Baltic Cable Cut, Trump's NATO Ambassador, Republican Voter Turnout
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problem with don't think I just open the door for .

people to do that. open. Let's go to music. European investigators are asking how two cables were cut beneath the surface of the baltic sea. A german .

official calls IT sabotage affecting the type of cable that Carries ninety percent of the world's data. Perf.

who are the suspect? I'm Stevens. Keep with the Martinez, and this is up first from N.

P. R. news. The president deleted, chose a loyalist of ambassador ato. Matthew witichis has no foreign policy experience, but served in the first trumpet administration.

You be a brilliant expert security, but if you have no access to the president, it's not going to do that much for you.

So how could the ambassador and his boss approached the war in ukraine?

And with record high voter turn out helping republicans win this election, the gop start to rethink stance on policies that make voting easier. Say, well, as we ve got all the news, you need to start your day.

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Undersea cables Carrying internet traffic across the baltic sea in northern europe were severed earlier this week, and european investigators are still trying to a piece together.

What happened? Germany's defense minister calls this an act of sabotage the day h. Navy stopped a chinese cargo ship in the region investigating a possible connection. Pr.

berlin course by IT rob schmied, join us now. So rob Steve mentioned that a chinese cargo ship, what makes investigators they could have something with this?

yeah. This chinese vessel named the e pang three left a russian port on the politics see six days ago. And according to investigators, IT passed over an undersea fiberoptic cable connecting sweden in lithuania a sunday morning, and surely after that, the cable Operator noticed that he had stopped working and later found out that the cable had been severed.

Then on monday morning, investigators say the same ship passed over a little communications cable connecting, filling in germany. In two minutes after that, that cable stopped working and its Operator to discovered IT had been cut as well. And that's why swedish officials are investigating the e pon. three. But they say they're also looking into other ships, saying there could be more parties involved.

okay. So the cables were separately to any communications outages in europe.

There was a temporary reduction in internet service in the thuvan ea after this happened, but the local Operator would rather a traffic and IT all improved. But according to mortaza marine security expert, what's most important here is that this type of action, which he believes was intentional, should be considered an attack. Here he is speaking .

to driven public media and the carbon.

He's saying here, over ninety percent of the word's data traffic runs overseas cables like this, he said. And this means someone is trying to destroy the connectivity of our societies. Someone wants to show us we can disconnect you all. And we need to show in return that we are not going to let ourselves be bullied OK.

So what are the chinese thing about this?

Or the company that owns the e pon thinning boy, e pon shipping is not responding to request for common, a chinese foreign ministry spokesman in beijing said the chinese government requires chinese ships to adhered relevant laws. But IT is worth mentioning here that a year ago, another chinese ship destroyed undersea cables and in undersea gasoline connecting, filling and estonia in the same region of the bolt xi, a finish investigation found that the ship had been digging its anchor for hundreds of miles, scraping the bottom of the sea. Chinese government admit that the vessel was responsible for all that damage.

but claimed there was all an accident. In an accident, any suspicion that the chinese ship was somehow in khuds with russia?

Well, there might be suspicioned about that, and social media sort of a buzz, all sorts of speculation. But this mm authorities have not released any evidence about any such connection. And IT is important to reiterate or that this is still very much an open investigation.

Okay, so where does that investigation go now?

So swedish investigators and are being joined by investigators and the other countries involved in a real time GPS map of shipping traffic shows that the chinese cargo ship has not moved in the the day that I spent there, and there is a danish navy patrol boat floating beside IT. This investigation could likely take a week or longer to conclude due to the bad weather in the region.

To add a layer here, I mean, this comes at a time where there are some pretty high intentions in europe.

Yeah the U. S. Evacuated its embassy in kv. us. Today bracing for russian attacks in ukraine has used both american and british language missile to attack russia. Uh, after a present job, an authorized ukraine to attack targets inside of russia for the first time. So it's clear that tensions .

in europe are heating up. Mp, r, rob. Shs, rob, thanks. Thank you.

Nato is one of the many national and global institutions that president of Donald d. Trump has criticize over the years, specifically how much money other countries spend on defense.

The president has suggested that russia could, quote, do whatever they, how they want to. Members don't pay their fair share. He threatened to leave the alliance at times, and now he's named a new ambassador with no foreign policy experience represent america's interest in nato.

Mp r. Stephen, follow. Join us now. So don trump, Stephen announced he is nominating Matthew tipper to that role. Who is Matthew idle? And what does that don t truly want to do with tigers?

A lawyer, he once served as the U. S. Attorney and I. OA, but more recently served as chief of staff to trumps first attorney general, jeff sessions. He later spent three months as acting ag. Whittaker has no national security experience, no foreign policy experience, no diplomatic background, and is unlike other nato ambassadors, but what he does have is an intense loyalty, the Donald trump. He's been very active in blasting criminal investigations, especially throw appearances on fox news and trust said in the announcement, widdle quote will strengthen in relationships with our nato allies and stand firm in the face of threats to peace and stability. He will put amErica first.

okay? Now is great selection, a signal of Donald trump taking a tougher stance toward up widdy .

girl comes in with the blanks late that will immediately be filled with trumps Mandate. Now trumps may be what they do. A boils down to the U.

S. Paying an outsized financial and organization role in the european and alliance. So I called a few experts to ask what posture vinegar may take.

And at all, leaving is with a quinzy institute for a responsible statecraft. There are a think tank that calls for restraint in us, foreign icy. He pointed out the trump's top foreign policy priorities in the middle ast require having friends elsewhere.

AmErica is not a european country. Its thousands of miles away. The U.

S. Medicine, ian fleet needs a base in italy and greece. The U.

U. S. Air force needs a base in germany.

I also spoke with Michael o. Handlin with the brookings institution. He studies international alliances and highlighted the part of trump statement about strengthen ing relationships, suggests he would not pull out of nato, but rather pulled back america's role in european and geopolitics.

I think that if trump threatens allies with the possibility of weakening the U. S. Commitment to nato, but still stays in the alliance and keeps U. S. Troops in europe, then will be OK.

Thing is that trump has promised to end the war in ukraine quickly. Uh, in ukraine is key focus of native resources. Mean, how does this pick fit into that?

Well, when dealing with nato and conversations around the war in ukraine, oh, handlin, with a brookings institution, says with IT, or may have one advantage that's arguably very important.

trumps here you can be a brilliant expert on european and security going back to the middle le ages. But if you have no access to the president, or limited access even to the secretary of state, i'm gna do that much for you.

Trump has signalled that the amErica first agenda includes some doubt about how much the us. Will commit to ukraine and the war effort. It's also possible that his proposed peace plan could be different from nato goals, especially if trump suggests ukraine give up some of its territory. So all of this a makes the nature ambassadors one of trumps picks that has a more immediate impact as soon as he takes office in january.

right? That's mpr. Stephen fell in atlantic. Even going to talk you again.

Thank you.

Hey folks, you showed up. The turnout rate in this year's presidential election looks to be the third highest in one .

hundred years. Republicans did really well. They want control the house, senate and the presidency that directly conventional political is done. That high turnout inherently favor of .

democrat and pr voting correspond. Miles parks has been looking into this stints in our studios. Morning miles. Hey, Steve, thanks for coming by studio thirty one. How do you think now about this general idea for many years that turn out high, turn out favorite democrat?

So this idea was never a harden or at centers on people who usually in big presidential races every once a while, people known as low propensity voters. Research has found that these sorts of people are generally less educated, or poor people generally, and those sorts of people have tended to vote for democratic candidates. Therefore, higher turnout brings out more of these sorts.

People helps democrats. But trump seems to have really changed the game here. Exit polls found that he did really well among people without a college degree, and also one people who said he was the first time they'd ever cast a ballot. So the question now is whether this is going to change how republicans feel about voter turnout, and also, critically, policies that make voting easier, since those policies have been shown to help low propensity .

voters the most. Oh, and up to now, publicans as a party have fought efforts to make voting easier. In fact, that was the heart of their complaints about the twenty twenty election was voting was too easy.

right? And generally, those complaints have been centered on election. Security of politics have always played a role as well. I talked with john mayall, who is the former top boating official in alabama. He's a republican, and he told me how he used to argue with fellow republicans about whether register ing new voters was a good idea.

I hate people. When I was fixed, some republican roup, they tell me I don't like that. I don't think he is a good thing. And like, why would you say that? And they're like because you're gonna a get more black and you gonna get more IT is .

not usually set out loud that explicit, but trump himself in china said he thought higher voting levels would mean that republicans would have a harder time getting elected. I'm really interested to see if his views on that change now that he seems to have benefit from a hydrant.

And there is this long standing kind of conservative line of argument that maybe not everybody should vote because a lot of people aren't paying attention and maybe you really don't want their participation, but that was the old way of thinking. So is this shift to a new way for republicans to think really happened?

I think it's helpful to think about the republican party in different kind of groups or factions, right? Servais ves have argued for years that making IT harder for people, the vote was actually bad for the party. And this year, we saw a real shift in strategy compared to chiny chiny, specifically with many republican in campaigns embracing the idea of early voting in male voting, telling voters is to vote that way.

But what I heard from experts, as I reported the story, was that the trump right, the most kind of maga right, may still struggle with the idea of access a little bit. Here's Charles Stuart, who's a voting expert. M.

I. T. Put IT to me, if you're a republican strategist, IT does require you to can rethink some of these things. If you are part of the republican party that really is motivated by nativism and nationalism, I think it's gonna harder to make that leave.

There is just a clear opposition among some of the republican party to widening the tent of american politics. We see this in survey data. And over the last couple years, i've listened to a bunch of grass roots election integrity sort of meetings. And you can hear skepticism about bringing new people into the electorate .

in the miles parks turned out in our studios this morning.

Thanks for coming back. Thanks, Steve.

And that's a first for thursday, november twenty first.

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