Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the reelection of Vladimir Putin for a fourth 6 year term which, while it is a foregone conclusion that he will be the winner of another rigged election, the Kremlin has gone to great lengths pressuring government employees and offering incentives to voters so that there is enough of a turnout to make the exercise appear legitimate. Defense analyst, columnist and journalist, Dr. Pavel Felgenhauer joins us from Moscow to discuss fallout from the use of a Soviet nerve agent Novichok against an exiled Russian spy and his daughter in the U.K. which has led to an expulsion of diplomats on both sides, with the U.K. accusing Russia of stockpiling chemical weapons in violation of the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons treaty. We look into the possibility that either Putin has lost control of his security services, or that he authorized the use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction on a NATO country just ahead of today’s election in which Putin presented himself to the Russian people as a strong leader who stands up to the West.

Part 2

Then we examine the frantic legal moves underway on the part of President Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen to silence a porn star whose interview with 60 Minutes is scheduled to air next Sunday. RonNell Andersen Jones, a Professor of Law at the University of Utah, a former newspaper reporter and editor who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, joins us to discuss Donald Trump’s continuing efforts to silence Stormy Daniels and whether he will move against CBS, and Trump’s war against the media which he calls “the enemy of the people” that she analyzes in her study “Enemy Construction and the Press”.

Part 3

Then finally, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, joins us in the studio to discuss his new book “The Common Good”. We assess strategies to reverse the drift underway in this country toward plutocratic rule to restore our democracy which faces a crucial test in the November elections in terms of whether the so-called resistance mobilizes enough people-power to overcome the money power of plutocrats like the Koch brothers.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an assessment of where U.S. foreign policy is heading as Trump purges his White House of any critical or cautionary voices while he installs his new more agreeable Secretary of State proclaiming Mike Pompeo has “a very similar though process” to his. Michael Fuchs, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress who served as a deputy assistant secretary of state, a special advisor to the secretary of state for strategic dialogue and a member of the policy planning staff, joins us to discuss his article at The Guardian “Rex Tillerson was disastrous for the U.S., Mike Pompeo may be worse”. We look into what letting Trump be Trump will look like as the last remaining adults in the room are shown the door and General McMaster is replaced by John Bolton who is rumored to be the next National Security Advisor. He, along with Pompeo, will be enabling an insecure narcissist and weak strongman with an infantile fascination with bigness, toughness and power along with contempt for diplomacy.

Part 2

Then we speak with Tom Adams, a retired attorney who co-authored an article in the San Francisco Chronicle with a former U.S. Attorney Dennis Aftergut, “Russian criminals’ links to Trump could compromise him” and have written an extensive investigative report which is at the website of Congresswoman Jackie Speier, “The Trump Organization – A Racketeering Enterprise?” We discuss how Trump has laid down a red line with the Mueller investigation not to look into the family business but whatever crimes Mueller might uncover, Trump’s pardon power does not extend to state crimes and that both RICO, the Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations Act, and New York law, could be used against him.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with two young students who walked out of class today joining a nationwide demonstration of tens of thousands of high school students demanding action to stop gun violence one month after the mass shooting of high school students in Florida. 16 year-old Mackenzie Mattone who organized a student walkout at Benjamin Cardoza High School in New York City joins us first then we will hear from 17 year-old Jatziri Campos at Muchin College Prep, a Charter School in gun-plagued downtown Chicago.