Background Briefing: May 6, 2025

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The Unprecedented Monetizing of the Oval Office by the Most Corrupt President in US History

We begin with the unprecedented monetizing of the Oval Office by the most corrupt president in US history, Donald Trump. Joining us is Frank Vogl, former senior World Bank official and foreign business and economics correspondent for The Times of London who currently teaches at Georgetown University. He is the former Chair of the Board of Directors of the Partnership for Transparency Fund, and the co-founder and former Vice Chair of Transparency International, the global non-governmental anti-corruption organization. He is the author of Waging War on Corruption: Inside the Movement Fighting the Abuse of Power and his latest book is The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption – Endangering Our Democracy.

 

How the Trump Mafia Family’s Extortion Can be Stopped

Then we look further into Trump’s shakedown of law firms, media companies and foreign governments via his tariffs and look into how this extortion by the Trump Mafia family can be stopped. Joining us is Will Bunch, national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of several books, including The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Paranoia Politics and High-Def Hucksters in the Age of Obama, and The Bern Identity: A Search for Bernie Sanders and the New American Dream. He has won numerous journalism awards and shared the Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting and we discuss his latest article at the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The Trump family is taking crypto payoffs in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Who will stop them?”

Understanding the Nazi Mind and How it Applies to Trump

Then finally we go to the UK and speak with Laurence Rees, an award-winning historian and documentary filmmaker. He has authored several books including The Holocaust: A New History, Hitler and Stalin, and the bestselling Auschwitz: A New History. His latest book, out today, is The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History. We explore the comparisons between the rise and rule of Hitler from 1919 to 1945 and Trump’s reign of ruin which has barely begun.