Biden administration weighs taking actions without Congress to stem the migrant flow
Julia Ainsley, Julie Tsirkin and Gabe Gutierrez – February 21, 2024
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is considering taking unilateral action without Congress to make it harder for migrants to pass the initial screening for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border and quickly deport recently arrived migrants who don’t meet the criteria, say three U.S. officials with knowledge of the deliberations.
The actions, which are still weeks away from finalization, are an effort to lower the number of migrants crossing the southern border illegally as immigration remains a top issue for voters heading into the 2024 presidential election.
Under the new policies, asylum officers would be instructed to raise the standards they use in their “credible fear interviews,” the first screening given to asylum-seekers who are trying to avoid deportation for crossing the border illegally. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be told to prioritize recently arrived migrants for deportation, in a “last in, first out” policy, the officials said.
Hundreds of migrants arrive in Ciudad Juarez to cross into the United States before Title 42 ends (David Peinado Romero / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images file)
A congressional aide with knowledge of the deliberations said the Biden administration has yet to make a decision, but raising the bar on asylum and deporting more newly arrived migrants are considered “low hanging fruit” and actions that can be taken quickly.
The three U.S. officials said it is unclear whether the policies would be achieved through executive order or a new federal regulation, which could take months to implement.
Making it harder to claim asylum and fast-tracking migrants for deportation are not new ideas, but they are being considered more seriously as the Biden administration looks for ways to tamp down chaos at the border after Republicans blocked border security provisions in the National Security Supplemental bill earlier this month.
An administration official confirmed that the White House is exploring a series of policy options, but said that doesn’t guarantee any will come to pass.
In a statement, a White House spokesperson said, “The administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades. … Congressional Republicans chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security. … No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected.”
Without the bill, any action the president takes unilaterally will be limited in scope because the Department of Homeland Security is short on funding.
One DHS official expressed skepticism over the “last in, first out” policy because it would leave millions of migrants already in the U.S., including thousands of homeless migrants in major cities, in a long legal limbo as their immigration cases are pushed to the back of the line.
A spokesperson for DHS emphasized that Congress should still act to avoid compromising border enforcement.
“If Congress once again refuses to provide the critical funding needed to support DHS’s vital missions, they would be harming DHS’s efforts to deliver tough and timely consequences to those who do not have a legal basis to remain in the country,” the spokesperson said. “There are real limits to what we can do given current funding because Congress has failed to pass a budget or respond to the President’s two supplemental budget requests. We again call on Congress to act and provide the funding and tools our frontline personnel need.”
Thousands of student-loan borrowers are set to get emails from Biden that their balances are wiped out. Here’s what happens next.
Ayelet Sheffey – February 21, 2024
Biden announced $1.2 billion in student-debt cancellation for 153,000 borrowers.
It’s a result of early implementation of a SAVE plan provision to shorten the timeline for debt relief.
Biden is notifying impacted borrowers on Wednesday, and it could take a few weeks for servicers to apply the relief.
Student-loan borrowers, check your emails — you might find a message from President Joe Biden in your inbox telling you that your debt is canceled.
On Wednesday morning, the White House and Education Department announced it would be canceling $1.2 billion in student debt for 153,000 borrowers — the result of early implementation of a provision in the SAVE income-driven repayment plan that shortens the timeline for borrowers to see relief.
Beginning on Wednesday, borrowers in the first batch of relief will receive emails from Biden stating: “Congratulations—all or a portion of your federal student loans will be forgiven because you qualify for early loan forgiveness under my Administration’s SAVE Plan.”
“I hope this relief gives you a little more breathing room,” the email, a draft of which was reviewed by Business Insider, said. “I’ve heard from countless people who have told me that relieving the burden of their student loan debt will allow them to support themselves and their families, buy their first home, start a small business, and move forward with life plans they’ve put on hold.”
A White House fact sheet stated that the shortened timeline to forgiveness will especially help “borrowers with smaller loans and put many on track to being free of student debt faster than ever before.” Additionally, per the fact sheet, 7.5 million borrowers are enrolled in the SAVE plan, and 4.3 million of them have a $0 monthly payment.
Here’s what will happen next for borrowers who are, or hope to be, eligible for SAVE plan relief.
Next steps for SAVE plan debt relief
Biden’s email noted that the Education Department has already informed impacted borrowers’ loan servicers that they are eligible for relief. The relief will happen automatically, and borrowers who are notified will not need to take any action.
Servicers will notify borrowers that their forgiveness has been applied, but “it may take some time for your account with your servicer to reflect this change,” per the email. It recommends borrowers wait at least 21 days after being notified of the relief to contact their servicers if they still do not see the relief applied to their accounts.
The Education Department also said that beginning next week, it will start emailing borrowers not currently on the SAVE plan that they could become eligible for relief if they enroll. Borrowers already enrolled in SAVE but not included in the first batch of debt relief will have their loans automatically discharged once they meet the criteria, and the department will continue evaluating borrowers’ accounts “on a regular basis,” per its press release.
Biden’s email also cautioned borrowers to watch out for scams and said that any notification regarding debt relief would come from noreply@studentaid.gov, noreply@debtrelief.studentaid.gov, or ed.gov@public.govdelivery.com.
More upcoming student-debt relief
While the relief announced on Wednesday was a result of early implementation, other provisions of the SAVE plan will be going into effect in July. Those include cutting payments for undergraduate loans in half and allowing periods in deferment of forbearance to count toward forgiveness progress.
Beyond the SAVE plan, the Education Department is also planning to complete its one-time account adjustments for borrowers on income-driven repayment plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness by July 1. The adjustments have so far given thousands of borrowers relief, but the department recommends borrowers who are not in the federal direct loan program or have federally-held loans in the Federal Family Education Loan program consolidate their loans by the end of April to benefit from the adjustment.
More broadly, on February 22 and 23, the department is holding its final negotiation session with stakeholders to help craft its second attempt at student-debt relief after the Supreme Court struck down the first plan. Once negotiations conclude, the department will prepare proposed text on the borrowers it’s seeking to include in this new relief plan.
From Frigid Cells to Mystery Injections, Prison Imperiled Navalny’s Health
Paul Sonne and IvanNechepurenko – February 18, 2024
FILE – Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appears via a video link from the Arctic penal colony where he is serving a 19-year sentence, provided by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service during a hearing of Russia’s Supreme Court, in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. Russia’s prison agency says that imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died. He was 47. The Federal Prison Service said in a statement that Navalny felt unwell after a walk on Friday Feb. 16, 2024 and lost consciousness. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko,)
Alexei Navalny portrayed himself as invincible, consistently using his hallmark humor to suggest that President Vladimir Putin couldn’t break him, no matter how dire his conditions became in prison.
But behind the brave face, the reality was plain to see. Since his incarceration in early 2021, Navalny, Russia’s most formidable opposition figure, and his staff regularly suggested his conditions were so grim that he was being put to death in slow motion.
Now his aides believe their fears have come true.
The cause of Navalny’s death in prison at 47 has not been established — in fact his family has not yet even been allowed to see his body — but Russia’s harshest penal colonies are known for hazardous conditions, and Navalny was singled out for particularly brutal treatment.
“Aleksei Navalny was subjected to torment and torture for three years,” Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov wrote in a column after his death was announced Friday. “As Navalny’s doctor told me: the body cannot withstand this.”
More than a quarter of Navalny’s incarceration since 2021 was spent in freezing “punishment cells” and he was often denied access to medical care. He was transferred to ever crueler prisons. And at one point, he said he was being given injections but was prevented from finding out what was in the syringes. His team worried he was again being poisoned.
What specifically led to Navalny’s death Friday at a remote prison above the Arctic Circle may remain a mystery. The Russian prison service released a statement Friday afternoon saying that Navalny felt sick and suddenly lost consciousness after being outside.
Russian state media reported that he had suffered a blood clot. But the story changed Saturday, when Navalny’s mother and lawyer arrived at the prison. They were told he had suffered from “sudden death syndrome,” which appeared to indicate sudden cardiac arrest, according to Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation.
Investigators told a lawyer for Navalny that a repeat examination was being conducted and the results would be released next week. Navalny’s staff called for the body to be released immediately so that his family could order an independent analysis, accusing Russian authorities of lying to conceal the body.
According to his aides, Navalny had been put in a punishment cell at the Arctic prison in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region on Wednesday, two days before Russian authorities announced his death.
His spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, said that marked his 27th time in such an inhumane space, usually a roughly 7-by-10-foot concrete cell with unbearable conditions — cold, damp and poorly ventilated. His latest round of punishment, had he survived, would have taken his total period in such a cell to 308 days, more than a quarter of his time in incarceration, according to Yarmysh.
Once a day at 6:30 a.m., prisoners in the punishment cells at the Arctic facility are allowed into a coffin-like concrete enclosure open to the sky through a metal grate, Navalny said in a message from the facility this year. It appeared to be after such a session Friday that Navalny lost consciousness, according to the Russian prison service’s account. It was about minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
In a letter from prison last month, Navalny described how he could walk a total of 11 steps from one end of the open-air space to the other, noting that the coldest it had been so far on one of his walks was minus 26 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Even at this temperature, you can walk for more than half an hour, so long as you have time to grow a new nose, ears and fingers,” he wrote. “There are few things as invigorating as a walk in Yamal at 6:30 in the morning. And what a wonderful fresh breeze blows into the yard, despite the concrete enclosure, wow!”
While walking there on a recent day, he said he was freezing and thinking about how Leonardo DiCaprio climbed into a dead horse to escape the cold in the wilderness survival movie “The Revenant.” A dead horse would freeze in that part of Russia within 15 minutes, Navalny surmised.
“Here we need an elephant — a hot, fried elephant,” he said.
Navalny often employed such wit in the face of his inhumane treatment. But it had become increasingly clear, over his three years of incarceration, that he might not survive.
“The cumulative treatment of Navalny over several years in prison — in a way you could say it was driving him close to death,” Mariana Katzarova, the United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia, said in an interview Saturday. “We don’t know yet. We need an investigation.”
For a time, Navalny did seem almost invincible.
In August 2020, he fell ill on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow, after being poisoned with a nerve agent from the Russian-made Novichok family. He was put into a medically induced coma for two weeks during treatment in Germany — and survived.
The U.S. government later attributed the poisoning to Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB.
Despite the assassination attempt, Navalny returned to Russia in early 2021 to continue his fight against Putin, who denied Russia’s involvement in the poisoning, and quickly found himself imprisoned. His health began to deteriorate almost immediately.
In March 2021, he complained about severe back pain that later turned into a problem with his leg.
He demanded that prison authorities provide him with proper medical care and give him medication. Instead, they subjected him to sleep deprivation, he said. At the end of March 2021, he declared a hunger strike over his treatment, and Russian doctors and Hollywood stars took up his cause in open letters to Putin.
About three weeks later, Navalny was examined by an independent panel of doctors. The tests by the doctors found that, “soon enough, there won’t be anyone to treat,” Navalny said in a message posted to Instagram.
Last year, Navalny wrote from prison that his jokes about the punishment cell shouldn’t normalize the environment.
He lamented that a fellow political prisoner, who had spoken out against the war in Ukraine, had been put in a punishment cell, despite being disabled and missing part of a lung.
Navalny described dire health conditions in prison, where he said many inmates suffered from tuberculosis. He also complained early last year about the administration in his former prison placing a mentally unwell person in a cell opposite his, as a form of torment, and an ill prisoner in his small cell.
At the time, his lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, said the prison deliberately infected him with a respiratory illness, refused to give him medicine and then “treated” him with huge doses of contraindicated antibiotics. Navalny suffered severe stomach pain and lost more than 15 pounds as a result, Kobzev said.
“These actions can’t be regarded as anything other than an open strategy to destroy Navalny’s health by any and all means,” Kobzev said in a statement at the time. “Obviously, the prison wouldn’t risk engaging in this level of demonstrative unlawfulness without approval from Moscow.”
Kobzev has since been arrested on extremism charges for associating with Navalny — part of a broader roundup of the opposition leader’s attorneys late last year.
Navalny suffered a dizzy spell and was put on an IV drip in an unexplained medical episode in early December. But Russian authorities still transferred him later that month from a prison in the Vladimir region, about 130 miles east of Moscow, to the “special regime” penal colony in the Arctic where he died.
Several doctors contacted after his death, including one who was involved in his initial treatment in the Siberian city of Omsk, said his death was likely unrelated to his poisoning more than three years earlier, given his robust recovery.
But he faced many other health hazards since then.
“A Russian prison is a place where you have to be prepared to die every day,” Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Russian tycoon who spent a decade in prison after challenging Putin, said Friday.
In the interview, Khodorkovsky, who was released in 2013, said a prisoner must find a way to treat the burden as a test in order to survive mentally, and Navalny had done that. But even then, he added, “this will not protect you from being killed.”
Times Putin has referenced the UK as Russia ‘threatens London attack’
Ellen Manning – February 18, 2024
Putin has referenced the UK several times in recent years, with reports of threats against the west. (AP)
Russia has reportedly threatened to unleash its “entire arsenal” on London if it loses the war in Ukraine, also threatening to launch nuclear weapons at the US and Germany.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, reportedly warned of “total war” if Russia was forced to return to its 1991 borders established at the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He is said to have written on Telegram that attempts to return Russia to the “borders of 1991” would “only lead to one thing”, adding: “Towards a global war with Western countries using the entire strategic arsenal of our state. In Kyiv, Berlin, London, Washington.”
The latest threat is not the first time the UK has been referred to by Putin, or Russia, with several reports of threats against the west in recent years. The escalating situation involving Russia – which most recently saw the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – saw the UK government last month warn of a more than one in four chance that Russia will attack another British ally within the next two years.
A National Risk Register, which analyses the biggest threats facing the UK over the next two years, ranked the likelihood of a Russian attack on a non-Nato ally, with which Britain has a mutual security pact, at more than 25%.
Yahoo News UK looks at some of the key times Russia has referenced the UK or suggested an attack on the west in recent years.
The Russian president said: “It’s very sad to me… we could have stopped these hostilities with war a year and a half ago already.” During the interview, he said: “Prime Minister Johnson came to talk us out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it”.
He added: “The fact that they obey the demand or persuasion of Mr Johnson, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, seems ridiculous. Where is Mr Johnson now? And the war continues.”
January 2024
During a New Year’s Day visit to injured troops, Putin issued what appeared to be a warning to the UK and other Western countries, saying he will “deal with” them.
The Russian President said: “Ukraine itself is not our enemy” but appeared to take aim at the West, saying: “They are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with their hands. That is what it is all about. This has been the case for centuries, unfortunately, and continues to be the case today.”
Putin has hit out at the West for helping Ukraine. (Getty)
September 2023
Putin delivered a long rant over Western help to Ukraine, threatening Rishi Sunak as he accused the UK of being behind a failed plot on a Russian atomic facility.
Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, he said his country’s forces had apprehended Ukrainian ‘saboteurs’ planning to damage power lines at the facility, adding that they were instructed by British secret services.
He said: “Do [the British] understand what they are playing with, or not? Are they provoking our response at Ukrainian nuclear sites, nuclear stations, or what? Does the British leadership, or the Prime Minister [of the United Kingdom. Rishi Sunak] know what their special services are engaged with in Ukraine?”
May 2023
The UK was threatened with a “military response” by Russia after pledging to send long-range missiles to Ukraine.
Following the announcement by defence secretary Ben Wallace that Storm Shadow missiles would be provided to Ukraine’s military, Moscow said the move would require an “adequate response from our military”.
Boris Johnson said Putin threatened him in a phone call weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Getty)
January 2023
Boris Johnson said Putin threatened him with a missile strike in an “extraordinary” phone call in February 2022, just weeks before the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying the Russian president told him it “would only take a minute”.
Johnson told the BBC that he warned Putin that invading Ukraine would lead to Western sanctions and more Nato troops on Russia’s borders, and also tried to deter him by saying Ukraine would not join Nato “for the foreseeable future”.
The former PM said: “He threatened me at one point, and he said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute’ or something like that. Jolly. But I think from the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate.”
The Kremlin denied the comments, calling them either a “deliberate falsehood” or a misunderstanding by Johnson.
Medvedev again threatens nuclear war amid more deaths in Ukraine
DPA – February 18, 2024
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, speaks at a council meeting in Moscow. -/Kremlin/dpa
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has once again threatened the West with an all-out nuclear war if Russia is pushed back to its internationally recognized 1991 borders after the war in Ukraine.
In a Telegram post on Sunday, the current deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council reiterated his well-known position that “nuclear powers never lose a war” as long as they defend their homeland.
In a short thought experiment, he discussed the case of Ukraine’s success in this war. In his opinion, the return of Ukraine to its old borders would contradict the Russian constitution, especially as the conquered territories in eastern Ukraine and Crimea had already been annexed as integral parts of Russia.
The 1991 borders are the common, internationally recognized border lines of Russia and Ukraine before the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Moscow in 2014 and before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“And now to the main question: Do these idiots [in the West] really believe that the Russian people would accept such a disintegration of their country?” wrote Medvedev.
On the contrary, the Russian armed forces would deploy their entire arsenal and attack Washington, Berlin or London in addition to Kiev.
He said that these and other “beautiful historical places were entered long ago as targets of [Russia’s] nuclear triad,” referring to the configuration of land-based intercontinental missiles, submarine-launched missiles and strategic bombers with nuclear bombs.
During his time in office as president from 2008 to 2012, Medvedev was regarded as a liberal, moderate politician. Since the start of the Russian war against Ukraine almost two years ago, he has turned into an extremist and is now one of the West’s harshest critics.
There are no concrete indications that Russia’s leadership is actually planning to use nuclear weapons.
Despite several setbacks during the war ordered by President Vladimir Putin, Russia continues to occupy around a fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, and currently sees itself on the path to victory.
Putin on Sunday also commented on the war, Russia considers the situation in Ukraine to be “vital.”
For the West, on the other hand, it is just a question of tactics, Putin said on Sunday in an interview on state television, quoted by the state-run news agency TASS.
While the West was taking tactical positions on Ukraine, for his country it was “a matter of fate, a matter of life or death.” If the West had not intervened, “the war would have ended a year and a half ago.”
“We switched from initially peaceful measures to military instruments and tried to end this conflict peacefully,” Putin claimed. Further, Russia is still prepared to negotiate a peaceful solution.
Moscow’s and Kiev’s positions on a possible peace solution are far apart. While Kiev insists on the return of all occupied territories, including the Crimean peninsula, Russia wants to keep the conquered territories that it has already integrated into its national territory.
On the ground in Ukraine, at least three people have been killed in Russian drone and missile attacks in eastern Ukraine, local leaders said on Sunday.
Two bodies have been recovered so far from the rubble of a residential building in the city of Kramatorsk that was struck by a missile overnight, said Vadym Filashkin, the military governor of the Donetsk region, on Telegram.
The rescue operation is continuing and further victims are suspected to be under the debris, he said.
Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the military administration in the neighbouring Kharkiv region, reported one dead and five injured in an attack on a two-storey residential building in the front-line city of Kupiansk.
Russia attacked its neighbour overnight with six S-300 anti-aircraft missiles that were converted to strike land targets, three Ch-22 cruise missiles and a Ch-59 air-to-surface missile, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
The Russian military launched 14 Shahed combat drones, 12 of which were destroyed before reaching their target. The air-to-surface missile was also intercepted and a Russian fighter jet was shot down, the air force said.
British intelligence officials believe that Russia could have replaced the head of its Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Viktor Sokolov, likely because of “Ukraine’s success in sinking various ships under his command.”
In its daily intelligence update on the war published by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London on Sunday, said various “Russian pro-war commentators” had reported on Sokolov’s removal from his post, which has so far not been confirmed by the Russian Defence Ministry.
One such report had been published on the Rybar Telegram channel, considered to be close to the ministry in Moscow.
According to the MoD update on X, “Sokolov has likely been replaced by his now former deputy, Vice Admiral Sergei Pinchuk as acting commander until an internal investigation of the 15 February 2024 sinking of the Ropucha-class Caesar Kunikov landing ship is concluded.”
The MoD in London has been publishing daily intelligence reports on the war since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow accuses London of spreading misinformation.
Russia’s Medvedev threatens to nuke US, UK, Germany, Ukraine if Russia loses occupied territories
Alexander Khrebet – February 18, 2024
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, on Feb. 18 threatened to use nuclear weapons against the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and Ukraine if Moscow loses all occupied Ukrainian territories.
Medvedev, who is also a former president of Russia, has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons but the threats have so far failed to materialize. His critics say that his statements are bluff rather than Russia’s genuine plans and are intended to scare the West into making concessions.
Medvedev had previously portrayed himself as a liberal but has become one of Russia’s most aggressive pro-war hawks since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. He has increasingly played the role formerly filled by the late politician Vladmir Zhirinovsky, famous for his flamboyant and aggressive buffoonery.
“Attempts to restore Russia’s 1991 borders will lead only to one thing – a global war with Western countries with the use of our entire strategic (nuclear) arsenal against Kyiv, Berlin, London, and Washington. And against all other beautiful historic places that have long been included in the flight targets of our nuclear triad,” Medvedev said in a reference to the triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers with nuclear weapons.
In the fall of 2022, Russia annexed Ukraine’s four oblasts – Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson – after sham referendums in the occupied parts of these regions took place.
In his latest post, Medvedev said that a potential defeat of Russia in the war against Ukraine and the “disintegration of the country” may trigger a nuclear war.
Medvedev, a close ally of Putin, has regularly regularly threatened Ukraine and NATO with a nuclear attack. However, he has been ridiculed since his numerous nuclear threats have failed to result in any actions.
In May 2022, he said that by sending weapons and training Ukrainian soldiers, NATO “increases the likelihood of a direct and open conflict between NATO and Russia.”
Since then, thousands of Ukrainian troops have been trained in the NATO countries, and the allies have delivered different types of weapons, including long-range missiles, main battle tanks, and artillery systems.
Medvedev threatens Berlin, London and Washington with nuclear retaliation if Russia is to return to 1991 borders
Ukrainska Pravda – February 18, 2024
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation’s Security Council. Photo: TASS
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation’s Security Council, has threatened the United States and Europe with nuclear war if Russia is returned to its recognized borders from 1991.
Details: Medvedev wondered what would happen if Russia lost the war against “neo-Nazis along with their Western sponsors” and returned to its 1991 borders.
He speaks to this outcome as “the irreversible collapse of present-day Russia, which under the Constitution includes new territories”. Medvedev believes that after that, a “civil war with tens of millions of victims” and “the death of the future of Russia” will begin.
Quote: “And now for the main question: do these idiots truly believe that the Russian people will simply swallow such a consequential partitioning of their country? That we will all think:
‘Unfortunately, it happened. They won. Russia as we know it today no longer exists. It is unfortunate, of course, but we must continue to live in a country that is collapsing and dying, because a nuclear war is far worse for us than the death of our loved ones, children, Russia…’?
And that the state’s leadership, led by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, would be hesitant to make difficult decisions in this case?
Hear me out. It will be totally different. The collapse of Russia will have far worse consequences than the outcome of a conventional, even long-term war. Because attempting to return Russia to its 1991 borders will only lead to one outcome. To a global war with Western countries, utilising our entire strategic arsenal. In Kyiv, Berlin, London, and Washington. For all other beautiful historical sites, which have long been included in our nuclear triad’s attack goals.
Will we have enough guts for this if a thousand-year-old country, our great homeland, is on the verge of extinction, and the sacrifices made by the Russian people over the centuries are in vain?
Tucker Carlson’s Lesson in the Perils of Giving Airtime to an Autocrat
Jim Rutenberg and Michael M. Grynbaum – February 17, 2024
In this photo released by Sputnik news agency on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, gestures as he speaks during an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Tucker Carlson left Moscow more than a week ago, riding high from an interview with President Vladimir Putin of Russia that returned him to the spotlight after his abrupt cancellation by Fox News last spring.
But the interview with the wartime autocrat, mocked in various corners of the political media world for its soft touch, continues to have a long and tortured afterlife — becoming a trending topic all over again Friday after Putin’s most vocal domestic opponent, Alexei Navalny, turned up dead in a Russian prison.
“This is what Putin’s Russia is, @TuckerCarlson,” Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, wrote on X after the news of Navalny’s death broke Friday. “And you are Putin’s useful idiot.”
Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden’s granddaughter, also weighed in, pointing to a video that Carlson had recently posted in which he contrasted the supposed splendors of Russia under Putin’s leadership with the “filth and crime” of the United States. “Has anything aged so poorly, so quickly before?” Naomi Biden wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In a statement to The New York Times on Friday, Carlson said: “It’s horrifying what happened to Navalny. The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it.”
The comment represented a notable change in tone from earlier this week, when he appeared to offer a blase opinion regarding Russia’s treatment of Navalny, who was first imprisoned three years ago on charges of corruption and “extremism” that the United States called baseless.
Asked at a conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Monday why he had not questioned Putin about Russia’s free speech crackdown, Navalny’s jailing or suspected political assassinations, Carlson said those were “the things that every other American media outlet talks about.” (Carlson was, in fact, the first Western media figure to interview Putin in more than two years.)
But, Carlson said then, “leadership requires killing people — sorry, that’s why I wouldn’t want to be a leader” — comments that came under still more criticism after Navalny’s death.
Carlson said in a statement Friday that his remarks about leadership “had zero” to do with Navalny. “I wasn’t referring to him, which is obvious in context. I’m totally opposed to killing.”
Although Carlson did press Putin during the interview on Russia’s detention of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, he sat silent for long stretches as Putin conducted a history lecture that provided a one-sided and often false narrative about Ukraine.
Carlson’s fans and supporters on X portrayed criticism of his interview as sour grapes from mainstream journalists who did not get to interview Putin themselves.
But on Wednesday, a new pundit joined the chorus of those who said Carlson had gone too easily on Putin — Putin himself.
Speaking with a state television host, Putin said he was disappointed that Carlson had not asked “so-called sharp questions” because he wanted the opportunity to “respond sharply” in his own answers.
“He turned out to be patient and listened to my lengthy dialogues, especially those related to history, and didn’t give me reason to do what I was ready for,” Putin said. “So, frankly, I didn’t get complete satisfaction from this interview.”
Justin Wells, one of Carlson’s top producers, responded Friday that viewers should “judge for themselves.”
Putin’s mockery of Carlson came as the former Fox host was basking in the aftermath of his interview by offering a steady stream of praise for Russia and Putin, whose leadership he has extolled as superior to Biden’s.
On Wednesday, Carlson posted a short video recorded at a Russian grocery store, saying its selection and prices offered an example of Russia’s superiority over the United States, which he described as rife with “filth and crime and inflation.”
“Coming to a Russian grocery store, the heart of evil, and seeing what things cost and how people live, it will radicalize you against our leaders,” he said in the video. “That’s how I feel, anyway — radicalized.”
The video drew a bipartisan rebuke: from Naomi Biden and, before her, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
As a polemicist who has long dabbled in pro-Russia narratives and now relies on subscriptions from those drawn to just such content, Carlson operates in a sphere where the criticism he has received this week could be a catalyst for still more support.
“He’s just measured by an entirely different yardstick,” said Nicole Hemmer, an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University who studies conservative media. “Tucker under attack is great for Tucker.”
The last images of Alexei Navalny alive show him behind bars. He is a bit gaunt. His hair is shorter,missing its old sheen. Yet his eyes are the same as ever: They light up. In the video shot on Thursday, he jokes with a judge and a policeman. I’m running out of money, he says, a well-compensated judge should lend me some. His captors laugh. For a prisoner stuck in a camp above the Arctic Circle, he looks good — a strong man in whom you see the faintest of glimmers of optimism about his own and Russia’s future.
The other image that I dwelled on Friday shows Navalny and Boris Nemtsov. These two were the most prominent leaders of an inspired protest movement in the spring of 2012 that imagined a different kind of future for Russia. Borya is whispering impishly in Navalny’s ear, making him laugh. Both are handsome, tall, vigorous. The kind of men who turn heads.
Nemtsov was gunned down in February of 2015, at the foot of the Kremlin, a year into Vladimir Putin’s initial military assault on Ukraine. He was a youthful 55. Navalny died — no, let’s be honest here, was killed — on Friday, barely a week shy of the two-year anniversary of Putin’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. He was 47.
They say authoritarians who survive have a talent for identifying and eliminating the greatest threats to themselves. To paraphrase Kremlin chump Tucker Carlson, Putin is a very talented man. He chose his prey well. In his time, Nemtsov was seen as a credible alternative — a reforming governor from Nizhny Novgorod who came to Moscow under the previous Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin. The taint of the chaos of the 1990s stuck to him; he was associated with the pain of the changes that had to be made and others that were avoided by Yeltsin, and that hindered him in the early 2000s. But Borya had different talents — a feel for people and retail politics and convictions — that Putin lacks.
By 2012, Navalny emerged as the most captivating face of the Russian opposition. He had dabbled in nationalist politics. Then he figured out he could use the Internet for well-documented crusades against corruption that made his name. He coined the phrase “crooks and thieves” to describe Putin and his coterie, and it stuck. It did feel like an opening, if ever so slight, existed in 2012. The regime was disliked, was wobbling. Nemtsov and Navalny had the middle classes of Moscow and St. Petersburg on their side. The political threat from them was direct. Especially for the last decade from Navalny. He knew how to use the media, he showed how to stand up to the regime with courage, and he was willing to make the sacrifices to one day try to lead Russia on another path.
Yet these men challenged Putin in other ways he must have keenly felt. There was the youthfulness and energy. Nemtsov was born seven years after Putin but acted and looked as if he came from another generation; Navalny was the next generation. They had a sense of humor and color to their faces. They were optimistic. They didn’t seem cynical. They had nice hair, too, atop imposing frames. Did that hurt the balding Putin’s ego — so sensitive that, as the joke that happened to be a fact went, he found the one man in Dmitry Medvedev who’s shorter than himself to stand in as president in 2008-12 when Putin was term-limited out of that office.
I note Nemtsov and Navalny’s evident masculinity since that trait is so important to Putin and his admirers abroad. No one besides his dog, the saying goes, knows what Putin really thinks. But you can imagine these men must have stirred more than Machiavellian insecurities in Putin. No pictures of the bare-chested Vlad on horseback comes close to the magnetism of the image I was looking at Friday.
Equally stark is the generational contrast. Putin and his people are old and look it. Dull and gray, they fit right in a group picture of the Soviet politburo circa 1982. You can note the same dynamic in play with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the 46-year-old president of Ukraine. He and his people, almost all in their forties or younger, came of age after the USSR collapsed. They look ahead. The boomer Putin mourns its passing.
I last saw Nemtsov in June of 2013 in Washington. Sitting on a panel next to me, he kept whispering in my ear. A quick joke. Once a compliment. He was warm, playful. His people were and remain immensely loyal to him. Including the writer and activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has survived two poisoning attempts and currently sits in a Russian penal colony, another of Putin’s political prisoners.
I got to know Navalny better in March of 2012. Protesters were in the streets. The coming presidential election was a sham. He promised defiance. “The Kremlin should understand these tens of thousands of people will never leave the streets,” he told me. “We will never consider Putin as a president with legitimacy.” More than the words, Navalny left a physical impression on you. He had presence and a relaxed kind of intensity. Then 35, he usuallywore jeans and an open shirt.
On election night, I went to an event thrown by the opposition and remember standing with Navalny and Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster and opposition leader. Navalny’s confidence from a few days before had dimmed. He and Kasparov saw the staged election was a victory for Putin; the regime would counter-strike with force. They were right. Kasparov left Russia for good the next year. Navalny was charged with bogus embezzlement charges in July, the first of many that kept him in and out of prison over the next 12 years — except for the long spell in a hospital following a nearly fatal poisoning attempt courtesy of the Russian secret services.
In another country, Borya and Alyosha — the diminutives by which they were known to many — might have had their happy endings. They were the dashing princes, Putin the toad. But this story takes place in the land of the Tsars. Here the Tsar murders at will. His people are numbed to it — some bravely laid flowers Friday night at an impromptu memorial in Moscow, but we know too how this will end. Alyosha will be a memory, as is Borya. How will it end for Putin? The recent leader he resembles most, Stalin, died angry, ashen-faced and ailing, but in his own bed. It took over thirty years for any glimmers of optimism to emerge in Russia, in the 1980s with Gorbachev’s glasnost, openness, and the experiment with democracy in the 1990s, to be snuffed out with Putin’s ascendance in 2000. That’s not a happy thought. There aren’t any about Russia these days.
Navalny’s Team Demands His Body Be Returned to His Family
Kate Briquelet – February 17, 2024
GONZALO FUENTES
The body of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny—who his spokesperson claims was “murdered” Friday at the Arctic penal colony where he spent his final months—won’t be released to his family until officials complete an investigation.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, endured the bone-chilling cold Saturday to visit the prison where he collapsed and died, Reuters reported. Authorities told her the 47-year-old Kremlin critic’s cause of death was “sudden death syndrome.”
“It’s obvious that the killers want to cover their tracks and are therefore not handing over Alexei’s body,” Navalny’s team said in a Telegram post, “hiding it even from his mother.”
Following the news of Navalny’s death, Russian police arrested at least 340 people at protests and memorials in 30 cities on Saturday, according to rights group OVD-Info.
President Joe Biden and other world leaders swiftly blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the death of Navalny, who was his most prominent foe. “The answer is, we don’t know exactly what happened,” Biden said on Friday, “but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
Navalny’s demise comes a month before Russia’s presidential election, which will keep Putin in office for another six-year term.
Alexey’s lawyer and his mother have arrived at the Salekhard morgue. It’s closed, however, the colony has assured them it’s working and Navalny’s body is there. The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Alexey’s body is not in the morgue.
On Saturday, Navalny’s spokesperson shared updates on Russian officials’ purported probe.
“Another of Navalny’s lawyers,” Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter/X, “who went to Salekhard’s Investigative Committee, was told that ‘the cause of Alexey’s death has not yet been established, a new histological examination has been carried out.’ The results will supposedly be available next week. It’s obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body.”
“Now the Investigation Committee says directly that Alexey’s body will not be handed over to his relatives until the investigation is complete,” she added.
“Only an hour ago, the lawyers were informed that the investigation had been concluded and that something criminal had not been established. They literally lie every time, driving us around in circles and covering their tracks.”
According to the Moscow Times, the country’s federal penitentiary service said Navalny had “felt bad after a walk,” lost consciousness, and died.
But one of Navalny’s lawyers, Leonid Solovyov, said the anti-corruption activist appeared “normal” when another attorney saw him on Wednesday. The next day, Navalny was pictured smiling and cracking jokes during a virtual court appearance from the prison colony.
Navalny became a household name and Putin’s most outspoken critic through publishing exposés on corruption and leading massive anti-Kremlin protests.
In August 2020, he survived a poisoning with a deadly nerve agent, falling ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow and soon being transported to Germany for treatment. Beforehand, he’d reportedly been followed by two doctors and six agents with the Russian Security Service.
Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021 and was immediately arrested. He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years behind bars for an alleged probation violation.
The following year, Navalny received another nine-year term for embezzlement and contempt of court; his supporters decried these charges as fabricated. He was sentenced to another 19 years in prison in 2023 after a court convicted him of extremism.
On Friday, the dissident’s wife Yulia Navalnaya told a crowd at a conference in Germany she didn’t know whether to believe her husband had died.
“But if it is true, I want Putin, those around him, Putin’s friends, and his government to know they will be held responsible for what they have done to our country, my family, and my husband—and that day will come very soon,” she said.
Last year, a documentary about Navalny’s poisoning and imprisonment won an Academy Award, and his wife and children attended the Oscars to accept it.
“My husband is in prison just for telling the truth, my husband is in prison just for defending democracy. Alexei, I am dreaming about the day you will be free, and our country will be free,” his wife said on stage. “Stay strong, my love.”
