Day: October 4, 2020

Briefings

Background Briefing: October 4, 2020

On By gram

 

Evasion Over Trump’s Health and Capability to Carry Out His Duties

We begin with evasion, lies and coverups over the most important issue of the moment, the health and capability of the President of the United States to carry out his duties and the extent of the Covid infection among his aides, staff and visitors to the White House. Dr. Kavita Patel, a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution who was previously a Director of Policy for the White House under President Obama where she played a critical role in policy development in health reform and pandemic preparedness, joins us. We discuss the confusion over the timeline of when the infection erupted inside the White House, at what looks like a super-spreader event that was the Rose Garden introduction of Judge Amy Coney Barrett which resulted in Trump’s top aides, the head of the RNC, his campaign manager, two Senators and a governor getting Covid. With conflicting reports that Trump is doing well as opposed to facing a critical 48 hours, we examine the known path of the virus which after a week from infection, appears to have subsided then in the next few days reaches a critical period that determines whether the patient has a mild dose or a severe infection. And now that Trump has shunned his medical experts and relies on a quack who is a radiologist with no expertise in infectious diseases, we assess whether this will be a teachable moment for the White House.   

 

Trump Has Failed to Lie the Pandemic Away

Then with a month to go before the election we look into the possibility of the 25th Amendment being invoked and whether it is too late for the Republican old guard, alarmed that Trump’s wild debate performance and erratic behavior will cost them the senate, to launch a Mike Pence – Nikki Haley ticket with voting already underway. Allan Lichtman an historian of American politics at American University and author of The Keys to the White House: A Surefire Way to Predicting the Next President, a system which has predicted all of the presidential elections since 1984 including Trump’s surprise victory, joins us to discuss  how Trump has tried and failed to lie the pandemic away.   

 

How Plutocrats and Their Enablers Captured the U.S. and How Americans Can Take Back Their Country

Then finally we speak with Kurt Andersen, the bestselling author who co-founded Spy Magazine, was editor-in-chief of New York Magazine and a cultural critic for Time and The New Yorker. He joins us to discuss his new book, just out, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History which explains how plutocrats and their enablers captured the United States and how Americans can take back their country.