Full Program

Part 1

We begin with tomorrow’s G-7 Summit in Quebec City, Canada which President Trump is reluctantly attending because it is likely he will get an earful from the leaders of France, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and Canada who as America’s allies, are furious that he is imposing tariffs on them and starting a trade war. Donald Abelson, a professor and chair of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario in Canada who specializes in American politics and U.S. foreign policy, joins us to discuss the alarming ignorance of history displayed by Donald Trump in his testy phone call with Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau and Trump’s State Department spokesperson who cited the D Day invasion as an example of America’s “very strong relationship” with Germany.  We review the list of world leaders and close allies such as Abe, May, Macron and Trudeau who went out of their way to court Trump and establish friendships with him only to be stiffed and assess what the impact might be of a threat from France’s President Macron to join with other world leaders at the G-7 to issue a rare rebuke by excluding the U.S. from the joint statement issued at the end of the summit.

Part 2

Then we examine further Trump tariffs on allies and neighbors and the extent to which, because of anger at Trump from indignant populations in France, the U.K., Germany, Japan, Mexico and Canada, leaders of these countries will be forced to reciprocate and perhaps trigger a trade war. Rodrique Tremblay, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal who was president of the Canadian Economics Society and a member of the Committee of Dispute Settlement of the North American Free Trade Agreement, joins us to discuss Trump’s revival of the nativist and isolationist stupidity which led to the Smoot/Hawley Act signed by President Hoover in 1930 which triggered a global depression. And since Trump is pandering to nativist protectionism in hopes of winning reelection in the Rust Belt in 2020, we assess whether corporate America and the Congress will step up to prevent a looming trade war.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Rabbi Joseph Berman, Government Affairs Manager at Jewish Voice for Peace about the 50 to 46 vote in the Senate today to confirm Kenneth Marcus as assistant secretary for civil rights under Education Secretary DeVos. In what appears to be yet another example of Trump appointing someone who is implacably opposed to the mission they are charged with, we look into how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act before Congress which Kenneth Marcus champions, would prevent schools and colleges from supporting Palestinian rights or criticizing Israel because of the risk of losing federal funding and being branded as anti-Semites.   

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with President Trump un-inviting the Super Bowl winners the Philadelphia Eagles to a White House celebration today to get ahead of the fact few of the team were going to show up. Ben Carrington, a Professor of Sociology at the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at USC and author of “Race, Sport and Politics”, joins us to discuss his article at The Huffington Post “You Can’t Separate Sports From Politics Because Sports Are Politics” and how Trump has set himself up as the arbiter of patriotism where he alone decides who is patriotic enough to be invited to the White House. We examine how patriotism and sports have been fused in the rituals of playing the national anthem and having military honor guards open NFL games as military jets fly overhead. With Trump using every opportunity to insert himself into patriotic events such as he did on Memorial Day when he tweeted out that those who died fighting for our country would be happy with the Trump economy, we will assess whether erroneously tarring the Eagles with not standing for the national anthem, American sports fans will fall for Trump cynical ploy which Samuel Johnson wrote about in 1775 warning that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”.

Part 2

Then we speak with Michael Eric Dyson, one of America’s premier public intellectuals and the University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University whose latest book, just out, is “What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversations About Race in America”. He joins us on the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of RFK to discuss what white America can learn from the black experience just as Robert Kennedy learned after meeting with James Baldwin and other black activists in 1963. And how we can all fight back as Trump tries to turn the clock back on race relations and divide America with dog whistle appeals reviving racist hatred to rile up his base.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Louis Michael Seidman, Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University’s School of Law who served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He joins us to discuss the latest twists and turns as Trump tries to discredit, slow and stop the Mueller inquiry. With Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort now facing jail for witness tampering, we assess whether the truth will win and justice prevail in the end as Trump desperately fights his rear-guard offensive against both the truth and the law.