Background Briefing: January 15, 2025

What Latitude Will “Little Marco” Have As Secretary of State? 

We begin with today’s confirmation hearing for Senator Marco Rubio to become the next Secretary of State and assess whether “little Marco” as Trump once described him, will have much latitude given Trump’s impulse to dominate and desire to make photo-op deals to make himself look good at the expense of the US national interest. Joining us is Charles Kupchan, who was director for European Affairs on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. He is now a professor of International Affairs in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and spent the last 3 years of the Obama administration as Special Assistant to President Obama for National Security. He is the author of The End of the America Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century, Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order, and How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace, and his latest, Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World. He has an article at The Atlantic, “Trump Is Right That Pax Americana Is Over: But will he bother to build something new?”

 

The Confirmation of the Pay-to-Play Pam Bondi For Attorney General

Then we look into today’s confirmation hearing of Pam Bondi to become the next Attorney General and investigate her role as a pay-to-play Attorney General in Florida where she favored corporate interests over the public interest. Joining us is Elliott Negin, a Washington, D.C.-based writer who was a foreign news editor at National Public Radio, the managing editor of American Journalism Review, and the editor of Nuclear Times and Public Citizen magazines. His articles have appeared in The Atlantic, Common Dreams, HuffPost, LA Progressive, Scientific American, The Washington Post, and many other publications. We discuss his two articles at Common Dreams: “The Transactional World of Pam Bondi” and “While Los Angeles Burns, the L.A. Rams are Shilling for Shell.”

 

Trump’s Grossly Unqualified Wrecking Crew Is Aimed at Deconstructing the American State to Serve the Plutocrats Not the People

Then finally we assess how Trump’s choices for the top jobs in his new administration appear to be aimed at deliberately deconstructing the American state with a grossly unqualified wrecking crew only capable of chaos, undermining government and serving powerful interests at the expense of regular folk, especially the people who voted for Trump. Joining us is Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University, where he teaches constitutional law and politics, as well as visiting professor of law at Fordham Law School. He is the author of The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents and Decisions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Selection. His latest book is The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It.