Background Briefing: March 21, 2023

On By gram

 

Could China Deliver a Peace Deal to End the War in Ukraine?

We begin with the lengthy meeting in Moscow today between China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Putin which was preceded with a little daylight between the two in their “no limits partnership” with China refusing to go along with Putin’s vision of geopolitical conflict with the West while agreeing on the need for a formation of a multi-polar world order. Joining us to discuss the possibility that China will make a peace deal and engage with Ukraine’s President Zelensky is George Beebe, the Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He served in government for nearly twenty-five years, including as director of Russia analysis at CIA and as a White House adviser on Russia matters for Vice President Dick Cheney. His latest book is The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe and we discuss his article at Responsible Statecraft, “Biden’s looming trap in Ukraine: Three key factors show why the administration needs to press the accelerator pedal on negotiations with Russia now.”

 

On the Day Trump Said He Would Be Arrested, Where are the Indictments?

Then since today was the day Donald Trump said he would be arrested, we speak with Michael D’Antonio, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting at Newsday before going on to write many acclaimed books, including Atomic Harvest, The Truth About Trump, Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success, and most recently, co-authored with Peter Eisner, High Crimes: The Corruption, Impunity, and Impeachment of Donald Trump. He is a contributor to CNN and we will discuss Trump’s call over the weekend to his MAGA followers to “protest, protest, protest” and look into the extent that Trump derives sadistic pleasure from violence and other people’s pain and would be happy to see America destroyed in order to save himself.

Reinvigorating the Labor Movement as Strikes and Union Negotiations Gain National Attention

Then finally, with the nation’s second biggest school district on strike today as labor struggles and union organizing at Trader Joes, Starbucks, Amazon and others get national attention, we assess what it will take to reinvigorate the lethargic U.S. labor movement and speak with Jane McAlevey, an organizer, author, and scholar. She is currently a Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley’s Labor Center, part of the Institute for Labor & Employment Relations and is the author of A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing & the Fight for Democracy and her latest book, just out, co-authored with Abby Lawlor is, Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations. We discuss her recent article at The Nation “Getting a Contract: Negotiating and Winning Against the Odds.”