The Full Belmonte, 4/13/2024
What to Watch
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
PHOTO: IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER’S OFFICE/ZUMA PRESS
The U.S. rushed warships into position to protect Israeli and American forces in the region, hoping to head off a direct attack from Iran on Israel.
“The U.S’s moves, part of an effort to avoid a wider conflict in the Middle East, came after a warning from a person familiar with the matter about the timing and location of the potential Iranian attack, which could come as soon as Friday or Saturday. A person briefed by the Iranian leadership, however, said that while plans to attack are being discussed, no final decision has been made. Iran has threatened to retaliate for last week’s attack in Syria that it said was an Israeli airstrike on a diplomatic building. Several top Iranian military officials, including a senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, were killed.” [Wall Street Journal]
The House passed a controversial spying bill as Speaker Mike Johnson overcame GOP objections including Donald Trump’s public attack on the proposal.
“The 273-147 vote to extend the foreign surveillance program pitted conservatives and progressives who wanted more privacy protections against congressional leadership and the White House, which warned of the risk to American lives. The bill, which will expire next week unless renewed, heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass, and then to President Biden’s desk for his signature. Trump on Wednesday advocated killing the measure; a procedural vote later that day failed 193-228. Johnson is heading to Florida for a previously scheduled meeting with the former president that the speaker’s team suggested they turn into a public show of party unity, according to a person close to Johnson.” [Wall Street Journal]
“Multiple serious injuries” after tractor-trailer crashes into Texas DPS office
“Multiple people are injured and a suspect is in custody, after a tractor-trailer crashed into a Department of Public Safety office in southeast Texas today, authorities said.
‘A commercial motor vehicle ran into the Brenham DPS Office, and there are reports of multiple serious injuries,’ the DPS posted on social media.
‘We can confirm that the Texas Rangers are investigating this incident. A suspect has been arrested and there is no further threat to the community,’ the agency added.
Montgomery County, Texas Judge Mark Keough wrote on Facebook the crash was a ‘mass casualty incident,’ and said it was an ‘intentional’ act by a suspect who was denied a commercial driver’s license yesterday and returned ‘with intent to harm.’” [NBC News]
Speaker Johnson meeting with Trump amid threats to his job
“Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has traveled to Florida this afternoon to appear side-by-side with presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, amid threats to his job from the far-right members of the party.
The meeting at Mar-a-Lago will be the first time the two men have appeared in public together since Johnson became speaker in November.
For Johnson, it will be a chance to showcase his ties to Trump, at a moment when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conservative hardliner, is threatening to force a vote to oust him as speaker, after he worked with Democrats to avert a government shutdown.
Earlier in the day, the House voted to renew a key U.S. spy program, two days after a group of conservatives blocked a previous version on the bill, after Trump signaled his opposition to it.
Today's face-to-face comes just three days before the former president’s first criminal trial, in the New York hush money case, is set to begin.” [NBC News]
Police officer, teen suspect killed in shootout in Memphis
“A Memphis police officer and a teenager were killed in a shootout early this morning, officials said.
According to investigators, the officers were responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle, when the occupants shot at them, and the officers returned fire.
In the exchange, Officer Joseph McKinney was fatally struck and two other officers were injured. An 18-year-old suspect was also killed, and a 17-year-old suspect was critically wounded, police said.
Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said the 18-year-old suspect who died had been arrested last month in a stolen vehicle with a semi-automatic weapon illegally modified into a fully automatic machine gun.” [NBC News]
V.P. Harris traveling to Arizona to attack Trump on abortion
“Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting Arizona this afternoon, where she’ll make the case that former President Trump is directly responsible for the state supreme court ruling this week that upheld a 160-year-old law banning the procedure.
‘Here’s what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering, less freedom,’ she will say at a rally in Tucson, according to excerpts released by the Biden-Harris campaign. ‘But we are not going to let that happen.’
Harris will portray Trump as ‘the architect of this health care crisis’ and emphasize his previous comments about how women who seek abortions should be subject to ‘some form of punishment,’ according to the excerpts.
Trump, who has proudly taken credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, has tried to thread the needle on his abortion position this week.
On Monday, he said the issue should be left up to the states, but after the Arizona decision, he said the state had gone too far.” [NBC News]
Kremlin Propaganda Campaign
A giant poster announces the upcoming European elections on the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France, on April 10. Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images
“Belgium launched an investigation late Thursday into alleged Russian interference in the European Parliament’s upcoming continentwide elections, slated for June 6 through 9. On Friday, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Brussels’s intelligence service confirmed the existence of a pro-Russian network trying to influence Europe’s vote and undermine its backing for Kyiv. ‘Weakened European support for Ukraine serves Russia on the battlefield, and that is the real aim of what has been uncovered in the last weeks,’ De Croo said.
Among the allegations, Brussels accused Moscow of offering money to European Parliament members to promote Kremlin propaganda. Czech intelligence suggested that the Prague-based Voice of Europe news site had been funded by Russia to pay parliamentarians from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Poland to make pro-Russian statements.
A Politico investigation found that 16 European Union lawmakers appeared on Voice of Europe, all of them far-right politicians. ‘If it is a war of civilization, well, I hope the civilization in Ukraine will lose,’ Dutch far-right politician Marcel de Graaff said last October during a Voice of Europe-organized debate. Czech authorities sanctioned two of the agency’s executives last month, including Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, a longtime friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s.
‘The objectives of Moscow are very clear,’ De Croo said. ‘The objective is to help elect more pro-Russian candidates to the European Parliament and to reinforce a certain pro-Russian narrative in that institution.’ The Kremlin has not publicly commented on the allegations.
Russia has long been at the center of alleged interference campaigns across the West. Last month, Latvia’s security service began criminal proceedings against EU lawmaker Tatjana Zdanoka after Russian, Nordic, and Baltic news outlets accused her in January of being a Russian agent since at least 2004. And in the United States, Russian-backed operatives hacked and released Democratic emails as part of a Putin-ordered campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump. U.S. intelligence suggests that Putin also authorized influence operations in 2020 to undermine confidence in the U.S. voting system, exacerbate social divisions, and disparage then-candidate Joe Biden in favor of Trump.
‘This is a global phenomenon,’ said a U.S. intelligence assessment on Russian influence efforts that was released to more than 100 countries last October. Putin has since dismissed these findings.” [Foreign Policy]
“U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. The United States, Japan, and South Korea conducted the second day of trilateral naval drills in international waters on Friday. The exercises included anti-submarine warfare drills to improve readiness against North Korean missile and nuclear threats as well as search and rescue training and interdiction exercises to block Pyongyang’s illegal weapons transports.
The training happened alongside Biden’s first-ever joint meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday. The summit aimed to deepen ‘maritime and security ties’ against rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific, specifically Chinese attacks in the South China Sea. Beijing’s coast guard has repeatedly fired water cannons at Philippine vessels in recent weeks, as both nations claim sovereignty over parts of the region.
‘These minilateral meetings among three or four countries have really become a hallmark of the Biden administration’s strategy of developing a loose network of security relationships,’ Lisa Curtis, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told FP’s Robbie Gramer.” [Foreign Policy]
“The fall of Myawaddy. Hundreds of Burmese refugees fled to Thailand on Friday after Myanmar’s ruling junta lost a strategic border town to rebels from the Karen ethnic group. The country’s military, or Tatmadaw, used to oversee the eastern town of Myawaddy, which is home to around 200,000 people. But pro-democracy rebels and armed ethnic groups have long sought control. Now, residents are fleeing to Bangkok out of fear that the junta will bomb the town in retaliation.
Thai officials said they will accept as many as 100,000 Burmese refugees, with Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara urging the junta on Friday to scale back the violence. Bangkok, meanwhile, continues to work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to negotiate a peace plan for Myanmar’s ongoing conflict but said it will remain neutral.” [Foreign Policy]
“Iran’s threat to Israel. The U.S. Embassy in Israel issued a security alert on Thursday restricting government employees and their families from traveling outside Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beer Sheva for personal matters. Washington’s warning aims to protect U.S. citizens from an expected impending Iranian attack on Israel, which U.S. officials told CBS could happen as soon as Friday.
Israeli forces bombed an Iranian consular building in Syria last Monday, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the attack on the consulate was ‘like they attacked our territory’ and vowed to take revenge in what experts worry could be a direct strike from Iranian soil rather than from regional proxy groups. Israel said it would target Iran if Tehran did so—escalating the threat of a wider war.
Iran also reportedly sent a message to Washington via several Arab countries this week warning the United States not to get involved in the fight between Israel and Iran and threatening to attack U.S. troops in the Middle East if Washington does so. On Friday, a U.S. defense official told reporters that the Defense Department is ‘moving additional assets to the region to bolster regional deterrence efforts and increase force protection for U.S. forces.’” [Foreign Policy]
“Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter has surrendered to authorities after he was charged with stealing $16 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar to pay off his own illegal gambling debts.” [NBC News]
“Robin MacNeil, the former NBC News White House correspondent who was on the scene in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and went on to become the co-founder and longtime co-anchor of PBS’s “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” has died at 93.” [NBC News]