Background Briefing: June 2, 2020

On By gram

 

Trump’s Entirely Fabricated Pretext of Domestic Terrorism to Justify Martial Law

We begin with Trump’s Mussolini-like photo op yesterday striding across Lafayette Square which he had just ordered cleared of peaceful protesters by the U.S. military and Secret Service firing rubber bullets and tear gas, to stand in front of the St. John’s church and hold up a Bible threatening martial law. Trump was flanked by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in military fatigues along with his sycophantic Secretary of Defense and his chief enabler AG William Barr. Joining us is Colonel Rachel VanLandingham, a Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School who is a former judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force and legal advisor for international law at Headquarters, U.S. Central Command. She joins us to discuss Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 in the name of protecting the country from domestic terrorism, an entirely fabricated pretext for what could become martial law and authoritarian rule. With the country poised to witness the military might of the United States turned against its own people in the name of a bogus manufactured threat of domestic terrorism rather than what is it, opportunism by criminals, we all should be very afraid and all be ready to raise our voices against a fascist takeover of American democracy.

 

Trump’s Bible-in-hand Appeal to Christian Nationalism

Then with the president signaling to his Christian nationalist followers with a Bible in hand in front of an Episcopalian Church whose bishop condemned Trump for using her church as a prop, we speak with Andrew Whitehead, a Professor of Sociology at Clemson University who studies Christian nationalism in the United States and is the co-author of Taking America Back For God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. He joins us to discuss how the Religious Right not only worships a pornographic president, but clearly places power over piety.

The Washington Post’s Fact-Checker on Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President’s Falsehoods, Misleading Claims and Flat-Out Lies 

Then finally we speak with Glenn Kessler, the editor and chief writer of The Fact Checker at The Washington Post who is the co-author of the new book, out today, Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President’s Falsehoods, Misleading Claims and Flat-Out Lies.  He joins us to discuss Trump’s 19,000-plus lies as of today and whether he believes them or not or is cynically constructing a self-serving narrative of alternative reality for his base.