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Background Briefing: July 1, 2020

On By gram

 

How Far Out on Limb is Trump With His Latest Routine “Hoax” Defense?

We begin with Trump’s M.O. in dealing with negative stories about him which follows the advice of his mentor Roy Cohn, deny, deny and deny and turn the tables on your accusers displacing your guilt onto them. With Trump dismissing the Russia investigation as a hoax, the Mueller Report as a hoax and the impeachment another hoax, now we have the intelligence briefing Trump ignored that Russia was paying the Taliban to kill American troops as the latest hoax. Aaron Blake, Senior Political Reporter at The Washington Post writing for The Fix where his latest article is “The only people dismissing the Russia bounty intel: The Taliban, Russia and Trump”, joins us to discuss how many senior Republicans in the Senate and House believe the intelligence and are concerned about it. Meanwhile today as Trump’s own National Security Advisor on Fox & Friends confirms the situation is serious enough that the military was alerted and that contingencies were being drawn up for how to respond, Trump is tweeting out  “The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told to damage me and the Republican Party. The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited New York Times has a source, reveal it. Just another Hoax!”  We assess how far Trump is out on a limb with his ritual denials this time.

 

Protestors Arrested On the First Day of China’s New Security Law in Hong Kong

Then we speak with Michael Davis, a Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Hong Kong and author of Constitutional Confrontations in Hong Kong, Human Rights and Chinese Values about today’s arrests of protesters on the first day of China’s new security law coming into effect on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese control. We assess the offer by the U.K. ‘s Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Hong Kong citizens with British Overseas Passports of a path to U.K. citizenship.

 

With Trump and Putin Having the Ability to Destroy the World at Their Fingertip, We Should All be Worried

Then finally we examine the two leaders who are increasingly unpopular but have the power to destroy the world at their fingertips, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and speak with Tom Collina, Director of Policy at the Ploughshares Fund. He joins us to discuss his new book just out with former Secretary of Defense William Perry,The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump and their article at The New York Times “Who Can We Trust With The Nuclear Button? No One.“