Background Briefing: February 26, 2020
A Call for a Democratic National Unity Ticket
We begin with last night’s Democratic candidates’ debate which had a lot of yelling as accusations were hurled across the stage while the CBS moderators struggled to control the seven candidates who were by and large asked pretty inane questions. Joining us is Matt Angle, who directs the Texas Democratic Trust and the Lone Star Project who served as Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and as the Executive Director of the House Democratic Caucus. We discuss the apparent rift between the progressive candidates and the moderate ones which grows wider as centrists panic at the prospect of a Bernie Sanders victory as last night they seemed to gang up to attack the frontrunner. We assess whether the suggestion put forth by the New York Times columnist Tom Friedman in the paper’s lead editorial titled “Dems, You Can Defeat Trump in a Landslide” that the leading Democratic candidate should forge a national unity ticket and name a cabinet of a team of rivals. Friedman suggests naming Elizabeth Warren as head of HHS, Kamala Harris as AG, Cory Booker as Secretary of HUD, Mayor Pete as head of Homeland Security, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as UN ambassador and Admiral McRaven as Secretary of Defense. With Bernie Sanders refusing to accept money promised to the winning candidate by Bloomberg and Bloomberg’s people saying they are not giving money to someone who doesn’t want it, the divide is clear so the question remains can the unity needed for a necessary landslide victory be found before November?
The Democratic Party Is Moving to the Left Because the Country Has
Then we speak with Mike Lofgren, a 28 year veteran of the Congress, the last 16 as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees who is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Party in Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted. He joins us to discuss how little attention was paid to the coronavirus crisis in last night’s debate made worse by Trump’s gutting of the CDC, as well as pointing out that the Democratic Party is moving to the left because the country has since the crash of 2008 and that representing Main Street instead of Wall Street is long overdue.
Why Trump Is so Desperate to Keep His Dealings With Deutsche Bank Secret
Then finally we speak with the Finance Editor of The New York Times David Enrich, about his new book, just out, Dark Towers, Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and the Epic Trail of Destruction. He joins us to discuss why Trump is so determined to keep secret his relationship with Deutsche Bank and financing from Russia after fighting against congressional subpoenas in a case about to be argued in the Supreme Court next month. Having used Justice Kennedy’s son who handled the Trump family’s banking at Deutsche Bank to help urge his father to retire, Trump is now attacking two liberal justices on the court ahead of the case because Trump is so desperate to have the conservative justices (two of whom he appointed) bury his ties to Deutsche Bank and the Russians.