Background Briefing: July 10, 2019
Who Had Ever Heard of Emoluments Until Trump Came Along?
We begin with the three Republican-appointed judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of whom was put on the court by Trump, handing him a victory on the emoluments case brought by the District of Columbia and Maryland against Trump for accepting money from state and foreign governments via his hotel in Washington and his other business enterprises. While no other president has ever made money out of the family businesses while in office, Trump nevertheless tweeted out today that he won a victory against the deep state, although the issue at stake is spelled out in the constitution. It’s just that the emoluments clause has been dormant since the constitution was written, that is until Trump came along. Joining us is Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University and a visiting professor of law at Fordham Law School and author of “The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents”. We discuss how this lawless president is now being protected by the chief law enforcement officer in the land, the Attorney General William Barr, who is now brazenly acting as Trump’s personal attorney following the boss’s orders to challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling on the census and to un-recuse himself from the Epstein case. With mounting evidence of Trump’s criminal business practices, his possible treasonous relationship with Putin, and his association if not complicity with a convicted child sex-trafficker, it appears that the Republicans are desperately shielding Trump in the hope that the truth won’t come out and they won’t go down with the ship of sleaze.
Acosta Plans to Cut 80% of the Budget to Combat Sex Trafficking
Then with Labor Secretary Acosta’s press conference today in which he tried to defend the indefensible sweetheart deal he made with the child sex-trafficker Epstein, we examine Acosta’s plans to cut 80% of the Labor Department’s budget to combat child sex trafficking. Kathleen Kim, a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School who is the co-director of the Anti-Trafficking Litigation Assistance Support Team, joins us to discuss Acosta’s planned evisceration of the Labor Department’s International Labor Affairs Bureau and Trump’s constant refrain that Acosta is doing a great job.
With Acosta in the hot seat, this is what is about to go on at Trump’s Doral Golf Club
Just as One Democratic Hopeful Drops out of the Crowded Race, Another Enters
Then finally, with billionaire Tom Steyer the latest candidate to enter the Democratic presidential campaign just as one tail-ender dropped out, we speak with Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires where he has a recent article “Rich People’s Charity Won’t Save the World”. He joins us to discuss whether a billionaire posing as a populist outsider as Trump did, (but Steyer is an actual billionaire), can get traction in the crowded field. Meanwhile Steyer is spending $90 million on television ads calling for Trump’s impeachment, ads that feature him on camera.