Day: January 31, 2024

With Biden Poised to Retaliate, Both the US and Iran Say They Don’t Want a Wider War

 We begin with both Iran and the US saying they don’t want a wider war in the Middle East just as President Biden is about to retaliate against Iranian proxies and possibly Iran itself for a drone attack that killed 3 American soldiers and wounded 34. Joining us is Gregory Brew, an analyst with Eurasia Group’s Energy, Climate & Resources team focusing on the geopolitics of oil and gas. In addition, he serves as Eurasia Group’s country analyst for Iran. A historian of modern Iran, oil, and US foreign policy, he is the author of The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951–1954 and Petroleum and Progress in Iran: Oil, Development, and the Cold War, and he has an article at Time Magazine, “The U.S. Has No Endgame in Yemen.”

In 1944 FDR Ditched VP Wallace For Truman, Should Biden Do the Same With Kamala Harris?

Then we examine the 1944 lesson from history when FDR eased out his VP Henry Wallace to replace him on the ticket with Harry Truman in the context of whether Biden should ditch Kamala Harris at the Democratic Party convention in Chicago this August. Joining us is Benn Steil, director of international economics and the historian in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the author, most recently, of The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War. His latest book is The World That Wasn’t: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century and we discuss his article at Time “Biden Owes the Country a New Vice President?“

Bipartisan Outrage in the Senate Today at the CEOs of Meta, X, Snap, TikTok and Discord

Then finally we look into today’s hearing that had the big tech CEOs of Meta, X, Snap, TikTok and Discord grilled by senators with bipartisan outrage.  We also assess the impact of a Delaware judge voiding a $56 billion pay package for Tesla CEO Elon Musk and speak with Bartlett Naylor, the financial policy advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division and the principal of Capital Strategies Consulting, Inc., which works with progressive organizations attempting to reform public policies where corporations play a key role. Formerly, he served as chief of investigations for the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, where he led probes of the savings-and-loan crisis, corporate takeovers, and insider trading. And Also joining us is Richard Anthony, a big tech accountability advocate with Public Citizen.