| | | | | | | Presented By Facebook | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen ·Oct 24, 2021 | | 🥞 Happy Sunday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,477 words ... 5½ minutes. Edited by Fadel Allassan. 🎬 Watch a clip from tonight's "Axios on HBO": Axios space reporter Miriam Kramer interviews NASA administrator Bill Nelson (6 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max). | | | | | | 1 big thing: Inside Biden's Taiwan flubs |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | Twice this year, President Biden has blurted out commitments on defending Taiwan against a Chinese invasion — forcing the White House to walk back his statements, and seeding confusion in a high-stakes area of national security, Axios' Zachary Basu and Jonathan Swan report. - Why it matters: U.S. defense officials have publicly aired their concerns that China will take Taiwan by force in the next four to six years, perhaps sooner. The president's position on this question may soon have real-world, life and death consequences.
What's happening: China has been increasingly aggressive — flying a record 145 warplanes in Taiwan's neighborhood earlier this month, in operations designed to threaten and demoralize the island into accepting the inevitability of Chinese rule. - Recent war games conducted by the Pentagon and the RAND Corporation indicated that China would defeat the U.S. in a military clash over Taiwan.
The big picture: The U.S. government has a long-running policy of "strategic ambiguity" on Taiwan. Within this sensitive construct, every word is delicately and legalistically parsed. - The U.S. government says it acknowledges China considers Taiwan as part of "one China." But the U.S. opposes any attempts to change Taiwan's self-governing, democratic status by force.
- The U.S. government does not say whether it would use force to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion — only that the U.S. reserves the right to use force and is committed to helping Taiwan defend itself by selling American weapons.
- Given China's increasingly aggressive actions towards Taiwan, there's a hot debate within Washington's foreign policy community about whether the U.S. needs to make a stronger, clearer statement to deter China from invading.
Between the lines: Since taking office, Biden has made two seemingly accidental statements that suggested a change in U.S. policy towards Taiwan. - Most recently, during Thursday's town hall on CNN, Biden responded "yes" when asked whether he could "vow to protect Taiwan."
Both times, the White House played cleanup, insisting the president's statements don't reflect a change in policy. - In response to Axios' questions, a senior administration official said Biden remains "committed" to the Taiwan Relations Act, through which the U.S. "will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability."
Matt Pottinger, the former deputy national security adviser and now distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, said Biden's recent statements about Taiwan have been "helpful," notwithstanding the White House's subsequent walk-backs. |     | | | | | | 2. Scoop: Facebook exec warns of "more bad headlines" |  | | | Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios | | | | In a post to staffers obtained by Axios' Sara Fischer, Facebook VP of global affairs Nick Clegg warned yesterday that worse coverage could be on the way: - "We need to steel ourselves for more bad headlines in the coming days, I'm afraid."
Clegg's memo warns that the new coverage could "contain mischaracterizations of our research, our motives and where our priorities lie," and said employees must "listen and learn from criticism when it is fair, and push back strongly when it is not." - "But, above all else," he told Facebook staff, "we should keep our heads held high and do the work we came here to do."
What's happening: Roughly two dozen news outlets agreed to hold stories based on leaked materials from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen for publication tomorrow. The embargo fell apart Friday night, as participating newsrooms posted a batch of articles ahead of the weekend. The backstory: Shortly after Haugen appeared on "60 Minutes" on Oct. 4, reporters began reaching out to her for interviews and comment, according to two sources familiar with the process. | | | | | | | | 3. Breaking: Fauci fires back at Sen. Rand Paul for slam on tonight's "Axios on HBO" | | Dr. Fauci responds to an "Axios on HBO" clip of Sen. Rand Paul. Screengrab: ABC's "This Week" Responding to charges by Sen. Rand Paul on tonight's "Axios on HBO," Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC's "This Week" that it's "molecularly impossible" for U.S.-funded bat virus research in China to have produced COVID-19. - "I obviously totally disagree with Senator Paul," Fauci told George Stephanopoulos. "He's absolutely incorrect. Neither I nor Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, lied or misled about what we've done."
Fauci was responding to a clip of Paul, a Kentucky Republican, telling me on tonight's "Axios on HBO" that President Biden should fire Fauci "just for lack of judgment, if nothing else." - Paul claims vindication in his dispute with Fauci, played out at heated Senate hearings, over the level of risk of U.S.-funded research in Wuhan, where COVID began.
Share this story. - Catch our full interview with Sen. Rand Paul on "Axios on HBO," tonight at 6 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max. Watch a preview.
| | | | | | | | A message from Facebook | | Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations | | |  | | | | Jack is one of 40,000 people working on safety and security issues at Facebook. Hear more from Jack on why Facebook supports updating regulations on the internet's most pressing challenges, including content moderation. | | | | | | 4. 🗳️ Virginia, 9 days out | | Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters During a Richmond rally, President Obama fist-bumps Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former Virginia governor running to win the mansion back on Nov. 2. - "The Macker" started as the favorite. Now the race is tied.
Obama noted the wearying combo of divisive politics and COVID: - "Some of ya are just plain tired," Obama said. "We can't afford to be tired."
McAuliffe told ABC's Jonathan Karl about all the high-profile help: "This is the biggest race in America! Who doesn't wanna be here?" Photo: Steve Helber/AP "Parents for Youngkin" signs reinforced the schools message of Republican Glenn Youngkin during a rally last night in Glen Allen, in Henrico County in suburban Richmond. The same signs dotted a rally earlier in the week in Burke, in Fairfax County. - Attacking "chaos" in schools, Youngkin said last week that every school should have a law-enforcement officer on campus, or lose state funding. —Richmond Times-Dispatch
| | | | | | | | 5. 🧠 Steve Martin life lesson: 2 ways we age | | "As you age, you either become your best or worst self." — "Wild and crazy" Steve Martin, age 76, in a delightful Arts & Leisure cover story by Dan Barry in today's New York Times, "The Curious, Astounding Collection of the Magician Ricky Jay." Read the article (subscription). | | | | | | | | 6. 📚 "Turn Every Page": The analog secrets of Robert Caro | | Robert Caro, 85, stands beside his younger self at the New-York Historical Society. Photo: John Minchillo/AP The New-York Historical Society has established a permanent exhibit dedicated to Robert Caro, author of a magisterial biography of Robert Moses, "The Power Broker," and an epic ongoing LBJ series. - The exhibit — "Turn Every Page," which opened Friday — includes notebooks, manuscript revisions, clippings and "The Corkboard," an outline he keeps on his office wall, AP's Hillel Italie writes.
Caro, who turns 86 next Saturday, began "The Power Broker" more than 50 years ago, and has completed just five other books since the Moses biography came out in 1974 — his first four Johnson books, and the brief "Working," a compilation of essays and speeches released in 2019. - His most recent Johnson biography, "The Passage of Power," was published in 2012. He answers the inevitable question about the fifth and final volume by saying no release is likely in the near future.
💡 Great advice: "Turn every page" is the directive Caro got decades ago from Newsday managing editor Alan Hathway, about the importance of looking through every document you can get your hands on. A Robert Caro draft. Photo: John Minchillo/AP The New Yorker ("Why Robert Caro Now Has Only Ten Typewriters," by Zach Helfand) calls the exhibit "a tribute to the analog — longhand first drafts, scribbled revisions with notes in red to his longtime typist": "I use a Smith Corona Electra 210," Caro said. "I always get the same kind of letters. Half the letters say, 'Oh, I have one in the garage. I'm such an admirer of yours. I'll send it to you.' The other ones say, 'Oh, I have one in the garage. I'm such an admirer of yours. I'll sell it to you for four thousand dollars.' So I accept all the free ones. When I started this fifth volume, I had fourteen, but now I'm down to eleven." André Bernard, an old friend who arranged the archive's transfer, pointed to a typewriter on display and said: "Ten now." | | | | | | | | 7. Sneak peek: Fox Weather | | Fox Weather HQ in New York. Photo: Fox Weather Fox News Media, parent of Fox News, hired 100+ new staffers for Fox Weather, a 24-hour streaming service debuting at 6 a.m. ET tomorrow. - The platform pairs 40 meteorologists with 120+ meteorologists at the 75+ Fox stations, for both national and hyperlocal coverage.
The service is ad-supported; the app (available now) is free. | | | | | | | | 8. ⚾ World Series: Houston v. Atlanta | | A lot to savor in the Astros-Braves World Series — a matchup six decades in the making, pairing former National League rivals who've played more than 700 times, including five postseason series, AP's Ben Walker writes. - Think of The Hammer and The Toy Cannon teeing up home run derby at the Astrodome, or Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz vs. Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio on a June evening on TBS.
Partly because of COVID, the Astros and Braves haven't seen each other since 2017. They meet for Game 1 on Tuesday night in Houston (F0x). - The Astros opened as a 3-2 favorite on the FanDuel site.
Series schedule. | | | | | | | | A message from Facebook | | Facebook's industry-leading investments are stopping bad actors | | |  | | | | We've invested $13 billion in teams and technology over the last 5 years to enhance safety. It's working: In just the past few months, we took down 1.7 billion fake accounts to stop bad actors from doing harm. But there's more to do. Learn more about how we're working to help you connect safely. | | | | 📬 Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here for your own copy of Axios AM and Axios PM. |  | | It'll help you deliver employee communications more effectively. | | | |
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