Day: April 23, 2026

While Trump Thrashes About, Iran’s Leaders Can Afford to be Patient

We begin with a shaky ceasefire containing an explosive hair trigger situation in the Persian Gulf as Iran’s blockade and the US blockade bump up against each other with diplomacy on hold and uncertainty over who actually speaks for Iran if and when negotiations are to take place. Joining us is Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow & director of military analysis at Defense Priorities where her research focuses on U.S. military strategy, force structure and defense budgeting, the defense industrial base, and U.S. military deployments and interventions. Previously, she was a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and we discuss her article at The New York Times, “Iran’s Leaders Can Afford to Be Patient.”

The Blowback From Assassinating Heads of State

Then we look into Trump’s use of assassination against heads of state which was banned under President Ford but has come back to haunt us in Iran with an even harder line leadership emerging from the US/Israeli strike on the first day of the war. We assess how much this more radical leadership might want to get their hands on nuclear weapons as soon as possible and speak with James Zirin, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and the host of the critically acclaimed television talk show, Conversations with Jim Zirin, which airs on PBS. He is the author of Supremely Partisan: How Raw Politics Tips the Scales in the United States Supreme Court and Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits and is a contributing editor at The Washington Monthly where his latest article we discuss is, “Amid War in Mideast, Lingering Questions Over Killing Iran’s Leader.”

If the Law is to Bring Down a Lawless President, Impeachment is Much More Likely to Succeed Than the 25th Amendment

Then finally we explore whether the law can bring down a lawless president who, as his presidency implodes, is striking out in all directions, weaponizing the law against his enemies foreign and domestic. Joining us is Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer who formerly served as associate deputy attorney general under the Reagan administration, general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, research director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran, and member of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Presidential signing statements. He has authored several volumes on the United States Supreme Court, the United States Constitution, and international law, and helped write the articles of impeachment for President Nixon and President Clinton. He is the Vice Chairman of the Committee for the Republic and his books include Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, American Empire: Before The Fall and, most recently, Congressional Surrender and Presidential Overreach.