Consider This from NPR - Gaps In The Russian Bounties Story; Fauci Warns Of 100k Cases A Day

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci told members of Congress Tuesday that although he can't predict the ultimate number of coronavirus cases in the United States, he "would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around."The New York Times reported that Russian military intelligence offered money to the the Taliban in exchange for killing American troops in Afghanistan. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Aaron O'Connell, a Marine Corp veteran who served on the National Security Council, about Russia's possible motives. Coronavirus testing in the U.S. is up, but not up enough. Public health researchers say only a handful of states are testing at the level needed to suppress the virus.To see how your state is doing with testing, go to NPR's tracker.Find and support your local public radio station. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's not just about the problem areas anymore. With the U.S. seeing tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases each day, Dr. Anthony Fauci told a Senate committee today, We can't just focus on those areas that are having the surge. It puts the entire country at risk. We are now having 40 plus thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around. And so I am very concerned. Fauci said to fight back their outbreaks, a lot of smaller European countries shut down 90 to 95 percent of all activities. The U.S. shut down more like 50 percent. That, he says,

is partly why our numbers look so different. It's also still about how people here perceive rules like shutdowns and masks. We should not look at the public health endeavors as being an obstruction to opening up. We should look at it as a vehicle to opening up. Coming up, where we are with testing in America, and will the U.S. respond to reports of Russian bounties on American soldiers? This is Consider This from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It's Tuesday, June 30th. Last year in Afghanistan, 20 Americans were killed in combat. And at some point, we don't know exactly when, members of the U.S. intelligence community started to suspect that Russia had paid for some of them to be killed. Tonight, backlash from a bombshell report

accusing Russia of offering bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Since this story broke last week, we are learning more and more every day. Mary Louise Kelly is going to take it from here. So, the New York Times broke the story. Other news organizations then confirmed it. The headline, that Russia had offered money to Taliban fighters if they killed Americans. We do not know exactly what proof the intelligence agencies have. Ellen Nakashima covers national security for The Washington Post.

She has reported that intelligence officials did have reason to believe money changed hands and that an unknown number of Americans were killed. What we do know is that some of this came from U.S. military interrogations of captured militants in Afghanistan in recent months. And this intelligence was discussed at a restricted high-level meeting in late March at the White House National Security Council. Reporting today from The New York Times suggests that U.S. intelligence officials have a paper trail showing a large transfer of money from a Russian-controlled bank account to one connected to the Taliban. Now, if you have been following any part of this story, you have seen this question posed over and over. What did the president know and when did he know

it? The report also states that the president was briefed on the disturbing allegations. News reports say the president was briefed, at least in written form. He initially tweeted that he wasn't. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany wouldn't say either way. The National Security Council and the intelligence community constantly evaluate intelligence reports, and they brief the president as necessary. By Tuesday morning, National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien had put out a statement saying the intel had not been verified or substantiated, thus the president had not been briefed. But take the president out of it for a moment. How did anyone in the chain of command react to this intelligence? We don't know,

which is striking. Think back to what we do know, according to U.S. intelligence, about Russia's actions over the last few years. There's the hacking of the 2016 election and ongoing interference in the 2020 contests. While the administration did take steps to sanction Russia for that, for his part, the president never seemed persuaded to take his own officials' word on the matter over that of Vladimir Putin. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be. Then there's the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter over in Britain, and Russia playing its hand in other parts of the world. I mean, we've known that Russia's been providing limited support to the Taliban for years,

but paying bounties to kill American soldiers is a dramatic escalation, one that I don't think any president should leave unanswered. Aaron O'Connell. He's a veteran of both President Obama's National Security Council and of the war in Afghanistan. He served there with the Marine Corps. I think there are just too many risks to leaving it unanswered, so it worries me greatly. Members of Congress in both parties say they're worried too, and they want to know more about what might have happened and how the U.S. is responding. Republican lawmakers got a briefing at the White House Monday. Many of them are angry that intelligence was leaked in the first place. More than a few, though, also want to see the U.S. respond to any aggression.

Hi, everybody. Good morning. Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney is one of them. She talked to reporters today. America's adversaries should know and they should have no doubt that any targeting of U.S. forces by Russians, by anyone else, will face a very swift and deadly response. Meanwhile, Democrats, including Congressman Adam Schiff, were briefed at the White House today. Just want to underscore a couple of points. First, afterwards, Schiff told reporters that without the heads of the intelligence agencies in the room, they didn't get what they needed. And I find it inexplicable in light of these very public allegations that the president hasn't come before the country and assured the American people that he will get to the bottom of whether Russians are putting a bounty on the heads of American troops

and that he will do everything in his power to make sure that we protect American troops. I do not understand for a moment why the president isn't saying this to the American people right now and is relying on, I don't know, I haven't heard, I haven't been briefed. That's just not excusable. So if the intelligence is right, and if Russia did pay the Taliban to target and kill Americans, why would Russia do that? Well, I asked Aaron O'Connell about that, the Marine Corps veteran who served on the National Security Council. O'Connell said, for starters, you have to understand Russia views almost every interaction with the United States as a zero-sum game. Anything that's good for the United States, in most cases, is bad for Russia. So they've been doing things all over

the world for years now to try to push back American influence, whether supporting the opposition in Libya or the invasion of Ukraine. In all of these situations, Russia wants the United States to stay out of its affairs. And it thinks that if the United States gets involved in its affairs, it will be a net loss in any way for Russia. So these things are connected. It's not specifically about policy in Afghanistan that would cause Russia to allegedly pay bounties to kill Americans, though they have interest there too. It's also to show the United States that if you oppose us, there will be consequences and costs. I should note that Russia denies this story, denies it paid any bounties. The Taliban also denies that it took any bounties, that it took any money to kill American troops.

How much weight should we give either of those denials? I give them no weight whatsoever. Of course, they're going to deny it. That's precisely how one does these sorts of things. But I think there's a lot of evidence that these reports are credible. Not only the fact that multiple news outlets, including your own, have confirmed that the military generated an initial report when they found money in Afghanistan, but then the CIA was asked to investigate and confirm it, and it did. Then there were meetings held at the White House, and the intelligence was even passed to our British allies. That doesn't happen based on an unsubstantiated allegation or a rumor.

Speaking of denials, President Trump says he was not briefed. The director of national intelligence has put out a statement saying they didn't brief him. The New York Times is reporting that the National Security Council met, the White House National Security Council met and discussed this in March. So let me put to you, as a veteran of many National Security Council briefings and strategy sessions, how plausible is it that the commander in chief would not have been briefed? Well, the word brief is the key one here. So the president may be claiming that nobody verbally told him about this specific intelligence. That may be true. I have no idea. But that's not the only way that the intelligence community shares information with the president.

They send a written brief every day called the Presidential's Daily Briefing. And I believe some news outlets have reported that this was in the PDB. They also send intelligence notes to the president and to the other White House staff. So him saying, I wasn't told doesn't mean the intelligence community didn't do its job of reporting the information to the White House. The next thing to ask you, if these reports are true, what should the U.S. response be? What should the U.S. do about it? Well, I think it's first important just to appreciate the stakes here. This isn't just bad for Afghanistan, but it sends a message. If our adversaries around the world see that Americans can be killed, American soldiers can be killed with no real response, they're likely to adopt similar tactics in their own confrontations with the United States. So it's not just dangerous vis-a-vis U.S. and Russia.

It's dangerous vis-a-vis U.S. and Iran and other countries. So the first thing is there must be an answer. There cannot be no answer, and there certainly can't be accommodating measures like inviting Russia back into the G7 or things like that. Sanctions are probably a good approach, as are other diplomatic measures to continue to isolate Russia. Those are the things that Russia and Putin care about the most. And we have a number of tools at our disposal. That was Aaron O'Connell talking to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. O'Connell was on President Obama's National Security Council. He's now at the University of Texas at Austin, and he's editor of the book Our Latest Longest War, Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan.

In the last couple months, daily coronavirus testing in the U.S. has doubled. States are now doing about a half a million tests a day. That is progress. But the virus is making progress too, especially in the South. The surges we're seeing in large parts of the country are due in part because those states opened up too quickly and they lacked testing infrastructure. These two things really go hand in hand. Ashish Jha from Harvard and a group of public health researchers have run the numbers and found that only four states, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana and Vermont, are doing enough testing to effectively suppress the virus.

That is, to bring new cases down to a low enough level to allow everyday life to return to something that feels like normal. Even if it's not 100 percent of what it looked like before the pandemic, that's what we want. Jha and other researchers say to do that, the U.S. needs to at least double testing capacity again. To find out if your state is doing enough testing, check out the link to a story from NPR's Rob Stein in our episode notes. You heard additional reporting in this episode from our colleagues at All Things Considered and Morning Edition.

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you want to hear in the show. Our email is considerthisatnpr.org. That's it for now. We'll be back with more tomorrow. I'm Kelly McEvers. Comedian Nicole Byer doesn't consider herself body positive. She just accepts herself as is.

I hate that there's a name for, like, not hating a part of who you are. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it's insane. Nicole Byer on her new book, Very Fat, Very Brave, and How to Love Yourself. Listen to It's Been a Minute from NPR.