What A Day - Stuck In The Meddle With GRU

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

In the final two weeks before November 3rd, Trump has been criticizing his own public health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci. Meanwhile, Biden and Harris have been defending scientists and their role in public policy.Federal prosecutors charged six men for some of the biggest, most notorious hacks in recent years, including the 2018 Winter Olympics hack and a 2017 hack on Ukraine. The hackers are all members of the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, which was also linked to election interference in the 2016 election. And in headlines: Carlos Mesa poised to win the Bolivian election, Trump will remove Sudan from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, and a 2,000 year old cat carving in Peru.Show Links:"The Untold Story of the 2018 Olympics Cyberattack, the Most Deceptive Hack in History" https://www.wired.com/story/untold-story-2018-olympics-destroyer-cyberattack/

It's Tuesday, October 20th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day. We're reminding our listeners that the election is like baseball's World Series, but for presidents. Right, but instead of two teams, there are two guys, and instead of being athletes, they're both men over 70. In both events, I'm compulsively eating Cracker Jacks the entire time. I'm just trying to get the wave started. No one's paying attention to me. On today's show, federal prosecutors announce charges against a group of Russian hackers. We look at what those charges mean, then some headlines. But first, the latest.

He's going to lock down. This guy wants to lock down. He'll listen to the scientists. If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression instead of, we're like a rocket ship. Take a look at the numbers. And that's despite the fact

that we have like five or six of these Democrats keeping their states closed because they're trying to hurt us on November 3rd. But the numbers are so good anyway, they'd be even better. Wow. Like just finding out that President Trump doesn't know that rockets explode sometimes. But that was him at a rally on Sunday night in Nevada talking about his opponent Joe Biden and trying to attack him by saying Biden would listen to scientists to dictate his response to the pandemic. I hope that doesn't happen, that we listen to scientists and maybe get to leave our damn houses. What is Biden thinking? But anyway, that's where we're going to start with the 2020 election. So

in the past 24 hours, Trump has continued to criticize the public health experts that are working with his own administration, which is an interesting closing campaign message with just two weeks to go until November 3rd. Yeah, I'm not a political advisor, but I can almost guarantee that none are telling him to do this. This all comes after an interview Dr. Anthony Fauci gave on 60 Minutes where he said that he needs security now due to threats that he's received, which is the very serious part of the story. But yesterday, Trump started off the day with a call to campaign staff that reporters listened in on. And on that call, he said, quote, people are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong. And he went on to say that people were tired of COVID, which is certainly true, but I think not in the way that he means.

Trump seemed to be implying that people don't want to have to abide by public health restrictions anymore, even as the United States has logged an alarming jump in cases in recent days. Not that we're tired of people in power making it so we have to keep taking it into our own hands. The amazing irony, too, is that according to some of the reporters that were on this call, it was organized as a way to sort of boost morale for the president and his staff who is trailing in the polls due in large part to his handling of the pandemic. So attacking Fauci and other public health officials does not seem to be a good way to fix that problem. And people in the president's own party realize that this is self-destructive behavior. When asked about Fauci yesterday, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said, quote, if more Americans paid

attention to his advice, we'd have fewer cases of COVID-19 and it would be safer to go back to school and back to work and out to eat. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has said that listening to scientists is a, quote, badge of honor. He is largely preparing for the upcoming debate on Thursday night while his running mate, Senator Harris, is back on the trail after a staffer tested positive for COVID-19. And then former President Barack Obama is set to campaign for Biden later this week as well. Yes, he will. Well, speaking of the debate, last week we ended up with two town halls because the Trump campaign didn't want to do a virtual debate, which was only offered because, again, he got COVID. So do we think the one this week is actually going to happen?

I can't say for sure. But what I can say for sure is we got more Trump complaints about it. Specifically, his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, wrote a letter asking the Commission on Presidential Debates to refocus this one on foreign policy instead of the six subjects that were announced by debate moderator Kristen Welker. Those included the pandemic, quote, race in America. To be clear, that is where the election is being held,

and climate change, among other issues. So in the past, the third presidential debate has often focused on foreign policy, but that was not what the campaigns agreed to this time. And honestly, what good are topics anyway if you are just going to shout over everyone? On that note, the debate commission is apparently going to mute the opponent's microphones during each candidate's initial two minutes, allotted to answer questions after Trump interrupted basically the entire time last debate.

Yeah. So what you're saying is Trump is definitely going to drop out because he's not, he's not one to have a civil conversation. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. I suppose. I mean, so far they're saying that Trump is going to participate.

But, you know, he has also recently called the moderator a, quote, radical left Democrat. So look, maybe this is all just a precursor to ingloriously backing out of the debate. But if you were a campaign looking to project confidence and focus in crunch time with millions of votes already cast, this is just not the kind of stuff that you do. Yeah. All right. So let's talk about voting. There are 11 states where in-person early voting

will begin this week, including Florida, which started yesterday, and Wisconsin, which is going to begin today. Both are critical swing states for the campaigns. And we've been tracking early turnout. So where does it stand nationwide now? Yeah, so overall, as of yesterday, the Elect Project, an invaluable resource

I'm going to keep citing here, estimated that over 29 million people have voted so far. And that's about 20% of the total turnout in 2016 already. And so there are a lot of tea leaves to read here that can give us a snapshot, but not necessarily tell us the whole story. For instance, one of the places that has seen monster turnout is Texas, where more than 4 million people have already voted, which is almost half of 2016's total. It's also one to watch because polls have been telling us that the presidential race is actually close there. One of the questions, though, with Texas and elsewhere is whether the pace of this turnout is going to continue through Election Day or whether these are votes that are just being cast earlier. Could end up being a bit of both.

And so far, we can see that Democrats are far outpacing Republicans at the moment. What can we take away from that? So the data firm TargetSmart via NPR said that they estimate Democrats have cast about 53% of their early votes so far compared to 36% by Republicans, obviously a very big gap. But this definitely doesn't tell us who is going to actually win the election, but it's more of a running tally as we get closer to it. For Democrats, though, it might mean that they have a better picture of who is left to target for the weeks ahead. They're banking votes. And for Republicans, it might mean that they need bigger turnout on actual election day. And so right now, Democrats are urging against complacency. And Republicans,

despite all of Trump's public facing lies about mail voting, are actually urging their voters to start getting those votes in. Yeah. And quickly, before we move on, let's explain a big update we got on voting in Pennsylvania. Yeah. So late yesterday, the Supreme Court determined that they actually would allow election officials in the key swing state to count mail-in ballots that they receive up to three days after Election Day. Republicans, of course, had pushed to disallow this, but the Supreme Court was tied on the issue with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberals, while the four more conservative justices said that they would have granted the stay. So obviously good news for the voters in Pennsylvania, but also a

reminder of the significance of Amy Coney Barrett potentially getting confirmed in the next week or so. Well, we'll be following all of that, of course, but on to a separate topic. Yes, on to computer hacking news, because that's going to be a thing for the rest of our lives. Federal prosecutors charged six men for some of the biggest, most notorious hacks in recent years, including the 2018 Winter Olympics hack, the 2017 French presidential election leaks, and the hacking of the Ukrainian power grid, also in 2017.

So, Akilah, how did it all shake out? Well, for them, pretty poorly. So, personally, I was aware of most of the hacks, but I was also like, how do you even hack the Olympics? And thankfully, Wired has a really great article about it. So just think downed Wi-Fi, credentials being revoked, tickets not scanning and other forms of chaos for an event that cost $12.9 billion in total. The feds believe the Olympic hack was revenge for Russia being banned for breaking doping rules. And newly unsealed British intelligence suggests Russia had similar plans for the Tokyo Olympics that were scheduled for this past summer. The hackers, according to the indictment, are all members of the Russian Military Intelligence

Agency, the GRU, and are from the same unit which was linked by U.S. authorities to election interference in the 2016 election. In fact, one of the suspected hackers was indicted two years ago by Robert Mueller's team for his role in 2016. But kind of surprisingly, these new charges don't involve that or any current U.S. election meddling. Drag cigarette, Robert Mueller. I have not heard that name in years. We should note that according to U.S. intelligence and companies like Microsoft, Russia is very much trying to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections. So any sense of why charges weren't brought for that? Yeah, so these charges only span 2015 to 2019, which yes, I'm aware 2016 falls in between those years.

So since we know they were involved in that election interference, it does seem odd. There could be a lot of reasons for this though. There could be a larger case being built currently. There could be avoidance of adding details about our elections that's close to our election since faith in our institutions are at an all-time low and belief in unsourced or unproven information

and allegations are at an all-time high. Or maybe unsourced or unproven information and allegations are at an all-time high. Or maybe Trump's Justice Department just doesn't want to deal with the issue. I guess we're going to have to find out. But the charges that were brought range from conspiracy to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. In another political landscape,

these sorts of revelations might result in sanctions, but considering the relationship between Trump and Putin, it seems unlikely. One thing that is clear from these charges, though, is that if anyone thought Russia was giving up on hacking after 2016, they clearly haven't. And these are massive hacks with massive consequences for democracy, but also that hack in Ukraine cost $10 billion by disrupting businesses in Europe. For example, the makers of Oreo cookies lost $100 million. Wow. Well, we'll be following this story because, yay,

what an exciting thing to care about in such a hard year. But also, that's the latest. It's Tuesday WOD Squad, and for today's Tim Check, we're discussing a redemption story out of England. Yesterday, Queen Elizabeth approved a royal pardon of convicted murderer Stephen Gallant for his role in stopping a terrorist attack that killed two people last November. Now, pay attention to the details here because they are very unusual. Gallant was on a day release from prison when the attack occurred. He was then part of a group that chased after the assailant and detained him on the London

Bridge. And as a weapon, he wielded a five foot tall narwhal husk that someone had removed from a wall at a place called Fishmonger's Hall. So giddy. We are glad this guy is going to be free and that his heroism has been rewarded. But my question is, if you're in a position to dole out vigilante justice and you're using some weird weapon to do it, what is that weird weapon? Nothing is weirder than a narwhal tusk, you know? I think that tops it. I guess I would say something like a cast iron is both relatively accessible and relatively

heavy. Yeah. And, you know, if you were thinking we get one shot here to Kiefer Sutherland 24 somebody, I think that's got to be it. You know, that's like you get a big enough swing on that bad boy and that could do some damage. So that's my final answer for now. I dig it. I mean, you know, close range combat

is what you're expecting. This guy had a five foot narwhal horn, to be clear. So you're hoping this person gets closer to you so you can whack them pretty good. Yes. Or, you know, maybe there's something where the group of vigilantes that I'm with in this situation, like one person's doing some distracting and then I, you know, come in with the haymaker with the cast iron. Yeah.

Or maybe he's like underneath you, like in a Looney Tunes cartoon, instead of dropping a piano, you drop a cast iron skillet on his head, you know? Yes. Yes. This is all part of the plan. I can't get over that somebody had something that was five feet in their hands. Yeah. This is a spear. Absolutely absurd. Okay. But same question for you, Akilah. What are you using here? All right. So I was looking around my house for ideas and I think roller skates. Here's why. They are surprisingly heavy, but you distract them by rolling one. So maybe they trip and then you just like throw one at their head. The wheels really will like knock them out. Those things are, are big. And then you can grab them, put them on really quick and skate away faster than you can run. It's like all of the uses you could possibly want. This is really good. do we know how aerodynamic they are

like if we're given if we're if we're throwing it are we throwing like knuckleball curveball like is it is it gonna spin weird or like what do you here's the thing i mean worst case it'll just kind of hit you with the like the laces more than anything else like if you got bad aim but even that a lace to the eye is like enough for you to like grab your eye you know i mimed grabbing my eye for for those who can't see this podcast it was very effective in telling the story listen if we're in a vigilante situation together you know perhaps there could be a combination of distraction with a skate and a cast iron and another skate just saying just throwing it out there i love this vigilantes on roller skates well just like that we have checked our temps. Stay safe. Find a close by weapon to defend yourself. And we'll be back after some ads.

Let's wrap up with some headlines headlines so a quick update to our story yesterday on the presidential election in bolivia luis arce the candidate for former president evo morales's left-wing party will take home the win with exit polls showing a lead of more than 20 points over his centrist rival Carlos Mesa, Arce is poised to win in a landslide. Mesa conceded the election yesterday. And experts say that victory signals a shift away from the conservative policies of the U.S.-backed interim government that took over after Morales resigned last year. Morales remains exiled in Argentina, but he claimed this was a resounding victory for the socialist party in the country. As the newly elected president of Bolivia, Arce will work to unify a deeply divided country which saw its economy get hit hard by coronavirus.

Trump announced yesterday that Sudan will be removed from a list of state sponsors of terrorism after the country finalizes a payment of $335 million. That money will go to victims of al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in 1998. Under the direction of then-leader Omar al-Bashir, Sudan had assisted the attackers and sheltered Osama bin Laden. As a country on the terrorism list, Sudan could not get U.S. or international aid. The Trump administration now plans to use this decision as leverage to normalize relations between Sudan and Israel. If Sudanese officials agree to recognize Israel, Sudan would be the latest Arab nation to normalize relations with Israel under Trump. Many say this is all another attempt by the Trump administration to score some foreign policy points before the election. Move over March 2020's Jared Leto, there's a new guy who is completely oblivious to the pandemic.

That guy is China's economy, which despite coronavirus surged nearly 5% in the third quarter. That means China, which was the first country affected by COVID, is the first country to report significant growth in 2020 over where it was last year. And China's growth was made possible by their low case numbers, which they've achieved through extreme measures like comprehensive cell phone tracking of residents. We're more protective of our privacy here in the U.S. unless you count apps called GemSort, Brain Games, and RiddleHub, which I provide with access to my text contacts and location at all times. While consumer spending was down, China's government kept the economy afloat by investing heavily in infrastructure.

Their recovery has also been highly dependent on exports, which are vulnerable to tensions between China and governments like our own. In the past, our leaders have pledged to stop importing from China the very second they find a better place to sew Ivanka Trump brand dresses. Yeah, there's got to be somewhere. Well, before internet cat videos, there were real life cat mountains. Those were the good days. Well, a 40 yard wide cat drawing was found carved into a hillside in Peru. And with a date of origin between 200 BC and 100 BC, it's thought to be the oldest of the many prehistoric geoglyphs near the town of Nazca. Members of pre-Hispanic societies made these so-called Nazca lines by removing the uppermost dark layers of rock to reveal lighter rock underneath, and it's believed that they served

as travel markers. I still give directions like, turn right at the cat, hang a left at the happy cow. They just don't make any sense at all. Brew allowed research and conservation work to continue through the pandemic, which is how the carving came to be discovered. More research will be needed to determine whether this particular cat hates Mondays, loves lasagna, or wants to fight Nermal. John R. Buckle is shook. And those are the headlines.

Quick announcement before we go. There are less than 14 days left to vote, but you don't have to wait until then to get your vote in. There are plenty of options to vote early and safely. That is right. And visit votesaveamerica.com slash plan to make your plan, find your voting location, and vote as soon as you can. And tell all your family and friends to do the same. And your enemies. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, draw a large prehistoric cat, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just full user agreements for Jim sort riddle hub like me,

What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And Garfield loves Nermal. Just because he threatened to mail her away to Timbuktu all the time doesn't mean that's not love. That's a vacation.

Right. He's just planning ahead. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein And our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes, and me Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka