Day: December 29, 2024

As Trump Encourages Secession and Threatens Civil War, He Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving to China and Russia

We begin as we countdown the last few days of 2024 with a retrospective from a compilation of programs throughout the year starting back in January and ending this month as we work back through the major stories of the year as they evolved to the present. We begin today with a broadcast of Background Briefing from April 9, 2024 titled  As Trump Encourages Secession and Threatens Civil War, He Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving to China and Russia when we spoke with the original Oval Office whistleblower from inside the first Trump presidency. We look back when Putin’s plant in Congress who outgoing conservative Republican congressman Ken Buck refers to as “Moscow Marjorie” threatened Speaker Johnson to withhold aid from Ukraine. We examined how adversaries like China and Russia have found a gift in Trump who divides and weakens America encouraging secession while threatening civil war. Joining us was Miles Taylor, a national security expert who served as chief of staff for Kirstjen Nielsen, the former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration, where he published an “Anonymous” essay in The New York Times, blowing the whistle on presidential misconduct. He later published the #1 national bestseller A Warning, revealed himself to be the author, and launched a campaign of ex-officials to oppose Donald Trump’s reelection. He worked as an advisor in the George W. Bush administration, on Capitol Hill, as a CNN contributor, and is the cofounder of multiple democracy-reform groups. His latest book is Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from Trump’s Revenge.

Strengthening the Laws of War as Non-combatants Die in Gaza and Ukraine

Then we go to a broadcast of Background Briefing from May 7, 2024 titled Strengthening the Laws of War as Non-combatants Die in Gaza and Ukraine at a time when civilian casualties in Gaza were close to 35,000 and Russia’s war on Ukraine targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. We examined the history of the laws of war, which are clearly failing non-combatants as responses to terror attacks like October 7 and 9/11 that target civilians end up costing the lives of many more civilians since as many as a million died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Joining us was Oona Hathaway, a Professor of International Law at Yale Law School and a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has been a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law for the Legal Adviser at the United States Department of State since 2005, and, from 2014 to 2015, she took leave to serve as Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense, where she was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence. She had an article at Foreign Affairs, “War Unbound: Gaza, Ukraine, and the Breakdown of International Law.”