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National

I can't overstate the level of anxiety among sources close to Trump after the president told the NYT's Maggie Haberman last week he was willing and eager to submit himself to a live interview under oath with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

What I'm hearing: One source, who knows Trump as well as anyone, told me he believes the president would be incapable of avoiding perjuring himself. "Trump doesn't deal in reality," the source said. "He creates his own reality and he actually believes it." (The president's attorney, Ty Cobb, did not respond to a request for comment.)

A number of people in the president's orbit have read this article by Bloomberg's Timothy O'Brien: "I've Watched Trump Testify Under Oath. It Isn't Pretty."

"Speaking from experience, I think the president's attorneys should grab their worry beads. Trump sued me for libel in 2006 for a biography I wrote, "TrumpNation,' alleging that the book misrepresented his business record and understated his wealth. Trump lost the suit in 2011, but during the litigation my lawyers deposed him under oath for two days in 2007.

"Trump ultimately had to admit 30 times that he had lied over the years about all sorts of stuff: how much of a big Manhattan real estate project he owned; the price of one of his golf club memberships; the size of the Trump Organization; his wealth; his speaking fees; how many condos he had sold; his debts, and whether he borrowed money from his family to avoid going personally bankrupt.

"He also lied during the deposition about his business dealings with career criminals."

Be smart: Trump's lawyers are already signaling they are deeply uncomfortable about the prospect of a live, freewheeling session between Trump and Mueller. Shortly after Trump made his brash declaration, Trump's attorney John Dowd told CNN: "I will make the decision on whether the President talks to the special counsel... I have not made any decision yet."

Worthy of your time: The Washington Post has a juicy story on how Trump — who is obsessed with personal loyalty — remains perilously at odds with his own Justice Department.

White House perjury panic

Trump's lawyers are already signaling they are deeply uncomfortable about Trump talking to Mueller

Politics

Robert Mueller

Finish Line

Axios Finish Line

President Trump told Piers Morgan in an interview which aired Sunday that he's willing to apologize for retweeting anti-Muslim hate videos from Britain First — a far-right ultranationalist political group. 

“If you are telling me they’re horrible people, horrible, racist people, I would certainly apologize if you’d like me to do that," Trump said.

"I wouldn't say I'm a feminist," the president said. "I think that would be, maybe, going too far. I’m for women, I'm for men, I’m for everyone.”

On elephant hunting: Trump called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services decision to reverse an Obama-era ban on bringing elephant hunting trophies back to the U.S. a "terrible" one.

"The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they're setting records," Trump said. 

Reality check: "Ice on the ocean and on land are both disappearing rapidly, Jennifer Francis, a Rutgers University climate scientist, told the AP.

On tweeting: Trump sends tweets "[p]erhaps sometimes in bed, perhaps sometimes at breakfast or lunch ... I don't call it tweeting, I call it social media."

Trump's interview with Piers Morgan

Morgan interviewed Trump on the heels of his trip to Davos. Screengrab via Good Morning Britain on YouTube.

Donald Trump

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Israel supported and co-sponsored a UN general assembly resolution, initiated by Rwanda, that rewrites the historical narrative regarding the 1994 genocide. 

Why it matters: This is against the U.S. government's position. Israel was the only Western country to co-sponsor this resolution.

What they're saying: "One of the reasons for co-sponsoring the resolution was the deportation deal with Rwanda," a senior Israeli official told me. "One line connects the Kagame government revisionism about the Genocide and the new revisionist law in Poland about the Holocaust. It is sad we are cooperating with Kagame on this"

Thousands of African asylum seekers are being deported from Israel to Rwanda. The deportation is set to begin in a few weeks.

Western diplomats told me the U.S., Canada and E.U. objected to the Rwandan draft resolution. They added that U.S. diplomats in New York even asked their Israeli counterparts to press their Rwandan allies to back off from the resolution. 

The U.S. was amazed to find out that Israel refused to do so, per the same diplomats. Not only that — Israeli diplomats told their American counterparts that Israel has decided to co-sponsor the resolution.

The backdrop: Rwanda tabled the draft UNGA resolution two months ago in order to amend a previous resolution from 2003 which set April 7 of every year as the international remembrance day for the 1994 Rwanda genocide. The amended resolution changed the name of the remembrance day to the "International Remembrance Day for the Tutsi Genocide" — disregarding thousands of Hutu victims who were murdered. According to several estimates, 800,000 Tutsi were murdered in the Genocide alongside 50,000 Hutu who went against the genocide and tried to help the Tutsi.

In the end the U.S. and the EU decided to drop their objections in order to avoid a vote and a public crisis with Rwanda. The resolution passed last Friday in consensus without a vote but the U.S. deputy permanent representative to the UN spoke highly critically against the resolution, warning of historical revisionism. Her Israeli colleague who spoke after her welcomed the resolution and praised it.

Israel supports Rwandan resolution, breaks with U.S.

Thousands of African asylum seekers are being deported from Israel to Rwanda.

Danny Danon, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, speaks on the floor of the General Assembly. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

World

Israel

Conflicts, policies and powers are intersecting and shaping the world. Breaking news and analysis of national security, foreign policy and global crises.

5G wireless networks, a segment of the wireless infrastructure that Trump's National Security Council may seek to nationalize, are expected to deliver data up to 100 times faster than any mobile technology available today.  

Why it matters: 5G — shorthand for the fifth generation of wireless networks — will enable a wide range of products, including self-driving cars, virtual reality and other parts of the growing Internet of Things that all rely on super-fast connectivity.

Data moves quickly along high frequency airwaves but those airwaves get stopped by objects in their path. That means that providers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile would have to use collections of smaller transmitters to deliver those revolutionary speeds to phones and other devices rather than the classic large cell towers, which have a longer range.

The wireless industry forecasts that building nationwide 5G networks will require 300,000 new cell cites (the size of pizza boxes) to be erected by 2020. For comparison, there are currently 150,000 cell towers in existence today.

Providers could also build 5G networks using more reliable, but lower-frequency, airwaves. This is the chunk of spectrum that the Trump administration is talking about nationalizing.

The promise of 5G is not just that consumers will have faster data speeds, but offers two other key benefits:

Less lag as data moves across the network. That makes it more feasible, for example, to control an industrial machine remotely or to communicate information in real time to a self-driving car.

While 4G was aimed primarily at smartphones, 5G is designed to handle phones plus all manner of Internet-of-things devices. Some of these devices need very fast connections, while others are tiny sensors that need only a trickle of communication.

How 5G works

It's caught the Trump administration's attention.

Qualcomm touts 5G wireless during an event at CES this year. Photo: David Becker/Getty Images

Technology

Facts Matter

Business

Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, who has led Pakistan's army since November 2016, has "greatly increased its clout," columnist Zahid Hussain told the New York Times. 

Why it matters: "A little more than a year after he took command, there is already talk in the country of the 'Bajwa Doctrine,' with Pakistan’s approach to foreign and domestic policies reflecting the army chief’s vision," per the Times.

The backdrop: One of President Trump's first acts of 2018 was suspending nearly all security assistance to Pakistan, an amount that could be as high as $1.3 billion. And in a New Year's Day tweet, Trump accused the nation "lies and deceit" — an act which prompted an emergency security meeting in Pakistan.

"In a call this month with Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the United States Central Command, for example, Bajwa talked of a 'sense of betrayal' within the country over Mr. Trump’s tweet," the Times reports.

Pakistan's general emerges as a decisive political leader

Amid the U.S.'s decision to suspend security assistance to the nation.

Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa took over a year ago. Photo: Issam Ahmed / AFP via Getty Images

Pakistan

Strava — a fitness app that links to smartphones and wearable fitness trackers to collect information about exercise habits — released a data visualization map of users' activity, which could reveal the location of secret U.S. military bases, the Guardian reports. 

Why it matters: This is a significant security threat because it makes U.S. bases not only identifiable, but mappable to anyone who has access to this fitness app.

The information of military personnel who use Strava was also shared on the heat map, leaving the outposts susceptible to detection. 

“In Syria, known coalition (i.e. U.S.) bases light up the night. Some light markers [are] over known Russian positions," writes Middle East institude analyst Tobias Schneider.

Fitness tracker reveals location of secret U.S. military outposts

Bases in Syria and Russia are detectable.

A U.S. soldier on base in Iraq. Photo: Yasin Akgul / AFP via Getty Images

Military

Cybersecurity

Trump said in an interview with Piers Morgan: "There is a cooling, and there's a heating ... The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they're setting records. They're at a record level."

Reality check:  "Ice on the ocean and on land are both disappearing rapidly, and we know why: increasing greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels that trap more heat and melt the ice," Jennifer Francis, a Rutgers University climate scientist, told the AP.

Reality check on Trump's climate change comments

A small iceberg in a fjord. Photo: Education Images / UIG via Getty Images

Energy

Climate change

Breaking climate science and policy coverage as extreme weather events reshape communities. Keep tabs on the race to a low carbon economy, which may be bumpy as governments, climate tech startups and major oil and gas companies race to find their niche amid the changing energy landscape.

Energy & Climate

Axios AM

Fake news. Fake followers. And just in time for 2020 campaigns, fake video.

What's new: The problems with social media are growing — and real. Because so much is fake. 

We have fake news. Fake facts. Fake people on social media. And fake audience size. 

Why it matters: It’s an epidemic of fake that is twisting everything from politics to our perception of people’s identity and fame. 

Nick Confessore leads a N.Y. Times team exposé, "The Follower Factory," about how cheap and easy it is to become an "online influencer" by buying followers:

"Everyone wants to be popular online. Some even pay for it. Inside social media’s black market. ... Celebrities, athletes, pundits and politicians have millions of fake followers."

Our thought bubble: It's the digital-age version of being caught with a hooker.

"These accounts are counterfeit coins in the booming economy of online influence, reaching into virtually any industry where a mass audience — or the illusion of it — can be monetized."

"By some calculations, as many as 48 million of Twitter’s reported active users — nearly 15 percent — are automated accounts designed to simulate real people, though the company claims that number is far lower."

A Florida-based company, Devumi, has collected millions of dollars [by selling] Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses."

"Drawing on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, each sold many times over, the company has provided customers with more than 200 million Twitter followers."

"Devumi has more than 200,000 customers, including reality television stars, professional athletes, comedians, TED speakers, pastors and models."

"For just pennies each — sometimes even less — Devumi offers Twitter followers, views on YouTube, plays on SoundCloud, the music-hosting site, and endorsements on LinkedIn, the professional-networking site."

"In November, Facebook disclosed to investors that it had at least twice as many fake users as it previously estimated, indicating that up to 60 million automated accounts may roam the world’s largest social media platform."

Why this problem is getting worse, despite sudden attention from Washington and the platforms:

A new app has flooded the web with AI-generated fake celebrity porn.

In a potential oppo nightmare for 2020, machine-learning algorithms can generate convincing audio and video of fake events.

The Economist sees a "new battlefield between falsehood and veracity": "[I]mages and sound recordings retain for many an inherent trustworthiness."

Axios Science reported on a study this summer which found that we're not very good at spotting fake photos.

Twitter says in a new submission to Congress that "Russian-linked Twitter bots shared Donald Trump’s tweets almost half a million times during the final months of the 2016 election," per Bloomberg.

All this helps explain why trust in social media and search engines plunged in the new Edelman Trust Barometer. Axios' Sara Fischer says the survey reflects "a global reckoning around fake news and misinformation."

Be smart: We're inclined to be ever more passive in our media consumption. But technology, tricks and the times demand that we be more active, skeptical and discerning.

It's one of the most important new-world skills we can teach our kids — and ourselves.

A fake new world

We have fake news. Fake facts. Fake people on social media. And fake audience size.

Fake news

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

This week, the RNC cut ties with billionaire Steve Wynn after he was accused of sexual harassment and assault, and Sen. Marco Rubio promptly fired his chief of staff for inappropriate workplace conduct.

The big picture: Wynn and Reed aren’t the first prominent Republicans to be accused of sexual misconduct, but both faced swift and public consequences as the GOP has its #MeToo moment.

GOP's #MeToo moment

The RNC was pummeled online for not taking immediate action against Wynn.

Axios

Sunday's top stories

White House perjury panic

Trump's interview with Piers Morgan

Israel supports Rwandan resolution, breaks with U.S.

How 5G works

Pakistan's general emerges as a decisive political leader

Fitness tracker reveals location of secret U.S. military outposts

Reality check on Trump's climate change comments

A fake new world

GOP's #MeToo moment

John Kerry at Alfalfa Club: "Thank God I didn’t get Swift-yachted”

Trump's deadline to sanction Russia for election meddling

Marco Rubio fires chief of staff over "improper conduct"

Trump wants to #ReleaseTheMemo

Late-night Trump tweet: "I have offered DACA a wonderful deal"