Background Briefing: March 22, 2023
Xi Fails to Deliver a Viable Peace Plan Leaving Putin to Pursue His War While Appearing to be Open to Peace Talks
We begin with the lack of a viable peace plan emerging from the talks between Xi Jinping and Putin since there was no communication between Xi and Zelensky which indicates Putin was able to end up not being constrained from pursuing his war against Ukraine at the same time appearing to be open to peace talks. Joining us to discuss whether contacts between China and Ukraine in pursuit of a peace deal will continue is Mark Hannah, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Eurasia Group Foundation and the creator and host of its “None Of The Above” podcast which recently featured a conversation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley about how the war in Ukraine ends. Mark is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a political partner at the Truman National Security Project. A veteran of the Kerry and Obama presidential campaigns, he teaches at New York University and is the author of The Best ‘Worst President’ – What the Right Gets Wrong About Barack Obama. We discuss his article at Politico, “Biden Should Listen to Zelenskyy on China.”
The Fed Raises Interest Rates for the Ninth Time to Just Under 5%
Then, with the Fed raising interest rates today for the ninth time in a row by a quarter of a percentage point to just under 5%, we speak with Dean Baker, senior economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive economic think-tank based in Washington DC. He is the author of Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer, and writes the popular economics blog, “Beat the Press.” We discuss the Fed’s continuing campaign against inflation despite the collapse of two banks due to rising interest rates and his article at DCReport.org, “Regulators Never Looked at Silicon Valley Bank’s Key Vulnerability.”
The Roots of the Radical Right’s Capture of the Republican Party
Then finally we discuss the roots of the radical right that has now captured the Republican Party and speak with Matthew Dallek, an historian and professor of political management at George Washington University’s College of Professional Studies. The author of The Right Moment and Defenseless Under the Night, his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, and among others. His latest book, just out, is Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right.