Background Briefing: December 21, 2023
Will the Supreme Court Fall For Trump’s Brazen Tried and True Delaying Tactic?
We begin with Trump’s most brazen use of his tried and true delaying tactic with Wednesday’s request to the Supreme Court urging them not to get involved right now with whether or not he is immune from prosecution in Jack Smith’s January 6 case scheduled to go to trial in March of 2024. Joining us is Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor and Chief Assistant City Attorney in San Francisco who has won cases of significance in the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court. He currently serves as counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and he has an article at Salon, “Shocking verdict against Rudy Giuliani serves as a warning shot for Donald Trump.”
Will the Colorado Supreme Court’s Ruling Hurt or Help Trump?
Then we assess whether the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling against Trump barring him from the state’s ballot for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment will help or hurt Trump and speak with Lawrence Douglas, the James Grosfeld Chair in Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College and a contributing opinion writer for The Guardian. His latest book is Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Electoral Meltdown in 2020 and we discuss his article at The Guardian, “Americans are hoping the courts will spare them an electoral reckoning with Trump.”
Will Biden Benefit or Be Damaged if Foreign Policy Dominated the 2024 Campaign?
Then finally we speak with Mark Hannah, a senior fellow at the Institute for Global Affairs, a nonprofit public education organization at the Eurasia Group, and the creator and host of its “None Of The Above” podcast. Mark is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a political partner at the Truman National Security Project. A veteran of the Kerry and Obama presidential campaigns, he teaches at New York University and we discuss his article at The Los Angeles Times, “Does Biden benefit if foreign policy dominates the 2024 campaign?”