Background Briefing: January 6, 2020

A Reporter on the Ground Who Covered Today’s Storming of the Capitol

We begin with today’s seditious coup attempt against the United States Government instigated and urged on by none other than the President of the United States who earlier called his supporters to the nation’s capitol on the day of Congress’s certification of Joe Biden as the next president and then addressed them today at a rally encouraging them to march on the capitol. Joining us is Will Sommer, a reporter covering tech and conservative media for The Daily Beast who covered the crowd today as they marched on, then stormed the capitol, breaking windows, strewing garbage and even writing graffiti on Speaker Pelosi’s desk. We discuss the makeup and the mood of the pro-Trump supporters who showed up in the thousands and overwhelmed an unprepared Capitol Police, quickly breaking through the cordon surrounding the capitol then storming and entering the building itself.

 

Banana Republic Politics on Display in Washington Today

Then we speak with Robert Creamer, a long-time political organizer and strategist and author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win about the two wins for Ossoff and Warnock in Georgia which hands control of the U.S. Senate to the Democrats. We also discuss the unprecedented display of Banana Republic politics in Washington with a wannabe dictator urging his followers to storm the seat of government to drive out a duly-elected leader and install the strongman.

Can Biden Restore Enough Bipartisanship For Our Government to Function?

Then finally we speak with James Thurber, the University Distinguished Professor of Government and Founder and Former Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington D.C. about this embarrassment to American democracy. We discuss whether the stain of today’s mob rule which gives aid and comfort to dictators around the world who can point to a broken democracy that can’t protect its own people against a virus, will be lasting and whether Biden can restore enough bi-partisanship for our government to function.