Background Briefing: November 15, 2022
Russia Rains Missiles Down on Ukraine as Top US National Security Officials Meet With Their Russian Counterparts
We begin with the intense speculation over missiles that landed 5 kilometers inside of Poland near the Ukraine border killing two at a rural farm. With talk of NATO invoking Article 5 ridiculously premature since the facts aren’t in yet, it could have been a deliberate Russian strike that went astray or a Russian missile intercepted by Ukraine, or Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles fired at Russian cruise missiles. Joining us to discuss the broader issues in this war that is going well for Ukraine and poorly for Russia as top US National Security officials meet with their Russian counterparts, is Michael Weiss, news director at New Lines Magazine who has reported on international affairs for over ten years with a focus on the Middle East and Russia. He has interviewed ISIS operatives and Russian spies; published and curated a series of still-classified KGB training manuals; reported from rebel-held Syria and war-torn Ukraine; broken major stories about financial corruption; and exposed the Russian intelligence services’ ongoing subversion efforts in the United States and Europe. He is the the author of The Menace of Unreality: How Russia Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money and coauthor of the New York Times Bestseller ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.
What is Behind the FBI Probe Into Israel’s Killing of a Palestinian Journalist and US Citizen?
Trump is Determined to be Relevant Again and Dominate Our Politics for the Next Two Years
Then finally, just ahead of Trump’s 9 PM ET announcement from the ballroom at Mar a Lago that he is running for president in 2024, we speak with Dr. Allen Frances, a Professor Emeritus and former Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Duke University. He is the author of the award-winning international bestseller Saving Normal and the reference work Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis and his latest book is Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump, and we discuss Trump’s determination to make himself relevant again and dominate our politics for the next two years.