Background Briefing: February 21, 2021

On By gram

 

Trump’s Save America PAC is the Real Steal as he Fleeces His Followers Out of $500 million

We begin with Trump’s plans to speak at the upcoming CPAC conference as the leader of a party still loyal to him in spite of his ruinous record and responsibility for an insurrection against the legislative branch and American democracy itself. But since Trump has no political ideology and is all about promoting himself and pocketing what he can, we examine the possibility that Trump is fleecing his followers rather than laying the groundwork for a political comeback. Paul Wood, the former investigative reporter and World Affairs Correspondent for the BBC who now writes for The Spectator where his latest article is “Stop the Real Steal. Is this Trump’s biggest con yet“, joins us. We discuss how Trump’s Save America PAC is a private slush fund and that according to Republican Senator Ben Sasse, Trump has raised over a half a billion dollars from his gullible followers in a massive grift that will enrich Trump and his family while further dividing and diminishing the country.

 

Can Principled Conservative and Democrats Work Around Trump’s GOP?

Then we speak with Robert Johnson, the Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the former Chief Economist on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee and the U.S. Senate Budget Committee about how a bi-partisan coalition of principled conservatives and Democrats could work around the atavistic tribalism of Trump’s authoritarian GOP in an alliance to save American democracy.  We also discuss the new 8 hour-long BBC series by Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head.

 

The River of Guns From the U.S. to Mexico and From Red States Into Inner Cities

Then finally we look into the iron river of guns flowing into Mexico from the United States and the iron river of guns flowing into the gang-infested inner cities of Chicago and Baltimore from pro-NRA Red States with lax gun laws. Joining us is Ioan Grillo, a contributing writer at The New York Times where his latest article is “Slow the Iron River of Guns to Mexico: The Biden administration has an opportunity to stem illegal trafficking to Mexico and beyond.” We discuss his new book, just out, Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels which explodes the myth of guns as symbols of freedom when they are in fact instruments of mass murder.