Background Briefing: February 27, 2019
Michael Cohen’s Explosive Public Testimony Today
We begin with the public testimony today by President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen before the House Oversight Committee in which Cohen expressed his contrition and shame for having been blindly loyal in protecting and promoting Trump for 10 years while concealing his illicit acts knowing that “Trump is a racist, is a conman, and is a cheat.” Lisa Graves, Co-Director of Documented who served in all three branches of the federal government – as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a Deputy Chief for the U.S. Courts joins us to analyze today’s testimony. We discuss the credible evidence Cohen presented in the explosive revelations that Trump knew in advance of the Wikileaks data dump the Russians hacked from the DNC, that Trump violated campaign finance laws in arranging payments of hush money and that Trump was paying off Cohen and involved in the deal to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow while he was in the White House. And since Cohen mentioned that the SDNY investigators are looking into more crimes that might implicate Trump, we will look ahead to whether the Tea Party Republicans who tried to derail today’s hearing will be able to shout down the mounting evidence against their leader they blindly defend.
Who Is This Person Described as a Racist, Conman and a Cheat?
Then following testimony from an insider who was close to Trump for 10 years, we will get an analysis of the kind of person Trump is as described by his personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and speak with Lance Dodes, a Training and Supervising Analyst Emeritus with the Boston Psychoanalytical Society and Institute who was a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dodes is a contributor along with 36 others to the new updated book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President” and joins us to analyze this person described today as a racist, conman and a cheat.
An Assessment of Today’s Trump-Kim Summit in Hanoi
Then finally we get an assessment of today’s second summit meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam between President Trump and Kim Jong-un and speak with Michael Fuchs, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress who served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He joins us to discuss his article at The Guardian “Is progress with North Korea possible under Trump’s style of diplomacy?” and whether the ambitious agenda the White House is signaling is on the table, can result in a deal which could be enacted and verified.