| | | | |  | | By Eli Okun and Garrett Ross | | | RARE SPOT OF BRIGHT NEWS — JOE BIDEN's presidency may be mired in inflationary woes and foreign conflicts, but the state of the U.S. economy remains strong:
- The country added 678,000 jobs last month, according to today's monthly jobs report, beating expectations. The jobs gains were distributed across many sectors.
- The unemployment rate fell from 4% to 3.8%, getting close to pre-pandemic levels.
- The number of people who said Covid fears were preventing them from looking for work fell from 1.8 million to 1.2 million. The Labor Department data
The numbers were the latest indicator of robust economic health, as the U.S. emerges from the Omicron wave and continues to bounce back from pandemic-spurred recession. "This progress is the result of the new economic approach I talked about in the State of the Union — grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out," Biden trumpeted in a statement. Wage growth was mostly flat month over month, in a surprise to some economists. That's a disappointment for workers struggling to keep pace with rising prices. On the flip side, wage growth itself is an inflationary pressure, so these numbers could foretell a slight respite. The jobs report likely won't change Fed Chair JEROME POWELL's plans to raise interest rates, WSJ's Nick Timiraos reports. Notable caveat, via AP's Christopher Rugaber: "Friday's hiring figures were collected before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has sent oil prices surging and has escalated risks and uncertainties for economies in Europe and the rest of the world." POLL OF THE DAY — An outlier, or the start of something new? The White House will be hoping it's the latter when they see the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, which finds a potential rally-around-the-flag effect as Biden's approval rating rises 8 points from last month to 47%. Independents' support for Biden's handling of Ukraine jumped 17 points (and Democrats' support increased by even more). — Also notable: Sixty-nine percent of poll respondents said they would support the sanctions the U.S. has levied against Russia even if they raise energy prices. Happy Friday afternoon. COMING ATTRACTIONS — VP KAMALA HARRIS is planning to travel to Poland soon, per CNN.
| | A message from ACC and America's Plastic Makers: America's Plastic Makers® are committed to keeping plastics out of our oceans and landfills. That's why we're investing billions of dollars in advanced recycling technologies, which allow used plastics to become new products again. With advanced recycling, we can recycle more of the 90% of plastics that aren't recycled today. Learn more. | | | WAR IN UKRAINE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS … — Russia is blocking access to Facebook, per a tweet by state-owned media outlet RIA Novosti. — The sound of as many as a dozen explosions rocked Kyiv this morning, "in an apparent sign Russian missile strikes on and around the capital were intensifying," per Reuters. Still, many people in the capital were going about their daily lives. — NATO says no dice for no fly: The Western military alliance won't risk direct conflict with Russia by establishing a no-fly zone above Ukraine, Secretary-General JENS STOLTENBERG said this morning. "If we did that, we would end up with something that could end in a full-fledged war in Europe." More from Bloomberg — The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv tweeted this morning, "It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin's shelling of Europe's largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further. #TheHague #Zaporizhzhia #StandwithUkraine" … But the State Department urgently ordered its embassies in the rest of the continent not to retweet the message, per NBC's Abigail Williams. — As Russia advances on Ukraine's southern coast, Mariupol's mayor said they were "on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe," per WaPo. — German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ spoke with Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN for an hour today. Putin told Scholz there would be a third round of talks with Ukraine this weekend. More from Deutsche Welle — By the numbers: The U.N.'s latest data shows 331 people have been confirmed killed (though the actual number is likely to be much higher), and 1.2 million refugees have fled the country. Latest from the AP — U.S. assessment: Defense officials said this morning that Russia has now sent 92% of the 150,000 troops it had amassed outside Ukraine into the war. They also assessed that a majority of Ukraine's air combat power is still available. — The BBC was forced to suspend operations in Russia today,the service announced, as what remains of a free press in the country shrivels up. BEHIND THE SCENES — Paul McLeary delves into how the West, led by the U.K., is secretly moving shipments of weapons into Ukraine to assist in the conflict. Unable to fly in the lethal aid, Ukrainian allies are using "rat lines" to deliver them by road, putting them onto Ukrainian trucks at the borders in a "remarkable wartime improvisation," he writes. COLLATERAL DAMAGE — Space has been one of the few ongoing arenas of U.S.-Russia partnership. But now DMITRY ROGOZIN, Russia's belligerent space chief, is threatening to end the cooperation, pull out of the International Space Station and blow up decades of working together, Bryan Bender reports. THE VIEW FROM THE VALLEY — Big Tech is facing a much less costly decision on how to respond to Russia's manufactured crisis than other corporate sectors, because companies like Apple and Meta get just 1 to 2% of their revenue from the country, Emily Birnbaum reports . "That's not to say that it would be a simple decision for them to leave Russia entirely," she notes. "Many of the tech companies face complex ethical and reputational questions about free expression as they deliberate pulling powerful communication platforms that are used as much by dissidents and news outlets as by the Russian state."
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO NATIONAL SECURITY DAILY : Keep up with the latest critical developments from Ukraine and across Europe in our daily newsletter, National Security Daily. The Russian invasion of Ukraine could disrupt the established world order and result in a refugee crisis, increased cyberattacks, rising energy costs and additional disruption to global supply chains. Go inside the top national security and foreign-policymaking shops for insight on the global threats faced by the U.S. and its allies and what actions world leaders are taking to address them. Subscribe today. | | | | | JUDICIARY SQUARE SCOTUS WATCH — The Supreme Court's six-member conservative majority today reinstated the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV, reversing an appeals court decision and saying he'd received a fair trial. The three liberal justices dissented. More from The Boston Globe JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH LIKE A ROLLING STONE — Exclusive new video footage from the forthcoming documentary "A Storm Foretold" shows ROGER STONE working to overturn the 2020 election and then fleeing Washington on a private plane during the Jan. 6 insurrection, WaPo's Dalton Bennett and Jon Swaine report in a major look at Stone's involvement, full of wild details. "Stone moved quickly after Trump's defeat to help mobilize the protest movement that drew thousands to the nation's capital on Jan. 6, 2021," they write. "A few hours before the Jan. 6 attack, the video shows, a member of the far-right Oath Keepers group — who has since pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy — was in Stone's suite at the Willard." (Stone told WaPo he had nothing to do with Jan. 6 and suggested the videos might be deepfakes.) HOW CLOSE WE CAME — A former Senate staffer testified in court today about a backup plan to count the Electoral College ballots in an alternative location on Jan. 6 if the insurrection prevented them from returning to the Capitol, Kyle Cheney reports in Congress Minutes. ALL POLITICS NEW PA. SENATE POLL — MEHMET OZ's history as a celebrity doctor gave his Pennsylvania Senate campaign an early boost of name recognition and support. But a new poll indicates that all his TV footage, which has been ripe for attack ads, could be backfiring now: GOP primary voters say they're concerned about his views on guns and his ties to Turkey. The poll finds a former hedge fund executive DAVID MCCORMICK nabbing a 6-point lead over Oz, 25% to 19%, and dominating Oz by 30 points in a one-on-one matchup, per The Washington Free Beacon's Chuck Ross.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | POLICY CORNER STICKING TO THEIR GUNS — Gun control advocates and progressives are blaming acting ATF Director MARVIN RICHARDSON for slow-walking a move to ban "ghost guns," NYT's Glenn Thrush reports. In January, just before Biden pledged to end online sales of the guns' components, Richardson exclusively told a Las Vegas gun industry convention that the change wouldn't come until June. "This jarring split screen — a president demanding action on gun violence and an industry-friendly subordinate pumping the brakes — infuriated some Biden allies," Thrush writes. But the administration is defending Richardson as doing his best in a tough role, and SUSAN RICE has rejected the idea of a gun violence office in the White House. ANTITRUST THE PROCESS — DOJ has opened a civil antitrust probe into whether poultry companies improperly shared information with each other to suppress workers' wages, WSJ's Patrick Thomas and Brent Kendall scooped . "The department has put at least some companies on legal notice that they must preserve documents." BEYOND THE BELTWAY CULTURE WARS — A Tennessee school board's move to block eighth graders from reading "Maus" sparked national outrage. But the board is charging forward — and planning many more curriculum revision efforts, as a statewide GOP effort makes Tennessee the vanguard "of a nationwide conservative effort to reshape what students are learning and reading in public schools," NYT's Sophie Kasakove reports. She also finds teachers already self-censoring, and students hurrying to read and share the banned books with each other. PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION HAPPENING SATURDAY — A vehicle convoy inspired by the Canadian protests is real and it's arriving in D.C. this weekend, NBC's Ben Collins reports : "According to extremism researchers following the movement, the convoy now consists of several dozen tractor-trailer trucks and hundreds of cars." Their specific plans remain unclear at this point. PLAYBOOKERS LOOK WHO'S BACK — Bill Clinton is bringing back the Clinton Global Initiative leadership summits that he ended in 2016 during Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, with the big gathering happening again this September, per Bloomberg. "Just like the world we're living in, the September meeting will likely look different than the ones we held before," he wrote in a letter to CGI members. "But what will not be different is the spirit that has driven CGI from the very beginning—the idea that we can accomplish more together than we can apart." MEDIA MOVES — NYT Opinion is adding Eliza Barclay to lead climate coverage and Andrew Trunsky as editorial assistant to Maureen Dowd. Barclay previously was science, health and climate editor at Vox. Trunsky previously was a fellow at the Daily Caller News Foundation. Announcement NSC ARRIVAL LOUNGE — Eric Jacobstein is now director for Central America and Cuba at the National Security Council. He most recently was senior advisor at USAID's Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean.
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