESPN), Netflix and Spotify, the source said. - Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and President Mark Shapiro were her new reps for the deal.
Between the lines: Maddow loves her day job and her staff, but wanted a bigger role and to stretch her brand. - She's MSNBC's top-rated host, and there's no succession plan. So the channel needed to keep her for the 2024 election.
- Now she'll hire staff to unearth projects and find source material in the vein of "Bag Man," her podcast and N.Y. Times bestseller about Spiro Agnew, who resigned as Richard Nixon's vice president.
The bottom line: As the definitions of media, content, distributions and platforms all change, the Maddow brand now has more outlets than ever. |
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| 7. First look: Memoir after 46 years on Hill |
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| Cover: Simon & Schuster |
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| Senate President Pro Tem Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) — Appropriations chairman, the most senior member of Congress, and the last of the "Watergate Babies" — will be out in April with a memoir, "The Road Taken." - Leahy, who presided over President Trump's second impeachment trial, "established himself as a moral leader and liberal pioneer over four decades spanning nine presidential administrations," Simon & Schuster says in the announcement.
- "Senator Leahy's memoir is populated by ... every President from Ford onward, a fresh-faced Ted Kennedy, a dying Hubert Humphrey, a 33-year-old son of Scranton named Joe Biden, a quick-witted Barry Goldwater, a freshman Senator and trash-talking gym-mate named Barack Obama, and a scrappy newcomer ... Bernard Sanders.
Behind the scenes: Leahy was represented by Robert Barnett and Emily Alden of Williams & Connolly. Barnett has urged Leahy to write a memoir for decades. |
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| 8. 🍽️ 1 for the road: Pop-ups stay put |
| In Nashville, Hathorne restaurant owner John Stephenson holds the sign for a pizza pop-up that will cover his original sign. Photo: John Amis/AP Many pop-up restaurants, started as COVID stopgaps by struggling chefs and owners, are showing staying power as consumers continue to embrace takeout and delivery, AP's Mae Anderson writes. - The pop-ups range from a ramen maker appearing for one night at an established bar or restaurant, to a taco maker using an unused space to temporarily host diners, to a chef offering meatballs for delivery only.
Between the lines: The COVID pop-ups helped bring buzz to existing restaurants that host them. And some have even morphed into permanent new businesses. |
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| A message from Amazon |
| Independent study: Spillover effects of Amazon's wage increase |
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| New research shows that Amazon's wage increase to $15 an hour directly benefited wages for other non-Amazon workers in those communities. The report also found that their increase of wages to $15 did not result in widespread job loss. Learn more. |
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