Day: December 1, 2024

If the Senate Has Hearings, Hegseth, Gabbard and RFK Jr. Will Not Be Confirmed

We begin with the possibility that the US Senate will do its job of advice and consent under the separation of powers and instead of giving Trump the blank check of recess appointments they might do actual oversight with probing questioning from Democratic and Republican senators of his outrageous nominees, in particular Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. Joining us is Robert Kuttner, the co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect and the Ida and Meyer Kirstein Chair at Brandeis University. He was formerly an assistant to the legendary I.F. Stone, a chief investigator for the Senate Banking Committee, and for 20 years wrote a column at Business Week.  His books include Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? and Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the Struggle to Save Democracy, and his latest articles at The American Prospect include “Did Bibi Get Away with it?” and “Dr. Oz and the Stealth Destruction of Medicare” which we will discuss.

Trump’s Envoy To Ukraine General Kellogg’s Plan to End the War

Then we look into the so-called peace plan to end Russia’s war on Ukraine from General Keith Kellogg who Trump has appointed as his special envoy to Ukraine. Joining us to assess whether Trump will sell out Ukraine to his buddy Putin or end up with a reasonable deal to end the killing is William Arkin, one of America’s premier military experts who has been a consultant to wide-ranging organizations, including the US Air Force, the United Nations Secretary General, Human Rights Watch, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The bestselling author of more than a dozen books including The Generals Have No Clothes: The Untold Story of Our Endless Wars, his latest book is On That Day: The Definitive Timeline of 9/11. He is currently the senior editor for Ken Klippenstein’s Substack at KlipNews where their latest article is “Trump Is Serious About Ukraine.”

With Iran and Hezbollah on the Ropes, Syrian Rebels Backed By Turkey Make Surprising Gains

Then finally with Syrian rebels making surprising gains against the Assad dictatorship following Israel’s degradation of support for the regime from Iran and Hezbollah, we speak with Steven Simon, who served on the National Security Council staff as senior director for Middle Eastern and North African affairs from 2011 to 2012. He also worked on the NSC staff 1994 to 1999 on counterterrorism and Middle East security policy. Currently a Fellow in International Affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is the co-author, among other books, of The Age of Sacred Terror, and his latest book is Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East and we discuss his article at Responsible Statecraft, “On Middle East, will Trump follow his instincts or hawkish advisers?”