Why the partisan Putin split persists

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Jan 24, 2022 View in browser   By Elana Schor Presented by AT&T With help from Renuka Rayasam A view of the U.S. Capitol at sunset. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images FROM RUSSIA WITH BITTERNESS— When geopolitical tensions flare, they sometimes spark unexpected moments of bipartisanship on the Hill. Lawmakers often, though not always, align broadly behind presidential displays of overseas power. That doesn't look like it's going to happen with U.S.-Russia policy this week, even after President Vladimir Putin's government spent weeks moving troops near its border with Ukraine. The first reason is painfully simple: Five years of partisan scuffling over Russian interference in the 2016 election, to the benefit of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, has hurt lawmakers' ability to forge credible cooperation on U.S.-Russia policy . After Democrats blasted Trump for his moments of apparent coziness with Putin, they're now facing an attempted role-reversal moment with a GOP that wants to get as tough as possible, pressing for strong Russia sanctions to take effect immediately. In a way, that's just Washington: The party out of power always looks to turn the tables, rhetorically, on the one with control. But in this case, Dems are also trying not to lose the political upper hand on Russia after their rhetoric during the Trump years. About that dynamic: Senators may be able to agree on a package of strong Russia sanctions, but they're currently mired in debate over whether to hinge that financial punishment on a Russian invasion of Ukraine (as Dems would prefer) or pursue it immediately (as the GOP wants to do). "Even if Congress can cobble together and pass a bipartisan sanctions deal, don't expect Republicans to get behind Biden's Russia strategy," POLITICO's Hill foreign policy specialist, Andrew Desiderio, told Nightly. "Democrats spent enormous political capital bludgeoning Donald Trump for his deferential posture toward Putin, and Republicans are turning the tables on Biden," Andrew added. "Look no further than the near- party-line split over Sen. Ted Cruz's Nord Stream 2 sanctions bill, and what Republicans see as Biden's fatal error in refusing to immediately impose sanctions as a deterrent to an invasion." Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) put it this way to Andrew today: "President Biden has really subscribed to a doctrine of appeasement. And that doesn't deter an autocrat or a dictator like Putin." The second reason we shouldn't expect Russian aggression toward Ukraine to prompt much cross-aisle unity is the political hangover from the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal that Biden presided over in August. Just as they did after the fall of Kabul, Republicans are readying a message that tries to turn a foreign crisis into a political weak spot for a president who staked his campaign in part on his ability to rebuild America's reputation abroad. "When Americans were rushing to evacuate the American embassy in Afghanistan, Biden was on vacation," the Republican National Committee tweeted amid reports of evacuations of U.S. embassy employees' family members in Ukraine. "This weekend, he's on vacation again." And the third reason Biden shouldn't expect politics to end at the water's edge with the GOP on his approach to Moscow is simply that the current situation in Ukraine doesn't resemble the last two major occasions when presidents won support — albeit measured and short-lived support — for targeted actions overseas. When then-Presidents Trump and Obama pursued airstrikes in Syria, those were limited operations with a professed goal of punishing a regime that built a chemical weapons program and eventually used it against its citizens. Biden's administration is facing a problem with a complex array of possible solutions. The sheer scope of his options, militarily and diplomatically, doesn't lend itself easily to rifle-shot statements of congressional support for specific aspects of his Russia policy. Biden has made clear he won't directly bring troops into Ukraine. Rather, his goal is to support and protect neighboring NATO powers. And just as top Democrats followed Trump's Syria strikes with clear insistence on a comprehensive plan to follow through, so will Republicans seek a longer-term strategy from Biden — even as they look for potential failings in anything they hear from him. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight's author at eschor@politico.com, on Twitter at @eschor.   A message from AT&T: Accessible, affordable broadband helps communities reach their American Dream. That's why we're making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment toward helping close the digital divide, so more low-income families have the ability to succeed. Learn more.   On The Economy Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images THE MARKET BETS ON REOPENING — The stock market ended the day up for the first time in a week. But the longer-term trend has been sharply negative for the stay-at-home stocks that thrived in 2020 — including Zoom, Netflix, Peloton and DocuSign. These quarantine favorites have all seen their share prices decline drastically in recent months. Investors seem to have soured on the companies that were once the darlings of the pandemic market. It's a selloff within the broader selloff that has pushed markets into the sharpest drops in nearly a year. Stock market indices entered correction territory — a 10 percent drop from the highs they reached earlier in the year — today before recovering. Nightly's Renuka Rayasam chatted with wealth manager Barry Ritholtz, who also writes a Bloomberg column, hosts its "Masters in Business" podcast and was one of the earliest finance bloggers, about whether the market is over the pandemic. This conversation has been edited. I keep hearing that the market trajectory is going to follow the pandemic trajectory. Is that still the case? That is backward. The market is telling you where we're going to go. The market collapsed when we were pretty early in the pandemic process. Long before there was any confirmation vaccines would be widely available, the market began to recover. We passed the CARES Act, which was a $2 trillion dollar bill. The market said, "Oh this is going to go a long way to getting us towards a healthy recovery." It's very much a forward indicator and more often than not, it's right. What does the collapse of the stay-at-home stocks tell us about how the market is thinking about the pandemic? This is the market's way of telling us that we are much closer to the end of the pandemic, and a return to a more normal lifestyle, than we are to the beginning of it. These corrections started quite a while ago. Normally we're about a 61 percent service, 39 percent goods economy. During the lockdown we probably moved closer to 45 percent/ 55 percent. Peloton or Netflix are both perfect examples of that. The market is seemingly telling you that the low-hanging fruit with both of these stocks have been picked off. Anybody who wanted a Peloton ordered it. With Netflix, there is now a whole lot more competition. Is the market anticipating a return to 2019, to a pre-pandemic "normal"? As things normalize and we're no longer stuck at home, we'll go back to that sort of 60/40 services to goods ratio. But I don't think it's going to quite go back to exactly how it was. We're going to be in a new post-pandemic era, post-normal economy. I think that there is enough pandemic fatigue that people are now increasingly willing to go about their lives and assume a little more risk in being out in the world. That bodes better for movie theaters and weaker for Netflix. It bodes better for gyms and weaker for Pelotons.   JOIN NEXT FRIDAY TO HEAR FROM GOVERNORS ACROSS AMERICA : As we head into the third year of the pandemic, state governors are taking varying approaches to public health measures including vaccine and mask mandates. "The Fifty: America's Governors" is a series of live conversations featuring various governors on the unique challenges they face as they take the lead and command the national spotlight in historic ways. Learn what is working and what is not from the governors on the front lines, REGISTER HERE.     What'd I Miss? — Capitol Police examines backgrounds, social media feeds of some who meet with lawmakers: After the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Capitol Police's intelligence unit quietly started scrutinizing the backgrounds of people who meet with lawmakers, according to three people familiar with the matter. POLITICO also viewed written communications describing the new approach, part of a host of changes that the department implemented after the Capitol attack. Several Capitol Police intelligence analysts have already raised concerns about the practice to the department's inspector general, according to one of the people who spoke for this story. — Supreme Court will take up Harvard, UNC affirmative action challenge:The Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases that could have broad ramifications for how colleges and universities consider race in their admissions process. In the lawsuit Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, SFFA asked the high court to overturn its ruling in a landmark affirmative action case — Grutter v. Bollinger — that has shaped college admissions policies for nearly two decades. SFFA, which represents about 20,000 students, alleges the Ivy League school intentionally discriminates against Asian American students in admissions. — California lawmaker proposes Covid vaccine mandate for all schoolchildren: A California state senator is proposing to require that all schoolchildren receive a Covid-19 vaccine starting in 2023, a law that would be the nation's strictest student mandate if approved. As detailed by state Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), the bill would not be contingent on a vaccine receiving full approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, nor would it allow for personal or religious exemptions. That would go beyond a previous order that Gov. Gavin Newsom issued in October. — Palin's positive Covid test postpones libel case against New York Times: The start of Sarah Palin's libel suit against the New York Times was postponed today after the former Alaska governor tested positive for Covid-19. Judge Jed Rakoff pushed back jury selection until at least Feb. 3, though he warned the delay could extend further. At the outset of the day's hearing the judge said he was informed over the weekend that Palin, who the judge noted is unvaccinated, tested positive via two rapid, at-home tests. In December, Palin said at a conservative event that she would get vaccinated "over my dead body," and previously tested positive for Covid-19 in March 2021.   A message from AT&T:   Around the World EU DIPLOMATS STAYING PUT IN KYIV — The EU does not plan to withdraw the families of diplomats from Ukraine , the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said today. Speaking in Brussels ahead of talks with European foreign affairs ministers and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Borrell told reporters that America's top diplomat will "explain us the reasons" for Washington's decision to pull out families of U.S. personnel from Ukraine, Lili Bayer and Louis Westendarp write. Washington has authorized the departure of some government employees and ordered the exit of all family members of government employees at its Kyiv embassy. The U.K. followed Washington's lead today, saying it was withdrawing some "embassy staff and dependents" in response to the "growing threat from Russia." Borrell, however, said that for now the EU is not following suit. "We are not going to do the same thing, because we don't know any specific reasons," Borrell said, adding that "negotiations are going on."   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     Nightly Number About 8,500 The number of U.S. military personnel Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has placed on heightened alert to potentially deploy to Eastern Europe, the Pentagon announced today. The move comes as NATO weighs a possible activation of its response force to beat back a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which the West fears is imminent. Parting Words DEFENSIVE SHIFT — The nation's top financial regulators will soon embark on a controversial, first-of-its-kind mission: forcing banks and other industry players to prepare for potential threats to the U.S. financial system from climate change, Victoria Guida writes. But they're facing a maze of obstacles, including blowback from Republicans, before they've taken their first steps. All the leading agencies will be headed by progressive regulators who will seek to push the administration's agenda forward even as Biden has failed to get broader climate-related legislation through Congress. Among other moves, regulators are likely to press banks to prepare for the fallout from a warming planet by stepping up scrutiny of fossil fuel financing. They will make the lenders undergo regular tests to measure how their investments could be threatened by flooding, wildfires and other growing risks. And they could rewrite the rules against the discriminatory practice known as redlining to push lenders to put money into disadvantaged communities most vulnerable to climate change. That will set up a clash with Republican lawmakers, who argue that the banks are capable of assessing their own risks and that the regulators are far overstepping their bounds. And banks themselves are nervously eyeing how aggressively the Democrat-controlled agencies will lean into measures that discourage investment in oil and gas.   A message from AT&T: Brooke Dryden's daughter was diagnosed with learning disabilities at an early age. She requires an individualized education plan and weekly therapy with speech specialists. However, rural Colorado does not have the kind of specialists she needs. With the help of accessible and affordable broadband, Brooke is able to ensure that she receives regular virtual therapy and never falls behind. Brooke's dream is to see her daughter not just survive but thrive in the world. That's why AT&T is dedicated to helping close the digital divide with a $2 billion, 3-year commitment, so more low-income families like Brooke's can achieve their American Dream. 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