| | | | | | | Presented By AT&T | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen ·Aug 08, 2021 | | Happy Sunday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,196 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Fadel Allassan. 🥇 Breaking: On the last day of the Tokyo Olympics, the U.S. edged China to take home the most total medals and the most golds — and is the only country to take home more than 100 medals. (N.Y. Times) | | | | | | 1 big thing: Aide goes on-camera to accuse Cuomo of crime | | Gov. Andrew Cuomo walks his dog, Captain, at the Executive Mansion in Albany yesterday. Photo: Hans Pennink/AP Bulletin: An aide who accused Gov. Andrew Cuomo of groping her speaks publicly for the first time. A lawyer for Cuomo appeared to dig him deeper yesterday as she previewed his sexual-harassment defense: - She argued that running his hands over a state trooper on the job wasn't necessarily criminal — or even unacceptable.
The lawyer, Rita Glavin, told CNN's Pamela Brown during a live, 51-minute interview that Cuomo has "talked about how he does slip at times. He's not perfect." - When Brown pressed the lawyer on what she meant by "slip," Glavin replied: "Oh, he said it in his video statements ... He will say 'darling,' he will say 'sweetheart,' he does ask people questions about their personal lives. He didn't think that that was improper."
Why it matters: The defense, as described, looks unlikely to persuade New York legislators. They're "on the brink" of impeaching Cuomo, as The New Yorker puts it in an item labeled "Downfall Dept." The New York state attorney general's report says there's a trooper on Cuomo's protective detail who he "harassed ... on a number of occasions." - "The governor is going to address this very, very soon," Glavin said. "He wants to personally address that."
- "I can tell you what I've read with respect to the state trooper is not criminal conduct," she added.
The anchor, paraphrasing the report, pressed Glavin on the description "that he allegedly touched her down her back, and touched her on the stomach, and between her … belly button and her private parts — that's not illegal conduct?" - Glavin jumped in: "That's not criminal conduct as far as I know."
"So if he did that, is that acceptable behavior?" - "Depends on what the context of the circumstances were," the lawyer replied.
- "[T]he Governor has tremendous respect for her, believes she has been an excellent member of her detail. ... He feels very, very badly about that — that I do know, and I know he's going to address this."
Watch a clip of the CNN interview. |     | | | | | | 2. Mask, vax protests go global |  | | | Protesters march against France's new COVID vaccination requirements in Paris yesterday. Photo: Siegfried Modola/Getty Images | | | | Anti-mask and anti-vaccine have broken out around the world — from Australia to France and Israel to Bulgaria, Axios' Erin Doherty reports. 230,000+ marched in cities across France yesterday — the largest of four consecutive weekends of protests — denouncing health passes that will be required to eat in cafés beginning tomorrow, Reuters reports. - Some placards read: "No to dictatorship."
- The protesters against President Emmanuel Macron's legislation range from hard-left anarchists to far-right militants.
Context: Vaccination rates jumped after Macron unveiled his health pass plans last month. - Polls show that most people in France support the health passes, which prove that people are vaccinated, have had a negative recent test or have recovered from COVID, AP reports.
Photo: Stefano Montesi/Corbis via Getty Images Above: In Rome yesterday, demonstrators — organized by the No Vax and far-right movements — protested Italy's "Green Pass" (vaccination, a negative test or recovery from COVID) for indoor restaurants and bars. - In Poland, thousands marched to protest COVID restrictions. Some placards said: "Enough of coronapsychosis."
Keep reading. | | | | | | | | 3. Doug Sosnik: Dem headwinds for '22 | | Graphic: Doug Sosnik Doug Sosnik — senior adviser to the Brunswick Group, and White House political director for President Bill Clinton — is out with a new deck, being shown first to Axios AM readers, warning his party how hard it'll be to hang onto its House and Senate majorities in next year's midterms: - "With only two exceptions (1998 and 2002), the party out of power has picked up seats in every midterm election since World War II."
- The last five presidents have lost Senate and House majorities.
Despite President Biden's strong first six months in office, "there are some signs that his support is beginning to soften," Sosnik writes. - Likely driven by fallout from the Delta variant, an ABC/Ipsos poll released July 25 found pessimism about the country's direction had risen 19 points since a May 2 poll (from 36% pessimistic to 55%).
Sosnik's note of hope for his party: Rely on Republican unpopularity. - He cites a Quinnipiac Poll that found a 61% unfavorable view of Republicans in Congress. (It's 52% for Democrats.)
Crazy stats, showing how few swing states/districts there are in polarized America: - "Ninety-four out of 100 Senators are of the same party as the Presidential candidate who carried their state in 2020."
- "In the House 419 out of 435 members (96%) are of the same party as the Presidential candidate who carried their district in 2020."
See Sosnik's 23-slide deck ... Read Sosnik's 4-page memo. | | | | | | | | A message from AT&T | | AT&T is connecting communities to their American Dream | | |  | | | | AT&T is making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment to help ensure broadband is more accessible and affordable for more people in the U.S., so low-income families like Susana's have the opportunity to succeed and thrive. Find out how. | | | | | | 4. Pics du jour: Summer greatness | | Allyson Felix stars in the women's 4x400-meter relay final yesterday. Photo: Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images USA sprinter Allyson Felix, 35, ended her Olympics career yesterday with her 11th medal — the most of any track athlete in U.S. history. - She passed Carl Lewis, and now only trails one person in the Olympic record book — Paavo Nurmi — the Finnish distance runner who won 12 between 1920 and 1928, AP reports.
From left, Allyson Felix, Athing Mu, Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney Mclaughlin celebrate gold in yesterday's final of the women's 4 x 400-meter relay. Photo: Charlie Riedel/AP The big picture: Team USA women set track-and-field records everyone saw coming and others that surprised the experts, AP's Eddie Pells writes. - Why it matters: Over nine days at the near-empty Olympic Stadium, they suffered, and battled, and spoke their truth in ways that hadn't been heard before.
Photo: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters Above: Decathletes pose Thursday in Olympic Stadium for a rare group photo after the 1,500-meter run. | | | | | | | | 5. Vaccine milestone: Half of America |  Data: CDC. Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios 50.1% of the U.S. population is now fully vaccinated, according to the CDC tracker. - For ages 12 and over, it's 59%.
- For 18+, it's 61%.
- For 65, it's 80%.
| | | | | | | | 6. 🎒 Tragic stat: Kindergarten exodus | | Amid the pandemic's grip last fall, 1 million children who had been expected to start their first year of school didn't show up, in person or online, the N.Y. Times reports (subscription) from a project with Stanford. - "Many of them were the most vulnerable: 5-year-olds in low-income neighborhoods."
| | | | | | | | 7. Schumer: "Easy way or the hard way" | | Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP This picture — Vice President Harris arrives at the Capitol for a rare Saturday session of the Senate — reflects these unprecedented times, as the Senate moves ahead on President Biden's $1 trillion infrastructure bill. - With some Republicans balking at procedural speed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said: "We can get this done the easy way or the hard way."
The Senate also meets today. | | | | | | | | 8. Ina's Tokyo diary: See you in Paris | | Photo: Ina Fried/Axios Axios' Ina Fried reports from Tokyo: Today's closing ceremony began with the raising of the Japanese flag and a flag parade featuring a single flag bearer from each country. - Once again, there were no fans — just the multicolored paint on the seats, which you see above. The stadium audience consisted only of athletes, officials, journalists, photographers and volunteers.
Keep reading. Photo: Ina Fried/Axios Ina texts me that she's already putting in for her Paris 2024 credential — as a photographer, since they get better access. - Check out our Axios Deep Dive from yesterday, "Lessons for the Next Olympics."
| | | | | | | | A message from AT&T | | AT&T is connecting communities to their American Dream | | | | | | | | AT&T is making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment to help ensure broadband is more accessible and affordable for more people in the U.S., so low-income families like Susana's have the opportunity to succeed and thrive. Find out how. | | | | 📬 Please invite your friends, family, colleagues to sign up here for Axios AM and Axios PM. |  | | It'll help you deliver employee communications more effectively. | | | |
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