Michmutters

• The Kremlin wants prisoner-swap negotiations for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan to be “discreet.”
• Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that “megaphone diplomacy” from the US “will not lead to results.”
• The Biden Administration has offered to trade arms dealer Viktor Bout for the detained Americans.

Russia wants prisoner-swap negotiations with the US for detained prisoners Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan to be “discreet.”

During a Tuesday conference call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said his country’s still believes “that any exchanges of information on this topic should be discreet,” according to Reuters.

The Biden Administration reportedly offered to free notorious convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for the release of both the WNBA superstar and former US Marine. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken confirmed that a deal had been offered last week but hesitated to offer further details on the negotiations.

US Department of Justice via Getty Images

Reuters reported on Tuesday that Peskov was surprised at Blinken’s public comments.

“Any exchange of information on the subject should be discreet without any ‘loudspeaker diplomacy,'” he told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “Public exchange of positions will not yield any result.”

Since the initial trade offer, Russia has extended a counter-proposal; In addition to Bout, the Kremlin wants the US to help free an additional convict — a Russian national who was tried, sentenced, and imprisoned for murder in Germany.

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images

John Kirby, the Biden administration’s National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, called the Kremlin’s counteroffer “a bad faith attempt to avoid a very serious offer and proposal that the United States has put forward.”

“Holding two American citizens hostage in exchange for an assassin in a third-party country is not a serious counteroffer,” Kirby said, adding: “We urge Russia to take [our] offer seriously.”

Griner was first stopped at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on February 17 after Russian customs agents allege they found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. She has been detained ever since, with the US government classifying her as “wrongfully detained” in May and her trial for drug smuggling charges beginning two months after that.

AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool

Griner’s proceedings in Russia continued on Tuesday with her defense team attempting to undermine the validity of the tests Russia performed on the vape cartridges that were found in her luggage, according to CNN. Though her attorneys have approached the entire trial as an opportunity to bolster appeals for leniency, Insider’s sources have expressed skepticism Russia will show the 6-foot-9 Phoenix Mercury center any mercy in sentencing.

The trial could come to close as soon as Friday with a sentence following shortly after, Reuters reported. Griner’s lawyer said the star basketball player is nervous, as she’s up against a Russian conviction rate that exceeds 99% and she faces up to 10 years in prison if she’s found guilty.

She “still knows that the end is near, and of course, she heard the news so she’s hoping that sometime she could be coming home, and we hope, too,” Griner’s lawyer said on Tuesday, CNN reported.

A deadly US drone strike in Afghanistan over the weekend offered several clues about what US counterterrorism strategy is likely to look like in the future.

First, the target was al-Qaida’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a man the US had pursued for more than two decades. The strike showed the US could still track hard-to-find extremist leaders even if it takes a long time to find them.

Second, this was the first high-profile US attack in Afghanistan since US troops withdrew in August of last year. Such strikes are far less frequent than during the height of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they remain part of the arsenal.

Third, US national security priorities have moved on after two years of wars against Islamist extremists. Russia’s war in Ukraine is the most pressing concern at the moment, and China is the biggest challenge in the long term. But extremism remains a threat that will emerge periodically.

“We make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out,” President Biden said Monday evening from the White House.

The strike shows the US can still monitor threats from abroad

US officials said they learned earlier this year that al-Zawahiri’s family moved into a safe house earlier this year in the upscale Kabul neighborhood of Sherpur, a diplomatic area that many Taliban leaders now call home.

At some point, Zawahiri joined them. The US officials said al-Zawahiri never left the house, but they were able to establish a pattern of his movements.

This allowed the US to carry out the drone strike with two Hellfire missiles on Sunday morning when al-Zawahiri was on the balcony of the home, according to US officials.

The officials did not say where they launched the drone, but the US no longer has any military bases in the immediate region, suggesting the aircraft may have flown a long distance before reaching its target.

John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the White House’s National Security Council, told Morning Edition that the strike deals a significant blow to al-Qaida’s operations, and proves that the US will not let Afghanistan become a safe haven for terrorists.

“We said a year ago that we knew al-Qaida was starting to move back, in small numbers, into Afghanistan,” Kirby added. “We were honest about that. We also said that the plan isn’t to hit every single al-Qaida terrorist with a missile, it’s to make sure that we are defeating those threats to our homeland, to the American people. Mr. Zawahiri presented that kind of a threat and that’s why we took him out.”

Zawahiri’s hideout suggests ties between al-Qaida and Taliban

Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep, who was in Kabul at the time of the Sunday strike, says residents were awoken by the sound of at least one early-morning explosion and later shared images of a multi-story house with the windows blown out.

“We drove to the area of ​​the targeted house this morning and found Taliban fighters blocking and guarding the approaches to it, but otherwise life seemed to be going on as usual in the streets all around,” he told Morning Edition on Tuesday. “It’s near embassies, it’s near government buildings and, in fact, the government intelligence headquarters is just a few minutes’ drive away from where, according to the US, Zawahiri was hiding.”

It’s an extraordinary development, Inskeep says, considering that it was the Taliban’s sheltering of Osama bin Laden after 9/11 that prompted the US to attack Afghanistan in the first place, back in 2001.

The fact that al-Zawahiri was sheltering in the heart of the capital suggests there is still a close relationship between al-Qaida and the Taliban, which had pledged in the 2020 Doha agreement not to harbor extremists.

In a statement on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the Taliban of breaking its word and betraying the Afghan people.

“By hosting and sheltering the leader of al-Qaida in Kabul, the Taliban grossly violated the Doha Agreement and repeated assurances to the world that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries,” Blinken said .

In turn, the Taliban, which has not confirmed al-Zawahiri’s death, blamed the US for violating the agreement by striking Afghanistan.

Al-Qaida is diminished, but the US says it will stay vigilant

The US and the Taliban were already at odds, and the US has refused to recognize the group as the government of Afghanistan, as they have most other countries.

While the US is providing humanitarian assistance, Afghanistan is painfully low on food, medicine and other basics.

As the US was pulling out a year ago, American military leaders said they would continue to keep tabs on Afghanistan from “over the horizon.”

Many doubted the US ability to do with the military gone, the embassy closed and intelligence being much more difficult to gather. But the drone strike showed the US was able to gather detailed intelligence and carry out a long-range strike, at least in this instance.

Kirby says al-Zawahiri was “actively engaged in urging his followers to plot and plan attacks” including potentially in the US With history as a guide, he says al-Qaida leaders are expected to name a successor to al-Zawahiri.

Al-Qaida still poses a threat to the US, he adds, even if it is a “vastly diminished terrorist network” than it was two decades ago, or even in 2011 when the US killed Bin Laden.

However, the US considers the Islamic State a much greater danger these days, including in Afghanistan, where the group is at odds with the Taliban and al-Qaida and has been blamed for many deadly attacks.

A social spending deal between Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could give Democrats a major win as campaign season heats up, but there is still a list of hurdles and unknowns Democrats need to overcome to get the legislation across the finish line.

After more than a year of on-and-off negotiations, Schumer, DN.Y., and Manchin, DW.Va., last week announced an agreement legislation that is massively scaled back from the initial $3 trillion-plus “Build Back Better bill. The new bill, officially called the “Inflation Reduction Act,” spends $433 billion and would raise $739 billion in tax revenue, according to Democrats.

Though it is just a shell of what progressives want, Democrats appear poised to pounce on the agreement as something they can tout to voters before the midterms. They plan to use a process called reconciliation to advance the bill along party lines, avoiding the 60-vote filibuster.

However, they first have to avoid a series of pitfalls that could slow, or even stall, their efforts.

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Wrangling all 50 Democrats

Though Manchin is on board with the bill, there is still one outstanding vote for Senate Democrats: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.

Sinema was not closely involved in the negotiations over the latest iteration of Democrats’ reconciliation plan, Manchin said, because he kept his cards close to his vest, unsure of if he would ever be able to agree to anything. If Sinema decides to oppose it, that would be a better setback for Democrats. Manchin said Monday that he planned on discussing the bill with Sinema on Monday night.

A spokesperson for Sinema told Fox News Digital on Monday that she does not currently have comment on the reconciliation bill, “as she is reviewing the bill text and will need to see what comes out of the parliamentarian process.”

The parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, still needs to hear arguments from Republicans and Democrats on the Byrd Rule and issue rulings on which parts of the bill should be removed as not germane, under the rule. That means it is unlikely Sinema will take a stance on the bill until later this week.

Democrats also need to stay healthy so all their members can be present for votes. Manchin recently had COVID-19, but is now back. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was recently sidelined with a surgery and is now back as well. If any other members have health problems that prevent them from voting, the reconciliation effort will be stalled, at least temporarily.

SINEMA STILL UNDECIDED ON MANCHIN SOCIAL SPENDING BILL, WILL MAKE DETERMINATION AFTER PARLIAMENTARIAN REVIEW

On the flip side, if Republicans catch the coronavirus, that could help Democrats. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced Monday that he tested positive. If he has an extended absence, or if more Republicans announce positive tests, Democrats may not even need Vice President Kamala Harris to break a tie vote on the bill.

Parliamentarian rules process

MacDonough’s Byrd Rule process also presents another hurdle for Democrats, as it will take time. Furthermore, MacDonough could advise that some key elements of the bill should be removed to comply with the Byrd Rule, which generally says only provisions that impact federal revenue and spending can be in reconciliation bills.

It appears unlikely that any changes would doom the bill, given how Democrats, facing a tough midterm, are desperate for a political win.

However, MacDonough’s rulings on past versions of reconciliation bills, particularly on immigration provisions, have frustrated Democrats. James Wallner, R Street Institute senior fellow for governance, said that especially with Democrats’ thin margins, nothing is a done deal.

“We shouldn’t count our votes until they are cast,” he said.

WHAT’S IN THE MANCHIN-SCHUMER TAX HIKE AND CLIMATE CHANGE BILL?

Wallner also noted that the Senate does not actually need to listen to the parliamentarian and could simply overrule her. As a general rule, however, the Senate has followed that precedent for reconciliation bills, and top lawmakers have given no indication they plan to ignore MacDonough this time.

Poison pill amendments

Perhaps the riskiest process of all for Democrats’ will be the “vote-a-rama,” which is likely to happen sometime between late this week and early next, depending on several factors.

After debate time is expired on the reconciliation bill, senators may continue offering unlimited amendments, which are voted on in rapid-fire succession. They will usually come to the floor in tranches agreed on by party leadership, and the Senate will likely take dozens of votes in a marathon session that could last all night. The most recent Senate vote-a-rama on initial reconciliation instructions lasted more than 15 hours.

However, this vote-a-rama is on the actual legislative text of the bill, meaning any changes that make it through that process will be reflected in law should the bill pass. This gives Republicans chances to potentially inject poison pill amendments on a range of issues that could cause some Democrats to vote against the bill in either the Senate, or in the House, where their majority is similarly small.

A common practice in a vote-a-rama is for leadership to offer what is called a wrap-around amendment at the end of it, which essentially voids any changes passed in the marathon voting session. That would require all 50 Democrats to vote for it. Sinema’s office did not commit to voting for a wrap-around amendment in an email to Fox News Digital on Monday.

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Wallner said a wrap-around amendment vote may not be easy for many Democrats, especially if they voted for an amendment during the vote-a-rama.

“That’s not necessarily an easy thing for them to do. It depends on the outside pressure. It depends on their constituents’ concerns. It depends on the media’s attention to what’s happening,” Wallner said. “There’s a reason why they couldn’t stop that amendment from passing.”

One thing going in Democrats’ favor on the vote-a-rama, Wallner said, is that Republicans are just as concerned with winning elections this fall as they are. That means Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., could hold his fire on some provisions that could divide Democrats, because they could also reveal discord within the GOP.

“If you want to really use an amendment strategy to take a bill on the floor, it’s really hard to do that in a way that keeps your party unified,” Wallner said. “Because by definition if your party’s unified, chances are the other party is going to be unified in opposition.”

Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Tuesday, Aug. 2, is Election Day in Michigan, as voters head to the polls to decide a series of races at the statewide and local levels.

Here is a primer on everything you need to know — from what races are being decided, how to register to vote, what times polls open and close and more:

Who’s on Michigan primary election ballot?

On the August primary ballot today are Democratic and Republican primaries for governor, congressional and state legislative races.

The biggest race to watch is to see who earns the Republican nomination for governor, to challenge Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November. Here are the 5 candidates.

There are also elections being decided at the local level. To see what is on your ballot, enter your address using our voter guide, or at the Michigan Voter Information Center at michigan.gov/vote.