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Background Briefing: May 18, 2026

On By asher

The Different Versions on What Trump Had To Say And What Xi Said Happened at the Trump – Xi Summit

We begin with an analysis of the Xi-Trump summit from the inside and discuss the different versions of what Trump said happened and what Xi and the Chinese media had to say. Joining us is Orville Schell, who was formerly the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and currently is the Arthur Ross Director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.- China Relations. His books include Mandate of Heaven: The Legacy of Tiananmen Square and the Next Generation of China’s Leaders and Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century and he just returned from Beijing where he was part of the official delegation at the Trump – Xi summit.

 

The Darkening Embrace of Evil as Trump’s Mafia-Like Control of the GOP Strengthens

Then we discuss how everything seems to favor the evildoer as Trump’s Mafia-like control over the Republicans increases in spite of how he is taking the GOP down with his cratering poll numbers but thanks to his Supreme Court who brought back Jim Crow, could hold onto the House before one vote is cast in November. Joining us is Mike Lofgren, who spent twenty-eight years working in Congress as a Republican aide, sixteen of which as a senior national security analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees. He is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted and he has an article at Salon we will discuss, “Restoring American democracy won’t be easy. At least we know what won’t work.”

The Trickle Down Impact of the Gulf Oil Cutoff on Transportation, Food Supplies, Plastics, Chips and the Global Financial System  

Then finally we examine oil and its role in global capitalism as the war in the Gulf impacts transport fuel, fertilizers, plastics and chip manufacturing, threatening food supplies and the financial system as well as the dollar as the dominant global currency. Joining us is Adam Hanieh, Director of the Middle East Institute, MBI Jaber Chair of Middle East Studies and Professor in the Development Studies Department at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Research and Information Project and is a Research Fellow at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. His books include Money, Markets, and Monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East and, most recently, Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market, and he has an article at The New York Review of Books we will discuss, “Bottling the World Economy.”