Background Briefing: November 19, 2024
Evidence of Drug Use and Underage Sex by Matt Gaetz is Cracking Open as the Senate is Soon to be Put to the Test
We begin with growing concern about the lack of qualifications for Trump’s key cabinet picks as we learn that the testimony by an alleged victim of underage sex with Matt Gaetz and her friend before the House Ethics Committee has been hacked and that the Committee has circulated the unreleased report to all of its members in spite of the good “Christian” House Speaker Mike Johnson wanting to bury it. Joining us to discuss mounting pressure on Republican senators to do their job of vetting Trump’s nominees is Ryan Cooper, Managing Editor at The American Prospect who is the Cohost of the Left Anchor podcast as well as the author of How are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics. We discuss his latest article at The American Prospect, “Trump Wants a Cabinet of Feral Lunatics. Will Senate Republicans Stop Him?”
With the Focus on Trump’s Appalling Choices, Will RFK Jr Sneak By?
Then we assess whether attention focused on Trump’s unqualified and dangerous choices of Gaetz, Hegseth and Gabbard will allow RFK Jr to sneak past and get senate confirmation as many Republican senators make supportive comments in spite of manifest evidence that Kennedy is a conspiratorial crank whose family name gives him a sense of entitlement to deny science with devastating consequences for anyone who might follow his crackpot theories. Joining us is Lawrence Gostin, Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and University Professor at Georgetown University. He directs the World Health Organization Center on National and Global Health Law and serves on the National Cancer Advisory Board, and is the author of Global Health Security: A Blueprint for the Future.
45 Hong Kong Democracy Activists Jailed Under China’s National Security Law
Then finally we examine today’s sentencing of 45 Hong Kong Democracy activists under the National Security Law imposed by China to jail terms ranging from 4 to 10 years. Joining us is Victoria Hui, a professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and the author of War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. She has worked in the democracy movement in Hong Kong and now serves on the Academic Advisors Committee of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.