Background Briefing: April 24, 2022
Putin’s Russia Now a Complete Mafia State
We begin with the war in Ukraine entering its third month as the Russian offensive in the east appears stalled and speak with Michael Weiss, news director at New Lines Magazine who has reported on international affairs for over ten years with a focus on the Middle East and Russia. He has interviewed ISIS operatives and Russian spies; published and curated a series of still-classified KGB training manuals; reported from rebel-held Syria and war-torn Ukraine; broken major stories about financial corruption; and exposed the Russian intelligence services’ ongoing subversion efforts in the United States and Europe. He is the the author of The Menace of Unreality: How Russia Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money and his latest article at New Lines Magazine is “Exclusive: Sergei Lavrov and Oleg Deripaska Traveled With a Sex Worker to Japan in 2018” and how Putin’s Russia has devolved into a mafia state in which not just men who have fallen out of favor with the Godfather are killed, but whole families are butchered.
Will Kevin McCarthy Pay a Price For Being a Liar and a Coward?
Then we assess the fallout from the taped conversations between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Republican House leadership that reveal a completely different picture to the public face of the groveling fealty GOP leaders feel they must show to Trump while privately despising him. Joining us is Tom LoBianco, national politics reporter for Yahoo News and formerly a Washington Correspondent for Business Insider who covered Trump and the Republican Party. A longtime reporter who has covered Mike Pence from the statehouse to the White House for the Associated Press, CNN, and the Indianapolis Star, his latest article at Yahoo News is “Ohio Republicans pick sides as primary battle for U.S. Senate race enters final stretch” and we discuss whether McCarthy will pay a price for being a liar and a coward.
An Update on the French Presidential Election
Then we get an update on the French presidential elections and go to Paris to speak with David Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, and a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. He is the author of A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today and A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen. Formerly a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia, he runs the Substack blog Andelman Unleashed where he has been covering the French election.
The Shakeup Among Streaming Services and Obama’s Charge Silicon Valley is “Turbo-Charging Humanity’s Worst Impulses”
Then finally we examine the shakeup among streaming services with Netflix projected to lose another 2 million subscribers in the next quarter as its market cap shrinks from $300 billion in November to $97 billion and CNN + is about to be shut down after just being launched in March. Joining us is Jonathan Taplin, an author and director emeritus of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab who has produced music and film for Bob Dylan and the Band, George Harrison, Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, Gus Van Sant and many others. He was the founder of Intertainer, the first streaming Video On Demand Platform in 1996 is the author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Have Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, and his latest book is The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock-and-Roll Life.