Tag: GOP

Briefings

Background Briefing: July 7, 2022

On By gram

 

A New Hearing on January 12 Will Add to the Portrait of a Disastrously Dysfunctional Trump White House

We begin with the House January 6 Committee announcing an additional hearing on January 12 featuring the former Trump White House Deputy Press Secretary. Joining us to discuss the portrait that has emerged so far of a disastrously dysfunctional Chief of Staff in Mark Meadows is Chris Whipple, an expert on how White House’s are run for better or for worse. He is a multiple Peabody and Emmy Award–winning producer at CBS’s 60 Minutes and ABC’s Primetime and he is the author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency. His latest book is The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shaped History and the Future, and we discuss what we have learned and are about to learn about the chaos and conniving inside the Trump White House and also look into Chris’s forthcoming book, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.

 

The Texas GOP Explodes the Myth of the Party of Shills For the Plutocracy Caring For Working Americans

Then we assess whether the party that shills for the plutocracy can get away with portraying itself as the party of working Americans when the recently-released platform of the Texas Republican Party makes it clear how implacably hostile the GOP is to the needs of American workers. Joining us is Ben Burgis, a philosophy instructor at Morehouse College, a columnist for Jacobin Magazine and Arc Digital Media, and the co-host of the podcast, Give Them An Argument. He is the author of Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left and his latest book is Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique Of The Contemporary Left and we discuss his article at The Daily Beast, “Culture-War Red Meat Is All the GOP Serves the Working Class.”

 

The Real Driver of Inflation is Not Worker’s Wages But Corporate Price-Gouging

Then finally we look into the real driver of inflation which is corporate price-gouging as opposed to worker’s wages and assess the need for the Biden administration to come up with a counter-narrative to the threat of inflation which is driving down Biden’s poll numbers. Joining us is Pia Malaney, Co-Founder and Director of The Center for Innovation, Growth and Society and Senior Economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking where she is the editor of their Working Paper Series. She has held positions at the Harvard Institute for International Development and the Center for International Development at Harvard’s Kennedy School where she worked in collaboration with Asian and African governments on the development of health care and economic policies.