Background Briefing: January 2, 2025
The Latest on the Investigations Into the New Year’s Massacre in New Orleans and the Tesla Cyber Truck Explosion in Front of the Trump Hotel
We begin with the investigations into the New Year’s massacre in New Orleans and the Tesla cyber truck explosion in front of the Trump hotel in Las Vegas, the former carried out by a US Army veteran and the latter by a US Army Green beret on leave. Joining us is Robert Pape, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. He is the author of Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, and Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. He is the co-author of a study titled “The American face of ISIS” and we discuss his article at The Financial Times, “A new era of political violence is taking hold in America: Violent populism is growing as norms unravel and break down.”
Contrasting the Divisive Trump With Jimmy Carter Who Tried to Bridge Divides
Then we look into the foreign policy legacy of President Jimmy Carter who tried to bridge divides and contrast it with the divisive style of President-elect Trump who will be attending Carter’s state funeral a week away on January 9. Joining us is Chris McGreal, a senior writer for the Guardian US and a former correspondent in Jerusalem and Johannesburg. He has published several articles on the opioid epidemic in America and his latest book is American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts. We discuss his latest article at The Guardian, “From Panama to Palestine, Jimmy Carter refused to let his moral voice be silenced.”
Could Trump be a Peacemaker Even If He Only Wants to Win a Nobel Prize?
Then finally we speak with Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy in World War II. We discuss his article at Global Asia, “Asia Should Encourage ‘Trump the Peacemaker’” and assess whether Trump could bring peace to Ukraine and Taiwan even if his main motivation is to win a Nobel Peace Prize to catch up with his nemesis Barack Obama.