Background Briefing: September 7, 2022

On By gram

 

Now We Learn How Trump Has Endangered Our National Security and Given Aid and Comfort to Our Enemies

We begin with the devastating revelations in The Washington Post that reveal Trump held onto the most top secret information the government possesses on a foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities and defense plans. After obfuscating with the DOJ and the National Archives and lying that he had handed back all classified material it was only because of the August 8 FBI retrieval of these documents that we know the extent to which Trump has endangered our national security and given aid and comfort to our enemies. Joining us to assess the gravity of the nuclear secrets now compromised is Paul Carroll, the Director of the Charity & Security Network and the former Director of Programs at the Ploughshares Fund. An expert on a broad array of nuclear weapons topics, from the history and current status of US plans and programs, to international programs and treaty regimes, he has a particular expertise on the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons infrastructure – where warheads are designed, built, tested, and stored. He also is an expert on North Korea’s program and the challenges to limiting it, having traveled to the DPRK twice with nongovernmental delegations. He worked on nuclear weapons issues at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the U.S. Department of Energy.

 

Judge Cannon is the Culmination of the Right Wing Project to Capture the Courts to Make Political Rulings in the Name of the Law

Then we discuss the culmination of the right wing capture of our courts by unqualified and young ideologues picked by the Federalist Society embodied by the recent actions of the Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon who rewarded her benefactor Trump with a political ruling which makes a mockery of the law. Joining us is Lisa Graves, the Executive Director of the new corporate watchdog group True North Research.  She has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government–as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a Deputy Chief of the article 3 judges division for the U.S. Courts.

The Change in the GOP From National Security Hawks to Lackeys For a Criminal and Traitor

Then finally we assess the change in the GOP from the party of law and order and the stewards of national security to a cult of lackeys who don’t seem to mind that their beloved fuhrer has either sold, traded or destroyed some of the nation’s top secrets. Joining us to try to understand why anyone supports this criminal and traitor is Anne Nelson, who teaches journalism and public affairs at Columbia University. Her books include Red Orchestra: The Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; and Suzanne’s Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. A native of Oklahoma, her latest book is Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right, now out in an updated paperback version. We will discuss her latest articles at The New Republic, “10 People You’ve Never Heard of Who Are Destroying Democracy” and “A Rare Peek Inside the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.”