The Morning Dispatch: The DNC Welcomes Republican Trump Opponents

Happy Tuesday! In our quest to find something—anything—to highlight as good news nowadays, we fell prey to a misleading social media post. The fireworks video we linked to in “Something Fun” yesterday was not, in actuality, a show commemorating the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but rather a simulation from a couple of years ago. Still fun to watch, but we regret the mischaracterization.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• The United States confirmed 34,756 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, with 4.1 percent of the 853,561 tests reported coming back positive. An additional 440 deaths were attributed to the virus on Monday, bringing the pandemic’s American death toll to 170,492.

• CNN reports that Russia wasn’t the only foreign adversary to place bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan; U.S. intelligence officials believe Iran paid bounties to the Taliban as well.

• Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has agreed to testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee next week regarding recent changes to Post Office operations.

• Just two weeks after welcoming students back for the fall semester, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill will be shifting to remote, online learning. The COVID-19 test positivity rate rose from 2.8 percent to 13.6 percent in just one week, with 177 students testing positive thus far and an additional 349 students in quarantine.

• The Justice Department announced the arrest of Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a 67-year-old former CIA officer, on charges of espionage on behalf of China.

• The Democratic National Convention kicked off last night, featuring remote speeches from, among others, the family of George Floyd; Sens. Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar; Govs. Gretchen Whitmer, Andrew Cuomo, and John Kasich; and former first lady Michelle Obama.

Republicans for Biden Have a Moment

As we mentioned yesterday, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich teased Sunday night that a “prominent” former Republican member of Congress was going to come out and endorse Joe Biden on Monday. It was Susan Molinari, a U.S. representative from New York from 1990 to 1997. We’ll leave it to you to determine whether “prominent” was the correct adjective there.

In addition to the Molinari news, the infamous “Anonymous” senior Trump administration official who’s long critiqued the president from inside the White House re-emerged yesterday, writing that a second term for Trump “will mean a nation undone.”

And then at 2:30 p.m. ET, the Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT) PAC released potentially its highest profile testimonial video yet. 

Miles Taylor served in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019, rising to chief of staff for then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. He wasn’t a nobody or a deep state saboteur, either; Democrats sharply criticized Google CEO Sundar Pichai when the tech company hired Taylor to work on government affairs and national security issues last year. “During his time with DHS, Miles Taylor undoubtedly demonstrated his support for the Trump Administration’s immigration policies,” members of the Congressional Hispanic and Black Caucuses wrote in a letter last November.

But President Trump no longer enjoys Taylor’s support. “[Trump] was one of the most unfocused and undisciplined senior executives I’ve ever encountered,” Taylor argues in the video. “I came away completely convinced based on firsthand experience that the president was ill-equipped—and wouldn’t become equipped—to do his job effectively, and even worse, was actively doing damage to our security.”

An RVAT source told The Dispatch that Taylor approached them and offered to make the video, not the other way around. And, the source added, more former Trump administration officials could soon come out of the woodwork and release similar testimonials.

As Declan noted in a piece on RVAT a few weeks ago, the group’s strategy is to create permission structures aimed at convincing Republicans on the fence about Trump that others share their concerns, and that it’s OK to vote for Biden or leave the presidential line on one’s ballot blank.

The Democrats looked to replicate that strategy on night one of their convention, featuring some of RVAT’s video testimonials in their telecast, and inviting Republicans Christine Todd Whitman, Meg Whitman, and John Kasich—in addition to Molinari—to endorse Joe Biden’s candidacy. “I’m a lifelong Republican,” Kasich said in a recorded video. “But that attachment holds second place to my responsibility to my country. That’s why I’ve chosen to appear at this convention.”

“I’m sure there are Republicans and independents who couldn’t imagine crossing over to support a Democrat,” he continued. “They fear Joe may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I don’t believe that, because I know the measure of the man. He’s reasonable, faithful, respectful, and no one pushes Joe around.”

Trump supporters will be quick to note (accurately) that the aforementioned four Republicans are out of step with the vast majority of the GOP; the Trump campaign itself sent an email to reporters just before they started speaking calling them “nothing but useful idiots for the radical left.”

But the actual radical left was also upset they were featured. “It’s important to remember that Kasich is an anti-choice extremist,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to the former Ohio governor calling her unrepresentative of the Democratic Party. “He 100% will (and has) signed away our reproductive rights the moment he has the opportunity to do so. He is not a friend to workers.”

Only 38 percent of Democrats in a recent CBS News poll reported wanting to hear from Kasich at the convention, compared to 62 percent who did not. But the Biden campaign deemed his voice—and the message it sends—important enough to include, and it gave him a speaking slot four times longer than AOC’s, at that.

A Long Road to Recovery in Iowa

President Donald Trump approved Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ request for a major federal disaster declaration yesterday after a rare and destructive derecho storm tore through the Midwest last week. The inland hurricane hit Iowa with straight-line winds that reportedly exceeded 100 mph in some areas of the state. The storm continued on through Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan—resulting in four confirmed deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. Tens of thousands of people are still without electricity.

“I just approved an emergency declaration for Iowa, who had an incredible wind storm like probably they’ve never seen before,” the president said in a press conference on Monday, noting that FEMA is now helping Iowa in “full force.”

Reynolds applied for $3.9 billion to fund infrastructure and economic recovery, including losses in agriculture and private property. The state—whose leading industry is agriculture and food production—saw one-third of its crops badly damaged by the hurricane-force winds. Corn and soybean plants were destroyed, and silos and grain bins across the state flattened. The $3.9 billion sought by the Iowa state government will include $3.78 billion for agriculture losses, $100 million for private utilities, and $82 million for the 8,200 homes devastated by the derecho. 

Downed power lines have resulted in power outages for hundreds of thousands of Iowans over the past week; 65,000 remained without electricity as of Monday. The National Guard mobilized roughly 100 engineers on Friday to restore power and repair infrastructure damage in Cedar Rapids—Iowa’s hardest-hit city—per Adjutant General Ben Corell, who expressed astonishment at the scope of the damage. “The last time I saw this was in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” he said in a press conference.

Trump is expected to visit Cedar Rapids later today to assess the damage and meet with Reynolds to coordinate an effective response across the municipal, state, and federal level. Economists told the Des Moines Register it will be weeks, if not months, until the true extent of the damage is understood. “I think it could be that some people don’t even realize yet all of the storm damage,” Iowa Farm Bureau Federation economist Sam Funk said. “You won’t know how damaged the crops are till you actually harvest it.”

ANWR Is Open for Drilling

The Trump administration on Monday approved an oil leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a 19.3-million-acre region in northeastern Alaska. The White House’s move means that a 1.6-million-acre section of land near the Beaufort Sea coast called the 1002 area—and its treasure trove of untapped oil reserves—can now be auctioned off to oil companies.

The decision to finalize ANWR drilling plans will assuredly be met with a flurry of lawsuits from environmentalist organizations arguing the Department of Interior’s required review of the land downplays the environmental impacts that oil drilling will inflict on the region. “The Trump administration’s so-called review process for their shameless sell-off of the Arctic Refuge has been a sham from the start,” Lena Moffitt of the Sierra Club argued. “We’ll see them in court.” 

But Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said on a call with reporters Monday that there “could be a lease sale by the end of the year,” signaling to drilling opponents that auctioning preparations are already well under way.

“ANWR is a big deal that Ronald Reagan couldn’t get done and nobody could get done,” the president boasted in an interview with Fox & Friends on Monday. The Trump administration’s move to open ANWR to drilling may elevate climate change as a more pressing issue in the presidential campaign, although the mandate won’t be easy to overturn if Biden wins the election in November.

The move is in keeping with a congressional mandate tacked onto the 2017 tax bill that stipulates a minimum of two lease sales of 400,000 acres each must be auctioned off—one within four years and another within seven—by the end of 2024. “Congress gave us a very clear directive here, and we have to carry out that directive consistent with the directive that they gave, and consistent with the procedural statutes,” Bernhardt said on Monday. “I have a remarkable degree of confidence that this can be done in a way that is responsible, sustainable and environmentally benign.”

“Congress limited development to no more than 2,000 federal surface acres, which is one ten-thousandth of all of ANWR,” Grace Jang—a spokeswoman for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources—told The Dispatch. “For perspective, that’s an area about one-sixth the size of Dulles airport in a refuge the size of South Carolina.”

The Trump administration’s announcement comes as welcome news to Alaska lawmakers who have for years sought policy initiatives that will create jobs and help revive a struggling economy. “New opportunity in the 1002 Area is needed both now, as Alaskans navigate incredibly challenging times, and well into the future as we seek a lasting economic foundation for our state,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski—who championed the provision’s inclusion in the 2017 tax bill—said on Monday.

Environmental groups fear that opening the region to drilling will endanger the land’s caribou and polar bear populations.

Several banks—including Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs—have already pledged they will not fund drilling in the region, and oil companies have been leaving Alaska in recent years due to the costs associated with drilling and transporting oil from such a secluded area. Coupled with the requisite PR damage any new drilling would inevitably gin up, these factors are leading some industry experts to believe demand for this newly available land might not boom out of the gate. “There may be a few players looking at this but it will be far from a gold rush,” one industry official told Politico.

Worth Your Time

• Freelance journalist Dan Peleschuk was detained in a Belarusian prison for two days after covering the massive anti-Alexander Lukashenko protests that have swept the country in the wake of last week’s “election.” Writing for BuzzFeed News, Peleschuk details the chaos unfolding in the eastern European country. “Random detentions. Vicious beatings. Psychological abuse. Deployed freely in the days following Lukashenko’s deeply flawed election, these time-tested staples of an autocratic security state may actually mark its undoing.”

• Major League Baseball celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues over the weekend, and this episode of the R2C2 podcast—featuring former MLB players C.C. Sabathia and Curtis Granderson, as well as president of the Negro League Baseball Museum Bob Kendrick—will entertain and inform baseball fans and history buffs alike.

Presented Without Comment

Presented Without Comment

Also Presented Without Comment

Toeing the Company Line

• In keeping with August’s Monday nerdery trend on the Advisory Opinions podcast, our hosts were joined by Rob Daviau, a professional legacy board game creator. Tune in to learn the ins and outs behind legacy board game creation and to learn why a game with bad math doesn’t work. Don’t worry—Sarah and David also give listeners a primer on Second Amendment law and dive into former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith’s guilty plea.

• We have the next entry in our series on what policies a President Biden might implement. Scott Lincicome reviews what a Biden trade policy might look like, and he breaks down the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Let Us Know

For many families, August is the perfect time to take a vacation before school starts back up. But things are (obviously) a little different this year.

Have you traveled at all for leisure in the past few months? Are you planning to?

Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Charlotte Lawson (@charlotteUVA), Audrey Fahlberg (@FahlOutBerg), Nate Hochman (@njhochman), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).