Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of what kind of turnout of the Latino vote can be expected in November, a critical component of Hillary Clinton’s coalition of voters that is seeing some defection from the millennial voters who supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries, which given the closeness of the race at this juncture, could make the Latino vote the deciding factor in who becomes the next president of the United States. Antonio Gonzales, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, the largest and oldest non-partisan Latino voter participation organization, joins us to discuss the turnout factor and the level of motivation among Latinos given that Donald Trump, in announcing his run for the presidency, went out of his way to insult Latinos who he called “rapists and murderers”.  In examining the registration numbers, we assess whether this constituency that has been referred to as “a sleeping giant”, is aroused and angry enough to stop Trump and his wall he expects Mexico to pay for.

Part 2

Then we discuss the corporate culture at the banking giant Wells Fargo, in which employees opened millions of fake customer accounts in a hard-driving sales culture that expected retail bank employees to meet their sales targets. Since the LA Times exposed this scandal three years ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began an investigation and this month reached a $185 million settlement with the bank. William K. Black, a former bank regulator who led the investigations into the savings and loan crisis of the 1980’s and is the author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One”, joins us to question why the person in charge of the entire consumer banking division of Wells Fargo was allowed to retire will millions of dollars while being praised by the bank’s CEO as a model of what a banker should be.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Stephanie Taylor, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, who along with Senator Jeff Merkley and other progressive grassroots allies, have been pushing to revive the public option in Obamacare. With Trump and the Republicans vowing to repeal Obamacare, we will look into the revival of the public option endorsed by Hillary Clinton and President Obama and the need for competition in a market dominated by the big insurance companies.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the looming possibility of a nuclear war with North Korea as the Kim Jong Un regime accelerates its nuclear and missile programs, extending its current capability of threatening South Korea and Japan to being able to strike the continental U.S. with nuclear-armed missiles. Dr. Van Jackson, a Professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies who was a strategist and policy adviser focused on the Asia-Pacific at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, joins us to discuss his article at Foreign Affairs “Preventing Nuclear War with North Korea” and what can be done to deter North Korea from using nuclear weapons by conveying limited aggressive intentions while shoring up deterrence against low-level attacks by North Korea as well as rethinking the role of U.S. forces in Korea which is stuck in a 1980’s mindset.  

Part 2

Then we examine the new report from Public Citizen “The Company They Keep: A Guide to the Presidential Candidates’ Domestic Policy Advisers” and speak with the report’s author Taylor Lincoln, a Research Director of the Congress Watch Division of Public Citizen. He joins us to contrast and compare the rival teams of domestic policy advisers, with the Trump team heavy on Wall Street hedge funders and LBO asset-strippers like Carl Icahn and Henry Kravis, along with the Wall Street cheer squad of Lawrence Kudlow and Stephen Moore, while Hillary Clinton’s team is dominated by mainstream economists.

Part 3

Then finally, we speak with Walt Glazer, a retired historian who taught at the University of Pittsburgh who has a letter in Wednesday’s New York Times “Trump, Master of Marketing”. We discuss the tightening of the polls that has Trump closing on Clinton which makes the role of the Libertarian and Green Party presidential candidates more critical as potential spoilers who could swing the election for Trump, and since our politics have been transformed by money, celebrity and advertising that has captured the media and the minds of Americans, will Trump’s style and success as a huckster win out over Hillary Clinton’s “teacher knows best” persona?