Background Briefing: November 27, 2024
Jack Smith Leaves Trump’s Many Crimes to the Judgement of History
We begin with Trump’s legal jeopardy put on hold as the Special Counsel Jack Smith closes up shop leaving the cases against Trump to the judgement of history and on hold until 2029. Joining us to discuss plummeting morale at the DOJ and the insult to the rule of law that Trump represents is Harry Litman, a former United States attorney and deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department. A professor of constitutional law and national security law at the University of California San Diego and University of California Los Angeles, he is a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Center at the University of Southern California, the Executive Producer & host of the Talking Feds podcast, the host of the Talking San Diego speaker series. He has a new Substack at Talking Feds and is the senior legal affairs columnist at the Los Angeles Times, where his latest article we discuss is, “Trump’s election ended Jack Smith’s tenure. But he still has one more important job to do.”
A Third Reconstruction Based on Moral Values Like a Living Wage and Health Care
Then, with 66 million million poor folks who are white and 30 million low-wage Americans not voting in the recent election, we discuss a strategy for a Third Reconstruction based on moral values like a living wage and health care and speak with the Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis, Co-Chair with Reverend William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. She is the Co-Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice and has spent the past two decades organizing amongst the poor in the United States. The author of Always with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor and We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign, co-authored with Reverend William Barber, we discuss her article at Tom Dispatch, “How to Survive Trump—America’s Nero.”
A Third Woman Died in Texas While Doctors Stood by Unable to Treat Her Because of the State’s Cruel Abortion Laws
Then finally, with a third woman dying from a treatable miscarriage in Texas while doctors stood by unable to treat her because of the state’s cruel and punishing abortion law, we speak with Jon Rosenthal, a Texas State House Representative for District 135 in Harris County and the Houston area where because of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision and Texas Law, a 35-year-old mother of two Porsha Ngumezi bled to death in June of 2023 at the Houston Methodist Hospital.