July 2020

July 31, 2020

Jim Jordan tries and fails to get Fauci to say protesters should be arrested for gathering during pandemicDr. Anthony Fauci wants to make it clear he's got nothing to do with the justice system.Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared before Congress on Friday for a hearing on the federal government's coronavirus response. That's where Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who's been skeptical of restrictions meant to stem the virus' spread, tried to get Fauci to distinguish between protests against racism in the U.S. and bans on businesses reopening amid the pandemic.Because science indicates crowds exacerbate the spread of coronavirus, Jordan asked Fauci on Friday if the government "should limit the protests." "I'm not in a position to determine what the government should do in a forceful way," Fauci responded. So Jordan kept pressing: "The government is stopping people from going to church," claiming that's something "the five liberals" on the Supreme Court had decided. But Fauci continued holding out, saying he does not "judge one crowd versus another crowd" and would not "opine on who should get arrested or not. That's not my position."Jordan then went so far as to claim Fauci had said "protests increase the spread" of coronavirus. "I said crowds, I didn't say specifically, I didn't say protests or anything, " Fauci firmly responded. "You're putting words in my mouth," Fauci continued before saying he had no data showing the nationwide protests had spread the virus. Watch the whole exchange below. > Rep. Jordan: So, you're allowed to protest, millions of people in crowds...but you try to run your business and you get arrested?> > Dr. Fauci: I don't understand what you're asking me, as a public health official, to opine on who should get arrested or not. That's not my position pic.twitter.com/fAZEqbLz5q> > -- CBS News (@CBSNews) July 31, 2020More stories from theweek.com The White House reportedly scrapped a national testing plan because the virus was mostly hitting blue states Josh Hawley's good idea to stop modern slavery New Lincoln Project video imagines what it's like to wake up from a coma in 2020




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July 31, 2020

EU sanctions Russian intelligence, North Korean and Chinese firms over alleged cyberattacksThe European Union on Thursday imposed travel and financial sanctions on a department of Russia’s military intelligence service and on firms from North Korea and China over their suspected participation in major cyberattacks across the world. In its first ever sanctions related to cybercrime, the EU targeted the department for special technologies of the Russian military intelligence service, known as Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, it said in a statement. The bloc accused the Russian service of having carried out two cyberattacks in June 2017, which hit several companies in Europe resulting in large financial losses. The service is also accused of two cyberattacks against Ukraine’s power grid in 2015 and 2016. Four individuals working for the Russian military intelligence service were also sanctioned for allegedly participating in an attempted cyberattack against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Netherlands in April 2018. North Korean company Chosun Expo was also sanctioned on suspicion of having supported the Lazarus Group, which is deemed responsible for a series of major attacks worldwide, including an $81 million (£61.74 million) heist against Bangladesh Bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2016, the world’s biggest cyber fraud. The company is also allegedly linked to an attack against Hollywood film studio Sony Pictures to prevent the release of a satirical movie about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2014. The U.S. Treasury last year imposed sanctions on the Lazarus Group and two other North Korean hacking groups for their alleged participation in the attacks on Sony Pictures and the central bank of Bangladesh, among others. It said North Korea’s main intelligence service was behind the hacking groups. North Korea has denied any involvement in cyberattacks. The EU sanctions also hit Chinese firm Haitai Technology Development, which is accused of having supported cyberattacks - known as Operation Cloud Hopper - aimed at stealing commercially sensitive data from multinationals across the world. Two Chinese individuals allegedly involved in the attacks were also sanctioned. Sanctions include travel bans and asset freezes. EU individuals, companies and other entities are forbidden from making funds available to those blacklisted. China’s diplomatic mission to the European Union said in a statement early on Friday that China “is a staunch defender of network security and one of the biggest victims of hacker attacks.” China wants global cyberspace security to be maintained through “dialogue and cooperation” and not by unilateral sanctions, the statement added.




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July 31, 2020

NYPD Perfected Chilling Arrests Way Before Feds in PortlandIt looked like one of the videos circulating from Portland, Oregon: Police officers surrounded a young woman and dragged her, kicking, into an unmarked van. But the footage, captured on Tuesday, wasn’t the feds. It was the New York City Police Department.Nikki Stone, an 18-year-old activist, was a well-known figure at recent racial justice protests, and at Occupy City Hall, a since-disbanded local protest camp geared at cutting police funding. A homeless transgender woman, she previously told Gothamist that the protest encampment was one of the first places she felt safe from police. That ended when plainclothes police pulled Stone into an unmarked vehicle. Her arrest wasn’t part of a federal insurgency but routine practice by NYPD, especially when used against the homeless and people of color, critics say. But now it was turned against an activist during protests specifically targeted at racism and police brutality.‘It’s Spooky Right Now’: Inside the Creepy Federal Crackdown on Portland Protesters“This is standard operating procedure for the warrant squad, as far as I know,” Eugene O’Donnell, a former NYPD officer, Brooklyn prosecutor, and current professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Daily Beast. He was referring to an NYPD division that seeks people with open warrants. “They would seek to make an arrest as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. Therefore they use unmarked vehicles routinely.”The NYPD, which did not return a request for comment on Wednesday, announced that Stone had been arrested on charges of criminal mischief and vandalism. Specifically, she was accused of spray-painting graffiti and painting on four police cameras around the site of the former Occupy City Hall protest encampment. The department confirmed that the warrant squad was behind the arrest.Jennvine Wong, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society’s Cop Accountability Project, said the aggressive arrest seemed out of step with the allegations against Stone.“It seems to me that they should be prioritizing more serious cases than criminal mischief and graffiti,” she told The Daily Beast.That said, arrests by plainclothes officers in unmarked cars—no matter their unit—are a fairly well-known phenomenon in New York City’s public defender circles, she said. “We have all had clients who had that experience,” Wong said. “It is something that is a well-known part of our practice. It may not happen every other day or every other week, but it is common enough to practitioners in the public defense world that they are familiar with these tactics. They know it happens and they have had more than one client it’s happened to.”Footage of Stone’s aggressive arrest drew national attention for its similarities to arrests by federal agents in Portland, who stormed the city in an initiative cheered by President Donald Trump. Those agents have led a weeks-long campaign against local unrest, arresting some demonstrators in unmarked vans and widely deploying less-lethal weapons against the crowds. Trump recently announced the deployment of federal agents to more cities, but State Senator Zellnor Myrie, who represents parts of Brooklyn, said his constituents were used to such incidents.“The video is incredibly disturbing and understandably inflames passions for those of us who want to see public safety done in a way that is compassionate,” Myrie told The Daily Beast. “But this is not uncommon. What happened was unfortunate and tragic, and because it was captured on video, more people will be able to witness it, but in Black and brown communities, this is the type of treatment that we have been crying out about for decades. This is the type of treatment, the rough handling, the lack of notice, the disrespect, the use of force, all these things have plagued the communities I represent.”Homeless people have also long been subject to arrest in unmarked NYPD vans, as Vice reported in 2015. A homeless man told the outlet NYPD sometimes entered homeless shelters late at night, seeking people with open warrants, and packed them into waiting vans with little notice. "You’re asking, ‘What’s going on?’ Then they crush you into the vans like sardines. And it’s a freezer in there,” he said.Myrie noted that marginalized communities also face raids from federal forces like immigration agencies—some of which were deployed against protesters in Portland. Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, which he represents, has seen Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on restaurants accused of hiring undocumented people. In nearby Gravesend, Brooklyn, plainclothes ICE agents shot a 26-year-old man in the face while attempting to arrest his mother’s boyfriend in February.Arrests like Stone’s are “not new. There are a lot of open questions about the warrant squad’s practices,” Myrie said, noting that NYPD claims it uses unmarked vans for safety reasons.In a crowd of protesters who already distrust police, however, the arrest could have an additional chilling effect, compelling activists to be even more on the lookout for law enforcement. Myrie noted a recent history of NYPD crackdowns at protests, where officers have deployed pepper spray, cuffed journalists, and driven SUVs into crowds. “You can’t expect the public to give you the benefit of the doubt when we see the type of aggressive environment and behavior that we believe is unwarranted,” he said.The specter of arrest in an unmarked van only makes matters worse.In a moment when “this president has sent unmarked vehicles and unidentified law enforcement officials into people’s protests, this warrants a very serious investigation and discussion,” Myrie said.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.




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July 31, 2020

Two women arrested for avoiding quarantine as Australia suffers worst day of coronavirus casesTwo Australian women with Covid-19 who returned to Brisbane from Melbourne via Sydney and avoided quarantine by concealing their point of origin had attended an illegal party in Victoria, it was revealed Thursday. They arrived in Queensland on 21 July, eight days before that state’s government banned arrivals from Greater Sydney. The news emerged as Victoria reported two grim records, with 13 Covid-19 deaths and 723 new cases in 24 hours. The 723 Victorian cases on their own broke the previous record for the entire country, and came alongside 19 new cases in New South Wales, where three outbreaks have been identified in Sydney. The women, aged 19 and 21, who attended work and a number of other sites after returning to Queensland but before testing positive, were at a gathering of at least 20 people in Melbourne which was shut down by police. Melbourne and neighbouring Mitchell Shire have been under a lockdown since June in response to Victoria’s surge in Covid-19 cases.




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July 31, 2020

Portland protests: Trump's homeland security chief says federal police will stay – for nowFederal police forces will remain in Portland until Trump administration officials determine the Oregon governor, a Democrat, has a plan that is working to quell protests and violence there, says Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf."Law enforcement officers that have been there over the past 60 days will remain there in Portland until we are assured that the plan that has been put in place by the governor and Oregon State Police will be effective night after night," Mr Wolf told Fox News on Friday morning.




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July 31, 2020

India police patrol ahead of construction of temple on bitterly contested sitePolice have been ordered onto the streets of an Indian town where Hindu groups will next week begin building a temple on a site contested by Muslims for decades in a dispute that has sparked some of the country's most bloody communal violence. The Supreme Court of India ruled last year that Hindus, who believe the site in the northern town of Ayodhya is the birthplace of Lord Ram, a physical incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, be allowed to build a temple there. Hindus say the site was holy for them long before the Muslim Mughals, India's most prominent Islamic rulers, built the Babri Mosque there in 1528.




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July 31, 2020

DC releases police footage from 2018 deaths of 3 Black menUnder pressure from the D.C. Council, Washington's Metropolitan Police Department on Friday released long-sought body camera and security footage from the 2018 deaths of three young Black men in 2018. The release was compelled by an emergency police reform bill that Mayor Muriel Bowser criticized as rushed. “The council has determined that this is the statute, that’s the law of the land and we’re going to abide by it,” said MPD Chief Peter Newsham.




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July 31, 2020

Cotton stirs 2024 speculation with New Hampshire trip to help Republicans



Sen. Tom Cotton's trip to New Hampshire – the state that for a century has held the first primary in the race for the White House - is sparking more speculation that the veteran Army infantry officer who served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars may have his own national ambitions in 2024.

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July 31, 2020

Bipartisan leaders of Problem Solvers Caucus predict deal on horizon for coronavirus stimulus bill



The leaders of the House Problem Solvers Caucus Friday expressed optimism that Republicans and Democrats will soon come together on a coronavirus deal to continue supplemental unemployment benefits, help struggling small businesses and fund the reopening of schools.

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July 30, 2020

Iran says fires missiles from underground in Gulf war gamesIran's Revolutionary Guards said they launched ballistic missiles from "the depths of the Earth" on Wednesday during the last day of military exercises near sensitive Gulf waters. The launches came a day after the Guards struck a mock-up of a US aircraft carrier with volleys of missiles near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for a fifth of world oil output. The Iranian manoeuvres were staged amid heightened tensions between Iran and its decades-old arch enemy the United States.




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July 30, 2020

CNN host says Trump loyalist owes broadcaster an apology over video played at Barr hearingCNN host Jake Tapper has demanded that Republican congressman Jim Jordan apologise for playing an edited video that misleadingly showed reporters describe the George Floyd protests as “peaceful”.On Tuesday, attorney general William Barr took part in his first congressional hearing since he took the role, and faced questions on topics including his response to the protests and the subsequent deployment of federal law enforcement agents to cities such as Portland, Oregon.




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July 30, 2020

New research suggests COVID-19 can spread via aerosol transmission -- and might affect tall people moreA new survey has found more evidence to suggest that people can become infected with COVID-19 through aerosol transmission, which could be prevented by wearing a mask. Carried out by data scientists in the UK, Norway, and the US, the study is one of the first to investigate which personal and work-related factors can lead to COVID-19 transmission. After surveying 2,000 people in the UK and US, the researchers found that the data from both countries suggests that aerosol transmission of the virus -- via microdroplets which are so small that they remain suspended in the air for several hours -- is very likely.




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July 30, 2020

As Biden VP pick nears, Susan Rice slams Trump for being soft on Russia's PutinFormer U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice, who is on Joe Biden's short list to be his running mate, criticized President Donald Trump on Wednesday for failing to question Russian leader Vladimir Putin about reports Moscow paid bounties for the killing of U.S. troops. "He is absolutely a failure as our commander in chief," Rice told the ABC network in an interview. "He has got some very bizarre, very inexplicable reason for always giving Putin the benefit of the doubt."




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July 30, 2020

(LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.) — Players and coaches from the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz knelt alongside one another before the first game of the NBA restart on Thursday night, an unprecedented image for the league in unprecedented times.

The coaches — New Orleans’ Alvin Gentry and Utah’s Quin Snyder — were next to one another, their arms locked together. Some players raised a fist as the final notes of “The Star-Spangled Banner” were played, the first of what is expected to be many silent statements calling for racial justice and equality following the deaths of, among others, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in recent months.

Even the game referees took a knee during the pregame scene, which occurred with the teams lined up along the sideline nearest where “Black Lives Matter” was painted onto the court. The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers were expected to also take some sort of action before the second game of the re-opening night doubleheader later Thursday.

“It’s so important at this point for us to be unified and be able to peacefully protest many of the critical things that are going on in the country right now,” Snyder said.

The NBA has a rule going back to the early 1980s that players must stand for the national anthem. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, anticipating that players would kneel during these games at Walt Disney World, has made clear that he supports peaceful protests.

Many players warmed up wearing shirts that said “Black Lives Matter.” Thursday also marked the debut of new jerseys bearing messages that many players chose to have added, such as “Equality” and “Peace.”

The NBA season was suspended when Rudy Gobert of the Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus and became the first player in the league with such a diagnosis. Gobert was diagnosed on March 11; two days later, Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot when police officers burst into her Louisville, Kentucky apartment using a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation. The warrant was in connection with a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found.

Then on May 25, Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into the Black man’s neck for nearly eight minutes. That happened on a street, with the images — and sounds of the man saying he couldn’t breathe, then crying out for his mother — all captured on a cell phone video.

NBA players have used their platforms — both in the bubble and on social media — to demand equality, to demand justice for Taylor. Coaches have also said it is incumbent on them to demand change and educate themselves and others. And the pregame actions by the Jazz and the Pelicans were just the start of what is expected to be a constant during the remainder of this season.

“It’s taken a very long time to get this momentum going,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said in a video that aired pregame, a project organized by both the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association. “And it cannot be lost.”

Gentry said he appreciated the accidental symmetry that came from the first games of the restarted season coming only hours after the funeral for U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17 at the age of 80.

Lewis spent most of his life championing civil rights and equality and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington — the one where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Gentry said he believes this movement, like the one Lewis helped spark six decades ago, will endure.

“If you talk to some of the younger generation, I think this is here to stay. I really do,” Gentry said. “I have a 20-year-old son and a 22-year-old son, and I know that they feel like this is the most opportune time for us to try to have change in this country.”


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July 29, 2020

The feds say they won't leave Portland until the violence stops. Privately, they concede they're fueling that violence.The top federal prosector in Oregon, U.S. Attorney Billy Williams, said Monday that the federal agents aggressively policing protesters in Portland would remain in the city until the "attacks on federal property and personnel" cease. Oregon officials say the presence and shock-and-awe tactics of the federal agents are the main fuel for those attacks, and federal law enforcement officials privately concede they have a point, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.The nightly protests against racism and police violence in downtown Portland had dwindled to about 100 people before President Trump sent in federal agents over the July 4 weekend. The protests grew again after U.S. Marshals, ostensibly there to protect Portland's federal courthouse, shot 26-year-old protester Donavan La Bella in the head, fracturing his skull, and they exploded after news broke that anonymous militarized federal agents were detaining people on the street in unmarked vans. Thousands now gather nightly in Portland, and similar protests have been reinvigorated in other cities."Anytime you shoot someone in the face and beat them with a baton, it's going to be criticized," one federal law enforcement official told OBP. "That's not a controversial statement." Another told OBP, "Crowds were very small and the incident with La Bella." Still, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals confirmed Monday that about 100 new deputies have been lined up for deployment in Portland, either to bolster the current force or replace exhausted officers.The harsh crackdown and vilification of protesters in Portland may end up helping Trump politically, "but as a policing tactic, it has failed to suppress the protests," The Washington Post notes. "The escalation has been followed by larger, better-equipped, and more-aggressive crowds, and — as the new reinforcements showed — it exhausted federal resources before it exhausted the protesters.""Every time we go out into this, we get better at it," Gregory McKelvey, a community organizer in Portland, tells the Post. "When a flash bang first goes off in front of you, you run. But when you realize that one went off right in front of you and nothing happened to you, you're less likely to run the next time." In a bit of circular logic, law enforcement officials say they need even more people on the ground in Portland "to counter those increasingly sophisticated tactics" employed by protesters, OPB reports.More stories from theweek.com Trump: 'Nobody likes me' American Federation of Teachers supports strikes if schools don't reopen safely Even mild coronavirus cases can cause lasting cardiovascular damage, study shows




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July 29, 2020

Trump COVID Task Force to Guvs: Make Masks Mandatory Before You Fall Into Red ZoneAs states in the South and Southwest grapple with how to control the spread of the coronavirus, officials on President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force cautioned the nation’s governors Tuesday that a new set of states is beginning to experience an uptick in positive cases and recommended that local leaders implement mask mandates and close bars to contain the outbreaks.Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator for the task force, said the positivity rate in states such as Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Colorado was increasing and warned they should quickly take action before they fall into what she described as the “red COVID zones” category. Birx defined the red zones as those states with more than 100 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people and more than a 10 percent test positivity rate.“By the time you see hospitalizations, your community spread is so wide that you’ve flipped into a red state incredibly quickly,” Birx said, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Daily Beast. “By the time you see it, up to 80 or 90 percent of your county already has more than 10 percent positivity rate.”The warnings from Birx and other task force officials come as the administration is pushing states across the country to reopen schools, a point Vice President Mike Pence reiterated on the call. Pence said the task force would support whatever decision state leaders make but that the team was beginning to see evidence that “encouraging masks,” closing bars, and limiting indoor gatherings were slowing the spread in some of the hot spot states. Birx was more explicit with her advice, saying that the “100 percent mask mandates” played a significant role in containing the virus in those states.Trump in the past has resisted mask wearing and said in a Fox News interview this month that he would not impose a national mask mandate. On Monday, Trump retweeted a video shared by his son Donald Trump Jr. that featured a doctor saying masks were unnecessary. Twitter restricted Donald Trump Jr.’s account and removed the video from the platform.Trump Pushes Fake COVID Cure From Fringe Doctors, Banned by FacebookDr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top vaccine official, was also on the call with governors and said states should adhere to Birx’s recommendations even if it wasn’t politically expedient to do so. “You may be reluctant to do that because the general population is saying, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not that bad,’” Fauci said, referring to the advice of implementing mask mandates and restricting large gatherings of people. “You are worse than you think you are because where you are now is going to be reflected and what you are going to see… weeks from now. I know it may sound intrusive but it really isn’t.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.




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July 29, 2020

US to pull 12,000 troops out of Germany as Trump blasts 'delinquent' BerlinPentagon insists move is about long-term strategy but Trump says: ‘We’re reducing the force because they’re not paying their bills’The US is planning to pull nearly 12,000 troops out of Germany in a move the Pentagon insisted was about long-term strategy but which Donald Trump said was to punish Berlin for low defence spending.Of a total of 11,900 personnel that will be leaving Germany under the proposal, 6,400 will be returning to the US, from where they could be used for rotational deployments in eastern Europe and around the world, while 5,600 will be repositioned within other Nato countries, particularly Belgium and Italy.The defence secretary, Mark Esper, said the move would begin within weeks, but also stressed that planning for the redeployment was in its early stages and it would cost several billion dollars.He repeatedly denied that the decision was motivated by Trump’s frequently expressed desire to move troops out of Germany to teach Berlin a lesson for not spending enough on defence. The Pentagon put out a statement saying the withdrawal would “strengthen Nato, enhance the deterrence of Russia” and boost the flexibility of the US military.Minutes later, the president told journalists at the White House he had ordered the troop withdrawal because Berlin was being “delinquent” by not spending enough on defence.“[US troops] are there to protect Germany, right? And Germany is supposed to pay for it,” Trump said. “Germany’s not paying for it. We don’t want to be the suckers any more. The United States has been taken advantage of for 25 years, both on trade and on the military. So we’re reducing the force because they’re not paying their bills.”Trump wrongly claimed, as he has many times in the past, that Germany was not paying its “Nato fees”. In fact, the friction between the US and Germany, as well as other European allies, is about national defence spending. The allies agreed in 2014 to spend 2% of their GDP on defence by 2024. Germany is currently on 1.5%, but Belgium, where the US will move some of its European Command (Eucom) headquarters, spends less than 1%, and Italy, to where the US will move an F-16 fighter squadron and two army battalions from Germany, spends 1.2%.Diplomats and former US officials have described Trump as fixated on Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel.“He’s obsessed with the idea that Germany is taking advantage of the US, over defence, but on trade, selling too many cars to the US for example. He has always been particularly rude to Merkel,” a former White House official said.Emily Haber, the German ambassador to Washington, said US troops “have become neighbors, partners and friends while protecting transatlantic security and projecting American power and interests globally”.“We have been and are proud to host US troops,” Haber wrote on Twitter. “A strong, and united Nato is crucial for deterrence and power projection. Germany is a steadfast Nato ally and third largest contributor to its budget.”Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow at the center on the US and Europe at the Brookings Institution, said: “I have sympathy for the criticism of Germany’s low defense spending, which does set a bad example for other member states who spend even less – it’s against Europe’s and our own interest.“Moving Eucom to Belgium actually makes sense, but I find the strategic rationale for the other movements much less persuasive.”Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Champagne must be flowing freely this evening at the Kremlin. The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw forces from Germany is not only an affront to one of our closest allies, but will ultimately weaken US efforts to counter Kremlin aggression in Europe.”Trump’s relationship with Moscow, the issue that triggered his impeachment, came under renewed scrutiny earlier on Wednesday morning, when he admitted he had not confronted Vladimir Putin with intelligence suggesting Russia was paying Taliban fighters bounties for killing US soldiers in Afghanistan.“I have never discussed it with him,” the president told Axios on HBO. “That was a phone call to discuss other things, and frankly that’s an issue that many people said was fake news.”Esper argued the redeployments would make troops available to rotate in and out of the Baltic states, Poland and the Black Sea region. The defence secretary said: “it enhances deterrence, strengthens the allies, reassures.” He claimed he had received “very positive feedback” from the Nato countries affected.He said US Africa Command, currently in Stuttgart, would be moved out, to a new headquarters yet to be decided.Critics of the move have said it would be very expensive, time-consuming and would damage Nato cohesion and deterrence against Russia. Rotating troops eastwards would be more expensive and build less trust in the host countries, they argue, while at the same time undermining morale by making soldiers spend more time away from their families.But retired Lt Col Daniel Davis, senior fellow at the Defense Priorities thinktank, argued that whatever the short-term justifications, pulling troops out of Germany made strategic sense.“We don’t have a need for that many troops,” Lt Col Davis said. “Because there’s no security threat that those troops actually help with, in my view. Russia is already deterred. If you took all the American troops out of Europe … that’s not going to change the deterrent factor for Russia because the Nato combined militaries are far more powerful than Russia, plus they have nuclear weapons.”




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