Trump and MAGA’s Policies and Politics Are Driven by Sadism
We begin with Secretary of Defense Hegseth digging the hole deeper as he sat beside a half-awake Trump in a round-robin exercise in flattery of the “dear leader” cabinet meeting yesterday spouting rapid-fire “the dog ate my homework” excuses for not committing a war crime. Joining us to discuss how Trump and MAGA’s policies and politics are driven by sadism is Paul Waldman, a journalist and opinion writer whose work has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and digital outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The Week, MSNBC, and CNN. He is a former columnist at The Washington Post and his books include Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success, The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories that Shape the Political World, and most recently, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy. He runs The Cross Section on Substack where his latest article we discuss is “A Few Bad Men.”
Putin Warns of War With Europe After Which There Will be No One Left to Negotiate With
Then we examine Putin’s warning of going to war with Europe after which the Russian dictator promised there would be no one left to negotiate with and speak with Michael Kimmage, Director of the Kennan Institute who is a professor of history and department chair at the Catholic University of America. 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 Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability, and he has a recent article at Foreign Policy, “Europe Is at War.”
In Spite Of the Ongoing Agony, A Plan For Peace Between Israelis and Palestinians
Then finally we speak with Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of DAWN, an organization that seeks to support democracy and human rights in the Middle East. She was formerly the executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, where she oversaw work in 19 countries. Her latest book with Michael Omer-Man just out is, From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine and we explore the possibility of peace between Israelis and Palestinians in spite of the ongoing atrocities in Gaza where there is supposed to be a peace process underway.
