Day: March 25, 2026

Our Reality TV President Unable to Deal With Reality, Makes Up Stories About Negotiating With Iran

We begin with a disastrously delusional American president making up stories about negotiating with the enemy as he tries to get out of a trap he set for himself by going to war against Iran without considering the consequences. Joining us to discuss how our Reality TV president is unable to deal with reality while profiting from manipulating the markets is Aslı Bâli, a professor of law at the Yale Law School, past president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and a nonresident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Previously, she served as founding faculty director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA Law and is the former director of the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies. She has an article at Equator Magazine, “Killing Diplomacy.”

Trump and Putin Work Together to Reelect Hungary’s Kleptocratic Despot Orban

Then we examine how Trump and Putin are working together to help reelect Hungary’s kleptocratic despot Orban and speak with Kim Lane Scheppele, a Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University. She lived in Budapest, doing research at the Constitutional Court of Hungary and teaching at both the University of Budapest and at Central European University and studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia, living in both places for extended periods. She is the author of 9/11: The Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law.

As Trump-Friendly Billionaires Buy Up the Media, the Former CEO of Viacom Now Owned by the Ellisons

Then finally, as Trump-friendly billionaires buy up our media we speak with the former CEO of a company now owned by the Ellisons which is joining with Fox, Sinclair, Tegna and Nexstar in creating the equivalent of state media as a mouthpiece for an American dictator. Joining us is Tom Freston, a cofounder of MTV and the former CEO of Viacom which includes CBS, Paramount Pictures and many media and publishing properties. After launching a successful clothing export company out of Afghanistan and India in the 1970’s, Freston transitioned into the media landscape, helping found MTV and bringing it to international fame in more than 150 countries. Before his Viacom roles, he ran MTV Networks for seventeen years, overseeing Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, and other legendary networks. He currently serves as Board Chair of The ONE Campaign, an anti-poverty advocacy organization focusing on Africa, and we will discuss his latest book, Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu.