Happy Friday! An enterprising car thief in Colorado was ready to get back to the grind after being released from jail on—you guessed it—a car theft charge when she saw a pickup that struck her fancy. Too bad she couldn’t drive a manual.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to respond to President Joe Biden’s announcement Wednesday that the U.S. government would halt some weapons shipments to Israel as it moved toward an invasion of the southern Gazan city of Rafah. “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone,” Netanyahu said Thursday. Responding to accusations that the decision to curtail weapons to Israel amounted to Washington’s abandonment of its ally, White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Thursday rejected that characterization and argued that a large-scale Israeli operation in Rafah would strengthen Hamas’ leverage in ongoing talks. Negotiations over the ceasefire-for-hostages agreement have reportedly paused amid the fighting in Rafah, though they have apparently not broken down completely.
- The Somali government asked the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to end a political assistance mission to the country that has advised on peace-building, security, and democracy. The 360-person mission has been active in some form in Somalia for three decades, but the Somali government asked the group to leave when its mandate expires in October. Minister of Foreign Affairs Aimed Moa Fiji didn’t specify a reason for the request, saying only “it is now appropriate to transition to the next phase of our partnership.”
- Adult film star Stormy Daniels took the stand again on Thursday in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump. The former president’s defense lawyer cross-examined Daniels, a witness for the prosecution, for three hours about the details of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, ultimately suggesting Daniels had not actually had an affair with the former president and that she shared the story for profit. Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s former executive assistant, also testified to the fact that leaders at the Republican National Committee were “shaken” by the leak of the October 2016 Access Hollywood tape of Trump bragging about grabbing women, which the prosecution has argued was part of what propelled Trump to pay Daniels the hush money through an intermediary. Judge Juan Merchan also rejected the second request from Trump’s attorneys for a mistrial, criticizing the defense’s strategy in the process. “I don’t know why you went into it ad nauseam on cross-examination,” Merchan said when Trump’s lawyers complained about the level of supposedly unrelated detail Daniels got into on the stand. “You drummed it over and over again into the jury’s ears. I don’t understand the reason for that.”
- A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to dismiss federal gun charges against Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, as a different federal judge threw out an appeal that would have had the charges tossed on Second Amendment grounds. The two rulings pave the way for a trial to begin early next month on the charges brought by special counsel David Weiss against the younger Biden last year.
- The Senate voted 88-4 on Thursday evening to pass a bill that reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration for an additional five years. The legislation—which now goes to the House approval—includes $105 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration and $738 million for the National Transportation Safety Board. Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia and Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland opposed the bill over provisions that would add long-haul flights to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., which they argued the airport is not equipped to handle. The Senate also unanimously approved a short-term extension on the current authorization to give the House time to vote before it lapses.
- The Biden administration proposed a narrowly tailored immigration rule on Thursday that would accelerate the removal of people who crossed the border and were deemed ineligible for asylum—for posing a national security or public safety risk—earlier in the process than is currently possible. There will now be a 30-day public comment period on the rule before it can be finalized.
Rubles Between the Couch Cushions
Russia celebrated Victory Day on Thursday, the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II. But this year’s celebration was a little more muted than in years past: After festivities in 2021 included a parade of 10 WWII-era T-34 tanks and more than a dozen modern ones, this year the military could only scrounge up a single T-34 tank for the display—almost assuredly due to the heavy losses Russia has suffered at the hands of Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of the country.
But the battlefield isn’t the only place Ukraine and its allies are trying to put the screws on the Kremlin. In the weeks and months following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. and Europe imposed an array of sanctions and restrictions designed to degrade Russia’s ability to prosecute its war. Those measures included freezing some $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets held outside of the country—Central Bank of Russia assets, not oligarchs’ yachts.
Though the U.S. passed its own effort last month addressing Russian state holdings here, the bulk of the funds are in Europe. After years of deliberation, including with U.S. officials, the European Union (EU) decided on Wednesday to take the punishment a step further, agreeing to ...
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,616-word story on the effort to deploy frozen Russian assets to Ukraine’s war effort is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- Western leaders are getting deterrence wrong, Jakub Grygiel argued in Foreign Policy. “Restraint has become the West’s guiding strategic principle, seemingly preserving a modicum of international stability by keeping wars from escalating out of control,” he wrote. “Even if Israel and Ukraine don’t heed them, such requests to practice restraint are dangerous. They incentivize the attacker to be more aggressive, not less. By conveying to Russia or Iran—and by extension, China—that Western partners will be pressed to absorb the attack and fight a strictly defensive war on their own territory, Western policymakers achieve the opposite of what their risk aversion intends: They elevate the risk of a widening war. They are making aggression relatively cost-free for imperial powers, to be fought only on the attacked country’s land or thwarted by expensive defensive means. Paradoxically, restraining allies that have been attacked is destabilizing; the Western attempt to control escalation ultimately makes it more likely.”
- What is college for? No one seems to know, Derek Thompson reported for The Atlantic. “Goal ambiguity might be a natural by-product of modern institutions trying to be everything to everyone,” he explained, pointing to the growth of administrative staff who pull institutions in too many directions. “But eventually, they’ll pay the price. Any institution that finds itself promoting a thousand priorities at once may find it difficult to promote any one of them effectively. In a crisis, goal ambiguity may look like fecklessness or hypocrisy. … Confronted with the Gaza-war protests, colleges are again struggling to balance competing priorities: free speech, the safety of students and staff, and basic school functions, such as the ability to walk to a lecture hall. That would be hard enough if they hadn’t sent the message to students that protesting was an integral part of the university experience. … The ultimate problem isn’t just that too many administrators can make college expensive. It’s that too many administrative functions can make college institutionally incoherent.”
Presented Without Comment
Axios: Barron Trump Picked as Florida At-Large Delegate to RNC
Also Presented Without Comment
The Hill: Top Senators Believe the U.S. Secretly Recovered UFOs
Also Also Presented Without Comment
Former President Donald Trump, on TruthSocial:
RFK Jr. is a Democrat “Plant,” a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected…
In the Zeitgeist
Paging David French: There’s a new Lord of the Rings movie in the works from LOTR vets Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis that will focus on “the hunt for Gollum.” Just don’t confuse it with this independent fan film from 2009 that got to the name first.
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Sarah and Mike unpacked the latest in Trump’s New York criminal trial and Judge Aileen Cannon’s delays in the classified documents case, Nick tried to make sense of Biden’s retreat from Israel’s war in Gaza, and Will dove deep on potential AI regulations in California.
- On the podcasts: Kevin joined Jonah on The Remnant to chat about fatherhood, populism, and U.S.-Israel relations. Plus, Megan McArdle joins Sarah and Jonah on today’s episode of The Dispatch Podcast to discuss the ongoing Trump trial, the demise of the Tea Party, and the veepstakes.
- On the site: Kevin examines the diminished state of libertarianism and what the pandemic might have to do with it, while Mark Stobbe explains what might happen if Trump were to go to jail.
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