Month: December 2022

Over Objections From Republicans, the House Ways and Means Committee Make Public Trump’s Taxes

We begin with the release of six years of Trump’s taxes by the House Ways and Means Committee with summaries today and the full report expected in a few days. Joining us to discuss the highlights of what we have learned so far is Edward McCaffery, the Robert C. Packard trustee chair in law and a professor of law, economics and political science at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Fair Not Flat: How to Make the Tax System Better and Simpler and founder of the People’s Tax Page. We discuss how the IRS has failed miserably when it comes to auditing presidents and how the Republicans who resisted turning over Trump’s taxes are now even more determined to cut funds from the IRS so that their wealthy donors will not be subject to audits.

Today’s Visit of Ukraine’s President Zelensky to the White House and the Press Conference That Followed

Then we assess today’s visit of Ukraine’s President Zelensky to the White House and the press conference that followed his long meeting with Biden. Joining us is Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum, a professor at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University and a former senior fellow at The Atlantic Council. A member of the Russian academy of Natural Sciences, he worked as a Swedish Diplomat in Moscow and served as an economic advisor to the governments of Russia and Ukraine. His books include Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It and Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path From Market Economy to Kleptocracy.

Is Fox News’s Tucker Carlson a Russian Agent?

Then finally, with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Putin’s greatest supporter and propagandist in the United States, we assess how much he can influence the radical-right Republicans in the House to cut aid for Ukraine and examine Carlson’s own words in a recent interview he did with Tulsi Gabbard. In the interview he claimed a prominent Republican congressman accused him of being a Russian agent, saying that he was told intelligence briefers had all kinds of corroborating evidence that Carlson was a Russian agent. Joining us is Robert Baer, one of the most accomplished agents in CIA history, and a winner of the Career Intelligence Medal. He is the author of four New York Times bestsellers, including Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul For Saudi Crude. He is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Middle East and is an intelligence and national security affairs analyst for CNN. His latest book is The Fourth Man: The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin’s Russia.