Background Briefing: April 23, 2019
National Security and Our Corrupt, Compromised Commander in Chief
We begin with the entrance of the 19th Democrat running for president, Congressman Seth Moulton, a highly decorated Marine who served four tours in Iraq and has joined the crowded field to draw attention to national security issues and the fact that our commander in chief is derelict, dangerous and disreputable. Thomas Nichols, a U.S. Naval War College University Professor and adjunct at the U.S. Air Force School of Strategic Force Studies whose latest book is “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters” joins us to discuss his article at USA Today, “Trump fails us as commander in chief”. Given how much time Trump watches television and Tweets out angry and aggrieved messages full of petty insults, we assess who if anyone is taking care of the nation’s security and dealing with unfolding global events which mercifully so far have not involved a foreign policy crisis or confrontation. And although it is bad enough that Trump is compromised by the Russians who are continuing to meddle with our elections, his reckless disregard for making sure the remnants of ISIS in Syria are not allowed to escape to fight us another day, which was the issue over which Secretary of Defense Mattis resigned, indicates how little Trump cares about his role as commander in chief since his main preoccupation appears to be to stymie investigation into him so he can stay out of jail.
Conservatives on SCOTUS Signal They’re OK with Counting Citizens Only
Then we look into today’s arguments before the Supreme Court over the Trump Administration’s inclusion of a question of citizenship in the next census which goes against the Constitution’s mandate of counting all persons in the United States. Susan Low Bloch, a professor of law at Georgetown University’s Law Center and author of “Inside the Supreme Court: The Institution and Its Procedures” and “Supreme Court Politics: The Institution and Its Procedures”, joins us to discuss whether a ruling in Trump’s favor by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority will signal the end of the pretense that the court is a non-partisan political body.
Trump Defies the Deadline on His Tax Return
Then finally with the Treasury Department defying today’s 5 PM deadline in Washington to have the IRS hand over Trump’s tax returns to the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee according to established law, we speak with Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of 200 high-net-worth Americans committed to building a prosperous, stable, inclusive and fair nation. He joins us to discuss Trump’s brazen contempt for the rest of us who play by the rules as he places himself above the law and whether Trump will get away with it since he has stacked the judiciary, or will he be brought down in the court of public opinion.