Background Briefing: July 4, 2022
Is Trump Blackmailing the GOP Into Submission Threatening to Run as an Independent?
We begin with a further exploration of the possibility Trump is blackmailing the Republican Party into submission with the implicit or explicit threat that he could run as an independent and take his MAGA supporters with him leaving the GOP in tatters opening the way for a Democratic victory in 2024. Joining us is a Republican analyst Geoffrey Kabaservice, the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington DC as well as the author of several books including The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment and Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party.
What Can the Biden Administration Do to Mitigate or Undo the Supreme Court’s Assault on Women’s Reproductive Rights?
Then we will look into what the Biden Administration can do to mitigate or undo the damage of the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe and Casey and speak with Nicole Huberfeld, a professor of health law, ethics & human rights at the School of Public Health and professor of law at the Boston University School of Law. Her research focuses on the cross-section of healthcare law and constitutional law with an emphasis on the role of federalism and spending power in federal healthcare programs, especially Medicaid. She is the co-author of Public Health Law and The Law of American Health Care.
Breaking up the Callous Human Trafficking Network Exploiting and Endangering Migrants
Then finally, following the Supreme Court decision to allow the Biden administration to end Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, we examine what can be done to break up the callous human trafficking networks exploiting and endangering migrants on the Southern border. Joining us is Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University whose research focuses on Mexico-U.S. relations, organized crime, immigration, border security, and human trafficking. She was recently the Principal Investigator of a research grant to study organized crime and trafficking in persons in Central America and along Mexico’s eastern migration routes, supported by the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The President of the Association for Borderlands Studies, her latest book is Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico and we discuss her new study at Harvard’s Belfer Center, “Dismantling Migrant Smuggling Networks in the Americas.”