Is Trump Losing It as Mueller Closes In?
We begin with the desperate flurry of tweets from Trump over the weekend which have led many to wonder whether the president is losing it, an observation made by the husband of Trump’s close advisor Kelly Ann Conway who thinks that the leader of the free world’s chronic narcissism has reached a dangerous level of pathology. Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor for The Atlantic and the author of the bestseller “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism”, now in an updated version “It’s Even Worse Than it Was”, joins us to discuss the possibility that the impending Mueller report is contributing to Trump’s besieged mentality and exaggerated sense of grievance as he issues tweet storms against Saturday Night Live, Senator McCain, General Motors and most of all, Robert Mueller. We look into Trump’s not-so-veiled threat to call up his supporters in the military, the police and “Bikers For Trump” in his defense if thing turn worse for him and assess whether the country could be dangerously divided by Trump to save his skin with his more fervent followers taking up arms and manning the barricades to defend their leader no matter how damning the evidence against Trump is that Mueller presents.
A Call to Investigate Trump’s Friend Who Owned Massage Parlors
Then we speak with a specialist on the Chinese military and intelligence services, June Dreyer, a professor of Political Science at the University of Miami who was the Asia Advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations. She joins us to discuss the move by top Democrats on the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees and the Chairs of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees to demand the FBI investigate Cindy Yang the former owner of a string of massage parlors in Florida who was using her ties to Trump and Mar a Largo to gain influence for her and Chinese officials in the Trump Administration in ways that appear to benefit Chinese intelligence.
New Zealand’s Gun Control Action Compared to US Inaction
Then finally we examine the New Zealand Prime Minister’s promise of a swift tightening of that nation’s gun laws following last Friday’s massacre which left 50 dead. Patrick Blanchfield, a journalist and Faculty Member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research whose forthcoming book is “Gunpower: The System of American Violence”, joins us to compare New Zealand’s response to the need for gun control with the inaction in the United States and how white nationalist terrorists are seen as deranged loners whereas Muslims are painted with a broader cultural brush used to indict entire groups of people.