Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the emergence of a fifth woman claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Roy Moore when she was a minor, this following a call from the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate demanding that Moore step down as the Republican candidate for the Senate race in Alabama. Asked about Leigh Corfman’s account of being sexually assaulted by Roy Moore when she was 14 and Moore was 32, Mitch McConnell replied, “I believe the woman. Yes”. Diane Winston, who holds the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and is the publisher of Religion Dispatches, joins us to discuss whether or not a pedophile could be elected to the U.S. Senate by the Republican voters of Alabama. We will also try to assess what possible strategy could be behind Steve Bannon’s championing of far-right fringe candidates and why Bannon thinks Roy Moore, “Chemtrails” Kelly in Arizona and convicted felon Michael Grimm in New York could make America great again.

Part 2

Then we go to Jerusalem to speak with Israeli journalist and historian Gershom Gorenberg who is the author of “The Unmaking of Israel” and a senior correspondent at The American Prospect where he has an article “In the Saudi Game of Thrones, a Prince Knocks Over the House of Cards”. He joins us to discuss what machinations and war plans as well as financial deals are underway within the secret alliances between Jared Kushner, the Saudi Crown Prince MBS and his mentor the leader of the Emirates MBZ, and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the war of words between Donald Trump and the former Director of National Intelligence Clapper and Director of the CIA Brennan, following Trump’s remarks in Asia that be believed Vladimir Putin had nothing to do with interfering in our elections. Ali Watkins, a national security correspondent for Politico joins us to discuss Trump’s subsequent correction of his remark to say that he believed Putin believed what he said, then the Russian claim that the conversation never took place, and Brennan’s remark that Trump is being played by Putin.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the Senate version of the so-called Trump/Ryan tax reform bill that eliminates some of the most flagrantly egregious giveaways to the ultra-rich in the name of Middle Class tax cuts. Jeff Madrick, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, a former economics columnist for The New York Times and the author of “Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream Economists Have Damaged America and the World” joins us. We will discuss the admission by the White House Economic Advisor Gary Cohn that “the most excited group out there are big CEO’s, about our tax plan”, which Cohn goes on to describe as trickle-down economics. And look into the truth-telling by Republican Congressman Chris Collins who said that his big donors are saying “Get it done or don’t ever call me again” and Senator Lindsey Graham who admitted to blackmail by donors, suggesting that a failure to pass tax reform would split the GOP and result in more well-financed far-right challenges to incumbent Republicans.

Part 2

Then we assess the impact of the explosive revelations in a Washington Post investigation of Steve Bannon’s candidate for the US Senate in Alabama, Judge Roy Moore, which document the experiences of four women who dated Roy Moore when one of the women was 14 and the others 16 and Moore was in his thirties. Zac McCrary, who served as a pollster and strategist for members of Congress, mayors, state legislative caucuses and public interest groups in Alabama, joins us to discuss the unusually quick response by Republican senators, including Alabama’s Richard Shelby, calling on Moore to step down if the allegations are true, and the staggering hypocrisy of such an aggressively holier-than-thou “Christian” who stands accused of sexually assaulting a 14 year old.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with a veteran CIA analyst and author of “The Path to Dissent: A Whistleblower at CIA”, Melvin Goodman, about the possibility that Trump’s head of the CIA, who has proven to be a partisan hack and an ambitious toady, could sabotage the Mueller investigation by muzzling the CIA’s counterintelligence unit that he has placed under his personal control and hold back evidence that Mueller may not know exists. We examine Mike Pompeo’s record of distorting evidence of Russian interference in our election to please the beneficiary of Russian hacking, his boss Donald Trump.