Day: April 2, 2026

In Three Weeks Trump Will Declare Victory Without Securing a Victory, Leaving Someone Else to Open the Strait of Hormuz

We begin with a pointless and lackluster speech by President Trump last night to the nation in which he declared victory in a war he will end in three weeks without actually securing anything that could be called a victory. Joining us to discuss the urgent need to save the country from a disastrous leader who is propped up by a gutless congress and a treasonous right wing press is Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University, where he teaches constitutional law and politics. He is the co-host of the Podcast “The Oath and The Office” and the author of The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents and Decisions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Selection. His latest book is The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It.

How Do Iranians Feel About Trump Bombing Them “Back to the Stone Age Where They Belong?”

Then we examine the destruction of a country underway with more promised last night by Trump who announced that Iran would be bombed “back to the stone age, where they belong.” Joining us to discuss how the majority of Iranians who want to be freed from their cruel, corrupt and fanatical government must feel about Trump’s threat to obliterate them, their country and their culture is Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar, social scientist, and urban planner who has taught at both American and Iranian universities and is currently a professor of international relations at New York University and a Presidential Fellow and Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. In his advocacy for democracy and human rights, Tajbakhsh represented the Open Society Foundation in Iran during the 2000s, and his commitment to pro-democracy efforts led to his arrest during Iran’s Green Movement protests in 2009. He was one of five Iranian-Americans held in Iran whose release was negotiated by the Obama administration as part of the Iran Nuclear Deal, and he was finally permitted to leave in 2016. He is the author of Creating Local Democracy in Iran: State-Building and the Politics of Decentralization and The Promise of the City and the author of Iran Crisis Notebook #2: The Layered Roots of the Current War which you can find on his Substack.

With Trump in the Front Row, the Supreme Court’s Right Wing Justices Express Skepticism of Overturning Birthright Citizenship

Then finally we speak with Leah Litman, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and a former Supreme Court clerk. She is the co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast and has received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg award for her “scholarly excellence” from the American Constitution Society. Her latest book is Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. She joins us to discuss Trump’s appearance yesterday in the front row at the Supreme Court where the right wing justices seemed skeptical of his efforts to overturn birthright citizenship.