Biden Authorizes Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range Missiles

Happy Monday! A young Chicago Bears fan went viral yesterday after he collapsed on the couch and broke down in tears following his favorite team’s game-winning field goal being blocked by Karl Brooks of the Green Bay Packers.

But enough about Declan, let’s get on to the news.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• President-elect Donald Trump on Friday selected North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as his nominee to lead the Department of the Interior, adding that his former primary challenger-turned-supporter would also head the administration’s energy policy as chairman of the newly created National Energy Council. “This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over long-standing, but totally unnecessary, regulation,” Trump wrote in a statement.
• On Saturday, Trump named Chris Wright, the CEO of a fracking company, as his nominee to lead the Department of Energy. Wright, the leader of Liberty Energy, also sits on the board of a company developing modular nuclear reactors and was a donor to the Trump campaign. 
• The president-elect also began last week to fill communications positions in the administration, on Friday appointing his campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, to the same role in the White House. At 27, she will be the youngest White House press secretary in history. Trump also tapped campaign spokesman Steven Cheung to serve as the White House communications director. 
• Fox News host Pete Hegseth, whom Trump named as his nominee to lead the Defense Department, was reportedly previously accused of sexual assault following an encounter with a married woman in Monterey, California, in 2017, which local police had investigated. A lawyer for Hegseth confirmed that the host paid the woman in 2020 when he learned she intended to file suit against him, though Hegseth denies any wrongdoing. Trump’s transition team was reportedly surprised by the allegations against Hegseth. 
• Multiple outlets reported on Sunday that President Joe Biden has for the first time authorized Ukraine to use American-made long-range missiles to attack targets in Russia, likely focused on areas near the Ukrainian-held enclave in Kursk. Ukraine has long sought the ability to use Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to strike military targets in Russian territory, but the Biden administration has resisted over fears of escalation. The new policy is reportedly a response to the presence of North Korean troops in Russia to support Moscow’s war effort.   
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia had launched its largest drone and missile attack on Ukraine in months, targeting energy infrastructure and killing at least 10 people, including some children. Zelensky said Moscow had launched some 120 missiles and 90 drones that hit Kyiv as well as Lviv, Donetsk, and Odesa, triggering blackouts in some areas. Ukraine’s state-owned energy company said Sunday that the country would experience “restriction measures” on Monday. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, urging him to consider negotiations with Ukraine. Scholz’s Russian counterpart reportedly insisted on a settlement that would incorporate Russia’s territorial gains and enshrine Ukrainian neutrality. 
• The Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah confirmed on Sunday that an Israeli strike on a building in central Beirut on Sunday killed the Iranian-backed terrorist group’s head of media relations. Israel reportedly did not issue evacuation warnings ahead of the strike killing Mohammed Afif, which took place uncharacteristically far from the typical Hezbollah strongholds in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
• The Indian government said Sunday that it had conducted its first successful test of a hypersonic missile, potentially putting it in a group with the U.S., Russia, and China as the only countries that have demonstrated hypersonic capabilities. The testing apparently took place on Saturday with a missile that can travel nearly a thousand miles.
• President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for likely the final time of his presidency on Saturday, chatting with his counterpart on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima, Peru. The pair reportedly agreed to refrain from using artificial intelligence to control nuclear weapons systems and took steps toward an agreement to secure the release of Americans the U.S. considers to be wrongfully detained in China. On Sunday, Biden became the first sitting American president to visit the Amazon, spending several hours in the city of Manaus, Brazil, meeting with local and indigenous leaders involved in conservation efforts. 
• Hundreds of residents of Warwick, New York—about 4 miles from the New York-New Jersey border—were placed under a voluntary evacuation order on Sunday as the Jennings Creek wildfire breached a containment line created by firefighters. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have received little rainfall since late September, fueling wildfires throughout the region.

What’s Next in Ukraine?

In a Sunday radio interview, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said U.S. President-elect Donald Trump reentering the Oval Office would bring the war between his country and Russia to a faster end. “It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House,” he said. “This is their approach, their promise to their citizens.”

What a cautious Zelensky cannot currently predict, though, is precisely what kind of end Trump envisions, considering Russia occupies significant chunks of Ukrainian territory. Much will hang on the success of Russian offensives in the next several months, the performance of the country’s economy, and the resolve of Ukraine’s U.S. backers.

As the war in Ukraine approaches its 1,000^th day, prospects for the embattled country look grim. Through grinding assaults backed by artillery and missile barrages, Russian forces have made steady, if modest, gains in eastern Ukraine, especially around the cities of Kharkiv and Avdiivka. And as Trump prepares to move back into the White House, Ukraine could be caught in a double bind, with Russian troops slowly advancing and American support in question.

On Sunday, however, news broke that outgoing President Joe Biden had reportedly granted Ukrainians’ long-held wish for more firepower trained on Russia by lifting restrictions on …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,611-word item on the future of the war in Ukraine is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• The question of whether cheerleading is a sport has been heavily debated—and lobbied. For the New York Times Magazine, David Gauvey Herbert reported on how one company, and the man behind it, has engineered the development of cheer into something lucrative, acrobatic, and dangerous. “Nationwide, just over a million children, mostly girls, participate in cheer each year (some estimates are even higher), more than the number who play softball or lacrosse,” he wrote. “And almost every part of that world is dominated by a single company: Varsity Spirit. … Parents have reported spending upward of $10,000 a year per child in competitive cheer, with Varsity controlling, by some estimates, more than 80 percent of that market. Jeff Webb, the man who founded Varsity, has been called ‘John D. Rockefeller with glitter’ and the ‘Dark Sith Lord’ of cheer by some of his detractors. Webb, now in his 70s, pioneered the gravity-defying acrobatics of modern cheer. He paired his innovations with a desire for control over every facet of the sport, which he pursued over the course of more than four decades.” 
• For the Financial Times, Imogen West-Knights spent three days at a festival for Bigfoot true believers. “I wouldn’t have guessed that Bigfoot is a preoccupation for anybody,” she wrote. “In this day and age, where the suspicious-minded thinker has so many more pressing conspiracy theories to choose from, being into Bigfoot feels kind of hokey. Dated, even. The heyday of Bigfoot hunting was a good 60 years ago. … The North American Bigfoot Center in—incredibly—Boring, Oregon, receives dozens of reports every week about strange encounters in the forests. A Bigfoot has never been captured alive or dead, and there is no publicly available, conclusive evidence of any other kind that they exist. The FBI has been involved, as has Oxford University and the Smithsonian Museum, and all have come up with nothing. And yet, there were Peter and I, one weekend this past summer, driving to Oakridge to meet the believers.”

Presented Without Comment

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Also Presented Without Comment

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In the Zeitgeist

The guys of TMD expressed keen interest in The Return, a new film about the Trojan War, suggesting perhaps the viral question “How often do you think about the Roman empire?” is insufficient and should be expanded to “How often do you think about classical civilization?” 📈

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• In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics crew covered the looming fight in the Senate over Matt Gaetz’s nomination, Jonah argued that Gaetz is Trump’s worst Cabinet pick thus far, Nick suggested that (🔒) Trump may be misunderstanding the American people’s desires by promising to name RFK Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Chris answered (🔒) reader mail, and Asma T. Uddin made the case in Dispatch Faith that true interfaith connection that doesn’t flatten key theological differences is possible and necessary.  
• On the podcasts: Sarah, Steve, and David French discussed Trump’s Cabinet picks so far on the Dispatch Podcast roundtable, Jonah reflected on the first Dispatch Summit and engaged in some rank punditry on the weekend Remnant, and Michael talked to Jeffrey Bilbro about his new book, Words for Conviviality: Media Technologies, and Practices of Hope. On today’s episode of The Dispatch Podcast, Jamie is joined by National Review columnist Andy McCarthy to discuss the Trump Cabinet picks thus far.
• On the site over the weekend: Adrian Nguyen reminisced on Fight Club 25 years after its release, Christian Alejandro Gonzalez reviewed Alexandre Lefebvre’s new book on liberalism as a way of life, and Jeffrey Bilbro explained what the telegraph can teach us about our current moment.
• On the site today: Yascha Mounk writes this week’s Monday Essay about the election results and what they portend for the future of the left and identity politics.