Month: July 2021

Background Briefing: July 22, 2021

 

McCarthy and the “Political Terrorist” Jim Jordan’s Trolling of the January 6 Select Committee

We begin with Republican attempts to troll the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection and storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Already House Minority Leader McCarthy, who rejected the bipartisan Committee the House set up then tried to sabotage the current Committee with trolls like Jim Jordan who former House Republican Speaker Boehner calls a “political terrorist”, is convening a competing GOP Committee to muddy the waters and try to rewrite history to serve the “big lie” of their Fuhrer Trump. James Thurber, the University Distinguished Professor of Government and Founder and Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, joins us. We will discuss whether the Select Committee will succeed in spite of Republican sabotage and trolling and since his latest book is Congress and Diaspora Politics: The Influence of Ethnic and Foreign Lobbying, we look into the arrest of Tom Barrack who got Trump to buy into the foreign policy objectives of the UAE over the interests of the United States.

 

Already Fox’s Tucker Carlson Has Slandered Tuesday’s First Witness

Then we look further into the Republican campaign that is just starting to blunt the effectiveness of the Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection with Fox’s Tucker Carlson attacking the first witness, a Capitol policeman, who will appear on Tuesday, slandering him as far-left radical instead of a cop who would lay down his life to protect a congress member whether they are Republican or Democrat. Eric Schickler, a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power, joins us to discuss whether this investigation will reveal Trump’s and Jordan’s role in planning the attack on the Capitol.

 

Michael Bender on Frankly We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost

Then finally we speak with Michael Bender, the Senior White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal whose latest book, just out, is Frankly We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost. Having covered Trump at close range for over 5 years, Michael reveals a frightening portrait of a dangerous president whose closest aides tried to curb his worst impulses but were eventually replaced by enablers who encouraged his behavior on January 6 and his continuing efforts to overturn an election he lost.