🥇 Plus: Simone Biles honored | Thursday, January 02, 2025
| | | | | | | Axios PM | | By Mike Allen · Jan 02, 2025 | | Good Thursday afternoon. Today's newsletter, edited by Natalie Daher, is 837 words, a 3-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing. 💼 Situational awareness: Nick Clegg, Meta's well-known president of global affairs, announced today he'll step down to "move on to new adventures" after "a few months handing over the reins," Axios' Ina Fried reports. - Clegg will be succeeded by his deputy, Joel Kaplan, who was White House deputy chief of staff under George W. Bush. Kaplan will be Meta's chief global affairs officer. Read Clegg's post.
| | | | | | 1 big thing: Inside Biden's meeting on striking Iran's nuclear program | | | | President Biden confers with national security adviser Jake Sullivan during a roundtable in October 2023. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan presented President Biden with options for a potential U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities if the Iranians move toward a nuclear weapon before Jan. 20 — in a meeting several weeks ago that remained secret until now, three sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios' Barak Ravid. - Why it matters: A U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear program during the lame-duck period would be an enormous gamble from a president who promised he would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, but who would also risk handing a fresh conflict over to his successor. Biden did not green-light a strike during the meeting and has not done so since, the sources said.
Biden and his national security team discussed various options and scenarios during the meeting, which took place roughly one month ago, but the president did not make any final decision, according to the sources. - A U.S. official with knowledge of the issue said the White House meeting was not prompted by new intelligence or intended to end in a yes or no decision from Biden. Instead, it was part of a discussion on "prudent scenario planning" of how the U.S. should respond if Iran were to take steps like enriching Uranium to 90% purity before Jan. 20, the official said.
- Another source said there are currently no active discussions inside the White House about possible military action against Iran's nuclear facilities.
The intrigue: One source said Biden focused on whether Iran had taken new steps to justify a dramatic military strike a few weeks before a new president takes office. |     | | | | | | 2. 🚨 The latest: New Orleans and Vegas cases | | | | The remains of the Tesla Cybertruck that burned yesterday at Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. Photo: Ronda Churchill/Reuters Investigators spent today scouring for information on the New Year's Day pickup truck attack in New Orleans and the driver who planted an explosive in a Tesla Cybertruck in Las Vegas. The suspects in each case are deceased. - Like the New Orleans suspect, the Vegas suspect — Matthew Alan Livelsberger, 37 — was also a U.S. Army veteran, the military branch confirmed. He was a Colorado Springs resident.
- Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said today that investigators think the Cybertruck explosion was likely a suicide, The Washington Post reported.
In the New Orleans case, the FBI now believes the shooter acted alone in an "act of terrorism," even as investigations continue in the city and elsewhere, Axios New Orleans' Chelsea Brasted reports. - No "definitive link" currently exists between the two cases, FBI deputy assistant director of counterintelligence Chris Raia said during a news conference today.
- The New Orleans suspect — Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42 — "was 100% inspired by ISIS," Raia said.
- Bourbon Street reopened this afternoon
🛻 Between the lines: Both suspects used the peer-to-peer rental app Turo to get the vehicles they used in each incident. How the app works. | | | | | | | | 3. Catch up quick | | | | Photo: Mahmoud Illean/AP - 🕎 On the last day of Hanukkah yesterday, people walk by the walls of Old Jerusalem.
- 🏅President Biden will award Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) with the Presidential Citizens Medal for their work on the House Jan. 6 select committee. Other honorees of the second-highest civilian medal will include attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage in the U.S., and Eleanor Smeal, a women's rights activist. Go deeper.
- ♣️ Scoop: California's Native American tribes filed a lawsuit to stop private casinos from offering Las Vegas-style card games like blackjack. A court ruling in the tribes' favor could return lucrative revenues to Native American communities — and dramatically upend the state's gambling industry, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.
| | | | | | | | 4. 🐐 1 sports thing: GOAT honored | | | | Photo: Shaniqwa Jarvis/Sports Illustrated Simone Biles, named today as Sports Illustrated's 2024 Sportsperson of the Year, told Axios' Maxwell Millington that she sees her fellow honorees as people who "transcend sports" and help build communities. - Biles, a 27-year-old "global icon," has been "fearless in speaking out about issues that transcend the sports world," SI Editor-in-Chief Steve Cannella said in a statement.
- Off the mat, Biles has become a mental health advocate.
🏆 The 11-time Olympic medalist mounted a comeback at last summer's Paris Games after the "twisties" caused her to withdraw early from the 2020 games. - She told Axios she's most proud of "being able to compete on a world stage again and to just go out there with my girls and win team gold."
- "But I'm more proud of the work that we put in behind the scenes — a lot of us put mental and physical work in so that we could each be the best versions of ourselves."
- Read the full interview.
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