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Presented by Climate Power: POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. | | | | | |  | | By Rachael Bade, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun | | | UNFOLDING ON CAPITOL HILL — U.S. Capitol Police are investigating an “active bomb threat” from a man in a suspicious vehicle parked in front of the Library of Congress. — Law enforcement officers from the FBI, Capitol Police and MPD are on the scene and have deployed snipers, per the AP. — Capitol Police tell reporters that the man — seen here in a black truck — displayed what appeared to be a detonator. He’s communicating with law enforcement via a dry-erase board. — The man “is from North Carolina, and they say he is expressing anti-government views,” reports NBC’s Pete Williams. “My understanding is they looked into his history, and he does have some criminal violations in his past.” — The man was live-streaming his attack on Facebook for a time, directly addressing President JOE BIDEN and demanding his resignation. “The revolution is on,” the man said at one point. — The Capitol Hill complex is locked down, Metro trains are bypassing the nearby Capitol South station, and nearby buildings have been evacuated as negotiators try to resolve the situation. More from Nicholas Wu, Heather Caygle and Sarah Ferris This situation comes as lawmakers are on recess. Even so, the incident will rattle all Hill dwellers. Emotions are still high after the Jan. 6 riot, and this latest threat will understandably resurface anxieties. — It’s the second such situation since the storming of the Capitol. USCP officer WILLIAM EVANS was killed in early April when an intruder rammed him and another officer. Follow our colleagues on the Hill for the latest on this unfolding situation: @nicholaswu12, @heatherscope and @sarahnferris. Good Thursday afternoon. Stay safe, y’all. | | | | A message from Climate Power: Investing in clean energy jobs now will mean millions more good-paying jobs across the country this year. Clean energy is the fastest-growing industry in America and provides a huge opportunity to create millions of good-paying, union jobs for builders, roofers, painters, engineers and electricians, autoworkers, accountants, administrators, researchers, and teachers. All it will take to get to a clean energy future is making sure big corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share. Congress, let's get it done. | | | TALIBAN TAKEOVER ANTI-TALIBAN PROTESTS SPREAD: In a growing threat to Taliban rule, demonstrations against the group have spread to more Afghan cities. The AP has the latest. Taliban militants have responded with violence — in Asadabad, they killed several protesters — and by telling imams to “urge unity” at the first Friday prayers since they seized power, per Reuters. — TALIBAN HUNTING DOWN U.S. ALLIES: The Taliban is methodically searching for Afghans who worked with U.S. forces, “including among the crowds … at Kabul’s airport, and have threatened to kill or arrest their family members if they cannot find them.” That’s according to the NYT, which obtained a confidential U.N. document that “directly contradicted the militant group’s public assurances that it would not seek revenge on members and supporters of the toppled government.” … AND BEATING WOMEN: “Dr. Zuhal used to drive herself to work. This week, she started taking a taxi to avoid reprisals from the Taliban, who once banned women from driving. It didn’t help,” report WSJ’s Margherita Stancati and Jessica Donati. “On the second day of the Taliban takeover, a Taliban gunman dragged the doctor, who didn’t want to use her full name, out of the taxi and whipped her for filming the chaos surrounding the evacuations at the Kabul airport through her window.” … WHILE SEIZING BILLIONS IN U.S. WEAPONRY. From Reuters: “Video showed the advancing insurgents inspecting long lines of vehicles and opening crates of new firearms, communications gear and even military drones. ‘Everything that hasn't been destroyed is the Taliban's now,’ one U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters.” — WaPo’s @joshrogin: “‘Among the items seized by the Taliban are Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft.’ Great, we gave the Taliban an air force.” THE KABUL EVACUATION, BY THE NUMBERS: Here are the latest figures from Maj. Gen. HANK TAYLOR’s Pentagon briefing: — Since August 14, the U.S. has airlifted roughly 7,000 total evacuees. — That includes 12 C-17 flights in the last 24 hours, which contained more than 2,000 people. — There are now more than 5,200 U.S. troops in Kabul. MEANWHILE, IN WASHINGTON — “Biden: Greater threats than Taliban-controlled Afghanistan,” by AP’s Robert Burns, Ellen Knickmeyer and Zeke Miller: “‘We should be focusing on where the threat is the greatest,’ Biden said in an interview that aired on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ Thursday. ‘And the idea we can continue to spend a trillion dollars, and have tens of thousands of American forces in Afghanistan, when we have North Africa and Western Africa — the idea we can do that and ignore those looming problems, growing problems, is not rational.’ … Biden named Syria and East Africa as places where the Islamic State group poses a ‘significantly greater threat’ than in Afghanistan and said that ISIS has ‘metastasized.’” — @marianne_levine: “New: There will be another all Senators unclassified virtual briefing on Afghanistan tomorrow at 3:15 pm, per a Senate official.” THE VIEW FROM THE KREMLIN — “Russia was ready for Taliban’s win due to longtime contacts,” by AP’s Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow: “When the Taliban swept over Afghanistan, Russia was ready for the rapid developments after working methodically for years to lay the groundwork for relations with the group that it still officially considers a terrorist organization. “Russian Foreign Minister SERGEY LAVROV emphasized this week that Moscow was ‘in no rush’ to recognize the Taliban as the new rulers of Afghanistan, but he added there were ‘encouraging signals’ of their readiness to let other political forces join the government and allow girls into schools. … Unlike many other countries, Russia said it wouldn’t evacuate its embassy in Kabul, and its ambassador quickly met with the Taliban for what he described as ‘constructive’ talks after they took over the capital.” | | | | 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. | | | | | THE ECONOMY THE UNEMPLOYMENT PICTURE — “U.S. jobless claims hit a pandemic low as hiring strengthens,” by AP’s Paul Wiseman: “The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell last week for a fourth straight time to a pandemic low, the latest sign that America’s job market is rebounding from the pandemic recession as employers boost hiring to meet a surge in consumer demand. The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims fell by 29,000 to 348,000. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, also fell — by 19,000, to just below 378,000, also a pandemic low.” PANDEMIC CBS’ @Weijia Jiang: “Big vaccine news today: 1.02M doses were reported administered today, including 562K newly vaccinated per WH official. This is the first 1M day reported in close to 7 weeks and a 31% week-over week increase in the daily average of people completing their vaccine series.” GETTING A BOOST, via WaPo: “President Biden says he and first lady JILL BIDEN will get their coronavirus vaccine booster shots when they are available. In an interview that aired Thursday on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America,’ Biden said: ‘We got our shots all the way back in, I think, December so it’s past time.’” DEALING WITH DELTA — “GOP governors embrace Covid cocktails over masks as cases surge,” by Dan Goldberg: “The governors in Florida, Missouri and Texas are promising millions of dollars in antibody treatments for infected people even as they oppose vaccine and mask mandates, saying they can potentially keep people with mild Covid symptoms out of hospitals that are being swamped by new cases. But the treatments and cost of providing them are thousands of dollars more than preventive vaccines, and tricky to administer because they work best early in the course of an infection. “The push to medicate rankles public health officials and some within the Biden administration, who say the governors’ stance misleadingly implies Covid-19 can be treated easily, like the common cold. They note treatments like Regeneron’s antibody cocktail — which was administered to former President Donald Trump during his bout with the disease — are essential but part of a limited arsenal to keep patients from being hospitalized or dying, not a game-changer that could help end the pandemic.” BIG Q ON CAMPUS — “Colleges Grapple With Costs for Covid-19 Tests, Unvaccinated Students,” by WSJ’s Douglas Belkin: “Colleges and universities are wrestling with how to treat, and budget for, unvaccinated students, with a few schools making those students pay to be tested regularly for Covid-19. “At the University of Texas, Austin, the difference between a student vaccination rate of 60% and 80% would cost the school about $4 million to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and treat additional students projected to get infected, the head of the school’s Covid-19 Modeling Consortium said.” BTW — “Those Anti-Covid Plastic Barriers Probably Don’t Help and May Make Things Worse,” by NYT’s Tara Parker-Pope POLICY CORNER VALLEY TALK — “FTC reboots its antitrust complaint against Facebook,” by Leah Nylen: “The Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to file a new antitrust complaint against Facebook, rebooting the case after a federal judge tossed the agency’s original suit in June. The suit, originally filed in December, seeks to break up the social media giant by unwinding its Obama-era acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. “FTC Chair LINA KHAN declined to recuse herself from the vote. Facebook had sought to knock out the progressive antitrust advocate from its case because of her previous statements about the company and her work on a major tech antitrust probe by the House Judiciary Committee.” WHAT COMES NEXT — “Trumka era ends, and union tactics may be in for a makeover,” by Rebecca Rainey: “The AFL-CIO on Friday is expected to name former President RICHARD TRUMKA’S number two, Secretary-Treasurer LIZ SHULER, to finish out his term, a choice that members of the federation say will carry on the late president’s agenda and, they hope, the labor movement’s renewed momentum. “But behind the scenes, Trumka’s sudden and unexpected death earlier this month has forced AFL-CIO officials to consider uncomfortable questions about the future of the movement and how it can reverse its eroding membership — discussions that many expected to confront in years, not months. The loss presents the AFL-CIO’s 56 affiliate unions with the first real opportunity in more than a decade to change the direction of the powerful national organization when it chooses a permanent successor for Trumka next year.” | | | | Be a Policy Pro. POLITICO Pro has a free policy resource center filled with our best practices on building relationships with state and federal representatives, demonstrating ROI, and influencing policy through digital storytelling. Read our free guides today . | | | | | POLITICS ROUNDUP JASON MILLER on a possible Trump run in 2024, on Kara Swisher’s NYT podcast, “Sway,” released this morning: “[W]hen I went over to see [former President DONALD TRUMP] last week, and he had sitting out — someone had dropped off these four massive binders with thousands of petition signatures trying to draft him to run in 2024. And we were talking about it, and just hearing the way that he’s talking very much sounds like someone who is more likely to run than not.” The podcast and transcript TRUMP VS. BIDEN — “Trump alumni launch group to push his VA policies — and blunt Biden’s,” by WaPo’s Lisa Rein: “A group of senior Trump administration alumni this week launched a nonprofit group to try to extend the former president’s effort to offer veterans more access to private medical care and other policies while diminishing President Biden’s priorities at the Department of Veterans Affairs. “Veterans 4 America First Institute is modeled after the America First Policy Institute, the post-Trump group that launched in April with a multimillion-dollar budget and is one of several efforts by former Trump administration officials to push his priorities. The new effort is led for now by volunteers who said they are committed to ‘effective management and accountability’ at VA and the Defense Department, with a particular focus on what they called an intransigent VA bureaucracy.” AMERICA AND THE WORLD MOVING ON — “U.S. Tightens Focus on China After Afghanistan Withdrawal,” by WSJ’s Alastair Gale in Tokyo, Joyu Wang in Taipei and Laurence Norman in Brussels: “As the Taliban overran Afghanistan last week, 25,000 Marines and other U.S. Navy personnel held exercises in part to simulate the capture and control of islands in the Western Pacific. “One of the largest military drills since the Cold War — involving dozens of ships and submarines, and held with Japanese, British and Australian forces—shows how far the American military’s focus has shifted since the invasion of Afghanistan two decades ago. The exercises, intended to counter China’s territorial ambitions, also highlight how the U.S. is seeking to reassure allies of its global presence as questions are raised about the reliability of American military commitments after the fall of Kabul.” PLAYBOOKERS MEDIA MOVES — Jarvis DeBerry, Zeeshan Aleem, Hayley Miller and Ja’han Jones are joining MSNBC. DeBerry will be an opinion editor and previously was editor of the Louisiana Illuminator. Aleem will be an opinion columnist and previously did freelance and is a Vox and Vice alum. Miller will be founding blog editor and previously was a senior breaking news reporter at HuffPost. Jones will be a show blogger and previously was a breaking news reporter at HuffPost. TRANSITIONS — Rachel del Guidice is now comms director for Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.). She most recently was a congressional reporter at The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Daily Signal Podcast.” … Gabriella Salazar is now press secretary and digital director for Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.). She most recently was comms director at Her Bold Move. … Matthew Elkin is now a tax partner at BakerHostetler. He most recently was a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. ENGAGED — Natalie Brand, a correspondent for CBS Newspath, and Coast Guard Cmdr. Kristopher Ensley, who works at headquarters on homeporting and patrol boat policy, got engaged Sunday. He planned a park proposal along the Alexandria waterfront with friends staged in the bushes, and they ended the day with a picnic on a boat. The couple met in grad school at the Kennedy School of Government but didn’t start dating until the start of the pandemic. Pic … Another pic — Ben Sheridan, deputy director of executive operations in the New York State Executive Chamber, and Maya Levine, development executive in the Young Leaders Group at UJA - Federation of New York, got engaged Saturday. The couple are childhood sweethearts and have dated for over three years. 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