Background Briefing: November 17, 2024
“Trump 2.0: Here Comes The Night”
We begin with the question of whether half of the American people know what they have done by electing Trump and whether the other half know what to do when “America comes to resemble Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, with the “enemy within” rounded up and held without charges? Will women be stopped at state borders and hormone tested for pregnancies? Will Americans watch behind closed curtains as men in military garb, maybe without identification, hustle their neighbors away? Will we hear of—but never see—the concentration camps, deep in the barren Western deserts, surrounded by razor wire?” Joining us is Nina Burleigh, a senior editor at The New Republic, best-selling author, documentary producer, and publisher of the Substack American Freakshow. A professor at New York University’s Arthur J. Carter Journalism Institute, she’s written seven books, the latest of which include Virus: Vaccinations, the CDC, and the Hijacking of America’s Response to the Pandemic and Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump’s Women, and she has a new novel, Zero Visibility Possible. She is the Producer of a recent documentary series on Apple TV, “Epstein’s Shadow” and we discuss her article at The New Republic, “Trump 2.0: Here Comes the Night.”
A Hari Krishna-Like Cult Member and Russian Asset in Charge of US Intelligence!
Then we examine the threat to American Intelligence posed by the choice of a Hari Krishna-like cult member who is accused of being a Russian asset overseeing our intelligence agencies and feeding curated intel to her Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump. Joining us is Thomas Nichols, a professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College who previously taught international relations and Soviet/Russian affairs at Dartmouth College and Georgetown University. He is the author of The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters and Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy. Currently a staff writer at The Atlantic, his latest articles at The Atlantic are “The Loyalists are Collecting Their Rewards in Trump’s Cabinet” and “Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination is a National Security Risk.”
Russia’s Military: It’s History and It’s War Today
Then finally, with Ukraine’s Zelensky saying the war will “end sooner” with Trump as president, we look into Russia’s military and its history with Mark Galeotti, a scholar of Russian security affairs with a career spanning academia, government service and business. A prolific author and frequent media commentator, he heads the Mayak Intelligence consultancy and is an Honorary Professor at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He is the author of over 25 books including A Short History of Russia and Putin’s Wars. His latest book, just out, is Forged in War: A Military History of Russia From Its Beginnings to Today.