| | | | |  | | By Gabriel Gavin | Presented by Visa | | 
Former President Donald Trump enters the stage at a Save America Rally in September. | Jeff Swensen/Getty Images | 'ART OF THE STEAL' — It was a rough day for Donald Trump. New York Attorney General Letitia James filed suit today against the former president, three of his adult children and his business empire, accusing them of large-scale fraudulent financial practices and seeking to bar them from real estate transactions for the next five years, write Josh Gerstein, Erin Durkin and Kyle Cheney. The attorney general's civil suit alleges more than a decade of deception, including billions of dollars in falsified net worth, as part of an effort by Trump to minimize his companies' tax bills while winning favorable terms from banks and insurance companies. POLITICO has you covered with stories breaking down the 222-page filing and what it means for Trump: — Read the New York attorney general's lawsuit against Trump, family members, company — Trump attorney: 'We look forward' to defending against New York fraud claims — Trump's allies in Congress slam AG James — James' lawsuit against Trump is latest in longstanding battle between them It was a bad day for Vladimir Putin, too. After the Russian president moved to mobilize as many as 300,000 reservists today — a sign his war effort is struggling, according to the White House — flights leaving Russia are selling out . Direct flights from Moscow to countries where visas aren't required — including Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia — have sold out until at least Friday. Putin's escalation also spurred protests across the country: Over 800 Russians were arrested in anti-war protests across 37 cities, including in Moscow and St. Petersburg. President Joe Biden, speaking at the United Nations today, denounced Moscow's efforts to "erase" Ukraine from the map just hours after Putin announced his intent to dramatically escalate the war. Biden addressed a sea of world leaders today, but blamed just one man, Putin, for the war that has rattled the world, writes Jonathan Lemire. — Full text of Putin's mobilization decree — translated — EU plans new sanctions after Putin's nuclear escalation threat
| 
Vladimir Putin in February. | Matthew Stockman/Getty Images | SMELLING WEAKNESS — The truth is that it's been a tough few weeks for Putin. Not only has his increasingly catastrophic war in Ukraine been denounced by his country's favorite pop star, but now the Russian President is facing a growing list of regional conflicts raging in his own backyard. "The West is working to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our country," Putin thundered in a speech today, announcing regular Russians will begin to be called up to the front lines in an attempt to replace the tens of thousands of his soldiers who have already been killed or injured. But the West isn't his only problem. Distracted by his quest to recreate the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, Moscow's friends and foes alike are gaining the upper hand in power struggles and undercutting its influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Over the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi touched down in Armenia days after towns and villages across the nation were hit with a barrage of heavy artillery fire from Azerbaijan. Despite formally being a Russian ally and a member of its military bloc, the CSTO, the country's calls for support have fallen on deaf ears in the Kremlin. Having reportedly cannibalized its peacekeeping forces in the region and sent the best troops to Ukraine, Armenian political analyst Tigran Grigoryan says, "at this point, Russia is neither willing nor capable of restraining Azerbaijan."
| 
| | With Putin apparently missing in action, other global players are moving in to fill the void — despite the fact that both are former Soviet Republics. As crowds took to the streets to protest Moscow's inaction, waving American flags, Pelosi declared the U.S. was prepared to aid Armenia "in discrete ways" in its decades-old conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan, which is a close military and political partner of Turkey. Iran has also weighed in on the side of Armenia, insisting any border changes in its neighborhood would be a red line. It's a similar story in Moscow's former hinterlands in Central Asia. Border clashes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan last week have left 94 dead and seen the two former parts of the USSR deploying tanks, rocket artillery and combat drones. Days before, Russia pulled 1,500 troops from a base in Tajikistan, and reports indicate it has rotated deployments out of Kyrgyzstan as well. With a long-standing conflict over their shared borders, it seems someone is taking advantage of the fact Putin's attention is elsewhere. Meanwhile, even Russia's partners have been capitalizing on the Kremlin's efforts not to appear isolated. At a meeting of Eurasian heads of state in Uzbekistan last week, the Russian president was forced to admit President Xi Jinping has "questions and concerns" about his war in Ukraine, and the Chinese leader dominated discussions with Central Asian leaders. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, made headlines when he told his Russian counterpart that "this era is not the era of war." Putin may believe he is facing off against the West in an existential war of survival in Europe. But with leaders around the world smelling weakness and moving in to strengthen their hands, he'd do well to watch his back across the globe as well. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight's author on Twitter at @GabrielCSGavin.
| | | | JOIN THURSDAY FOR A GLOBAL INSIDER INTERVIEW : From climate change to public health emergencies and a gloomy global economic outlook, the world continues to deal with overlapping crises. How do we best confront all of these issues? Join POLITICO Live on Thursday, Sept. 22 at 10:30 a.m. EDT for a virtual conversation with Global Insider author Ryan Heath, featuring World Bank President David Malpass, to explore what it will take to restore global stability and avoid a prolonged recession. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | A message from Visa: Post-pandemic economies demand cutting-edge security. | | | | | | — Fed sees U.S. economic growth stalling as it jacks up rates again: The Federal Reserve today pulled the trigger on another supersized interest rate hike and signaled further large increases are in store, moves that central bank officials expect to weigh heavily on U.S. economic growth. Fed policymakers raised rates for the fifth time this year in a bid to kill the highest inflation in more than four decades. They project that the economy will grow at a meager 0.2 percent this year, suggesting that it could easily fall into a recession — or may have already shrunk for much of the year. That's a sharp downgrade from their June estimate of 1.7 percent growth for 2022. Next year's projection isn't much better: Growth is seen rebounding to a still sluggish 1.2 percent. — Dems strike pre-election deal on policing and public safety: House Democrats today reached an unlikely deal on public safety measures. The package — which will include four bills — is designed to fund recruitment and training for police departments across the U.S. , many of which have complained of underfunding and understaffing during a recent rise in violent crime. But, critically for liberal Democrats, it also includes new language on police accountability, which had become their red line after Congress repeatedly tried and failed to pass any other meaningful law enforcement oversight in recent years.
| 
J.R. Majewski, Republican candidate for U.S. Representative for Ohio's 9th Congressional District, takes the stage at a campaign rally in September. | AP Photo/Tom E. Puskar | — Ohio GOP House candidate misrepresented military service: Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing "tough" conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to go more than 40 days without a shower. Military documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request tell a different story. They indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting. — Senate approves first climate treaty in decades: The Senate ratified its first international climate treaty in three decades today, approving an agreement worked out in 2016 that will phase down refrigerant chemicals that are among the most potent climate pollutants. While the Senate is badly divided on most climate issues, strong backing from the business community to eliminate hydrofluorocarbons, known as HFCs, aligned with environmentalists' agenda to help secure enough Republican support to meet the Constitution's requirement of two-thirds support.
| | | | A message from Visa:   | | | | | | | | | | | | THE PLOT CHICKENS — This past spring, a bad case of bird flu made its way through farms around the United States . The disease was largely ignored, but it's killed millions of chickens. To make matters worse, viral pandemics in humans appear to almost always come from diseases that begin in animals. Boyce Upholt wrote a feature in The New Republic about how a disease like the one that ripped through these chickens could lead to the next human pandemic.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | | | | | 
| GOP DOWNGRADE — After favoring the GOP to flip the 50-50 Senate for months, the battle for the upper chamber is now a toss-up, write Renee Klahr and Steve Shepard. Over the past few months, the advantages Republicans enjoyed in Senate races have eroded, breathing new life into Democrats' besieged majority. After rating the battle for the Senate as "Lean Republican" earlier this year, POLITICO's Election Forecast now says neither party has a significant edge with two months to go until the midterms. Check out the video above to step inside how Republicans' hopes for a red wave came crashing down. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
| | A message from Visa: To say the task of securing the global movement of money is complex would be an understatement, particularly now. Learn how security has evolved for a digital-first world. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment