Briefings

Background Briefing: September 20, 2026

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Democrats Should Focus Their Campaign on Corruption and Its Link to Affordability, Not Authoritarianism

We begin with the need for Democrats to focus their campaign on issues that matter while the party and the press is constantly distracted by Trump’s government-by-stunt reality TV headlines. Joining us to point out that at a time when Americans can’t afford the rising cost of food and gas, exposing Trump and his family’s corruption has a wide appeal beyond the Democrat’s college-educated base is Joan Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law and Hastings Foundation Chair emerita at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco. An award-winning scholar of social inequality, her books include White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America and her latest, Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back, She has an article at The Guardian with Jared Abbott we discuss, “To protect democracy, Democrats should talk about corruption – not authoritarianism.”

 

How a Documentary NAZA Has Israel in Turmoil But If Seen, It Could Force a Reckoning on Gaza

Then we go to Israel to speak with Haggai Matar, an award-winning Israeli journalist and political activist. He is the executive director of +972 Magazine and the co-director of Local Call, two media outlets run by Palestinian and Israeli journalists. We discuss a new documentary NAZA, that has outraged Israeli leaders and the religious nationalist right even though nobody in Israel has seen it, and assess the extent to which a movie about the collateral damage of 73,000 dead Palestinians, 20,000 of whom are children, could provoke a national reckoning about genocide in Gaza.

The Possibility of a Speaker Johnson-Led Coup on January 3, 2027 and the Need For a Shadow Supreme Court

Then finally we explore the need for a shadow Supreme Court and assess the chances of a Speaker Johnson-led coup on January 3, 2027 and speak with Garrett Epps, the Legal Affairs Editor at The Washington Monthly. He taught Constitutional Law at the University of Baltimore Law School and Oregon University Law School as well as American University, Boston College, and Duke University. Garrett served for ten years as Supreme Court Correspondent of The Atlantic, and his latest articles at The Washington Monthly are “Can the House Clerk Lead a Midterm Coup? It’s happened before. History underscores how rickety our elections and democracy are” and “The Case For a Shadow Court.“