The Washington Post - 06.09.2019

A18 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 , 2019

PowerPost

INTELLIGENCE FOR LEADERS 
 WASHINGTONPOST.COM/POWERPOST

Senate Majority
Leader Mitch
McConnell has
been out of sight
for more than a
month.
The Kentucky Republican has
not held a public event since
fracturing his shoulder Aug. 4 in a
fall outside his Louisville home.
Since follow-up surgery in mid-
August, McConnell has been
recuperating at home over a long
Senate break that originally had
the 77-year-old barnstorming his
state in pursuit of a seventh term
next year, as well as touring the
nation to raise money for himself
and other Republicans.
Instead, according to advisers,
McConnell has worked the
phones and email in between
physical rehabilitation sessions as
he prepares for a fierce fall
legislative session dominated by
the question of whether he will
act on any legislation to stem gun
violence after a month marked by
mass shootings.

McConnell is expected to wear

a shoulder brace for several more

weeks after he returns Monday to

Capitol Hill.

He could not attend a joint

fundraiser he was to host a few

weeks ago in Louisville for Sens.

Susan Collins (Maine), Cory

Gardner (Colo.) and Martha

McSally (Ariz.), three of the most

endangered Republicans in 2020.

He stayed home when President

Trump flew to Louisville for events

two weeks ago, although people

involved said his original plan

would have had him out of state

anyway on fundraising travels.

In his most personal

disappointment of all, McConnell

could not attend the biggest

football game the University of

Louisville has played in a couple

years, a nationally televised Labor

Day game against Notre Dame.

“I watched it on TV,”

McConnell told conservative

radio host Hugh Hewitt in an

interview Tuesday.

McConnell, whose loyalty to

his alma mater’s football team is

renowned, instead attended a

private tailgate hosted by a friend

before returning home to watch

the game, according to his staff.

Louisville lost 35-17, a metaphor

for the kind of month McConnell

has had.

The GOP leader has used two

radio interviews, one Tuesday

with Hewitt and the other with a

local talk show host a few days

after McConnell’s initial fall, to

project his views on the issues

that have dominated the

congressional recess.

McConnell remains as irritated

as ever over some of the attacks

against his “legislative graveyard”

in the Senate, particularly the

“Moscow Mitch” moniker

Democrats have tagged him with

for declining to act on election

security legislation following

Russian cyberattacks on the 2016

U.S. presidential contest.

“It’s modern-day McCarthyism.

Unbelievable for a Cold Warrior

like me who spent a career

standing up to the Russians to be

given a moniker like that,”

McConnell told Hewitt on

Tuesday.

He continued to promise to

block Democratic proposals on

climate change and health care

that would change “us into a

socialist country.” After mass

shootings in El Paso and Dayton,

Ohio, he declined to bring the

Senate back into session to vote

on bills to tighten gun limits that

the House passed in February. He

remains neutral on whether to

advance any legislation to deal

with the mass-shooting epidemic

that has only grown worse during

the past five weeks. He does not

intend to hold a debate until

Trump fully signs on to a deal that

has bipartisan support and is

assured of becoming law.

The only issue he guaranteed

to receive his undivided

attention? Continuing the

stampede of confirming more

conservative jurists to the federal

judiciary.

“Oh, yeah. We’re not going to

leave a single vacancy behind by

the end of next year,” McConnell

told Hewitt.

Liberal activists have come to

view the 35-year Senate veteran

as a Trump crony and enabler,

making him a political

fundraising tool for Democrats.

“It’s hard to think about, let alone

list, all the examples of willful

cruelty by this administration

that McConnell does nothing to

stop,” Carole King, the singer-

songwriter, wrote in a fundraising

email Wednesday for the

Democratic Senatorial Campaign

Committee.

To be sure, McConnell’s staff is

adamant that his long-term

health is fine and that he is

running full steam ahead for

another term.

“The Leader has been working

from home throughout the

month and looks forward to

seeing everyone on Monday at the

Capitol,” David Popp, his

spokesman, said in a statement.

He has been doing

rehabilitation sessions twice a

day at home, according to one

adviser, and his team is trying to

make clear this will not resemble

the Harry M. Reid situation.

On Jan. 1, 2015, as he got ready

to switch from majority leader to

minority leader, Reid (D-Nev.)

critically injured himself while

exercising, in an accident that left

him without vision in his right

eye, broken bones in his face and

broken ribs.

He eventually returned to the

Senate, but a few months later, he

announced he would not seek

reelection in 2016.

Advisers to McConnell insist

the sling around his left shoulder

will be the only noticeable sign of

the fall, which happened as

McConnell’s old Nike sneakers

got stuck on his patio and

prompted the accident.

A polio survivor, McConnell

has always had a slow, steady gait

and regularly uses elevators in the

Capitol to avoid stairs.

Assuming a full recovery, the

biggest political hit to McConnell

might be in his fundraising haul.

The August recess is traditionally

peak season for raising money,

particularly that month in the

odd year ahead of the election

season.

One political adviser estimated

that McConnell’s injury led to the

postponement of “multiple

events worth multiple millions”

to benefit the GOP leader and

other Republican candidates.

Those postponed events are likely

to be slowly worked back into the

schedule.

McConnell already has raised

more than $11 million for his

2020 reelection bid, which he is

favored to win but only after a

very expensive race that

Democrats are targeting.

His last public appearance

came Aug. 3 at Fancy Farm, one of

the biggest annual events in

Bluegrass State politics. At the

small-town event in

southwestern Kentucky,

thousands of partisans on both

sides gather to hear speeches

from the state’s leading

politicians, all while heckling

them.

Democrats jeered him as he

took the stage and waved

“Moscow Mitch” signs.

“I’m going to spend as much

time talking about them as

Kentuckians will voting for them

this November — none,”

McConnell said.

The next day, McConnell took

the fall that sent his August into a

strange period of hibernation.

After weeks of being cooped up at

home, he says he is ready to get

back into the fight.

“We’ll be ready to go to work

again,” McConnell told Hewitt.

[email protected]

Sidelined for the summer, McConnell returns to Washington for a fierce session

@PKCapitol

PAUL KANE

TIMOTHY D. EASLEY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Louisville quarterback Jawon Pass is taken down during Monday’s game against Notre Dame. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who broke his shoulder a month ago, rooted for his alma mater from home.

The National

Security Agency

is the U.S.

government’s

premier digital

spying agency,

and it has a well-

earned reputation for keeping

secrets. But the agency needs to

stop keeping so many things

confidential and classified if it

wants to protect the nation from

cyberattacks.

That’s the assessment from

Anne Neuberger, director of

NSA’s first Cybersecurity

Directorate, which will launch

Oct. 1 and combine the work of

many disparate NSA divisions

dealing with cybersecurity,

including its offensive and

defensive operations.

The directorate’s mission is to

“prevent and eradicate” foreign

hackers from attacking critical

U.S. targets including election

infrastructure and defense

companies, Neuberger said

Wednesday during her first

public address since being

named to lead the directorate in

July.

Neuberger acknowledged the

difficulty of her mission during

an onstage interview at the

Billington Cybersecurity

Summit, but she also said the

growing hacking threats from

Russia, China and other U.S.

adversaries mean the nation

“must” achieve it.

“The nation needs it ... the

threat demands it, and the

nation deserves that we achieve

it,” Neuberger said.

That mission also means,

however, that NSA, which was

once colloquially known as “no

such agency” and has

traditionally kept mum to

protect its own hacking

operations and secret sources,

must start sharing more threat

data with cybersecurity pros in

the private sector, she said. The

NSA will have to share that

information far more quickly

than it has in the past when

many recipients complained

that, by the time they get the

information, it is no longer

useful, she said.

In some instances, the agency

will have to look for “creative

approaches” to share that

information, Neuberger told

reporters after her talk.

For instance, the agency may

look for ways to present

cybersecurity threat information

so it can’t be traced back to the

person or group that shared it,

she said. Or the agency may look

for cybersecurity companies that

have the same information but

from a different source and

highlight those reports.

The new directorate is, in

part, an acknowledgment that

over the course of several

previous reorganizations the

spying agency hasn’t focused

enough on protecting U.S.

organizations from foreign

cyberattacks, NSA chief Gen.

Paul Nakasone told the Wall

Street Journal when he

announced the new directorate

in July.

Neuberger learned how vital it

is to share information about

hacking threats during the run-

up to the 2018 midterm elections

when she was co-leader of an

election security task force that

combined the work of NSA and

U.S. Cyber Command, the

military’s hacking wing.

“A particular lesson was that

we have to proactively work with

private-sector partners, for

example social media companies

... to help them understand what

they’re up against,” she said.

In that effort, which NSA

wants to repeat in 2020, the

agency frequently shared

information about hacking

operations and social media

influence operations with the

FBI, which then passed the

information along to social

media companies and others to

help them defend themselves,

she said.

“Those companies have to

invest in the problem themselves

... but, when they’re up against a

nation-state, there are some

insights and information that we

should share ... to enable them

to look for that information on

their platforms and shut it

down,” she said.

In addition to safeguarding

the 2020 elections, Neuberger

said, the Cybersecurity

Directorate will focus heavily on

protecting defense companies,

which have been extensively

targeted by Chinese hackers

looking to copy U.S. advances in

military technology.

The directorate will also focus

on disrupting foreign

ransomware rings, she said,

which lock up organizations’

computer files and refuse to

release them until the victims

pay a ransom.

Ransomware attackers have

increasingly been targeting

specific industries, she said, and

the NSA is worried U.S.

adversaries could try to use

ransomware to disrupt the

2020 elections by locking up

some vital systems on Election

Day.

[email protected]

New cybersecurity lead says NSA must

share more facts about digital threats

The

Cyber 202

JOSEPH

MARKS

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

SEE WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY! washingtonpost.com/postpoints

S0714 3x10.

Enter to Win a Season of Opera!

One lucky winner will win a subscription for two

to Washington National Opera’s 2019–2020 season.

To enter, visit washingtonpost.com/postpoints

No purchase necessary. Contest is open to members of The Washington Post’s loyalty program, PostPoints, who are 18 years of age or older and live in Washington,

D.C., Maryland or Virginia at the time of entry. Contest runs from September 2, 2019–September 21, 2019 and is sponsored by The Washington Post and Companies

d/b/a The Washington Post. Odds of winning depend on number of entries. Void where prohibited by law. For complete rules visit washingtonpost.com/postpoints.

September 7–22, 2019

Join us for 16 days of creativity in action at the REACH—where

nearly 500 events across our newly expanded campus, indoors

and outdoors, are FREE!

David M. Rubenstein

Cornerstone of the REACH

AUR8R[[RQf0R[aR_V`PRYRO_NaV[TaUR\]R[V[T\SaUR?2.05Va`»_`aRcR_

Re]N[`V\[AUV`O_N[Q[RdPNZ]b`\SV[[\cNaVcRV[Q\\_N[Q\baQ\\_`]NPR`]ba`

F<BNaaURPR[aR_\SaURN_a°dUR_Rf\bPN[PUN_af\b_\d[P\b_`RN[QP\[[RPa

dUNaZ\cR`f\ba\P_RNaVcRRe]R_VR[PR`ORf\[QVZNTV[NaV\[

Free timed-entry passes required.

Passes and full schedule at Kennedy-Center.org/REACH

Photo by Richard Barnes