Background Briefing: October 13, 2022

On By gram

 

An Analysis of Today’s Final House January 6 Committee Hearing

We begin with today’s final hearing of the House January 6 Committee which laid out a devastating case of an attack on the foundation of American democracy by one man determined to hold onto the power of the presidency to apparently shield himself from the law that is finally catching up with him. At every turn as his desperate strategy to make the big lie come true, Trump was thwarted by the courts and the Constitution but immediately he escalated with more lies and lawlessness to the point of instigating a coup to stop the transfer of power to the winner of a democratic election. Joining us is Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, a contributing editor and columnist for National Journal, and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He is the author of numerous books, most recently, the New York Times bestseller, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, co-authored with Tom Mann, now with an updated version, “It’s Even Worse Than It Was”. He is the co-author of One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported and we discuss his latest article at The Atlantic, “How Far Would a Republican Majority Go?”

 

Who Did Liz Cheney Have in Mind When She Said “We Have Enough Information For Criminal Referrals?”

Then we examine the roles of some of the key players in the insurrection working closely with Trump who Liz Cheney identified when she said at the end of the hearing that the committee has enough information for criminal referrals and speak with Adele Stan, an independent journalist who is a longtime chronicler of the right wing of U.S. politics. A winner of the Hillman Prize in Opinion & Analysis Journalism, her work has appeared in Mother Jones, The Nation, and The American Prospect as well as on the op-ed pages of The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. She most recently covered Steve Bannon’s contempt-of-Congress trial for The New Republic and we discuss Liz Cheney’s resolution to subpoena Trump and whether he would show up to testify.

 

With the UN Voting Overwhelmingly to Condemn Putin, Why Does Elon Musk, JD Vance, Tucker Carlson and Fox News Support the Murderous Dictator?

Then finally, with the UN voting overwhelmingly to condemn Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and the targeting of its civilian population, with only Belarus, Nicaragua, Syria and North Korea coming to Putin’s defense, we look into why Elon Musk, JD Vance, Tucker Carlson and Fox News support this murderous dictator. Joining us is Laura Thornton, director and senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund. We discuss her article at Foreign Policy, “Kremlin Talking Points Are Back in the U.S. Debate.”