Background Briefing: March 10, 2024
Biden Turns the Tide Against the Press and Pollsters Who Have Written Him Off As Too Old and Losing Badly to Trump
We begin with a turning of the tide as Biden, who has been written off by the press and pollsters as too old and losing badly to Trump, made a fiery SOTU speech that confronted the Republicans head on and made a strong case for how he is nothing like his disastrous predecessor. Joining us is Harold Meyerson, one of the nation’s best-known progressive columnists and editor-at-large of The American Prospect. He also writes regularly about California politics for the Los Angeles Times and other national publications, and we discuss his latest article at The American Prospect, “The Strategic Shouting of Biden’s State of the Union.”
Biden Confronts the Reactionary Supreme Court Over Women’s Rights
Then we assess the impact of Biden’s confrontation with the reactionary Supreme Court whose justices faced his onslaught against the Dobbs decision and speak with Moira Donegan, writer in residence at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in The London Review of Books, Bookforum and The Paris Review. She is a columnist at The Guardian and we discuss her latest article, “Biden’s State of the Union: raucous, strident and insistently optimistic” and how malign foreign actors Putin, Orban and Netanyahu are working to bring Trump back.
The State of War and Rumors of Peace Between Ukraine and Russia
Then finally we examine the state of war between Ukraine and Russia and rumors of peace and assess what a truce or armistice might look like. Joining us Michael Kimmage, a professor of history and department chair at the Catholic University of America, chair of the Kennan Institute Advisory Council and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. From 2014 to 2017, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. He is the author of The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy and his forthcoming book, out soon, is Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability. He is the co-author of an article at Foreign Affairs which we discuss, “America’s New Twilight Struggle With Russia: To Prevail, Washington Must Revive Containment.”